Under and around its body, solid metal plates and bodies shattered and cracked under the intense fire.
The prey below seemed aware of their presence and unleashed a sickening fury that blew its kin apart.
Then the hot bullets began to hit its skin, which suddenly reminded it of the feeling of pain.
Soshyan raised his arm as well, taking a second to reactivate the storm bolter before its internal mechanisms began to work.
In an instant, shards of explosive shells shattered the group of weak creatures into pieces, but there was still a giant beast screaming and running across the roof through a row of gunfire, shortening the distance between them.
The soldier holding the heavy bolter still stood still and pulled the trigger, feeling the stabilizer on his armor working to offset the recoil.
The heavy bolter vibrated as it spat out a stream of high-velocity blasters, each pellet hammering the chitinous flesh from the creature's exoskeletal flesh.
When the twelfth bomb hit the vital point, the giant beast fell from the ceiling and plunged into a group of boiling lower creatures below.
Soshyan lowered his aim, then aimed at them.
The hive master smelled its own blood, which was somehow more shocking than the pain of its open and bleeding wound.
The scent overcame the wounds of its kin, dulling their power.
The nest master retracted its injured limbs and curled up next to its body.
It misjudged the prey. This prey was very ferocious and much more difficult to deal with than those it had encountered before. Now was the wrong time.
The nest owner was too hungry to open his eyes and could not see the road clearly, but the pain caused by this mistake was the most powerful reminder.
It lost, so it had to retreat, but the enemy would not let it do so easily, so it sent out a sharp thought pulse, calling all its offspring to its side to protect itself.
But for some reason, the spiritual channel that used to be accessible suddenly became blocked, and most of its descendants were unable to receive its signal!
This made it fearful and began to run away desperately.
"Watch the back!"
Loken shouted, and he also joined the battle holding his own high-power laser gun, mainly to escort Dietrian.
Boundless gene stealers were pouring out of the vents in all directions, rushing straight towards them.
They were all standard individuals. Their carapace shone in the dim light, their bodies were splashed with oil and turbid liquid, and most importantly, there were many of them.
The two terminators faced off against the enemy at the front side by side. Their powerful slashes knocked the aliens away and into the beasts behind them, causing blood and pus to scatter everywhere.
The already mixed air was suddenly filled with the stench of pus, so much so that Loken had to wear a mask to breathe normally.
Loken was responsible for protecting Dietrian, while the other Terminators were responsible for protecting Loken. The ground was now as wet as a swamp, and there were alien corpses everywhere.
The Technical Priest was pounding in his heart, but he was also surprised by the Terminators' power.
That speed, that restless fury, and that precision.
Severed limbs tumbled into the sky, but then rows of oncoming aliens trampled and climbed over the bodies of their dead brethren.
Lorcan had seen ants do this kind of thing.
The native army ants in their hometown are on the edge of a stream. The first ones drown themselves in the water so that the ones following can use their bodies as bridges, and the bridges are gradually lengthened.
Ants can always successfully cross the river.
Ants never remember their dead, they only exploit them.
Another wave of aliens rushed over from their right side, using their mouth organs to make blood-curdling screams.
The Terminator walking on the right drew his broadsword and turned to face them. The bolter in their arm was almost empty of ammunition, and what little was left must be reserved for worthy targets.
And Soshyan's sword hit a Genestealer directly in the chest, almost piercing it, and then he threw the alien completely to the opposite side.
The monster screamed and arced through the air before slamming into the wall, landing with a dirty splash.
Soshyan then cut off another head with a powerful swing, and then cut the third head straight down in half in half.
"Protect the primary target!"
Soshyan shouted and started running forward.
Loken was now completely huddled next to the workbench, and had no choice but to get under the table, because just now his head was almost cut off by a claw.
Four terminators surrounded him in the middle, separated at the four corners, while the aliens ran wildly along the two attack lines.
There was so much pus flying into the air that the respirators smelled like pus, and everyone was covered in pus splotches.
The Genestealers crashed into the four corners of the defenses without hesitation, only to receive death and dismemberment in return.
Loken suddenly remembered an old saying - the ants kill the elephant to death.
He realized that these creatures were similar to some kind of cooperative animals or insects. What gave them such selfless and almost mechanical efforts?
Individuals are never important, only groups are meaningful - just look at the encyclopedia notes of biological sages and you can see thousands of examples of nature, about selfless cooperation, about irrational strategies, about absolutely guaranteed survival.
But the gene stealers in the records are highly intelligent creatures, not simple-thinking reptiles. So what exactly shapes their duality?
Loken's mind is in chaos now, with various academic theories running around in his mind, but he can see the facts clearly——
A giant armored beetle can easily kill a tiny ant, but no river has ever stopped an ant colony.
Dietrian's fingers became indistinguishable as they tapped keys, pushed levers and adjusted dials.
The locking code obscured the information he wanted and was so complex that even if his own cracked keys worked within the designer's program, it would have forced some degree of adjustment in the instrument.
It wasn't an unexpected development, but it raised eyebrows that annoyed the skilled bishop.
What's even more annoying is that the gunfight fifty meters to his left is also a noisy excitement, because the bolter is not a silent weapon, and the hive master--a species Dietrian has never seen in person. The alien species was howling as it endured being torn apart by explosive bullets.
Not to mention that the crackling sound of the heavy bolt rounds combined with the guttural sound of the bolter fire created a strange tapping sound.
It's almost... almost...
Dietrian let out a whine of machine code processing from his vocabulary, a sound that sounded like a faint, monotonous pulse to anyone not trained in understanding this unique language.
But it was the closest he'd come to cheering in years.
Fifteen of the sixteen individual memory chips had slipped from the Master Contemplator's data socket, each one the size and shape of a human hand.
It contains the extremely precious data and blueprints of the Abyss-class battleship, each piece of which is a priceless treasure.
Although he didn't know how the Alpha Legion obtained such blueprints that had been theoretically destroyed long ago, now they were about to fall into his hands - although it was only temporary, it was enough to make Dietrian excited.
Almost, almost!
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