Divine Kiss

Father Simon remained silent for a long while before finally dropping his elder-like pretense.

His gaze gradually turned cold and sinister.

"You are declaring war on many people, Lord Advisor. Not just the Rust Gang."

"I'm restructuring assets." Rovi sat back in his chair and pulled a new form from the drawer.

"Still, I'm a reasonable man. Since you care so much about their souls, I can give you an opportunity."

"What opportunity?"

"You may give those three young men their 'last rites' before they depart."

Rovi spoke meaningfully.

"I'm sure they have plenty to confess to you. For example... where the Rust Gang has kept its secret accounts all these years."

"Perhaps they might also tell you where the leaders of the other gangs in the front district are hiding."

Father Simon froze slightly.

This was a deal.

Rovi was hinting to him:

Since the men could not be saved, they might as well be squeezed for every last bit of value.

Father Simon could use the opportunity of "prayer" to legitimately pry the gangs' hidden funds out of the mouths of these three men who were about to die.

He could even use that as an opening to swallow the interests of other gangs.

In exchange, Rovi wanted Father Simon not to stop him from dealing with the three thugs.

Father Simon considered it for a few seconds, then laughed.

It was a knowing smile.

"You truly are a born shepherd, Lord Advisor." Father Simon rose to his feet and straightened his robes.

"You know how to drive a flock to the edge of a cliff, pick out the fattest one and push it over, all while making the rest of the sheep feel grateful."

"I accept your offer. Three lost lambs do indeed need final guidance."

The priest gave Rovi a slight bow, then turned and left the office.

"A shepherd..." Rovi murmured.

He did not like that title.

Because that was what he called the Plague Wizard.

That mastermind hidden in the deepest darkness had turned the entire Gothic Sector, including Fertility II, into an inexhaustible slaughterhouse.

In that monster's eyes, the Empire's loyal citizens were nothing more than walking organic breeding beds. Every few centuries, once one batch had been corrupted, the Empire would send another to replenish them.

He devoured flesh. He devoured despair.

He used the wails of countless living beings to water Chaos's plague garden.

The fall of Granary Four and Granary Nine, the death cries of over a hundred thousand laborers—those were yet another triumphant masterpiece of that wizard.

Yet reality was this absurd.

Sometimes, Rovi had no choice but to play the role of a "shepherd" himself.

Like tonight.

Late at night, District C3.

This had originally been an abandoned warehouse belonging to Granary Seven.

Now it had been converted into a temporary shelter.

It was meant to take in refugees from the other granaries.

Even with the ventilation system running at full power, it could not disperse the suffocating despair that hung in the air.

In the farthest corner of the warehouse.

There was a separate partition enclosed by several tattered tarps and iron frames.

Three women lived there.

Three new recruit widows who had just lost their husbands.

After Rovi's "incognito inspection" ended, Old John had secretly brought them here with several guards.

"This is Lord Advisor's order," Old John had told them. "Lord Advisor has a secret task for you. If you do it well, you'll never have to worry for the rest of your lives."

They had no right to choose.

At that moment, the three young women were huddled together on a camp bed, trembling.

They wore thin linen nightgowns.

In an environment crowded with countless unfamiliar men, they stood out all the more—and looked all the more tempting.

"Are we going to die?" the youngest woman asked through tears.

She clutched a metal collar around her neck.

Old John had given it to them, calling it a "talisman."

"Don't talk." The slightly older woman covered her mouth, her eyes filled with terror as she watched the canvas curtain fluttering in the wind. "Lord Advisor said we only need to stay here and do nothing..."

Do nothing.

That was the entire mission.

In a Refugee Camp filled with hunger, chaos, and no legal restraints whatsoever.

Three young, beautiful widows, stripped of their husbands' protection, were laid out like fresh meat on a platter.

It was not hard to guess that they were bait.

But they did not know what they were fishing for.

At that moment, inside the Surveillance Room.

Rovi stood before a row of flickering screens, his hands clasped behind his back.

Buck stood to his left, gripping a Boltgun.

Alpha Priest stood on his right, several Mechanical Tentacles connected to the console.

His electronic eyes flashed rapidly as they analyzed the various streams of data transmitted from the scene.

"Heart rate: 140. Cortisol levels are extremely high."

Alpha Priest coldly reported the widows' physiological readings.

"They are in a state of extreme fear. This fear causes abnormal pheromone secretion. To certain predators, it is like lighting a lamp in the darkness."

"Advisor, do we really have to do this?" Buck could not help asking.

As an old soldier, he did not mind killing.

But using the widows of soldiers under his command as bait...

That crossed his moral bottom line, scant as his morals might have been.

"We have no choice, Buck."

Rovi's gaze remained fixed on the surveillance feed from District C3.

"Kais Server's data analysis shows that some 'dirty things' have mixed into the refugee tide from Granary Four. If we do not find them, all of Granary Seven will become a breeding ground."

"But..."

"No buts." Rovi said coldly, "Compassion is poison at a time like this. If you want to save more people, you must learn to place the few on the other side of the scales."

In the middle of their conversation.

Kais Server sounded an alarm.

"Abnormal biological signal detected. Target is approaching the isolation zone."

On the screen, a shadow slipped silently through the crowded masses.

It was a man in an oversized cloak.

He looked no different from the refugees around him.

Just as filthy, just as hunched over.

But the way he moved was strange.

As he threaded through the crowd, his body seemed boneless, twisting and gliding at bizarre angles.

He did not make a sound.

Nor did he disturb the vagrants sleeping in the corridor.

His movements did not resemble those of a human.

He was more like an arthropod walking upright.

"It's here."

Rovi's eyes narrowed.

The shadow stopped outside the widows' compartment.

He did not rush inside.

Instead, like a shark that had scented blood, he circled outside the curtain.

The surveillance image zoomed in.

Despite the dim light, they could still see nauseating writhing beneath the "man's" hood.

His Adam's apple bobbed violently.

Something was trying to crawl out of his throat.

"What the hell is that..." Buck drew in a sharp breath.

"Genestealer." Rovi spat out the name coldly. "You could also call it a hybrid. Third generation, maybe fourth. They look human on the outside, but Tyranid instincts are carved into their genes."

"They need to reproduce," the Alpha Priest added. "They inject their genes into hosts. To them, these three young human women—unprotected, grieving, psychologically vulnerable, and ovulating—are the perfect hosts."

On the screen, the shadow moved.

A pale, bloodless hand gently lifted the canvas curtain.

Its fingers were unnaturally long, its nails a sickly purplish black—the trace of a chitinous carapace.

The three women let out muffled screams and huddled together.

The "man" raised his head, and his hood slipped away.

It revealed a human face that looked fairly normal.

Except his skin was deathly pale, and he had no eyebrows.

The light in his eyes was fanatical, yet hollow.

"Shh..."

He raised a finger to his lips and let out a hissing sound.

"Don't be afraid... The God-Emperor sent me... to grant you... new life..."

He closed in on the bed, step by step.

The youngest woman had already wet herself from terror, her body rigid and unable to move.

The man bent down and opened his mouth.

But not to speak.

From deep within his mouth extended a dark-red tubular organ, slick with moisture.

An ovipositor.

The tube trembled in the air, thick fluid secreting from its tip.

Like a needle searching for a vein, it aimed at the girl's tear-streaked face.

This was the "Genestealer's Kiss."

Once that tube pierced the skin, it injected not only a deadly embryo, but also a neurotoxin capable of rewriting the brain's perception.

The victim would forget this horrifying experience.

She would fall madly in love with the monster before her.

She would regard the Xenos growing in her womb as a sacred gift.

Until the moment the monster burst from her body.

It was a desecration more terrifying than death.

"Do it!"

Inside the Surveillance Room, Rovi made the decision without hesitation.

He pressed the red button on the console.

"Bzzz!"

A blinding blue-white flash suddenly erupted from a corner of District C3.

It was the crackling blast of high-voltage arcs tearing through the air.

The source of the current was the "amulets" around the three women's necks: in truth, collars designed to discharge directed high-voltage shocks.

They were signal transmitters as well.

They activated the concealed power grid buried beneath the canvas compartment.

"Hiss—Aagh!"

The hybrid, just about to perform the "Divine Kiss," released an inhuman, shrill scream.

The high-voltage current coursed through his body in an instant.

The surface tissue that had disguised itself as human skin rapidly blackened and split under the electrical assault.

Like ill-fitting clothes being torn apart, it revealed the nauseating truth beneath:

Purple chitinous carapace;

Extra malformed arms;

A tubular tongue still twitching wildly.

He convulsed violently atop the grid, like a live fish thrown into a vat of boiling oil.

The three women were also struck by the current's aftershock, screaming as they passed out.

"Move!"

Buck roared into the communicator.

The Defense Force soldiers who had long been lying in ambush around them kicked aside the cover disguised as piles of junk.

They wore heavy Chemical Protective Suits and held weapons that had already been preheated: Flamethrowers and electrified capture nets.

"For the Emperor, seize these heretics!"

At the same time.

Following the pheromone traces Alpha Priest had just identified, the Defense Force soldiers charged into the crowd of refugees.

They pinned several other "accomplices" to the ground as they tried to flee amid the chaos.

Chaos, screams, and the roar of flames instantly filled all of District C3.