Rumble—boom—!!
As the earth's tremors intensified, the massive tumor that had surged out from the collapsed breach finally bared its nauseating true form.
This was not a mere tumor, but a "core" woven from flesh and bone.
Its surface was covered with roiling fleshy tendrils and rupturing pustules, viscous fluid rolling to the ground like "magma," corroding soil and steel wreckage alike.
With every twist of its tendrils, the remaining corpses and living creatures were swept in, then instantly drained dry; their bones turned to "ash," while their flesh rapidly fused into its body.
The Diwuzu immediately realized this was the "mastermind" behind the mutation.
It was not a pure "lifeform," but a horror born of countless dead and alien energies fused together.
"Suppressing fire. Weapons free!"
The squad leader gave the order.
Six Diwuzu sprang from the cover of the jungle. The Titan armor's optical camo dropped, and six bolters and shoulder-mounted auxiliary weapons opened up in unison.
Bang! Bang!—Bang!
Bolt rounds trailed red-orange tails through the air and slammed hard into the mastermind's fleshy walls.
Shattering fragments blew flesh skyward, spraying foul slurry.
Yet the mastermind showed no sign of pain.
It only vibrated, as if these attacks were nothing more than a bit of seasoning added to its "incubation" process.
In the next instant—
Hiss—buzzz—!!
A low, uncanny psychic wave spread outward, blanketing the entire peninsula in almost an instant.
The innocent people on the island had still been fleeing in terror, but at this moment, they seemed to lose their will. Their eyes went white, their movements grew stiff, and they were drawn one after another toward the mastermind by that power.
The families of researchers, stationed civilians, and even some EDF rank-and-file who hadn't withdrawn were all swept up.
Seeing this, the Diwuzu felt their hearts clench.
Toward EDF soldiers or even the Unification Church's fanatics, they could remain cold-eyed, as that was the "ordinary attrition" of war;
but toward innocent ordinary humans—fellow humans—they could never stand by and watch.
"Blanket fire! Interrupt its absorption!"
The squad leader roared again.
At once, six bolters thundered, and shoulder micro-missiles salvoed in tandem. The concentrated fire raised a chain of explosions around the mastermind's core.
The suction devouring the living was forced to a halt, and the flesh fragments whirling in the air turned into blazing fireballs.
The "price," however, arrived immediately.
The mastermind's psychic wave suddenly shifted, like an invisible pair of eyes locking tight onto the six Diwuzu.
Boom—!
An unseen psychic torrent, laden with nightmares and despair, crashed into their minds.
Helmet HUDs flickered erratically. Twisted whispers and shrieks filled their ears.
Those voices seemed to tear their convictions apart, to sap their will, to drive them to their knees as sacrifices.
The Diwuzu's breathing faltered for a beat, muscles spasmed, and some even saw visions of fallen brothers from battles past blooming before their eyes.
It was the mastermind stripping their will to fight through psychic intrusion.
But—
the Diwuzu were not ordinary humans.
In their veins ran the Emperor's "bloodline," blood that had been genetically enhanced and baptized by the Empire's will.
"For the Emperor!"
"For humanity!"
The shouts burst over the open channel, as if tearing apart their psychic shackles.
Golden radiance burst from their outlines, a shield made manifest of will and faith, fending off the psychic corrosion.
??!!
The mastermind "froze."
It clearly had not expected such excellent "biomass" to possess souls with such tenacious bulwarks.
To it, Astartes flesh was the most perfect "material," enough to complete a first-stage qualitative transformation in short order.
Yet that inviolable light made its psychic tendrils crumble inch by inch.
Its form shuddered, then drove countless tendrils into the ground, drawing on leyline energy in an attempt to forcefully stabilize itself.
Meanwhile, the Diwuzu fleet in low Earth orbit had already locked on.
Energy focusing for an orbital strike was rapidly completing, and an officer on the bridge coldly intoned the "countdown."
The mastermind, clearly, sensed this at once.
It knew that if the orbital weapons hard-locked it, its body—which had not yet completed its "ascension"—would be utterly annihilated.
So it suddenly erupted with unprecedented power—
Whump—!!!
The colossal fleshy mass contracted, then, as if breaking free of shackles, blasted up from the surface, hurling dust and wreckage skyward, becoming a titanic behemoth that surged toward the heavens.
It did not choose to keep tangling with the six Diwuzu, but streaked at high speed toward the South American continent.
There lay densely populated zones with tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of unprotected civilians—the most bountiful "feast" for the evolution it sought to fuel.
The Diwuzu watched it depart, fury blazing in their chests.
They knew six alone could not stop such a colossal entity, but at least they had delayed it by a few heartbeats and broken its total slaughter of the innocent on the peninsula.
"It's headed for the cities…"
"We have to report immediately! The fleet must intercept!"
The comms link flared again; the fleet's high command had already received their intel.
In the brief interval, the six Diwuzu still did not relax their vigilance. Gripping their weapons, they stood in the midst of a battlefield strewn with corpses and pulped flesh, the golden radiance around them slowly fading.
Across the ravaged ground, the air reeked of charred flesh. Lingering flames licked at the surface, a silent testimony to a cataclysm not yet fully unleashed.
And this clash was only the prelude. The true calamity was racing in from the direction of the South American continent.
After leaving the collapsed base, the mastermind's speed was astonishing.
Its massive fleshy body trailed a long black tail flame through the atmosphere, like a burning meteor streaking across the firmament.
Its meat-wings were not true wings, but a deployed structure woven from countless tendrils and "sinew." Each twist stirred violent airflows and sonic booms.
In just a few dozen seconds, it crossed the vast ocean and reached the South American continent.
When its shadow fell over the first coastal city, chaos engulfed the metropolis in an instant.
!!!!
People screamed in terror. Streets surged with out-of-control traffic. Broadcasts and the net filled at once with cries of utter despair.
Yet the chaos lasted only a moment.
Hiss—boom!!
Suspended in midair, the mastermind suddenly opened what looked like a split abdominal "mouth."
It was no ordinary maw, but an outward-rent fleshy abyss, within which a blood-red energy vortex churned—a black hole devouring all.
In an instant, a tremendous suction swept down.
People, cars, animals across the district, even fragments of skyscrapers, were torn from the ground by the horrific pull, screaming skyward, directly into the mastermind's bottomless fleshy abyss.
It was as if, in the blink of an eye, the entire city was devoured.
And not only living things—the vegetation, soil, and water of the crust were absorbed as well.
The mastermind's body expanded rapidly. Layer upon layer of flesh piled up, gradually forming a blood-red giant sphere, tens of kilometers in diameter, hovering in midair.
It radiated a cold crimson glow, like a newborn "blood moon," undergoing metamorphosis using the human civilization of Dead Space as its "fuel."
Meanwhile, in low Earth orbit—
On the bridge of the Renwei Yonggu, the lighting and holo-projections were austere.
Beyond the vast arcing viewport, the violent warping of firelight and shadow over the southern hemisphere was clearly visible.
Crew at their stations worked their boards, reports and alarms braiding together.
"Report! Target has reached the South American continent. Current devouring coverage is thirty kilometers and projected to expand to one hundred kilometers within thirty seconds!"
"Energy readings continue to climb. We assess it is undergoing some kind of large-scale qualitative transformation!"
"Sir, the civilian network is in explosive propagation. All channels are saturated with live feeds!"
The comms officer, face grave, pushed another channel to the central console and continued, "Sir, we've intercepted an encrypted conversation between the Earth Federation and Unification Church leadership. Playing now."
In the next moment, the central console's speakers erupted in a jumble of voices.
—"What… what is that?! Can someone tell me what's happening?!"
—"Damn it, did those Unification Church lunatics release this thing?!"
—"Deploy the EDF fleet now! Bring all orbital fire to bear immediately!"
—"We can't. Our fleet is crippled—internal chaos out of control!"
—"Damn it! It's over. It's all over!"
These voices carried bone-deep panic, laced with bickering and buck-passing.
At the same time, civilian network feeds were relayed to the bridge.
On the enormous holo-screen, countless clips shot by people on their handhelds played—
The "blood moon" in the sky kept swelling, while streets, buildings, and crowds on the ground were lifted and swallowed.
The net was awash in desperate pleas and sobbing. Panic was spreading at unprecedented speed.
The bridge fell silent.
All awaited Sui Meng's judgment.
The Primarch's expression was cold and hard as he watched the blood moon taking shape. There was no hesitation in his eyes, only steely resolve.
"Ignore the EDF fleet."
Sui Meng's voice was low, yet brooked no dispute.
"Lock the target immediately. Annihilate the mastermind with everything we have."
"At the same time, dispatch ground forces and assume total control of Earth. From this moment on, any EDF orders are null and void. The Diwuzu are taking over."
"Shipboard sapient AI, fully deploy the opinion matrix and broadcast to all humanity—
The mastermind is a disaster unleashed by Unification Church cultists, and the EDF is powerless. Our actions are a rightful, lawful takeover to save human civilization."
"By your command!"
The entire crew responded as one.
Thoooom—
In the next instant, the Renwei Yonggu and the accompanying Diwuzu fleet slewed their guns to bear. Railgun main batteries and plasma secondaries completed charging in unison.
"Full broadside!"
Boom! Boom! Boom—!!!
Countless searing lances of energy tore the void, pouring into the blood moon's nascent form.
Rumble—
A dazzling white light exploded in midair, like the rise of a second sun.
The blood moon's fleshy body heaved under the bombardment. Its outer layers blew off in sheets, and blood and meat rained down on the earth.
Another full salvo.
The railgun main batteries punched through its core, and the plasma secondaries churned its internal energy vortex to shreds.
Hiss—KA-BOOM!!!
With a final, furious howl, the mastermind's colossal body was torn apart, bursting into a thousand burning chunks that rained down upon the South American continent.
A brief wave of relief rippled through the bridge, but Sui Meng's expression remained granite.
"Prep drop pods for deployment. Line up the auxiliary army transports."
As the orders went out, lower bay doors gaped open across the fleet.
Thousands of Diwuzu Astartes drop pods detached from their motherships, streaking like meteors with blazing trails. At the same time, tens of thousands of transports carrying mechanized auxiliaries, armored columns, and combat mechs, along with bio- and machine-weapons aided by sapient AI, plunged toward the atmosphere together.
This was a comprehensive ground-takeover operation.
As for the EDF fleet?
Throughout the entire process, they did not fire a single shot.
Their battle line was chaotic and disordered, with neither clear orders nor unified fire-control. The Imperial fleet utterly "ignored" them. Like a cluster of will-less onlookers, they could only watch as the Diwuzu took over everything.
Just then—
Boom!!!
An energy surge even more terrifying than before erupted without warning.
Outside the bridge's viewport, space violently warped on a massive scale.
"Anomalous gravity source detected! Values exceeding thresholds!"
"Sector coordinates are undergoing severe oscillation—"
"This is… some kind of spatial tear?"
In the next heartbeat, an unprecedented spatial "aberration" erupted through the vast reaches around Earth's orbit.
Countless dark "rifts" flowered in silence, like innumerable gaping black maws ripping the tranquil void in the most brutal fashion.
The rims of those rifts crackled with ominous arcs of energy, as if the universe itself were groaning in pain.
Then, mutation struck.
One after another, vast, unnerving "blood moon" projections appeared out of nowhere, as if transmitted by some technology that transcended physical law.
Their scales varied wildly—the smallest "only" a few hundred kilometers across, like ferocious asteroids suspended in the sea of stars;
the largest had diameters of several thousand kilometers. Their bulk rivaled true terrestrial planets, radiating a suffocating sense of oppression.
Worse still was their number—
These scarlet "celestial bodies" swarmed forth so densely that, in an instant, they formed an impossibly thick screen, enough to completely blot out the starfield beyond Earth's domain.
The once-splendid starlight and distant galactic band were swallowed by an endless, baleful blood-red.
On the grand bridge of the Renwei Yonggu, a deathly hush fell. Only the tiny indicator lights on the consoles kept "stubbornly" blinking, reflecting faces drained of all color.
Most of the auxiliary crew—being ordinary humans—unconsciously held their breath, pupils constricting at a sight that shattered imagination, as primal fear seized their throats.
But the Primarch Sui Meng, his mountain-like form standing before the central console, wore features as if sheathed in frost.
______
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