Chapter 116: Illegal Psyker Unit

Psychic flames roared fiercely in the air, wrapping around the Genestealers hiding among the noble's private troops.

"Aaaahhhhh!!!" cries filled with agony rose from the crowd.

A group of psykers, robed and with a touch of madness in their eyes, had appeared behind the Genestealers at some unknown moment.

These psykers held staves, roaring as they unleashed their psychic power.

Unquenchable soul-fire and scorching psychic lightning howled forth, piercing into the bodies of pure-blood Genestealers one after another.

General Droste watched this scene with some astonishment.

Where on earth had such a powerful unit of psykers come from?

The vast majority of the Empire's psykers are taken away by the Black Ships; scattered illegal psykers could never assemble a unit.

There is only one possibility: someone in a high position secretly sheltered a large number of illegal psykers who escaped the Black Ships.

General Droste frowned, looking at the withered old man protected by the psykers.

The man was younger than Droste, yet seemed ravaged by infinite fear, becoming decrepit and aged.

General Droste recognized him at a glance.

Governor Augustus Flax, that coward who hid in the refuge, and who also had a conflict with Zhou Yun.

Zhou Yun casually reached out, pressed down on the head of a pure-blood Genestealer, ripped it off, crushed it into a ball, and tossed it aside.

He looked at Augustus Flax, who was hiding within the psykers' protection.

"Oi, you're here?" Zhou Yun grinned.

His figure flickered slightly, dodging Bi La Ke, who had been hiding in the gaps of light and shadow, attempting to ambush him.

The winged figure within the Bai Guang used a blinding, brilliant light to mark all the invisible Bi La Ke.

Zhou Yun grabbed the Bi La Ke's claw, forcibly yanked it downward, and snapped the claw clean off.

Then, before it could react, he stuffed it into his pocket of the fourth dimension.

This was to prevent the Bi La Ke's consciousness from returning to the Hive Mind after its death.

Zhou Yun took a few steps forward, arriving before Governor Augustus Flax in the blink of an eye.

The psykers guarding the governor hurriedly stepped in front of Zhou Yun.

"Stay where you are!!!" The psyker closest to Augustus Flax took a deep breath, a surge of psychic power flowing from his body, and shouted loudly.

Another voice of temptation? Do all you psykers like to play this trick?

Zhou Yun shook his head in speechless exasperation.

This guy's psychic power wasn't even as strong as Xiang Xiang Leina's; it had no effect on him whatsoever.

Zhou Yun lightly extended a finger and flicked; invisible telekinetic force slammed into that psyker, sending him flying heavily.

Fear instantly flickered across the faces of the psykers guarding Governor Augustus Flax.

That man was almost one of the strongest psykers among them, yet Zhou Yun had instantly killed him with a casual move.

Augustus Flax felt no surprise, just as Zhou Yun felt no surprise at his appearance.

Zhou Yun understood what kind of person Augustus Flax was: cowardly, but if pushed to a certain limit, he would begin to counterattack.

This was how he had dealt with the Genestealer Patriarch back then, and how he had tried to kill Zhou Yun recently.

Now, the battle situation in Asford was getting worse and worse, and Genestealers had begun to appear on the battlefield.

Augustus Flax made the correct choice, sending his unit of psykers to participate in the fighting.

"Servitors?" Zhou Yun raised an eyebrow, looking at Governor Augustus Flax and asking.

"Servitors." Augustus Flax nodded, his voice hoarse.

These were servitors he had once commissioned the Arch-Magos Belisarius Cawl to create; their appearance and movements were almost perfectly synchronized with Augustus Flax.

"I am here to support you, using these units of psykers."

Augustus Flax, seemingly fearing Zhou Yun would misunderstand, pointed at the psykers beside him and said:

"They will be under your command."

"Me?" Zhou Yun raised an eyebrow slightly; this was somewhat unexpected.

"I am not a fool; I know who is most capable and who can make the best use of them," Augustus Flax said dryly, glaring at Zhou Yun.

"Is that so?" Zhou Yun shrugged, turning his head to look at General Droste, who was currently commanding the Cadian Shock Troops to sweep up the remaining Genestealers.

The portion of Cadian Shock Troops currently under his command had been enhanced by Zhou Yun using accelerated clockwork; their movement speed and reaction time far exceeded those of ordinary people.

Already well-trained, they now did not lose to pure-blood Genestealers even when facing them.

"General Droste! I have a unit of illegal psykers here; I'm handing them over to your command!"

Zhou Yun said, pointing at the illegal psykers beside him.

Commanding a unit? He was not good at that, nor did he have the mind for it.

Helping the Astra Militarum hold out until now was enough; many residents of Asford had already been evacuated to the Upper Hive, moving further toward the spaceport.

Zhou Yun planned to leave soon, when the Cadian Shock Troops began their retreat to the spaceport.

At that time, his usefulness on the battlefield would be minimal, and Zhou Yun himself had some things he must do that could no longer be done alongside the Astra Militarum. "Illegal psykers?" General Droste's voice rose a pitch; he seemed somewhat reluctant.

It was no wonder General Droste was wary.

Illegal psykers are prone to going berserk or falling into madness, even becoming gates to the Warp for demons to invade reality.

Especially since General Droste noticed that these illegal psykers all carried some degree of madness in their eyes.

It was unclear whether this was the result of the Warp shadow's influence or if they were simply mentally unstable to begin with.

"Sigh, it counts as assistance," General Droste said with a hint of disdain.

Considering the existence of the Warp shadow, which prevents the abominations in the Empyrean from invading reality, the risks of these illegal psykers were overall controllable.

Watching Zhou Yun hand over the command of the psyker unit without hesitation, while General Droste seemed somewhat reluctant to accept the command, Augustus Flax's cheeks twitched slightly.

How was it that in their eyes, the unit of psykers he had spent decades building up had instead become an object of disdain?

Augustus Flax took a deep breath and asked in a steady voice, "Is this enough for you to spare my life?"

If it were only Tiberius pursuing him, Augustus Flax felt he still had some hope of escaping.

But with Zhou Yun added to the mix, he felt his hope was slim.

"Huh?" Zhou Yun looked at Augustus Flax with sudden disdain: "Do you even remember who you are? Augustus Flax."

"You are the Governor of Asford. Everything you are doing now is not an extra contribution, but your own duty."

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"In this Empire, everyone must have their own responsibility. You enjoy the luxurious life brought by the governorship, so you must protect this planet."

Zhou Yun patted Augustus Flax on the shoulder:

"Open your eyes and see. The underhive thugs fighting the Tyranid swarm are the ones truly making sacrifices; they bear the responsibility you should have fulfilled."

"Spare your life? Many better than you have died because of this. On what grounds do you deserve to keep living?"

Augustus Flax did not know how to refute Zhou Yun for a moment.

Zhou Yun heavily punched Augustus Flax on the shoulder.

This was the way underhive gang thugs greeted each other; Augustus Flax's only response was to stand stunned.

"Asford has reached its final hour, and so have you."

"Summon some courage, my lord Governor."

Zhou Yun chuckled lightly:

"At least fulfill some of the duties you failed to fulfill in the past during these final moments."

With that, Zhou Yun turned and left.

At the same time the Genestealers launched their assault, the Tyranid swarm in the underhive also attacked; he and General Droste needed to turn back to support the underhive.

The swarm once again displayed their superior combat discipline.

After the Genestealers in the upper hive were ambushed and annihilated by the Astra Militarum, the Hive Mind must have immediately realized its plan had failed.

The Tyranid swarm in the underhive began to withdraw rapidly, no longer wasting excess biomass in a hopeless battle.

Moreover, through the eyes of the Genestealers and Bi La Ke, the Hive Mind must have also seen Zhou Yun heading toward the underhive.

To preserve its biomass, the Hive Mind fled without hesitation.

By the time Zhou Yun arrived at the underhive, the swarm had mostly retreated; even the corpses of the dead Tyranids had been almost entirely reclaimed by the Tyranid Devourers.

Under the gaze of the Sanguinius statue, not far from the three-way intersection stronghold, Zhou Yun walked helplessly through the ruins created by the battle between the Cadians and the Tyranids.

Zhou Yun hoped to find a few Node Creatures or the corpses of dead Tyranid Behemoths that the swarm had not reclaimed.

But Zhou Yun only found some lower-level Tyranid creatures, barely managing to gather over a hundred thousand in income.

"Ouch!"

Suddenly, Zhou Yun heard several moans on the ruins, very unpleasant moans.

Zhou Yun paused, because he felt the voice was somewhat familiar.

He walked toward the direction the sound came from and saw only a small, huddled figure lying in the ruins.

That person clutched their stomach, squeezed between the ruins like a boiled shrimp, moaning quietly.

He was not wearing Cadian gear; he must be one of the hive city thugs.

Zhou Yun approached the person; the person, immersed in pain, had not noticed Zhou Yun's approach at all.

Zhou Yun reached out and twisted the person's head around.

"Zhou... Zhou Yun, buddy?"

That person had an extremely ugly face; a terrifying bloody hole was opened in his stomach, with his internal organs exposed to the air.

He clutched his rotting, mangled organs tightly, preventing them from spilling out.

"Lag?" Zhou Yun paused, looking at the dying man before him and said.

(End of this chapter)