However, compared to the roaring, charging monsters on the front lines, the fourth-generation Infiltrators, who were mixed among the terrified civilians or attempting to silently approach critical energy nodes, armories, and command centers, were even more dangerous.
Their appearance was almost identical to humans, except their skin might be slightly grayish-purple, and their foreheads had subtle, hard-to-detect plate-like protrusions.
Their minds were closer to humans; they understood disguise, infiltration, and sabotage.
A seemingly panicked "civilian" running towards cover might have a Thermo-meltdown bomb hidden in their sleeve; a "helpful" "official" guiding evacuation was trying to lead the crowd to a pre-set ambush point; a "dutiful" "technician" attempting to enter the reactor core had the true objective of mutual destruction.
Fortunately, the Mechanical Sage's data tendrils had already deeply integrated into the city's Cognitohazard Array and ubiquitous monitoring sensors.
Combined with the Genestealer biological feature model she established, any Genestealer attempting to blend into the crowd or approach critical areas found their disguise completely ineffective under the monitoring network Ovilia had built!
The Sisters of Silence at this moment was like a mobile anti-psyker lighthouse.
When she expanded her Void Power field to its maximum range, any psychic connection entering that area—including the Genestealer cult's covert hive mind network—would be forcibly suppressed or even severed.
Even more lethal, Siddhga's powerful Void essence was itself the ultimate negation of psychic illusions.
Any Genestealer attempting to maintain their disguise near her would find their carefully constructed psychic illusion bursting like a soap bubble, instantly revealing their grayish-purple skin and the plate-like protrusions on their bald skulls, exposing their repulsive true nature.
What awaited them was often a Battle Sisters's precise burst of bolter fire, or an armed guard veteran's unhesitating laser volley.
The steel fortress, the veterans' flesh and blood Great Wall, the insight of technology, and the annihilating power of the Void collectively supported a cruel but necessary clear zone for the Imperium of Man in this city turned hell.
Alex's elite squad, like a scorching dagger piercing an abscess, moved through the city's labyrinthine steel and rock structures below, guided by Ovilia's cold and precise directions.
Their target was deep within the city—a colossal, modified, and desecrated Necrons underground tomb.
The Genestealers cunningly utilized the ancient metals and complex energy fields of the Necrons architecture, which almost completely isolated psychic energy, attempting to conceal the violently pulsating, heart-like psychic signal of their hive core.
However, under Ovilia's powerful logic core and the comprehensive scan of the city's Cognitohazard Array, this critical psychic node was exposed like a lighthouse in the dark.
A thick alloy door, clearly a later addition, sealed off the ancient Necrons passage leading to the core area.
"Thermo-meltdown ready!" Alex growled.
Two Sisters of Battle quickly stepped forward, their heavy melta guns emitting a low, charging hum.
Blinding white-hot beams instantly erupted, striking the alloy door like spears of divine wrath.
The hard metal rapidly melted and vaporized under the extreme heat like butter, emitting a piercing hiss and thick plumes of smoke.
A scorching wave of air rushed forward, mixed with an even stronger, nauseatingly sweet and putrid stench from behind the door.
The door burst open with a crash, revealing a soul-shattering sight behind it.
Even the battle-hardened squad members, including the Sisters of Battle and veterans, found their breath catching.
The ancient, faintly glowing green Necrons metal walls and floor were covered by a thick, viscous layer of dark red organic matter, like the inner lining of a colossal biological organ.
Countless thick, pulsating fleshy tubes, like twisted blood vessels and nerve bundles, extended from all directions, coiling and intertwining, finally converging towards the center of the hall.
There, a suffocatingly massive cocoon of flesh pulsed rhythmically, its surface covered with writhing blue veins and mucus-secreting pores, emitting a strong vital essence and an even more powerful, dizzying psychic fluctuation.
It was like a gigantic, deformed heart, the energy and will core of the entire cult hive.
Around the flesh cocoon, densely packed human cultists, deeply brainwashed, knelt.
They were clad in rags, their eyes hollow and fanatic, mechanically repeating garbled, blasphemous prayers, their bodies swaying slightly with the cocoon's pulsations.
Their minds had been completely consumed by the hive mind, leaving only absolute devotion to the "God-Emperor" and "Divine Messengers."
And in the most prominent, central position of the entire hall, stood a colossal statue—it was a twisted, mutated image of the "Emperor"!
It was sculpted with four arms, its face indistinct, bearing a non-human majesty.
The statue's material was a mixture of rough stone, chitinous shell fragments, and even faint glimpses of embedded Imperial Aquila fragments, forming an extremely unsettling symbol of blasphemy.
Beneath the statue, crude offerings were piled—perhaps food, or the remains of victims.
The moment the squad stepped into this desecrated sanctuary, an anomaly suddenly occurred!
The top of the flesh cocoon violently tore open, and a massive, bloated figure, radiating terrifying psychic pressure, rose from within—it was the Genestealer Patriarch!
Its size far exceeded any of its kind encountered before, covered in thick, shimmering chitinous armor, with four powerful arms ending in terrifying claws that gleamed with energetic light.
On its complex head, several pairs of compound eyes glowed with rage and malice, and its massive maw opened, emitting a silent yet soul-shaking psychic shriek!
This shriek was not a physical sound, but a shockwave directly impacting the mind!
It was like a tangible sledgehammer striking deep into everyone's consciousness.
Guards with weaker wills instantly felt splitting headaches and blurred vision, almost unable to hold their weapons.
The Sisters of Battle struggled to endure, relying on their faith and unwavering will.
Alex also felt immense pressure approaching, as if his thoughts were about to freeze.
Invisible psychic power pressed down on the squad like a tsunami, attempting to crush, control, and assimilate them!
"Siddhga!" Alex roared, enduring the psychic impact.
The Sisters of Silence, who had been following Alex like a shadow, stepped forward abruptly at his call!
She held nothing back, unleashing the full extent of her inherent Void Power—the Void Power—to its absolute limit, bursting forth with all her might!
There was no dazzling light, no deafening roar.
Only an absolute, cold nothingness, annihilating all psychic energy, erupted and spread outwards from Siddhga as its center!
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