8 Exterminating the Bugs (II)

Karyl has lived for four years of this dark fortieth millennium, and the fifth year is fast approaching. Four years is neither a long nor a short time, but his method of travel makes the scope of this journey extremely exaggerated.

He had dealt with all sorts of people, from upright but arrogant and inflexible noble descendants to a group of prisoners about to be sent to the penal legion.

These people come from all over the galaxy, their minds filled with all sorts of thoughts and experiences, and it wouldn't be difficult to unearth them.

Usually, all it takes is a meal or a few words for Karyl to successfully strike up a conversation with them. Through this, he learns many things he never had the chance to know before, and these things collectively reveal a consensus.

Water is very precious.

More than one person has said this to him, or expressed it unintentionally.

A descendant of nobility would sit at the dinner table, holding a gleaming fork, and with a smile, mention his favorite pure water, describing its taste—a seemingly bland but actually sweet, mellow, and refreshing flavor.

The prisoners would use vulgar language to mock him, and one of them, a man named Kaiqi, told Karyl, despite being beaten with a short stick by the guards, that he had only ever drunk foul-smelling recycled water in his life, and that he no longer expected to drink any normal water in the future.

If these are two extremes, then the Imperium commoners, who are in the middle—those who live in poverty but are able to have enough to eat—tell Karyl that if they want water, they must go to the Water Purification Guild.

Yes, a guild, a guild within Hive City dedicated to controlling all water sources, from Upper Hive to Underhive, from recycled water to precious pure water, every drop of water is under their jurisdiction.

No one would want to offend them unless they wanted to die of thirst. And Banjo-1, a planet poised to become Hive City within the next century or two, already had members of the Water Purification Guild.

Their workplace was located on the edge of the city, at a massive water tower that was almost indistinguishable from a mountain peak, and this was only the part that was exposed above ground.

It can store billions of tons of water in total and is directly connected to the water circulation system that is already linked to most of the households on Banjo-1.

But the Genestealers have already breached this place.

Karyl frowned, staring at a huge gap at the foot of the mountain in the distance, when suddenly all ten of his fingers twitched.

Lion Al-Jonson—or rather, Leman Russ Russ —who was squatting on a giant air purifier with him, let out a low sigh.

"It didn't even take us three minutes to get here," the Fenrisian said.

Karyl calmly shook his head. "That's their efficiency, a top-down Gestalt mindset constructed from hypnosis, psychic abilities, and an innate mental network. Let's go, Russ, time waits for no one."

He spread his arms and leaped down. Russ, in the same manner as Lion El'Jonson, bit the spear and followed suit, jumping off the heavy machine atop the high-rise building.

When he landed, Karyl was nowhere to be seen. The residents of Banjo-1 were fleeing, but the Adeptus Arbites, which should have responded quickly, did not, as usual, drive hovercars through the sky.

Standing amidst the crowd, receiving their fear, worship, screams, and breakdowns, Russ took a deep breath.

He suddenly exerted his strength, and even as soon as he started walking, he was already running at a sprinting speed, covering hundreds of meters in the blink of an eye.

The power unleashed by this body, which Lion El-Jonson had never slacked off in centuries, even surprised Russ slightly, but he quickly adapted to this feeling he had almost forgotten.

His long, pale golden hair, seemingly faded, swung wildly as the Dionysian Spear pierced through four purebloods amidst his maniacal laughter. A wild, Lion El'Jonson -like killing technique instantly blossomed within the swarm of insects.

The Fenrisian's laughter was incessant, mingling with the purebloods' hisses and roars, creating a unique song of slaughter. Russ caught it precisely, and then sang—or rather, roared—at the top of his lungs.

The melodious Fenris language blossomed between fangs and teeth, manes swaying, spears drinking blood.

Two minutes later, the dance stopped, and the purebloods at the entrance no longer came forward.

Russ smiled as she looked at them, tilted her head, and suddenly said, "Hey, Lion, you should know what we're going to do, right?"

He blinked, his expression suddenly changing, and the Lion El'Jonson returned silently. He relaxed his fingers, letting the Dionysian Spear hang down naturally; it trembled and hummed, as if urging on the upcoming slaughter.

The Lion El'Jonson remained unmoved, taking a deep breath and slowly straightening its back. It raised its left hand, tore off the blood-stained knight's robe, and threw it at its feet with a cold laugh. At the same time, its spear drew a line. Not long, but very deep.

"I know much better than you." Lion Aljonson murmured calmly amidst the charge of the purebloods.

He received a pleasant chuckle.

--

The interior of the water tower is almost indistinguishable from a maze; it is not as one might imagine, where one can see a vast water source contained in huge glass jars as soon as one enters the gate.

No, that's not true; water is very precious.

Therefore, the Water Purification Guild installed extensive security measures on each of their water towers or similar structures and deployed a large number of troops to defend them.

Now, however, the former has been destroyed by the hybrids with their lives, while the latter has long since become victims of the insects. They may all be elite soldiers, but they would never be able to deal with a surprise attack by a large group of Genestealers without intelligence.

Therefore, they all died.

In the darkness, Karyl stared at their corpses and continued onward.

Countless voices cheered his return, then offered up even more things that needed to be Judgment. One said it had caught a thief, another said it had caught a robber.

Karyl listened patiently to each one, then granted permission again: a fair Judgment. This matter must be fair; indeed, some crimes are unforgivable, but theft or robbery without causing death is another matter entirely.

Following their calls, Karyl descended, ignoring all security measures and terrain differences, and went straight to the deepest part of the water tower.

Then he stepped out of the darkness.

A massive thing swiftly turned around.

It was very tall, even taller than the Primarch. Two of its four strong purple arms had mutated into sharp bone blades, while the other two were even more ruthless claws. A thick chitinous carapace covered its entire body, and two gleaming black eyes were embedded in its streamlined, swollen head.

It possessed almost no emotions, yet Karyl still "savored" the dangerous creature's confusion through its mental network: it didn't understand what Karyl truly was.

It cannot analyze the information and knowledge it has gained from the depths of its genes after leaving the mother nest; this organism before it is not included in the information it has gained.

Then it tried to hypnotize him with its infallible psychic powers, but to no avail.

Karyl ignored the ridiculous attempt and simply looked up. Behind the chieftain, he saw a massive machine, with countless pipes and cables, beating like a heart.

The clan chief has already cut a gash in it.

Karyl already knew what it was going to do—it was going to inject its modified genetic material into it and then change the rules of the machine's operation.

The patriarch is not as cold-blooded killing machine it appears to be; it is more than that.

This creature is very good at learning and at extracting what it wants from the human mind. One by one, the people it controls and the people it kills provide it with the methods to use this machine.

Having reached this point, it only needs to tap a few buttons with its claws to transfer its genetic material through the pipes that run throughout Banjo-1 to any usable faucet within the next thirty minutes.

It didn't want to do this because it believed its kind wasn't ready to face the planet's defenses, and its kind wasn't yet ready to call upon the mother hive for a feast.

However, since last night, and continuing into today, several underground settlements inhabited by hybrids have been attacked, which alerted it. It realized that its race had been exposed, so it immediately decided to speed up its progress.

Karyl squinted, carefully processing the creature's thoughts, and felt a rare surge of impulse—he wanted to kill it right now.

But he suppressed the urge. Killing the patriarch might cause the remaining purebloods and hybrids to collapse for a while, but they were still alive and in dire need of being cleansed.

Moreover, he has a solution that solves the problem once and for all.

Although he didn't tell Lion and Russ, he was certain they had probably already guessed.

Within the psychic network, Karyl began to draw upon psychic energy, but not for the purpose of killing; he even carefully concealed this thought.

The gathering of psychic energy caused his thoughts to expand, and he briefly "saw" a mental network—a large, pale purple net that resembled synaptic cells covering the bulb, yet also had something like blood vessels wrapped around it.

At the top of the net were the patriarch, followed by the guards, bishops, nobles, and hybrids of high status or exceptional ability, as well as a host of purebloods. Below the net were the humans who had recently been hypnotized and infected, and some hybrids who had infiltrated human society.

Their minds haven't yet become alienated enough to be integrated into the mental network, and the same goes for their bodies. Therefore, they cannot be directly controlled by the patriarch like other Genestealers.

That doesn't matter.

Karyl brought his psychic energy and consciousness close to the patriarch's position in the mental network, making contact with it and nibbling away at every detail of its existence in places it couldn't detect. He had never done anything like this before, so he had to face it to be sure of success.

The patriarch was completely unaware of this; time in the real world hadn't even begun to pass, and its consciousness was equally stagnant, enduring Karyl's "chewing."

Then he began to recall a creature, a creature he had fought with on Sotha, and the enormous, indistinct phantom above that creature's head. His consciousness began to grow colder and colder until it was completely devoid of any "human" part.

Until it becomes indistinguishable from the Hive Mind —or at least appears to be so.

Time in the material world passed silently; in just one second, his consciousness quietly rose to the very top of all the synapses in the mental network.

His authority was recognized.

Karyl opened his eyes and saw the chieftain kneeling trembling, his long, scarlet tongue protruding from his fanged mouth, leaping incessantly. The Tyranids had no emotions; they were directly commanded by the Hive Mind.

The patriarch, however, was different. It had severed its connection with the Hive Mind and traveled to each world as a separate being, acting as a trailblazer. It possessed basic emotions, but few, and now, its emotions were joy and a longing to return.

There is no such thing as a "return" here, and you are not entitled to feel joy.

Karyl took a deep breath, then raised his right hand and slowly clenched his fist.

The clan leader's body stiffened for a moment, then without hesitation, he swung his bone blade and claws toward his own head.

Its head was turned into a puddle of mush, skull fragments flying everywhere. Before they even hit the ground, they were controlled by psionic energy and crushed into harmless ashes.

A huge, headless corpse crashed to the ground, causing a slight tremor that should have subsided, but the tremor caused a violent shaking within a net.

From the purebloods who faced Lion Eljonsson directly, to the pope preaching some doctrine to the poor, or the nobles smiling at a banquet, at this moment, they all began to carry out a command.

Suicide.

The pureblood pierced his own skull with his claws. Without hesitation, the Pope drew his guard's Autogun, aimed it at his chin, and pulled the trigger. A nobleman who was enjoying his wine suddenly screamed, jumped onto the banquet table, drew his ceremonial sword from his waist, and pierced his temple.

This sudden death spread from the water tower on the edge of the city to the mansions of officials and nobles, and then down to a huge cave.

Here, the Dark Angels watched in astonishment as one monster after another committed suicide.

Outside the water tower, Lion Aljonsen sighed.

"We all know what kind of person Karyl Lohars is," Leman Russ Russ whispered in his ear.

"Yes, we all know." The Lion El'Jonson sat down, gripping his spear, his pale golden hair fading even more in the afternoon sunlight of Banjo-1.

A dozen seconds later, a calm footstep sounded behind him. The Lion El'Jonson did not answer, but remained silent. A gentle breeze swept by, but it could not dispel the thick smell of blood, nor could it make the Lion El'Jonson turn its head. After another dozen seconds, it finally spoke.

"So what price did you pay this time?" he asked somberly.

No one answered him; only a hand rested on his shoulder. But that hand wasn't as cold as he remembered; instead, it was very warm.

The Lion El'Jonson turned around in shock.

Karyl winked at him, smiled, and shrugged. "I told you, I'm just a regular Psyker now."

He pulled open his trench coat, looked down at the large hole in his chest, and suddenly his smile vanished.

"Speaking of which, Lion, do you have a doctor on your ship? I might need treatment."

A drop of blood slowly flowed from the gruesome wound.