Chapter 24: Warhammer: What Do You Mean You've Romanced the Bug Race

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Protagonist:

Lin En

Lena

"Huff~ hah, huff~ hah......"

Only after Cassius's footsteps had completely faded did Lin En fully relax.

He fell to the ground, gasping heavily, every breath carrying the taste of blood and a burning pain in his lungs.

It seemed he was temporarily safe.

But he knew this was merely commuting a death sentence to a reprieve.

The threat posed by Cassius and the Medusa's Sons Squad had to be completely eradicated.

For now, he was merely exploiting the system's strangeness to temporarily create an unstable "cooperation."

He struggled to his feet, leaning against the wall, walking unsteadily toward the warehouse gate.

The moment he pushed open the door, several waiting low-ranking officers and clerks outside looked at him in surprise.

They had thought this mortal patrol officer, summoned alone by the non-commissioned officer, might never walk out of that door again.

Combined with the non-commissioned officer's expression just now, as if he had eaten shit, what on earth had happened inside the warehouse?

Lin En ignored their "gossiping" gazes, simply keeping his head down and wiping the bloodstains from his face with his sleeve.

Dragging his exhausted body, he left the Medusa's Sons outpost step by step.

His back, under the eternally dim light of the Nest Capital, looked especially frail, yet carried an indescribable, post-madness calm.

Returning to a temporary safe point, Lin En immediately sent a message through the system to Lena, who was healing below the outpost:

"The crisis is temporarily resolved; you focus on healing. I have reached an agreement with the Space Marine to continue providing him with information."

Lena's reply was still concise: 【Received.】

In the days that followed, Lin En, like the most precise gear, was once again embedded into this terrifying war machine known as the Medusa's Sons.

He performed even more "efficiently" than before.

Using Lena's special perception of the Bug Network, Lin En provided Cassius Squad with one piece of Bug intelligence after another.

These intelligence pointed to Bug nodes of various sizes, Gene Thief Sect outposts, or spore sac clusters about to hatch.

Cassius Squad acted like a purifying flame, both fervent and efficient, sweeping them out one by one according to the intelligence.

The roaring of warhammer 40000, the shrill cry of heat melt rays, the roar of flamethrowers, constantly sounded throughout the Nest Capital.

Cassius's attitude toward Lin En was an extremely complex emotion.

He abided by the cooperation agreement under that absurd "agreement," no longer directly targeting Lena, or rather, temporarily lowering Lena's priority.

He also adopted and executed the intelligence Lin En provided.

But in private, the two almost never communicated.

Cassius's gaze toward Lin En always carried scrutiny, vigilance, and a trace of barely noticeable "awkwardness."

Everything that happened that night occasionally caused him an indescribable irritation.

Lin En was the same.

Especially as the number of missions executed and their efficiency constantly increased.

Cassius's affection level kept rising.

This affection level thing was very strange, because it was bidirectional.

That is to say, Lin En's "affection" for Cassius would also constantly increase.

Even just looking at Cassius's shiny bald head for too long, Lin En felt some strange taste arising in his heart.

This absolutely could not happen!

Although in a sense, these canned foods in Lin En's eyes all belonged to virgins.

But he, Lin En, was a Pure Love Warrior, and he was absolutely loyal to Lena!

So Cassius must not be kept!

Whenever he saw Cassius looking at him with the same awkward gaze, Lin En knew the other was thinking the same as him.

Sigh~ truly a pair of ill-fated lovebirds!

To nip this improper emotional line in the bud, Lin En simply stopped pretending.

He had to quickly increase Lena's strength!

He no longer hid from the Medusa's Sons, but instead used their power to madly weaken other Bug forces.

At the same time, seizing time and resources for his and Lena's development!

So, whenever Cassius Squad completed a cleanup, leaving Bug remains and biomass all over the ground,

Lin En would "coincidentally" lead his patrol squad, responsible for outer area vigilance and preliminary battlefield cleanup.

The Medusa's Sons had no objection; handling remains was originally a tedious and "inefficient" task, so leaving it to mortals was just right.

But what they didn't know was that Lin En's "cleanup" was essentially Lena's self-service feast.

He almost only picked the best parts, those with the most abundant energy and most helpful for Lena's recovery and growth—the "essence."

He had the bug swarm dispatched by Lena collect them, bring them back to the outpost for Lena to devour.

He himself led the patrol squad to "seriously" patrol the outer areas, actually standing guard for Lena's "meal packaging."

This behavior, almost like hiding the obvious, carried extremely high risk, but the gains were also enormous.

Lena's injuries, nourished by high-quality biomass, recovered at an astonishing speed.

More importantly, her strength began to swell at an unprecedented speed.

On Lin En's System Interface, the number representing Lena's Affection Level, after a long period of slow climbing.

With Lin En's near "extravagant" resource investment during this time and the experience of "Suffering Together" (though mostly Lin En was the one suffering).

Finally reached Lin En's expectations.

【Lena Affection Level +0.1】

【Current Affection: 30 (Possibly trustworthy (?) special symbiosis unit)】

The moment Affection Level crossed the 30-point mark, the system issued a new notification:

【Cumulative Available Skill Points: 3】

Three Skill Points!

These three Skill Points can be said to be hard-won; since Affection Level broke zero, changes to this number have become extremely difficult.

These 30 Affection Levels were exchanged for an unknown amount of effort by Lin En.

Lin En stared at Lena's hideous yet beautiful Bug Warrior Illustration on the System Interface, without any hesitation.

All points into "Personal Line"!

What he wanted was not Insect Sea Tactics (Development Line), nor Command Art (Tactical Line).

What was most urgently needed now was an "Ace Individual Combat Power" capable of clashing head-on at critical moments, and possibly even creating miracles!

An "Ace" capable of fighting against, and even threatening, Cassius Squad!

【Skill Points Invested: 3 → 'Individual' Skill Tree.】

Core Skill unlocked: 【Thousand Changes Armor】.

The moment the skill took effect, Lena, healing in a concealed fault deep within the Nest Capital, let out a low and pleased hissing sound.

The dark purple carapace on her body began to undergo subtle changes.

The color became deeper and more restrained, and the textures and reflective properties on the carapace surface began to self-adjust.

【Thousand Changes Armor】 Effect: Based on the environment, self-adaptively evolve the most suitable camouflage chitinous armor for current needs.

Current enhancement direction: Targeting Son of Medusa's "Concealment".