After returning to a relatively safe place, Lynn immediately contacted Rena through the system.
"We need to observe the specifics of the Sons of Medusa's combat during their next operation.
I may be under surveillance, and they don't allow anyone near them during missions."
Cold fluctuations of information came from Rena at the other end of the link.
The gist was that she could help Lynn find a way and act as his eyes.
Although Rena was still as mechanical and aloof as ever.
Lynn still felt warmth in his heart. At least his efforts really had paid off.
Nor would Rena meet some "real husband" one day and abandon him.
Lynn then quickly told Rena his plan.
Soon, Cassius settled on the next target.
A nest deeper within the border between District Seven and District Eight, suspected of containing an advanced "Synapse Creature."
This target had a higher rating and posed a greater threat.
Before the operation, Cassius sought out Lynn. His orders were as concise as ever:
"Provide interference on the perimeter and draw off any swarms that might branch away. Your unit is forbidden from approaching the core area."
It made no difference whatsoever. Lynn had no intention of gathering the information himself anyway.
On the day of the operation, Lynn led his troops in making a conspicuous racket in the designated area, attracting the attention of some Tyranid units.
Meanwhile, several Gargoyles that almost blended into the surrounding gloom took silently to the air like ghosts.
As the Tyranids' aerial cannon fodder, Gargoyles often came in frightening numbers as well.
Their stealth carapaces were also highly suited to scouting targets.
Using the Hive City's enormous ventilation shafts and gaps between buildings, they slipped toward the core area Cassius's squad was breaking into.
Through the consciousness network link, Rena could see clear images of the scene through the Gargoyles.
She "saw" it.
The core nest lay at the bottom of an enormous, abandoned elevator shaft, in a wide-open space.
But it was covered in thick fungal mats and massive organic growths pulsing with dark purple light.
This was clearly an important node the Tyranids had spent a long time developing.
Cassius's squad had not entered silently.
They had "barged" their way in.
By the time the Gargoyles quietly clung to the shadows high on the shaft walls, the battle below was already at fever pitch.
The first things to enter her "sight" were three suits of Terminator Armour resembling mobile fortresses.
Their thick ceramite shells were covered in Clan Magara's white markings and the scars of battle.
The enormous Whirlwind Missile launchers on their shoulder plates exuded an aura of destruction.
Two Terminators wielded Assault Cannons, their six rotating barrels spewing an unbroken stream of heavy bolts that wove a lethal storm of metal.
They instantly shredded any tide of Tyranids attempting to surge in from the front, including even a Tyranid Warrior.
The flashes of explosions and fragments of flesh almost obscured that entire area.
The other Terminator was equipped with a "Heavy Flamer."
An even more sustained and terrifying dragon of flame swept across the fungal mats and organic growths, igniting them into a spreading sea of fire.
It scorched the eggs and lesser units hidden within, and the acrid stench of burning was easily perceptible through the Gargoyles' senses.
The Terminator Squad held fast at the nest entrance like an iron nail.
With the most ferocious frontal firepower, they suppressed the Tyranids and wore down their fighting strength.
Between them and on their flanks, warriors in ordinary Power Armour formed a second battle line.
Cassius himself did not hide at the rear to command.
He stood at the forefront, every swing of the Power Axe in his hand unleashing a bloody storm.
A third prosthetic limb, of the same kind used by the Adeptus Mechanicus, held that heavy Boltgun at the ready, precise and deadly.
The sergeant intercepted each elite unit on the verge of breaking through the web of fire.
Amid the violent energy disturbances and reflected firelight, the "Iron Halo" behind him slightly distorted the surrounding light.
It was like an invisible force field. Whenever stray rounds or splashes of acid came his way, some force seemed to deflect or weaken them slightly.
He was not merely the commander, but also the sharpest sword.
The other warriors each carried out their own duties.
The Heavy Bolter gunner focused on picking off threats at medium and long range and suppressing clusters of enemies.
The flamer operator cleared out small swarms trying to pour from pipes on the flanks and purified key areas.
The Meltagun operators acted as elite killers. Their targets were usually creatures with particularly thick carapaces, or biological turrets, Psychic Power pods, and the like suspected of being subsidiary node structures.
Blazing white beams flashed, and their targets vanished amid earth-shattering explosions or the sizzling hiss of vaporization.
Their coordination was as precise as machinery.
There were no shouts, no wasted movements, only the roar of weapons firing, the whine of machinery, and the brief shrieks of dying Tyranid units.
With Servitors transporting ammunition, their supply was endless, and the gunfire never ceased.
Faced with such a narrow, lethal corridor of fire, the Tyranids' numerical advantage seemed feeble and ineffectual.
The only thing capable of threatening them was a Neurothrope, also known as a Neurothrope.
As an evolved form of the Zoanthrope, its anatomy was almost identical, with extremely atrophied limbs paired with an exaggeratedly large brain.
However, the Neurothrope's proportions were even more extreme than an ordinary Zoanthrope's, as its three- to four-meter-long brain made evident.
Its appearance caused fluctuations even in the link between the secretly observing Gargoyles and Rena's consciousness network.
The terrifying ray unleashed by its main Psychic Power cannon left a chasm nearly ten meters wide in the ground.
Had the Sons of Medusa not been prepared for it, they would likely have suffered casualties.
Fortunately, this Neurothrope had only just evolved from a Zoanthrope, and the Hive Mind had not equipped it with a complete Psychic Power matrix (an amplification squad usually composed of two to five ordinary Zoanthropes).
Otherwise, given the Sons of Medusa's rather low Psychic Power resistance, this battle might have ended differently.
But Cassius had not come unprepared either.
Before setting out, they had already detected the abnormal Psychic Power fluctuations in the area and had long known that a powerful psychic unit was present.
Before the Neurothrope launched its second attack, one of the Sons of Medusa stepped to the front of the squad.
He lowered the heavy iron coffin on his back and opened it, and a frail, blind old man stepped out.
The old man's body was studded with all manner of tubes. He pressed his palms together and silently recited prayers.
A psychic barrier appeared before the Sons of Medusa. At the same time, four warriors raised enormous shields around him to prevent him from being killed.
The Psychic Power ray, laden with terrifying power, bombarded the barrier, its aftershocks slowing the passage of time throughout the entire area.
Rena felt her link to the Gargoyles grow very weak.
The Psyker began bleeding from all seven orifices, but at least he had blocked the strike.
Seizing the interval between the Neurothrope's attacks, Cassius, who had removed his helmet at some point, charged out of the barrier.