"Boss!"
A cry of grief, piercing enough to tear apart the sky, rang out from the passage that had long since been mostly blocked by rubble.
It was Big'un!
He and his surviving Tunnel Rat Boyz had not obeyed the order to escape on their own!
They had come back!
When they saw that apocalyptic scene, when they saw the mangled corpse of their godlike, invincible boss, with almost half his head gone, they went mad!
They let out the most grief-stricken, furious roars of their lives and charged into the still-blazing ruins of destruction!
They were taking their boss home!
When the wounded Big'un burst out of the collapsing underground passage with Liu Zhipeng's cold, mangled corpse on his back, the battlefield above had already become a different world.
The Tyrant's death had been like flipping the switch on a chain reaction. Every Tyranid in the entire war zone instantly lost its connection to the Hive Mind.
They had degenerated completely into beasts.
A rout with only one possible outcome began.
Grakka, Face-Rippa, was gleefully kicking a Tyranid Warrior's head away like a ball. But when he saw Big'un and the corpse on his back, mutilated beyond words, the savage grin on his hideous face froze.
The entire battlefield fell briefly silent at the sight.
Tooth Puller... was dead?
The Warboss who had created the miracle of the Three-Layer Meat Grinder, who had outwitted the entire Hive Mind and played it like a toy, who had been so full of "wisdom"...
Dead?
An even more savage surge of WAAAGH! energy, fueled by "grief" and "rage," began spreading wildly among the Orks.
Just as every Ork thought their legend was about to end, a shrill voice full of impatience and excitement suddenly rang out from behind the crowd.
"**Get outta