The Psychic Power aftershocks washed over Cassius, most of them diverted by his Iron Halo.
He strode resolutely toward the Neurothrope.
The warriors behind him provided covering fire, their fearsome bolts and Melta beams held at bay by the psychic shield.
The unrelenting barrage relieved much of the pressure on Cassius.
He gritted his teeth and charged.
"For the Gene-Father!"
The hulking mass of steel charged straight up to the Neurothrope, then shoved his heavy Boltgun inside its shield.
He pulled the trigger, and brain matter splattered everywhere.
The oppressive Psychic Power that permeated the entire nest finally dissipated.
The pressure dropped so sharply that several Gargoyles under Rena's control had their heads explode, as though they had suffered "decompression sickness."
Without the Neurothrope's command and oversight.
The entire nest seemed to be slowly swallowed by a gigantic, merciless grinder.
Metal melted, rock shattered, and flesh vaporized.
Clan Magara's style was on full display.
With overwhelming firepower, they crushed, incinerated, and reshaped both their enemies and their surroundings.
The battle was being brought to a swift conclusion.
Cassius also keenly detected the flock of Gargoyles above the pipes, which had yet to attack.
Without any hesitation, Rena immediately sent the Gargoyles on a suicide charge at Cassius's squad.
They were torn apart in an instant, just like the other waves of Tyranids.
"There's no way to fight this," he muttered, his voice dry.
After receiving the complete details of Cassius's squad's combat operations from Rena, Lynn sighed.
If Rena's nest was exposed and faced an assault like that, could she escape, even though she had grown considerably stronger?
That remained unknown.
What was certain was that her relatively small swarm-only just reaching four figures-would melt away in an instant under firepower that dense.
The countdown to the Hive Fleet was ticking away, while right before him, these elite killing machines of the Imperium posed just as great a threat to his and Rena's survival.
A deep sense of helplessness and urgency gripped his heart.
Ever since reading the Sons of Medusa's battle report, Lynn had become even more cautious about contacting Rena.
Lynn only chose the "safest" moments to act.
He only dared contact Rena when he was far from the Sons of Medusa and surrounded by plenty of uninvolved people.
For instance, he would stop in the noisy, bustling markets of District Seven.
He would pretend to check tax notices on his Dataslate while his consciousness sank into the system interface.
His fingers slid meaninglessly across the cold screen while he composed encrypted instructions in his mind.
After sending the information to Rena, he would begin diligently doing "what Lynn was supposed to do."
Rena's replies were often even more concise, sometimes nothing more than a system acknowledgment symbol indicating "received."
She seemed to understand the current level of danger as well, and began taking the initiative to reduce the swarm's range of activity.
Almost every time she contacted Lynn, a Ravener lurking deep underground served as an extension of Rena's consciousness.
Serpent-bugs were medium-sized subterranean Tyranid war beasts resembling burrowing pythons; operating underground was always somewhat safer.
At the same time, Lynn could no longer risk transporting supplies directly.
The resources in his hands had to undergo multiple layers of laundering and disguise before reaching Rena.
"Salvaged military rations" from the black market, flesh obtained from the patrol's "legal" extermination of mutant giant rat packs.
As well as Tyranid organs the patrol itself recovered from its kills.
Even organic compounds "confiscated" from certain unfortunate smugglers.
Lynn carefully divided this biomass into two portions.
Sixty percent went toward smuggling. He had to keep up the whole act; after all, he had already stated what he intended to do with this biomass.
Through the less conspicuous channels that remained of the Anvil Society, he converted these "goods" into credits, Promethium batteries, weapon parts, and certain rare metals that were difficult to trace.
These resources were used to keep Lynn's ostensibly "efficient patrol" running.
To bribe petty bureaucrats at key points, and to purchase "luxuries" that could account for his personal spending records.
The remaining forty percent had to reach Rena through more intricate, and more ruthless, methods.
Lynn devised several "scripts."
Script A: a shootout between crooks.
Through anonymous channels, he would approach two smuggling gangs with a longstanding grudge.
He would "sell" both of them information about the same "safe" route, while hinting that the other gang was transporting high-value cargo.
When the two groups met at the designated, secluded pipe junction, just as tensions began to rise.
A small swarm dispatched by Rena would burst from the shadows.
The attack was lightning-fast and had a clear objective: tear open the transport vehicles, devour the packages of biomass inside, then withdraw immediately without getting bogged down in combat.
What remained was the aftermath of two gangs of thugs blaming each other and then exchanging fire, along with traces of cargo "looted clean" amid the wreckage.
The smugglers who suffered this loss in silence would not dare report to the authorities that Xenos had plundered their cargo.
Even if someone actually had the nerve to report it, sorry-the person answering the call was usually Lynn himself.
Script B: "an unfortunate theft."
Lynn would arrange for peripheral members of the Anvil Society to escort a shipment of "important supplies" to a maintenance station on the lower levels that worked with them.
Their route would "just happen" to pass through an abandoned area known for mutant creature activity.
The escort would encounter a ferocious, unprecedented "mutant attack," with every member tragically killed and the cargo's "whereabouts unknown."
Afterward, Lynn would personally lead a team to "investigate," recovering a few damaged weapons and identity tags from the ruins.
He would write a grief-stricken report, add the dead to the list of those "killed in the line of duty," and use this as grounds to request more death benefits and replacement equipment.
Script C: "the price of greed."
This was the coldest and most effective tactic.
Lynn would deliberately take information about several lucrative smuggling routes that he had actually already marked as "high-risk."
And "leak" it to those greedy smuggling bosses.
These routes often passed through the "patrol zones" around the perimeter of Rena's nest.
When convoys laden with contraband-including biomass Lynn had inserted through intermediaries-rumbled past.
A slightly larger and more devastating Tyranid ambush awaited the smugglers who thought they had landed a bargain.
The cargo was devoured, the personnel slaughtered, and no one survived.
Within three months, more than a hundred and fifty smugglers and associated personnel in the lower levels of District Seven had gone "missing" or been "confirmed dead" as a result.
But on a Hive World, such things were as commonplace as eating and sleeping.
Who would care?
Lynn felt not the slightest guilt over his methods.
After all, scum like that were the one thing the Imperium never lacked.