Chapter 318: The Cryptus Worm Appears
The psykers obeyed Augus's command without hesitation. In the relatively narrow space, the damage from the rampant psychic spells was instantly maximized. Arcs of psychic lightning chained between the soldiers, killing a large number of them in an instant.
Seeing their governor's insane act, the soldiers, spurred on by the Genestealer Cultists in their midst, began to fight back. A bloody slaughter ensued. The corridor was soon filled with the bodies of both sides. Under concentrated fire, the psykers also began to suffer casualties. Their overuse of psychic powers was causing their brains to suffer from the backlash. These unsanctioned psykers were, in the end, not powerful enough. The truly strong psykers were not a resource that a mere planetary governor like Augus could ever hope to control. Without the systematic training and control of the Scholastia Psykana or the Inquisition, psykers of that level would quickly become bridges for Chaos to enter the material universe.
But they were still more than enough to crush these ordinary soldiers.
"These Genestealers are far more cunning and cautious than we imagined," Norris observed, watching the slaughter. "By all rights, that Patriarch, along with his Purestrains, should have enough strength to annihilate this team. The Patriarch's own psychic power could have suppressed these unsanctioned psykers. But he didn't attack directly, instead choosing to weaken their numbers as much as possible. It's a good thing we didn't just reveal ourselves and grab the governor, or the Patriarch might have never shown himself at all."
Even as the situation had reached this point, Norris and the others continued to wait patiently.
The battle slowly began to die down. The corridor was filled with groans and severed limbs. Augus sat on the floor, breathing heavily. More than a dozen of his psykers were dead. Of the PDF he had ordered to be massacred, some had been killed by the psykers, but many more had fled. They would no longer protect their clearly insane governor.
In the eyes of the common mortals of this universe, psychic power was superstition and witchcraft. When such a supernatural, large-scale destructive power was unleashed, the psychological defenses of an ordinary person simply could not withstand it.
Looking at the field of limbs and corpses, Augus actually felt a sense of relief. The traitors who were trying to kill him were either dead or had run away. He was finally safe.
"Barnes... help me up."
But when Augus turned to look for Barnes at his side, he saw that his captain had long since been reduced to an unrecognizable ruin by the concentrated las-fire.
"Dammit! Emperor above! We can't stop! As long as we can reach the emergency passage, we can escape!"
But just as Augus was about to set off again, screams echoed from the end of the corridor. The fleeing PDF troops were being slaughtered. And then he heard the unmistakable roar of a Tyranid, which made his eyes go wide with terror.
"Turn back! Go the other way!"
But as he turned, he heard the sound of sharp talons scraping rapidly against the metal floor from behind him. At this point, the psykers at his side were also nearing their limit. They, too, looked with despair at both ends of the corridor.
The lights overhead flickered and died. The Genestealers had cut the power supply to this section. The entire corridor was plunged into darkness, lit only by the faint, flashing red of a few emergency lights.
And in the pitch-black darkness at the end of the tunnel, countless pairs of blood-red eyes swayed as they moved closer.
"He's here... Tiberius! You freak! You've finally come for me!"
Augus drew the laspistol from his hip and fired madly at the approaching darkness. But the las-beams had no effect. In the brief flashes of light, the blasphemous form of Tiberius was revealed to him. The las-beams left only a shallow scorch mark on his carapace.
The psykers tried to use their powers again to kill the enemy. But the Genestealer Patriarch was not only a supreme individual combatant, but also an overwhelmingly powerful psyker. Their spells had no effect. In fact, Tiberius unleashed a psychic illusion that caused several of the already-exhausted psykers to be enthralled. Their faces went blank, and they picked up the pistols from the ground, raised them to their own heads, and, without hesitation, pulled the triggers.
Augus could only watch as his xenos brother stood before him, looking down on him as if in mockery.
"Heh... hahaha... Tiberius, you win," Augus laughed, his mind completely broken. "I only regret... that I didn't manage to kill you all those years ago..."
At this moment, his psychological defenses had completely collapsed. He dropped his weapon and, walking past the few remaining psykers, slowly stumbled towards Tiberius. He knew he was not going to survive today. Augus was actually walking forward to actively seek his own death.
The surrounding Genestealers immediately pounced, killing the last of his psyker bodyguards. The blood that spurted from their torn bodies splattered all over Augus's fine clothes.
He opened his arms, closed his eyes, and prepared to accept his death. Tiberius, too, raised his claws, ready to finally eliminate the brother he so wanted to kill.
The claws sliced down heavily. But a moment later, Augus felt no pain.
He opened his eyes and saw a clean cut on Tiberius's claws. A human holding a glowing blade was standing in front of him.
Norris had made his move. Using his phase-shift ability, he had instantly intercepted Tiberius's fatal blow. Now that their target had appeared, there was no longer any need for them to hide.
The Ghosts' combat suits, no longer needing to maintain their cloak, could now channel their full psionic power. Their psi-blades ignited, and their C-20A rifles, loaded with special armor-piercing rounds, began to fire. One by one, the Purestrain Genestealers, caught off guard, had their brains pierced by the armor-piercing rounds.
Seeing this sudden appearance of enemies, the Tyranids were stunned, having no idea so many foes were hidden in the darkness.
The Dark Templar, however, relying on their even greater mastery of psionic power and the Void, remained cloaked. In Tiberius's psychic senses, he could only feel dozens of vague, powerful psionic signatures weaving through his Genestealers. One by one, his Purestrains died, their vital points pierced, without ever having seen their enemy. Zeratul, in particular, with his powerful combat techniques and mastery of the Void, was killing with extreme efficiency. In a blur of movement, he was already surrounded by a pile of Genestealer corpses.
His biological instincts told Tiberius how dangerous these new beings were. Although one of his arms had been severed, he was still an incredibly powerful combatant. Norris, in front of him, was feeling an unparalleled pressure. The creature's speed was astonishing. The Patriarch could dodge his strikes and ignore the bullets from his rifle. His own psychic illusions had no effect on it.
Sensing the rapidly intensifying psychic power coming from Tiberius, Norris immediately fell back. A psychic scream erupted from the Patriarch, expanding outwards in all directions. This indiscriminate psychic assault threw the psionic control of both the Ghosts and the Protoss into disarray, and the cloaked Dark Templar were forced to break their concealment.
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