When the attack happened, Lynn was still pretending to sleep in bed.
After days of intense tension and anxiety, exhaustion washed over him like a tide once he confirmed that Rena was "temporarily" safe.
But he still kept his eyes fixed on the system interface. Then, without any warning-
"Argh!"
Lynn jolted upright in bed, cold sweat instantly soaking his pajamas.
He saw Rena's status plummeting, while the consciousness extension network shrank at lightning speed (the swarm was self-destructing).
A flash of insight seemed to cross his mind.
Weren't there three Sons of Medusa who never showed themselves this afternoon?
It felt as though an icy hand had clenched around his heart. Then it began pounding wildly against his chest, almost leaping out.
Blood rushed to his head, and his ears rang.
A thought struck his mind like lightning: Rena's in trouble! Cassius!
Overwhelming panic drenched him from head to toe like tangible ice water, instantly chilling his limbs.
Before he even had time to think, his body reacted ahead of his mind.
He threw off the covers, practically rolled out of bed, and frantically grabbed the clothes tossed over the chair to pull them on. His trembling fingers fastened the wrong buttons several times.
He stumbled toward the bedside cabinet, pulled open the drawer, and reached for the Laspistol and encrypted communicator hidden inside.
I have to help her!
That thought consumed his mind in a frenzy.
If Rena was gone, his greatest support would be gone too.
His Tyranids galgame, his journey of survival in Warhammer, all his schemes and struggles would vanish in an instant!
He couldn't lose Rena! Absolutely not!
Just as he grabbed the pistol and was about to rush barefoot toward the door-
The last surviving shred of reason, like a straw clutched by a drowning man, abruptly reined in his impulse.
I can't go! It could be a trap! Calm down! Lynn! Fucking calm down!
He bit down hard on his lower lip, and the taste of blood quickly filled his mouth.
His harsh panting was clearly audible in the quiet apartment.
With his back against the cold metal door, he slowly slid down to sit on the floor, the gun hanging limply in his hand.
His eyes, bloodshot with congestion and fear, stared fixedly into the empty space ahead, as though he could see through the walls to the tragedy unfolding in the distant nest.
It felt utterly awful.
It was like knowing perfectly well that his childhood sweetheart was being "ganged up on" by a dozen burly men.
Yet as her "boyfriend," he could only hide in a safe corner, powerless, struggling over and over even to find the courage to take a look.
Like an "incompetent husband"...
The absurd, self-mocking thought flashed through his mind, almost making him want to laugh, though his expression was uglier than if he had cried.
He sat there on the cold floor, his body trembling faintly and incessantly with lingering fear and tension.
Listening to his thunderous heartbeat, he endured the longest few minutes of his life.
Until-
"Hiss!!!"
A familiar message came through the system interface in his mind.
It did not come directly from Rena's consciousness, but through some relay node.
Most likely, it was a message sent by that serpentine creature that stayed hidden underground year-round:
System translation: [Nest... attacked... destroyed... gravely wounded... escaped... deep fault... coordinates... hiding...]
The message cut off abruptly, and Rena's signal disappeared completely.
But it was enough.
Rena was still alive! She had escaped!
Though she was gravely wounded, though the nest had been destroyed, she had escaped!
An overwhelming, draining sense of having survived a catastrophe swept through Lynn.
He let out a long, trembling breath and slumped limply on the floor, resting his forehead against the cold metal door and closing his eyes.
As long as she's alive.
He did not sleep again that night.
By the time Cassius's squad returned to the base, the Tech-Priest had completed the final analysis of all surveillance data on Lynn during and after the raid.
The report was cold, detailed, and irrefutable:
One, high temporal correlation: at the critical junctures when the veteran squad launched its raid, breached the nest's outer defenses, and triggered violent explosions inside the nest.
Lynn's physiological monitoring data (heart rate, blood pressure, adrenaline levels, and brain waves) all exhibited simultaneous, severe anomalous fluctuations.
Two, corroborating behavioral abnormalities: immediately following the physiological anomalies, surveillance showed Lynn waking with a start from an apparent sleeping state.
He displayed instinctive actions under extreme panic, then forcibly restrained himself within a short period, entering a prolonged state of anxious immobility.
This behavioral pattern closely matched the psychological and behavioral model of "learning that a closely connected party has suffered a sudden attack."
Three, signal reacquisition: shortly after the raid ended and the target escaped, the biological detectors deployed around the perimeter of Lynn's apartment.
Once again detected a brief fluctuation in the familiar "anomalous Tyranids signal," which then rapidly weakened and receded into the distance.
At this moment, Lynn's physiological data exhibited a second fluctuation, showing a release from his tense state.
The Tech-Priest marked the report's final conclusion in bold binary code:
It could be determined that the surveillance target, Lynn Corvana, had some unknown connection with the entity codenamed "Anomalous Tyranids Individual Alpha."
Immediate detention, isolation, and in-depth interrogation and purification assessment were recommended.
Early the next morning.
Lynn rose from bed, his face pale as paper, his eye sockets sunken, and his eyes covered in web-like blood vessels.
He forced himself to swallow the tasteless nutrient paste, straightened his inspector's uniform, and tried to maintain a trace of his usual, slightly weary solemnity on his face.
Before he had even washed up, an urgent notification from the Sons of Medusa arrived at his door.
He knew there was no escaping it. He calmly dressed and followed the staff to the Sons of Medusa's base.
When he entered the base's main hall, he found the atmosphere even more stagnant than usual.
Ordinary clerks and junior officers kept far away from the central area, their gazes evasive.
A cold, oppressive sense of an approaching storm filled the air.
A Sons of Medusa warrior stopped him and said in a flat voice:
"The sergeant is waiting for you in the warehouse."
Lynn's face was expressionless.
What's coming will come.
He nodded and followed the warrior toward that familiar, empty, cold warehouse.
The warehouse doors closed heavily behind him, shutting out every sound from outside.
Beneath the stark white industrial lights, Cassius stood in the center of the warehouse with his back to him.
This time, he wore no helmet. His bald head, covered in fine scars and set with three dull Service Studs, gleamed with a cold, steely hardness beneath the lights.
Lynn stopped at the doorway, feeling as though all the blood in his body was about to freeze.
Cassius slowly turned around.
His gray eyes, like two stones tempered in the cold of space, held no warmth and no emotion as they pierced straight into Lynn, unobstructed.
His gaze was so sharp it seemed about to peel away his skin, muscles, and bones.
As though it would look directly at the fears and secrets hidden within him.
The warehouse was deathly silent.
Only the rhythmic hum of the ceiling fan sounded, beating against Lynn's taut nerves like the second hand of a countdown.
The few seconds of silence stretched as long as a century.
Then Cassius spoke.
His voice was still steady and low, but this time it carried a trace of bone-piercing cold:
"My dear Inspector Lynn,"
He paused, his dark blue eyes locking onto Lynn's rather pale face.
"How long do you intend to keep this from us?"