A thick beam of energy erupted from the device.
The light shone across the faces of the nearby crowd, forcing their eyes shut, while hot wind whipped their hair up under the surging energy.
Under the sustained bombardment, the surface of the Hive City's tightly sealed alloy gate ahead began to melt.
Ana stared wide-eyed and blankly at the device she had built with her own hands, her face full of confusion.
Yet even though every component had passed through her hands, as Ana watched it spew out such a thick energy beam, there was nothing but utter unfamiliarity on her face and in her eyes.
Ana was that rather vacant female Tech-Priest.
Meanwhile, Brunok rested his machine gun on his explosively muscled shoulder, his gaze somewhat stunned by the raging energy before him.
"With that kind of power... you could mount it on a Knight as its main cannon..."
Both looked dumbfounded. Only when the energy gradually weakened and finally vanished altogether did Sith take his hands off the device.
"Why did it stop?"
Seeing that the gate had only melted halfway, the foul-mouthed adjutant Brunok habitually put on an impatient expression and bluntly demanded an answer from Sith.
Seeing Brunok show such disrespect, several nearby veterans of the 101st Regiment abruptly drew their blades and glared viciously at him, even though they all belonged to the Imperium's side.
Brunok's expression froze, his eyelids twitching wildly under the veterans' stares.
He hurriedly shut his mouth, while a sense of strangeness filled him.
Brunok had become an adjutant, and even the undisputed commander of this ragtag force, through his experience in countless battles!
In this fucked-up world, the very fact that he had survived until now was proof of his ability.
That was why Brunok not only dared to disrespect Sith, but even dared to call Ana, a Tech-Priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus, a half-baked amateur behind her back.
In the Imperium of Man, no one dared show the Adeptus Mechanicus any disrespect, even if the person in question was merely an insignificant low-ranking Tech-Priest.
Yet with this 101st Regiment that had suddenly appeared, never mind the young killing fiend leading them-even any one of the soldiers under him put Brunok under enormous pressure.
In front of these veterans, he seemed like a raw recruit instead!
Of course Brunok knew that, never mind the whole galaxy or even the sector, there were bound to be people stronger than him on his own planet alone.
But the problem was that Brunok could accept a few, or even a fair number, of such people. What he could not accept was some random regiment having every single member be that formidable, because that was fucking uncanny!
And now these uncanny people were glaring viciously at him, all because he had disrespected their commanding officer, who was also nominally his own commanding officer at present.
"It's out of power. I'll put in a fresh power cell right away."
Ana hurried over and opened a valve at the back of the device, her scarlet Tech-Priest robes accompanied by the auxiliary augmetic on her shoulder.
White vapor then hissed out with a blast of heat. Ana carefully removed the power cell. Looking at it, as though its potential had been fully unlocked and it had revealed a side it had never shown her before, Ana somehow felt a little uncomfortable.
But she soon put that discomfort out of her mind, her face turning jubilant as she actually skipped off to fetch a fresh power cell.
"I knew it! I'm a genius!"
Delighted, Ana quickly installed the replacement power cell. After a practiced series of operations, she activated the device herself without waiting for Sith to take over.
There was no immediate torrent of surging energy. After Ana activated it, the device turned sluggishly, and only after a long while, under everyone's puzzled gazes, did it barely manage to release a thin wisp of energy.
It then struck the hole in the gate, which had already begun to solidify somewhat. Not only did it fail to break through, it even seemed to be warming up the melted alloy.
Ana's jubilant expression instantly froze, and Brunok's eyes abruptly widened as well:
His lips moved as he wanted to curse, but he dared not disrespect Sith, nor did he dare openly display disrespect toward the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Brunok could only hold it in until his face turned scarlet. Finally, he let out a great blast of breath and roughly shifted the machine gun to his other shoulder.
"Why... is it displeased again?"
Ana wore a helpless expression, with even a few tears glimmering in her eyes.
High-ranking Tech-Priests might have nothing left but cold rationality, but Ana, who had only recently joined, still displayed clear emotional fluctuations.
"Let me."
Sith took over the device. He was now completely out of food, and there was no telling when the fleeing rebels would return with more men. Sith really had no time to waste.
As Sith took over the device, Ana's face remained downcast and lost in thought.
Yet she had only just lowered her head when, with almost no delay, raging energy abruptly erupted, sending dazzling light and a scorching rush of wind at everyone nearby.
The hot wind sent everyone's hair flying again. The soldiers were pleased that the device had finally recovered, while Ana, after a brief moment of shock, fixed her eyes on Sith in sudden realization.
"I understand!"
"To please the Machine Spirit of my genius invention, we have to include the step of having you operate it yourself!"
The Adeptus Mechanicus was both rational and superstitious. Their rigor could be illustrated with a little story:
Although they did not know why they had to dance around a machine before starting it, they had danced before successfully starting it back then, so there must be a reason for dancing before starting it.
Ana had now arrived at just such an understanding. There was nothing wrong with her invention; she had simply been missing the crucial step that was Sith.
Ana hurriedly recorded the operating procedure for her device, placing particular emphasis on the part requiring Sith to operate it personally.
While Ana busied herself recording her results, the soldiers who had originally spread out gradually gathered around.
The Hive City's alloy gate, already mostly melted, once again began visibly turning into rolling streams of orange-yellow molten metal.
The once-thick gate had now become extremely thin. At its very center, they could even faintly see the energy beam piercing through.
Both the 101st Regiment and Brunok's battered troops had already begun unconsciously licking their lips, eager to enter the supply station inside the Hive City and have a proper feast.
But as the gate grew thinner and thinner, not only did Sith gradually frown at it, even the veterans of the 101st Regiment under his command and Brunok began to look increasingly grave.
Finally, at the last moment before the gate was about to open completely, Sith, who had kept watching the darkness beyond its gaps, suddenly widened his eyes and took both hands off the device.
The surging energy beam gradually dissipated, leaving the ruined gate just one final push away from breaking open.
Yet the veterans showed no joy whatsoever. Instead, their faces tense, they abruptly aimed their weapons at the gate.
An explosion came from behind the gate!
The last obstruction disappeared in the explosion, and the long-sealed gate was slowly pushed open from within.
In the darkness of the long, deep entrance passage into the Hive City, densely packed figures shifted and stirred.
As sunlight poured in through the opening gate, even Sith could not help his eye twitching at the sight beyond it.
Behind the gate were an entire Hive City's worth of rebels, who had been shut inside for who knew how long!