62. Primeval Fear (Complete, Inhuman Thing)

The crowd is changing.♢😎 .ᶜσм 😲🐒

Just seconds before, they had been firmly protecting this "Roboute Guilliman" behind them, trying to use their bodies to resist the increasingly impatient weapons in the hands of the Ultramarines.

And now, they are scattering and fleeing.

The instigator remained unmoved, simply chewing voraciously before biting off another piece of flesh from the Apothecary's face. Its white robe was now completely stained red, as was the stolen face; in just a few seconds, it had devoured the lower half of Sarral's face.

The Apothecary is still alive.

Cato Sicarius could clearly see his fingers trembling at the edge of the grenade on his belt; the trembling wasn't from pain, but a dangerous signal of attack.

Half a second later, as the monster lunged at him again, Idaeus pulled the trigger. This decisive bomb pierced through the scattering crowd, carrying courage and fury as it struck the monster in the chest, blasting a large hole in it.

It let out a low growl and vanished from the spot with Sarral, disappearing without a trace as if swallowed by shadows.

Ignoring his shock, Sicarius managed to straighten up, lying face down on the platform, his eyes wide as if he might fall at any moment, and began his scout's duties.

His search yielded no results, simply because the scene was utterly chaotic.

The combat brothers of the Fourth Company stood firm like rocks, enduring the surging sea of people. The civilians who had previously filled almost the entire hall were now scattering and fleeing. Stampedes occurred frequently, and blood and cries churned the air in this civilized hall, making everything chaotic, scorching, and repulsive.

Sicarius a deep breath, and out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a burst of fire. Almost instantly, he roared.

"Six o'clock, Idaeus!"

His voice wasn't particularly loud, but the company commander and his men in the Fourth Company undoubtedly heard him.

The silent, angry blue reefs turned around in the sea, about to open fire, but were abruptly stopped by someone who suddenly crashed into their formation.

The man was none other than the Apothecary Sarral. At this moment, most of his left hand had completely disappeared, his Power Armour was charred black, and his entire face had been gnawed away, revealing bare white bones.

Despite such severe injuries, he stood up and revealed a terrifying smile.

"I've wounded it," he reported slurredly to Idaeus. "It's already swallowed a fragmentation grenade. Kill it, Company Commander, brother."

"Behind you!" Sicarius roared anxiously.

His voice exceeded the limits allowed by his injuries at this moment, and the bandages on his chest began to be soaked with blood, but Sicarius paid no heed.

His eyes widened in horror as the burning monster descended from the sky, crashing into his brothers' formation. It grabbed two of his comrades by the arms and quickly fled.

The bombs swept over it like inverted raindrops, tearing its bare flesh into shreds. The two fighting brothers it carried were also retaliating in their own ways.

The Chainsword had already begun to roar, cutting through flesh and blood, while another man viciously pierced its ribs with a sprung arm blade—yet none of these injuries could stop it.

Sicarius suddenly remembered what Sarral had once said to him.

What truly drives their activity and gives them their great power lies not within their bodies, but elsewhere.

The crowd screamed and tried to flee; few were truly brave. The courage they had previously displayed towards the Ultramarines was rapidly slipping from their bodies, appearing utterly absurd.

Twenty seconds later, a twisted and empty helmet flew from somewhere in the hall and landed at the feet of the Ultramarines, followed by hands, feet, and the entire body, but the head was nowhere to be seen.

The Fourth Company began to roar, Idaeus raised his right hand to restrain their anger. Compared to his brothers, the company commander seemed much calmer at this moment, but this was probably just an appearance.

Twenty seconds later, another corpse fell into their formation in the completely opposite direction. This one was not dismembered, but its helmet and head were missing.

At the same time, a chill ran down Sicarius's spine.

He turned around and saw a face covered in blood in the darkness.

"My son."

The thing called to him gently, but its speech was unclear, as if it still had food left to swallow.

I need you.

A hand reached out to grab him; the hand was torn and tattered, the skin and flesh clinging to the gleaming bones, boiling with desire.

Sicarius felt a chill run down his spine, his mind reeling as if struck by a missile. He didn't even realize he was roaring before instinctively throwing a punch at the owner of the hand.

However, apart from a wide-open mouth, he failed to hit anything.

Sicarius instinctively tried to pull his arm back, but the thing chuckled and its teeth, like fine steel knives, clamped tightly around his fist, biting off Sicarius's left hand completely from the wrist down.

It began to chew with practiced skill, its tongue tearing flesh from the bones, its fingers snapping between its bloodied teeth, producing a series of crisp, cracking sounds.

Blood gushed out, Sicarius clutched his left hand, letting out a grotesque roar at it amidst the pain of his severed limb.

He desperately wanted a weapon. A gun or a knife, anything to avoid being unarmed and to kill this thing, he was even willing to give his life.

That hand grasped him amidst his chaotic thoughts.

"We will be one again," it said to Sicarius with a hint of pity. "Your blood will bear witness to the rise of Macragge, my son."

It opened its mouth, Sicarius saw the remains of his left hand lodged in its throat. There were also its bloodless, white teeth, and something gleamed behind them—not a lust for flesh, but a pure evil.

At this moment, time seemed to slow down, and Sicarius's eyes darted around frantically, taking in everything about the inhuman creature before him.

His scout instincts and Roboute Guilliman's analytical skills began to work together, allowing him to fix his eyes on the monster's nearly shattered upper body within a millisecond.

Sharp fragments of a fragmentation grenade were lodged in its bones, blood was seeping from the hole created by the explosive, and mangled flesh hung from its sides, which had been injured by both the Chainsword and the arm blade.

The injuries were enough to kill anyone, but it survived. Moreover, there were no signs of injury on its face.

The chain reaction from swallowing a fragmentation grenade should have at least destroyed its jaw and neck, but both remained intact, and it didn't even lose a single tooth.

A flash of lightning streaked through Sicarius's mind, creating a theoretical model that would make his heart beat again, just two seconds after he was seized by the monster.

Sicarius immediately put it into practice.

What he did next was simple, even a little too simple—the instant the monster bit his forehead, Sicarius plunged his still-intact hand into the hole in the monster's chest.

His fingers were cut by the metal fragment, but that was exactly what he needed. He gripped the fragment, or rather, wedged it into his hand with his fingers and palm, then clenched his fist and carried the fragment upwards, as if holding a sharp knife.

Blood and flesh splattered Sicarius watched his right hand emerge from the monster's chest. Metal fragments were lodged in his palm, and he held a pale, bent vertebra in his hand.

The monster leaned back in surprise, forced away from Sicarius's head by its basic human structure. At the same time, the scout's legs began to push off.

He could no longer touch the ground, yet he was able to exert his power on the monster, which was temporarily off-balance. It was forced to fall towards the edge of the platform, taking Sicarius with it as they plummeted straight down towards the blue reef below.

The wind whistled past his ears. Sicarius stared at the fabricated face with bloodshot eyes, feeling no fear, not even anger, only a sense that this was how it should be.

His theoretical model worked. He was satisfied with that.

Two seconds into the fall, he hit the ground hard. The thing tried to escape, and the last thing Sicarius did before losing consciousness was to grip its spine tightly.

Four seconds after it crashed, the Ultramarines dismembered it, with Idaeus personally severing its head.

The Apothecary rushed to him and injected a vial into Sicarius's femoral artery.

"Damn brat," he muttered angrily, then suddenly turned to Idaeus. "If he were still alive, would you have recruited him into the Fourth Company?"

"I will promote him to adjutant within three years," Idaeus replied calmly.

Sarral turned his head, injected himself with a stimulant, and began administering a clotting agent to Sicarius and checking his injuries. He paid no attention to himself, only whispering to Sicarius as he examined him.

"You heard it all, Cato Sicarius. You'll be promoted to lieutenant. Make sure you survive."

--

Roboute Guilliman received the message from the Fourth Company twelve minutes later.

During this period, they used the church as a base to gather more than four thousand surviving civilians, while also slaughtering more than twelve "beasts." These monsters took on different forms; some were strong, some were thin, and some, though speechless, had already learned how to use weapons.

More than half of them were killed by Karyl Lohars himself—to be precise, he found them, killed them, and then carried their bodies back to them all by himself.

The Victrix Guard were very puzzled by his existence.

Now, Roboute Guilliman is even more puzzled by something else.

"You mean that thing learned the Raven Guard's stealth techniques after consuming a portion of Sergeant Sergeant Sarral's flesh?"

"Not only that, Primarch." Idaeus's slightly distorted voice calmly came from the other end of the communication channel. "If my deduction is true, then it also learned our tactical thinking after consuming the brains of its two brothers Isos and Decimir."

"If it weren't for the bravery of scout Cato Sicarius, it would probably have already undergone another new evolution. I don't think its other brethren, who were completely unaware of its existence, would have survived a sudden attack by this thing."

"The detailed autopsy report will be submitted to you in a few minutes," Sergeant Sarral said, adding that he would do his best.

"Understood. Safety is the priority, Idaeus. As for the handling of civilians, I hope you will refrain from impulsive actions for the time being."

"I will try my best, Primarch."

Idaeus then ended the communication, while Roboute Guilliman fell into deep thought. Five minutes before communicating with Idaeus, he had received a report from Chapter Master Tigris Decken.

In that brief communication, Tigris mentioned the horrific state of the choir's meditation hall and the brains they had lost. The body of the chief Astropath, Mariel, was among them; she hadn't been torn apart, but a portion of her brain had been eaten.

The monster that committed this crime shared similar habits with the one that had wreaked havoc inside the church, and the church was only six decks away from the Astropath's residence.

Therefore, if Idaeus's theory about this kind of monster is true, then there is a psychic monster roaming the Macragge's Honour.

Realizing this, Roboute Guilliman instantly gripped the short sword at his waist, only slowly releasing it a few seconds later.

He glanced at Karyl Lohars, who was standing not far away, crouching on the ground examining the remains of a monster. The other Apothecary within the Ultramarines were doing the same thing.

It is foreseeable that many investigative reports will be sent to Roboute Guilliman in the future. Right now, these are all just theories, but the beast with psionic powers is probably a real existence.

Roboute Guilliman slowly exhaled a breath of stale air, his face becoming extremely somber behind his helmet.

Eleven hours later, the riot on the Macragge's Honour was quelled. A total of 422 monsters were confirmed dead, and 16 statues related to Roboute Guilliman were destroyed.

The list of victims began to be compiled, as did the damage to the ship. Roboute Guilliman sat behind his desk reading the constant stream of reports, and keenly noticed something discrepancy in the reports concerning the hangar.

An old Storm Eagle and an improved Aquila Shuttle mysteriously disappeared from Hangar 21. According to the hangar's log, the hangar was manually opened in emergency mode six hours after the riot began.

Roboute Guilliman was furious about this.