svetikya Chapter 82 The Day of Ascension Arrives!
Chapter 82 The Day of Ascension Arrives!
Chapter 82 The Day of Ascension Arrives!
Bad things always seem to come one after another.
After Andy piloted the "New Bond" out of the ground, creating a disaster comparable to an 8-magnitude earthquake in the Ninth District of Zhongchao.
The seismic waves traveled down the Earth's crust, penetrating the lithosphere and reaching a depth of fifty kilometers underground.
The planetary-level geothermal hub of Furnace-7 is also the headquarters of the "Ascendant Mining Alliance".
In the center of this dark, damp, and vast underground cavity filled with the smell of sulfur and geothermal steam, stands a throne made of abandoned pipes, industrial waste, and the flesh and blood of some unknown creature.
A colossal creature sat upon the throne.
The gene-stealing patriarch.
It stands over five meters tall, with a swollen purple head and four extremely strong forelimbs, its chitinous carapace covered with thick psionic crystals.
As the progenitor of all gene stealers on this planet, he is the absolute core of the entire sect and the living totem of the faith known as the "Four-Armed Emperor".
At that moment, the violent tremors of the ground reached this point, shaking off the rubble from the dome.
But the clan chief did not react.
Its eyes, gleaming with an eerie light, were fixed on the rock formations above, as if their gaze could penetrate tens of thousands of kilometers of void.
It sensed it.
It wasn't a geological change, but a larger, more intimate kind of fluctuation.
It is — [Shadow]!
In the gap between subspace and real space, a massive biological fleet has just cut into the edge of the gravitational well in the Scalles sector.
The Tyranid fleet does not use the warp engine.
The Tyranids use a bio-ship called the "Narwhal," which can sense and manipulate the gravity of planetary systems, creating a gravity tunnel that compresses space to achieve faster-than-light travel, though it is slower than humans.
Although their physical form was still several hours away from Forge-7, the massive, suffocating projection of the Hive Will, the "Warspace Shadow," had already enveloped them.
For the clan chief, this was a signal.
God has descended!
The patriarch's pituitary gland instantly secreted a special chemical substance, which spread at the speed of light throughout the planet's "nest consciousness network" via its psychic tendrils.
Its underlying instruction code has been changed.
From 【lurking, infiltrating, and reproducing】.
Force a switch to [Destruction, Chaos, Harvest].
The chieftain opened his large mouth, which was covered with fangs, and let out a silent psionic shriek.
This pulse is silent; humans cannot hear it, and the Mechanics' sensors cannot read it.
But on Forge 7, there are millions of infected with the Tyranid gene, whether they are laborers mining in the bottom hive, technicians working in the middle hive, or officials mingling in the upper hive administration building.
They stopped what they were doing in the same microsecond.
Their pupils contracted instantly, and the emotions, memories, and moral constraints that originally belonged to humans in their minds were completely overwritten by this tyrannical psionic command.
The day of ascension has arrived!
Bottom Nest, Mine Pit No. 44.
Hundreds of purple-skinned, bald miners belonging to the "Ascension Mining Alliance" are at work.
They are known for being "tireless and never complaining," making them the supervisors' favorite workforce.
A human overseer was idly patrolling the area, holding an electric whip.
"Hurry up! The higher-ups urgently need this batch of ore!"
The overseer roared and habitually cracked his whip.
Normally, even if these miners are beaten, they will just lower their heads and continue working.
But this time, the miner who was being beaten stopped.
He slowly turned around.
His previously blank face now revealed an expression of extreme fanaticism and ferocity.
He raised the high-powered laser cutter he was using to cut rocks.
"For—the Four-Armed God Emperor!"
"Zi"
Before the supervisor had any time to react, the high-temperature laser beam swept directly across his waist.
The foreman's upper body slid down, the cut smooth and charred.
At the same time, hundreds of miners in the entire mine suddenly rose up.
They used pickaxes, drills, and even sharp teeth to attack all the human workers and guards around them.
This is not an isolated case.
At the same time, mutinies broke out in hundreds of mining areas, factories, and recycling stations scattered throughout the bottom and lower nests.
These normally docile workers instantly transformed into the most bloodthirsty beasts.
They coalesced into a purple wave, and even without a unified commander, under the coordination of the Hive's will, they launched a suicidal charge toward the key energy nodes and defensive facilities.
Zhongchao, the Fifth District Central Hospital.
This is the best public hospital besides Helios' private clinic.
A cry rang out in the delivery room.
A young human husband, beaming with happiness, approached the delivery bed, eager to see his newborn child.
His wife is a very capable administrative clerk in Zhongchao. Although she is usually quiet and somewhat aloof, he loves her very much.
"Honey, you've worked so hard. Is it a boy or—"
The husband's words caught in his throat.
Because he saw that the baby the nurse was holding had a pale purplish-red skin, and—
Beneath those two normal little hands, there was a deformed third hand with sharp claws.
This is a pure-blooded gene-stealer larva.
The gene-stealer's reproductive cycle is a perfect closed loop; the first and second generation hybrids look like monsters and can only hide underground.
The third and fourth generation of mixed-race children look almost exactly like humans, and are even more intelligent, stronger, and extremely charismatic. They are responsible for infiltrating the upper echelons of human society and having children with humans.
The fifth generation born to the fourth-generation mixed-race children will experience atavism, reverting to the purest Tyranid biological form.
The husband was stunned, his mind went blank.
He couldn't understand why he and his wife had given birth to such a monster.
Just then, the wife, who should have been extremely weak while lying on the delivery bed, suddenly sat up.
She received the clan chief's signal.
The disguise is over.
The weakness and maternal love on her face vanished instantly, replaced by absolute coldness.
She reached out and grabbed a pair of sharp surgical scissors from the tray next to her.
"Pfft."
The scissors precisely pierced the husband's carotid artery.
Blood spurted out, splashing onto her beautiful yet cold face.
The husband clutched his neck, staring incredulously at his beloved lying in a pool of blood.
The woman didn't even glance at him.
She got out of bed, stepped barefoot into the blood, and snatched the monstrous baby with three arms from the terrified nurse.
She held the baby in her arms, a strange smile on her face.
"God has come!"
"God has come! God has come!"
She walked out of the delivery room.
In the corridor, the other "patients" and "family members" also dropped their pretenses.
They pulled out automatic pistols and bone spikes hidden under their clothes and began massacring the doctors and nurses in the hospital.
This scene occurred in every corner of Furnace-7.
Social order collapsed in an instant.
The most terrifying thing is not the strength of the enemy, but the destruction of trust.
Your colleagues with whom you spend every day, your lover sleeping next to you, or even your respected boss.
One second ago they were normal people, the next they've become alien believers who would stab you without hesitation.
This psychological impact is more destructive to a person's will to resist than physical killing.
Upper Nest, the Temple of the Mechanic Church, where towers were forged.
Foundry Director Sigma-7 is in a state of extreme rage.
"Heretical! That damned heretic!"
Clearly, he had already seen the massive spaceship that had entered the orbital dock on the holographic screen.
One hour.
The orbital defense laser array will require another hour to recharge.
But the other party obviously wouldn't give him that time.
"Since the laser cannon is unusable and the fire control radar can't lock on (the electromagnetic shielding field is fixed), let's just fire!"
The Sigma-7 roared into the communications channel.
"Order all air defense missile positions to stop using fire control radar lock-on! Start manually aiming!"
"That target is so big, even a blind person could hit it!"
"Launch all the missiles and bring it down!"
However, the communication channel was completely silent.
No one responded to his orders.
"Answer me! 4th Anti-Aircraft Battalion! 7th Anti-Aircraft Company! Are you all dead?!"
Sigma-7 angrily pounded on the control panel.
Just then, the doors to the command center slowly opened.
A squad of elite guards responsible for protecting the core area of the tower entered.
They wore heavy red armor and carried arc rifles that crackled with electricity.
"What are you doing here?"
Sigma-7 turned around, its electronic eyes flashing red.
"I did not summon the guards to return to their posts!"
The leading group of religious defenders did not stop.
He took off his helmet.
What was revealed was neither a bio-engineered eye that had undergone a sacred transformation, nor a bald head implanted with a large number of chips.
Instead, it was a face with light purple skin and obvious bone hyperplasia on its forehead.
This is a fourth-generation hybrid gene stealer who infiltrated the Guardians of the Church and rose to a high position.
"Director."
His voice was calm, yet carried a chilling fervor.
"The defense system will not activate, and the communication lines have been cut off."
"We need to keep this place quiet in order to welcome the arrival of the savior."
Sigma-7 was stunned.
His core logic revolved around frantically calling the police, but he couldn't comprehend what was happening before his eyes.
The Mechanicus's apologists are loyal guardians who have undergone the most rigorous ideological imprinting and neurological modification.
How could they possibly betray us?
"Are you... an alien?"
"We are the Ascended."
The friar raised his arc rifle.
Goodbye, decaying machinery.
"Sizzle—!!"
The blue high-voltage electric arc illuminated the entire command center.
Sigma-7 didn't even have time to activate its personal force field shield before it was struck by countless intertwined arcs of electricity.
His highly modified body convulsed violently under the strong electric current, and the internal circuit boards and biological tissues were instantly charred.
"Bang."
The casting director collapsed to the ground, emitting a plume of black smoke, and the system completely crashed.
The mixed-race friar stepped forward, kicked aside the wreckage of the Sigma-7, and stood in front of the control panel.
He reached out and entered a series of commands on the panel that controlled the entire planet's orbital defense system.
[Command: System offline.]
[Command: Release all track locks.]
As the red confirmation button is pressed.
The planet Casting Furnace-7 has completely lost its outer shell.
It's like a peeled egg, nakedly exposed in the cold, dark, and malicious universe.
Outer space, inside the orbital dock.
Thanks to Andy's brilliant planning, the New Bond has been repaired by more than 95%, and several huge robotic arms have firmly locked it in place.
Andy stood on the bridge, looking out at the planet.
From space, Furnace-7 still appears as a hazy gray expanse, with swirling clouds and a faint glow in the atmosphere.
But in Andy's tactical view, the planet had already turned red.
Countless red dots representing "firefights," "explosions," and "fires" are spreading wildly across the planet's surface.
In particular, the air defense positions that should have been flashing green friendly signals are now all extinguished.
"What's going on?" Andy frowned. Had Helios and the Cult of Mechanics fallen out?
"No, Mr. Andy."
Xiao Liu's voice suddenly rang out, no longer the calm broadcast tone, but carrying a trace of extremely rare emotional fluctuation: "This unit has detected extremely high intensity subspace interference."
"This type of interference is definitely not an ordinary subspace storm."
"It is ordered and oppressive, like a giant dome that is isolating the planet from the subspace."
Xiao Liu pulled up a star chart.
At the edge of the star map, there was originally a void of darkness.
Now, a shadow has appeared there.
That wasn't a lack of light, but a massive tide formed by the convergence of hundreds of millions of biological warships.
"It's the [Warspace Shadow], the Tyranid fleet—it's coming."