Ughul Ghoul

Old John led the reconnaissance squad into Blackstone Fortress.

There was air inside the structure, but it was bitterly cold. Even through their heavy armor, they could feel the chill sinking into their bones.

The squad advanced slowly in a standard exploration formation. Old John held a modified Bolt Pistol suited to human hands and brought up the rear with steady steps.

His hot-tempered second-in-command, Clawven, led the way with his beloved large pump-action shotgun, nicknamed the "door."

His cybernetic eye glowed faintly red as it switched between active infrared night vision and thermal imaging, trying to pierce the seemingly endless corridor.

Everyone wore a helmet. Built-in night-vision devices cast a ghostly green view across their faceplates.

The view was far from clear. The blackstone walls seemed to distort and absorb most scanning waves, leaving everything around them blurred and warped with an unreal, grainy texture.

Apart from their own heavy breathing, their heartbeats, and the clicks of magnetic boots gripping the blackstone floor, there was only a constant rustling, like countless grains of sand sliding past one another.

The sound came from every direction. It was everywhere, yet its source was impossible to locate.

It wore on everyone's nerves, as though countless unseen things were writhing and watching in the dark.

They had been walking for what felt like more than ten minutes, but the damned passage still stretched straight ahead. There were no branches, no turns. Even the patterns on the walls looked identical.

That relentless symmetry and sense of endlessness began to erode the squad's patience and sense of direction.

"Damn it!" Clawven finally muttered, his voice crackling with static over the helmet comms.

"Did whoever built this place have a head full of engine oil and shit? Or did these ancient Xenos have some special kink for walking miles before they got home?"

His grumbling sounded out of place, but it eased the suffocating tension a little.

Then, the instant he finished speaking...

Clang!

A sharp, grating metallic impact exploded from the deep darkness ahead!

It was so sudden, so close, that it tore straight through the unsettling background rustle!

"Hostiles!" Old John bellowed almost at the same instant.

The well-trained squad stopped at once. Every muzzle swung toward the sound, fingers tight against trigger guards.

Through their green night-vision displays, the way ahead was still an empty stretch of darkness, but the echo seemed to linger in the passage.

Then came more sounds, chaotic and close: hurried shouts pitched high with terror.

Old John immediately recognized human cries among them!

And another sound they had never heard before: a shriek filled with raw malice and hunger!

"Something's coming! Stay alert!" Old John's voice was frighteningly calm.

"There!" Clawven growled. His cybernetic eye had picked up a heat signature, and he pointed ahead.

At the edge of their green night-vision displays, a figure stumbled toward them at a desperate run!

It was a man in shredded clothes that were just recognizable as a House Canary uniform. He was soaked in a dark, viscous liquid that appeared black-brown through night vision.

One arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, and his face was contorted with utter terror and despair.

Behind the fleeing man, the shadows surged as if alive. A gaunt humanoid creature, stretched beyond all biological reason, pursued him with a bizarre, convulsive gait at terrifying speed!

It moved swiftly and silently, a stark contrast to the fugitive's pounding footsteps and ragged gasps.

"Help me! Emperor, help me! For the Emperor's sake! Hel—"

The fugitive had spotted the reconnaissance squad's flashlight beams. Clinging to them as his last hope, he screamed for help with all the strength he had left.

Then his cry cut off...

He was still twenty or thirty meters from the squad when the gaunt shadow behind him suddenly accelerated, moving so fast it became a blur!

It lunged like a hunting mantis and brought the fugitive down with ease!

"Fire—"

Old John had not even finished giving the order when something horrifying happened.

The monster seemed to pay no attention to the few probing Lasgun beams streaking toward it like rain. With a long limb that held terrifying strength, it seized its prey by the ankle.

Then it dragged the screaming man backward at astonishing speed and vanished into a crack-like side passage none of them had noticed!

The whole thing happened in a flash. In less than two seconds, the man's screams and the monster's shrieks had faded into the maze of passages, leaving only a long smear of blood on the floor.

It had all happened too fast. The squad members had barely reacted.

"Damn it! Did you see that?!" a young squad member cried, his voice shaking.

Even as he spoke, his Lasgun remained trained on the empty passage ahead.

"What... what the hell was that thing?!" another squad member asked.

While they were still reeling from the sudden horror, the gaunt shadow that had dragged away its prey appeared again, silent as a ghost, at the edge of the darkness a short distance ahead.

It seemed more interested in its new prey. The array of sensory pits where its face should have been fixed on the reconnaissance squad.

Without warning or hesitation, it let out a shrill, aggressive scream. Its long limbs kicked off the blackstone floor, and its body became a streak of blue lightning hurtling straight at the squad! It moved faster than any human could react!

"Fire! Everything you've got!" Old John's roar finally cut through their fear.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Pew!

Dakka-dakka-dakka...

Clawven's shotgun thundered, spraying pellets like a storm of metal!

Bolters launched deadly explosive rounds, while Lasguns sent out searing beams!

In an instant, muzzle flashes lit the narrow passage like daylight. The deafening gunfire and the shriek of energy beams through the air nearly burst their eardrums!

Then something happened that chilled them all to the bone!

The savage firepower, enough to turn an Ogryn into minced meat, had barely any effect on the charging monster!

Shotgun pellets struck its dull skin with muffled thuds, as though hitting tough old leather. They left only pale marks and did nothing to slow its charge.

Bolter rounds struck its chest and burst in small sprays of blood, but they seemed to inflict no fatal wounds. They only drove it into a greater frenzy.

The ruby-red Lasgun beams might as well have come from water guns. They left scorch marks that quickly faded without even piercing its skin!

"Damn it! Lasers don't work on this thing!" Old John roared as he emptied his Bolt Pistol's magazine.

With practiced movements, he ejected it, pulled a fresh magazine from the pouch at his waist, slapped it into the pistol with a click, and racked the slide.

In that brief gap in his fire, the flickering light from his squadmates' muzzles gave everyone a clear look at the monster!

It was a humanoid creature more than two meters tall, so gaunt it was nearly skeletal. Its basic shape still bore a faint resemblance to human limbs and a torso.

But its skin was an unfamiliar blue, close-fitting and tough. The gunfire had just proven it was almost as hard as steel!

Most terrifying of all was its face. It had no nose and no eyes, only a maw stretching almost from one side of its face to the other, packed with rows of needle-like teeth.

Above the maw sat a strange array of sensory pits, sunk deep into its skull. The sight was sickening.

"Switch to solid rounds! Use armor-piercing!" Old John shouted himself hoarse. He raised his reloaded Bolt Pistol and aimed at the monster, now less than ten meters away with its vast maw open!

The concentrated fire seemed to frighten the monster. Or perhaps it had received some order. It immediately abandoned them and fled.

The monster the reconnaissance squad had faced was an Ughul Ghoul.