In an instant, all the scattered clues and all the illogical discrepancies connected.
Why had the residual pheromones from the exterminated nests mysteriously "flowed" toward the same area?
Why had Lynn been so obsessed with collecting Tyranid remains?
Why had Alpha's signal disappeared some time ago?
The answer was right before his eyes.
All the resources, all the planning, had been for this monster before him-for Alpha's "metamorphosis"!
To evolve her from a "slightly larger Tyranid Warrior" into this monster with flight capabilities, bizarre armour, and terrifying firepower!
Lynn and Alpha had never set their sights on the Sons of Medusa alone!
What sent an even deeper chill through Cassius was that, just as the Sons of Medusa's line teetered under Rena's rampage.
Just as the Tyranid tide was about to breach the final curtain of fire and reach the anti-Titan weapon array's nearly collapsed shields.
The battlefield took another bizarre turn.
Rena, who had been efficiently "harvesting" the Sons of Medusa's fighting strength, suddenly turned her attacks elsewhere without warning!
She abandoned the next target she had been about to pounce on, plunged into a sudden dive, and hurtled into a Tyranid swarm frantically assaulting the flank!
Her Rending Claws swept out, her Bio-Plasma Cannon spewed fire, and she rapidly cleared away the other Tyranids.
She even began specifically hunting Tyranid Warriors, using her aerial advantage and formidable individual combat strength to swiftly pick off the Tyranids' command nodes!
The swarm, which already harboured an intense urge to attack her, was thrown into disarray by her actions.
Its offensive rhythm immediately fell apart.
The human line, which had been on the verge of collapse, actually gained something from Rena's sudden "defection" and the Tyranid confusion it caused.
Miraculously, it gained a chance to breathe and stabilized again!
"She's balancing the strength of both sides." Cassius instantly saw through Rena's intent.
Combined with the obvious hostility between Rena and the Tyranids, Cassius understood completely.
Lynn and Alpha's ultimate objective was by no means simply to eliminate either the Sons of Medusa or the Tyranids.
What they wanted was for these two irreconcilable forces to bleed out to the last drop in this Abyssal Spawning Pool!
To delay the Tyranids' all-out offensive for as long as possible by exterminating this vanguard nest, while completely annihilating the Sons of Medusa squad!
It was an open scheme with no way out.
When he had led his squad into this nest and launched an attack on the Tyranids.
He had already willingly jumped into the trap Lynn had so carefully woven.
A sense of helplessness welled up in Cassius.
He had prided himself on his clear logic and sound tactics, only to be outwitted by a mortal in the end.
But why?
Why had Alpha exposed herself so early?
Why had she even "helped" them stabilize their line to some extent?
She could easily have appeared later, after both sides had suffered greater losses. Wouldn't that have been safer and more profitable?
Cassius's gaze involuntarily shifted toward the rear, toward the anti-Titan weapon arrays recharging there, their muzzles beginning to glow dangerously once more.
Under Rena's "intentional or unintentional" interference and containment.
The anti-Titan weapon arrays finally finished reloading and charging before the grievously wounded Hierophant could unleash its next devastating volley!
"Target, the Hierophant! All weapons, fire!"
Cassius suppressed every distracting thought and rasped out the order.
Whether this was a trap or not, the Hierophant had to die! That was the bottom line!
"Zzz-BOOM!!!"
"Vmmm-THUMP!!!"
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!"
The searing beams and deadly missiles that had long been gathering power tore across the battlefield for the third and final time.
They thundered toward the terrifying beast, which had just struggled back onto its feet, green light gathering in its organic cannon muzzles once more!
The terrifying melta beams and plasma cannon fire cut in like red-hot table knives through butter.
They drove precisely into the depths of the Hierophant's previously ravaged wounds, where its carapace had peeled away and its tissue lay exposed!
Unimaginable heat instantly melted its internal structures completely!
"ROOOAR!!!"
The Hierophant unleashed an earth-shaking death wail filled with endless agony and unwillingness.
Its enormous body crashed to its knees like a collapsing mountain, with the force of toppling peaks and pillars, then slammed heavily into the ground.
The four anti-Titan missiles that followed delivered the final blow with precision.
Green flesh, shattered carapace, severed limbs, and all manner of indescribable biological organs.
Sprayed and scattered in every direction like a horrific storm of flesh and blood!
The explosion's shock wave swept along a bloody, reeking gale, clearing away and blowing aside everything within more than a hundred metres!
The Titan-class organism, the Hierophant, had fallen.
With the Hierophant dead, the remaining swarms, composed mainly of masses of cannon fodder, could no longer threaten Cassius and his men.
Next, they only needed to wait for the anti-Titan array to finish charging again.
And eliminate the greatest variable, circling in the sky.
Then the Sons of Medusa could win this battle.
The scales of victory seemed to tip toward humanity.
After the Hierophant fell, Rena did not rush to flee or launch another attack.
Instead, she landed in the centre of the human line, at a piece of machinery destroyed by the swarm.
She stood there quietly, her purplish-red carapace covered in battle scars and scorch marks.
Her scarlet compound eyes calmly surveyed the gun barrels and cannon muzzles around her that instantly locked onto her.
And the gazes beneath those Power Armour faceplates, filled with anger, hatred, or despair.
There were no hisses, no threatening movements, only a suffocating, icy calm.
At that moment, the unease in Cassius's heart climbed to its peak, almost bursting out of his chest!
"Fire! Fire everything! Kill her!!!"
Cassius roared, his voice nearly hoarse, and began charging at full speed himself!
He did not know what Rena intended to do, but he knew he could not let her finish!
"Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!!!"
"Crackle! BOOM!"
"For our fallen brothers!"
The remaining warriors, including the Skitarii, unleashed the last of their fighting spirit at that moment.
Every weapon that could still fire-bolts, energy beams, melta rays, even Melta Bombs hurled with reckless abandon by the close-combat warriors.
Hammered toward Rena at the centre from every direction like a violent rainstorm!
The density of fire, enough to turn a Land Raider into scrap in an instant, almost completely engulfed Rena's position!
Yet.
At the very instant before the first wave of attacks touched Rena's body.
A translucent spherical shield, flowing like rippling water and distorting a faint purple glow, abruptly expanded around Rena!
"Vmmmm~~~"
A low resonance, seemingly rising from the depths of the Warp, drowned out the roar of every gun and cannon!
The instant the attacks touched that purple shield, they seemed to strike an invisible, utterly impassable wall of lamentation!
"A psychic power shield! How can she use psychic power?!" a warrior cried out involuntarily.
But an even more shocking scene, one that felt bizarrely blasphemous, immediately followed.
Beneath the psychic power shield, a teeth-grating crack suddenly came from Rena's hideous head, from the skull covered in thick chitinous armour!
The carapace split to either side and folded back as though alive, like a bloody flower blooming, revealing what lay inside.
An immense brain, its surface covered in folds and pulsing blood vessels.
That was certainly no ordinary Tyranid Warrior structure!
Its size, its shape, and the almost tangible psychic power pressure it radiated, which made the soul tremble.
[Transcendent Armament].
The ultimate trump card Lynn had prepared for Rena, one that surpassed the Tyranids' conventional system.
A brain organ comparable to a Neurothrope's, specialized in psychic power manipulation, revealed itself at that moment.
The next second.
Rena's exposed, enormous brain-like organ pulsed violently!
A visible ripple of dark purple psychic power, like the ripples stirred by a stone cast into a still pool.
Spread outward from her, silently yet violently!
No, those were not ripples.
It was a tsunami.
It was a storm.
One that carried the icy will of the Tyranids and a pure desire for destruction.
Psychic Power Scream!
Dark purple psychic radiance, like a nebula of death blooming in an instant, swallowed light, swallowed sound, swallowed all hope.
The storm of destruction descended upon the earth.
It swept everything remaining on the position, along with those unyielding roars and that unspent fighting spirit, into silent annihilation.