Chapter 427

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Protagonist:

Lin En

Lena

At the same moment, deep within the Bug Swarm Will's consciousness network, Lena's consciousness was sharing the battlefield's full perception through a mixed-blood officer in the garrison troops.

Human emotions surged into her consciousness in an unending stream.

There was fear, there was tension, there was bewilderment at the unknown, but at the very bottom lay a heavy, almost stubborn resolve.

They knew they would die.

They understood that facing the Thousand Sons' Wizard Legion, facing that Flesh Mutant that had devoured the Orbital Light Spear, a mere garrison of tens of thousands would not last long.

Yet not a single person retreated.

Lena quietly "watched" those busy figures on the position.

Young soldiers' hands trembled as they loaded their laser guns, yet they still stood in the front rank.

Elderly pastors coughed blood, yet still raised their Holy Staffs high, chanting prayers.

Bishop Jansen leaned on his Scepter at the very forefront of the position, his back thin but ramrod straight, like a pillar separating Chaos from the human world.

She suddenly recalled something Lin En had once said.

Back then she could not understand this creature called human.

Weak, short-lived, full of emotions and flaws, individual combat power was negligible before the Bug Race's biological weapons.

They had no shared consciousness network, no unified will, they exhausted themselves against each other, suspected each other, endlessly fighting over trivial interests.

But Lin En told her, the most terrifying thing about humans was never individual strength.

"They would give everything, including their lives, willingly, for some intangible things — homeland, honor, their own kind, even an ideal that can never be realized."

"Willingly give everything, including their lives."

At the time Lena only found it absurd.

Tyranid individuals' sacrifice was only for the Swarm's endless consumption, to satisfy a limitless appetite; it was the optimal solution written in their genes, cold survival logic.

But human sacrifice often had no "cost-effectiveness" to speak of.

Clearly stepping back would let them live, clearly surrendering would grant longer life, yet they deliberately chose the most tragic path.

Utterly inefficient, utterly irrational.

But now, when the shared resolve of tens of thousands surged into her consciousness through perception, when those figures who knew they must die yet still gripped their weapons appeared clearly before her eyes.

Lena suddenly felt an indescribable stirring.

This was not a gene command, not a compulsory order from the Hive Cluster Will.

It was their own choice.

Choosing to use flesh-and-blood bodies to block the Warp's torrent.

Lena could not empathize with human emotions, nor fully understand the logic behind this "sublimity."

But she knew these people were helping Lin En hold Brevis, helping her hold the biomass and order on this planet not yet consumed.

What she could do was not waste a single second they bought with their lives.

"Relay orders to the Bottom City priests: all Purge Pestilence armed forces assemble immediately toward Middle City, deploy along the Underground Pipe Network, intercept any Chaos Units attempting to infiltrate from underground."

"Three regiments of the Vanguard Army Reserve, immediately deploy to the Middle City surrounding Street Districts, establish Deep Rear defenses using buildings as cover."

"All anti-air firepower redirect to ground, prioritize coverage of the Warp Domain's surrounding Area."

Order after order sped down the Bug Swarm network, precise, efficient, not a shred of redundancy.

The Bottom City Cult Armed Forces moved, the Ice Plains Cold Soldier Army also stood ready to deploy at any moment, the Governor's Mansion's direct Vanguard Army Reserve also moved.

The entire armed might of Brevis, under Lena's coordination, converged toward Middle City or prepared to backstop.

She did not understand human sacrifice, but she would use her own way to catch this sacrifice.

Inside the Warp Domain, Atia stepped on the floating Floating Oddity Disc, slowly drifting away from the Flesh Flower's core.

The dark blue Power Armor gleamed with Gloss beneath the Distorted Starlight, its armor Surface engraved with dense Lord of Change Runes.

Gold edging wound along the armor plates' grain, tracing intricate and bizarre patterns.

The Helmet's Eye Slits held none of the usual Chaos Space Marine ferocity, only a near-indifferent thirst for knowledge, like a scholar observing a Specimen on an experimental table.

His Left Hand gripped a Witchcraft Staff as tall as a man; its double-headed bird Staff Top was set with a constantly rotating Multifaceted Crystal, each Rotation refracting a different Color of Warp Fire.

A deep blue velvet Cloak draped from his shoulders; the Cloak bore nine Pupils that gently rotated with his movements, as if constantly peering into Reality.

As one of the Nine Great High Wizards under the Knowledge Cult Sovereign, Atia had rarely set foot in the Reality Universe for a long time.

Most of the time he remained in the Wizard Star's Temple Library, poring over ancient Scrolls, unraveling fate's threads, studying the Essence of all things.

The Lord of Change granted him Wisdom, and an insatiable thirst for knowledge.

Everything unknown in the world, everything veiled, everything that Deviated from fate's trajectory, could drive him mad.

And this time, what drew him to this remote Border Planet was a person.

A person whose fate was entwined with Tyranid Tentacles.

The initial Clue came from an Artifact acquired by chance — the Eye of Radicus.

It was a Relic excavated from a Space Necropolis, modified by Thousand Sons Sorcerers, able to spy on most individuals' fate trajectories, never once in error.

But three months ago, when under the Lord of Change's guidance he turned its observation Target to the Brevis Star System, the Eye of Radicus failed.

On that Planet, one person's fate line was completely blank.

No past, no future, no observable trajectory whatsoever.

It was as if this person did not exist in the river of fate at all, yet truly influenced the course of an entire star system.

Even more interestingly, in the faint afterimages fed back by the artifact, that person was surrounded by Tyranid biological tentacles.

Not parasitism, or devouring, but symbiosis.

A human had established a deep symbiotic relationship with the Tyranids, and could even influence the Bug Swarm in return.

This discovery ignited all of Atia's enthusiasm almost instantly.

What are the Tyranids? They are the purest predators in the galaxy, a biological flood with only the instinct to devour.

They have no individual will, no possibility of communication, and no one has ever truly "domesticated" them.

If they could study the essence of this symbiosis, if they could master the method of controlling the Tyranids...

Then for the Knowledge Cult, it would be a revolutionary breakthrough.

Even, it could advance Supreme Master's plan by thousands of years.

And so he came.

Bringing an elite Thousand Sons Warband, following the summoning of the Chaos Believers, stepping across the passage built by nine Blood Altars, he personally descended upon this remote planet.

Atia's gaze crossed the boundary of the domain, sweeping over the Imperial guards standing ready outside.

Tens of thousands of ordinary human soldiers, thousands of low-ranking clergy, hundreds of crude armor carriers.

Weak to the point of ridiculousness.

He was too lazy to personally deal with these ants.

To him, those warriors outside were not even "opponents," at most just trash that needed to be cleaned up before the experiment.

His true target was that special human who could control the Tyranids.

"Clean them up."