Chapter 678: The Hive Mind's Victory!

Fabius Bile chose this system to hide in based on a momentary feeling, intuition, and inspiration.

This system was empty, having never left any trace in the galaxy, and possessed almost no resources. It didn't even have a name on the Imperium of Man's star charts.

No one cared, no one noticed.

But what Fabius did not know was that a tiny xenos race had once been born in this system.

Through a chance burst of inspiration, this race discovered the mysteries of fossil fuels, used the barren resources to create roaring internal combustion engines, and gradually formed a worship of the howling power within the engines, believing in the ethereal V8 Power God. Their civilization had developed to a level approaching that of humanity's twentieth century.

But because of a lack of critical resources and technology, this xenos race never managed to leave their world and fly among the stars, at most barely reaching their neighboring satellite.

But decades ago, this poor race met its doom.

The Leviathan Hive Fleet, which had been repelled by the Blood Angels at Baal, had a tiny number of tendrils that survived, fleeing the Red Scar zone and heading toward the galactic fringe, passing through this system just right.

The starving Tyranid swarm surged toward the planet where this race resided. Even if it was only a small remnant tendril, it was something this weak race could not resist.

The Tyranid swarm devoured this planet. That race prayed to their V8 Power God, but it did not bring any results. In the end, the entire planet was devoured by the remnant tendrils of the Leviathan Hive Fleet.

But this planet was too barren, and the engines manufactured by this race had extremely low conversion efficiency. They had wasted a large amount of resources in vain. The resources the swarm absorbed were just enough for this tendril to survive, but not enough for them to continue hunting among the stars.

Thus, this tendril chose to hide beneath the surface of the planet they had devoured, wrapping itself in egg sacs and falling into hibernation, waiting for a chance to recover or merge with other tendrils.

But this system was truly too barren, and without passing through the Warp, reaching here required passing through the even more barren, more dangerous Red Scar zone, where the Blood Angels' home world of Baal existed.

After the Battle of Baal and the Battle of the Underworld decades ago, the Tyranid Hive Mind had suffered a mental breakdown. In that battle, it had personally intervened and ended up losing big, and now it refused to go anywhere near the edge of the Red Scar zone.

This Hive Fleet was therefore trapped here, remaining in a long slumber underground.

Originally, everything would have passed like this...

But when Fabius Bile arrived in this desolate system and activated the Source Blood Stack, everything changed.

The aura of that holy gene sequence awakened the Tyranid swarm sleeping beneath the surface.

A Lictor broke out of its cocoon, its body drilling out from the earth, its sharp head looking toward the stars. Its sensory system captured the scents overflowing in the air from both the reality and Warp dimensions.

It smelled the scent of lightning, like an alley in a deep, dark city at midnight; a bolt of lightning tore through the sky, and in the water-logged alley, there were only ghostly shadows, raising a night wind of fear.

It smelled the scent of red sand, like the sweat of slaves dragging iron chains on a desolate land; the slaves raised their blades high, breaking their shackles, destroying cities and burning lands, only to be burned to ashes in the end.

It smelled the scent of arrows, like a centaur treading across the stars, drawing its bow; the endless crusade ravaged thousands of worlds, burning the galaxy, the Moon Wolves roaring, arrows shot out, without regret or resentment.

It smelled the scent of files, like countless documents piled into dense mountains; writing without pause, working overtime without end, order flowing out from these documents, outlining a nation...

The Lictor took a deep breath, savoring the twenty scents surging in its sensory system. This scent followed the link between it and the Hive Mind, transmitting to the shadow-like Hive Mind.

The shadow squirmed, hunger flowed; it coveted that extraordinary gene sequence.

Its consciousness crossed the stars, reaching directly onto this desolate planet.

Beneath the earth, the Tyranid swarms in the egg sacs began to wake up.

But these creatures did not break through the ground directly; instead, they flew toward the Hive Ship sleeping deep in the earth. That first Lictor that had broken through the ground also drilled back in.

Countless Tyranid creatures dissolved in the Hive's biomass pool, pumped through capillary pipes into the Norn Queen deep within the Hive Ship, awakening this Mother of Fate who wove the Tyranid gene sequences.

The Norn Queen squirmed her tentacles, opened her body, and biomass began to be consumed rapidly. Coffin Crawlers crawled out from the sphincter pipes, pumping gene material behind the Norn Queen's head.

Millions of different genotypes began to flow within the Queen's body. The Queen began to cut and twist these genotypes, creating suitable species.

The Queen yearned to create a Norn Emissary, to let the Norn Emissary go and seize that extraordinary gene sequence.

But the biomass required to weave a Norn Emissary was an astronomical number. Now, all the biomass in this tiny tendril was not enough to shape a Norn Emissary.

She could only settle for the next best thing, shaping a Lictor, and completing the Hive Mind's request as much as possible.

+It must be able to cross the vacuum and reach that void ship silently. +

Good, good. Able to cross the vacuum; it can generate a pod to resist the void, wrapping its body. The pod can burn biomass to form high-pressure gas, expelled through the sphincter to achieve movement in the vacuum.

A large amount of biomass was consumed and stored to supply that Lictor to cross the vacuum.

+Its size must be large yet small, its figure must be light, and it must not make any sound when walking on metal floors, able to pass silently through the gaps between pipes and machinery. +

Good, good. Both large and small, yet light, able to pass through the gaps between pipes and machinery. It will have complex foldable joints and hollow bones to reduce its weight. To ensure it is silent when walking, soft pads will be added to its feet, and its outer skin will be changed to a 3D mesh foam structure, which can deform with nearby structures, able to squeeze into the gaps between pipes and machinery.

+It must have extremely strong stealth capabilities, not just optical stealth, but also stealth functions in terms of scent, sound, and psychology. +

Good, good. Optical stealth is the Lictor's specialty and needs to be retained. In terms of scent, the scent it emits will be stored in the 3D foam structure of its skin, ensuring it will not leak a single bit of scent. Sound will also be solved by sound absorption through the foam structure. Psychological stealth...

A large amount of biomass was consumed rapidly. After hundreds of thousands of attempts, the Norn Queen wove a colorless, odorless pheromone that would not trigger any type of sensor. This pheromone would affect the creature's brain, causing it to ignore this Lictor on a psychological level.

+And psychic power, powerful psychic power. While possessing extraordinary psychic power, it must also not be detected when you use psychic power. +

Huh?

The Norn Queen's thinking stuttered for a moment. It was just a Norn Queen of a small tendril, responsible for only a tiny sub-fleet in the Leviathan Hive Fleet. Its performance was far inferior to its sisters who controlled the entire grand fleet.

The Hive Mind's request even caused her thinking to stutter for more than ten minutes.

A large amount of biomass burned, and millions of genome modules began to be repeatedly cut, reshaped, and integrated. After attempt after attempt, the Norn Queen finally barely completed the psychic organ that met the Hive Mind's requirements and could be stuffed into that special Lictor's body.

+Strengthen the link with the Hive Mind; no need to inject wisdom. The Hive Mind will personally control this body. +

?

The Norn Queen's movements stuttered for a moment; she was a bit at a loss.

Her experience told her that with such a long-distance link, there would be a certain delay between the Hive Mind and the Lictor's body. Although extremely short, it existed after all and could easily become a flaw and a weakness.

But the Norn Queen did not possess a true will after all. She obeyed the Hive Mind's wisdom and wove the Lictor's gene sequence.

A large amount of biomass burned rapidly, and the Norn Queen's body visibly withered. Large areas in the Hive Ship also began to be closed, dismantled, and melted into biomass, injected into the pool to cultivate this Lictor, which could be called terrifying.

The orange-yellow embryo sac shattered, and sharp claws slowly pierced out from the pool.

This Lictor, which could generate a pod to use sphincter gas ejection to cross the vacuum, had a foldable skeleton to be both large and small, a hollow skeleton for a light body, foot pads to reduce movement noise, 3D mesh foam skin to squeeze into gaps and pipes while eliminating scent and sound, pheromones to achieve psychological stealth, possessed a massive psychic organ and would not cause obvious Warp reactions when releasing psychic power, and was remotely controlled by the Hive Mind, was born.

Pfft, pfft, pfft, shhh, snap!

The Hive Mind controlled this Lictor to drill out of the surface, generated a pod on its body surface, burned biomass to form high-pressure gas, and with a pfft, flew out of the atmosphere, silently approaching Fabius Bile's ship, sticking to the surface of Fabius's ship.

The pod shattered, and the Lictor hooked onto the outer perimeter of the ship with its sharp claws.

Relying on psychic power, its body blurred slightly, allowing it to instantly drill into the interior of the ship.

After entering the ship, it quickly folded its body and drilled into the pipes of the ship. The foot pads and 3D mesh foam skin allowed it to eliminate almost all sound, silently shuttling through the ship, searching for that extraordinary and alluring gene sequence.

Soon, the Lictor found that extraordinary gene sequence.

It saw Fabius Bile.

The Chirurgeon behind Fabius unfolded, and various experimental instruments were testing and researching the mass of blood suspended in zero gravity before him. ===== CHAPTER 679 =====