"Shut up! Lapdog of the False Emperor! Glorious combat has no need for schemes and tricks!"
The Khorne Cultist roared, his assault growing fiercer, but a barely perceptible disruption crept into his rhythm as a result.
Now!
It came at the instant their weapons collided and each was driven half a step back.
With lightning speed, Lynn drew a Bolt Pistol from behind his back with his left hand, a weapon he had kept hidden and unused all this time.
The Khorne Cultist clearly had not expected this move.
By his logic of combat, suddenly using a ranged weapon in such an "honorable duel" was an utterly "despicable" act.
Shock, anger, and a twisted expression of "betrayal" instantly appeared on his face.
"You...!"
Lynn gave him no chance to finish.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three muffled reports rang out.
At such close range, the specially made bolts easily tore through the Khorne Cultist's flesh, which had been slightly strengthened by the power of Chaos.
The Khorne Cultist's burly body toppled, his crimson eyes wide with disbelief.
He opened his mouth, seemingly trying to spit out a curse, but only a few bloody bubbles emerged before he crashed to the ground.
Even in death, he retained that furious expression of "you fight dirty."
"Honor?"
Lynn blew at the nonexistent smoke over the muzzle and said coldly, "Beat me before you talk about honor."
Just as he finished off the Khorne Cultist leader, beside the altar...
The Chaos priest in tattered robes who had been conducting the ritual let out a piercing scream.
Seeing the leader killed and the ritual interrupted, he furiously raised a staff in his withered hands and aimed it at Lynn.
Dark purple Psychic Power lightning, alive with flickering, sinister symbols, erupted from the staff!
"In the name of the gods, die, heretic!"
The Psychic Power lightning tore through the air and struck Lynn in an instant!
Yet the expected sight of Lynn being burned to a crisp or having his soul torn apart did not appear.
When the powerful bolt of Psychic Power lightning came within three inches of Lynn, it seemed to strike an invisible barrier.
With a faint sizzle, it vanished without a trace, like a clay ox sinking into the sea.
Instead, the Chaos priest shuddered violently as though struck by lightning! He "saw" it.
Not with his naked eyes, but through his vision in the Warp, he saw something behind Lynn.
A huge, hideous insectoid shadow appeared, filled with a cold desire to devour!
The shadow spread its mouthparts, lined with sharp teeth, and unleashed a silent roar at him that struck straight at his soul!
"No, impossible!"
The priest babbled incoherently, his eyes bulging with extreme terror.
The next second...
Pop!
The Chaos priest's head burst like a smashed watermelon!
Red and white matter splattered over the cultists around him.
Far away, in an extremely well-hidden corner deep within District Eight...
Rena, who seemed to be waiting for something, slowly withdrew the Psychic Power fluctuations she had been emitting.
A faint gleam flashed through her compound eyes, and she let out a low hiss.
Seeing the priest's fate, Lynn understood something, and warmth filled his heart.
But he had no time to dwell on it. The battle was still ongoing.
With their leader and priest dying violently in quick succession, the remaining Chaos Cultists' morale collapsed.
Facing well-equipped enemies who outnumbered them ten to one, their resistance rapidly crumbled.
The patrol troops and civilians engulfed them like a tide.
To prevent any mishaps, Lynn personally destroyed the altar and extinguished that mass of ominous dark red energy.
The battle ended within ten minutes.
Not one of the more than fifty Chaos Cultists survived.
Their own side suffered only a few minor injuries.
"Clear the site. Gather all blasphemous objects and burn them together."
Lynn issued his orders swiftly, his tone calm.
But his gaze drifted toward the depths of the eighth level.
The Abyssal Spawning Pool.
The fighting here had long since gone beyond "intense" and become a brutal battle of attrition.
Cassius and the other two Cataphractii Terminators stood like three immovable reefs, firmly anchored at the forefront of the Tyranid tide's assault.
The Storm Shields' energy fields hummed ceaselessly, deflecting or blocking the bone spines and acid projectiles raining down on them, along with the lunging Hormagaunts.
Every blow of a Thunder Hammer brought the dull crunch of bursting carapace and sprays of green fluid, clearing a brief gap in the swarm.
But they faced a nearly endless sea of Tyranids.
No sooner was one patch cleared than more Tyranids immediately filled it.
Behind them, three Indomitus Terminators, a Land Raider, and the Skitarii squad sent by Magos Celeres formed a powerful network of supporting fire.
These Skitarii were Magos Celeres's "private armed force."
Their weapons and equipment were superior to those of ordinary Astra Militarum troops.
Extensive mechanical augmentation allowed them to carry out combat missions in all manner of extreme environments.
The Serberys Sulphurhounds roamed the flanks with nimble mobility, their Phosphor Blast Pistols proving highly effective against small and medium-sized Tyranid units.
The Skitarii Vanguard formed a solid battle line, firing deadly energy beams from their Radium Carbines and Arc Rifles.
Most striking of all was the Onager Dunecrawler.
The great red iron box advanced slowly like a mobile fortress of firepower.
The Phosphor Blaster mounted on the front of its hull let out a muffled roar every few seconds.
It hurled great masses of thick, burning chemical flame into the densest parts of the swarm, triggering continuous explosions and fires.
The twin-linked Gatling rocket launcher on its roof kept rotating and firing, sending high-explosive rockets deep into the swarm and blasting up bursts of flesh-and-blood fireworks.
The firepower of the Adeptus Mechanicus was on full display at that moment.
Yet the Tyranids' counterattack escalated as well.
Following the shrieks of several Tyranid Warriors...
Several exceptionally deep hisses, like giant engines starting up, came from the depths of the spawning pool.
Then the ground began to shake!
Two behemoths smashed through the thick organic membranes and emerged onto the battlefield.
They stood over five meters tall, their bodies resembling insects magnified hundreds of times, covered in overlapping layers of chitinous carapace as thick as tank armor.
Their forelimbs were a pair of enormous scythe-shaped bone blades, their edges gleaming with the cold sheen of biological metal, capable of easily shredding the Astartes' ceramite armor.
Their hideous heads bore scarlet compound eyes, and highly corrosive digestive fluid dripped from their opening and closing mouthparts.
Haruspexes!