Facing the threat, the man didn't try to act tough at all. After all, he was just a criminal—there was no strong moral code compelling him to keep secrets. Seeing the "short knife" in Cerakos's hand that was bigger than his own head, he immediately caved.
"We just kidnap Bangboo and dismantle them to sell the parts!" he shouted loudly, the wounds on his neck spurting blood as he strained his voice.
"Then have you seen this Bangboo?" Cecilia raised her phone again, showing the photo of the missing Bangboo.
"I've seen it," he answered honestly. "That thing resisted fiercely and even injured our boss. So…"
He didn't finish the sentence, but all three of them already knew the ending probably wasn't a good one.
"Talk. Where's your hideout?" Cerakos's voice turned icy.
"It's just an old Bangboo! I'll pay compensation, alright? I'll get you a brand-new one from the Marcel Group!" the man hurriedly proposed a solution. "This kind of old-model Bangboo isn't worth anything. The parts are hard to sell."
There was open disdain in his tone. To him, the Bangboo was nothing more than unsellable scrap, of very limited value.
"You'd better explain honestly what happened to that Bangboo." Ignis removed his helmet. With obsidian-black skin, ember-like eyes, and a face twisted with fury, The Salamander looked like a demon straight out of hell.
"Otherwise, I don't mind roasting you alive first, then letting my companion pry open your skull and extract the information directly."
As he spoke, he spat toward a pile of construction debris. The acidic saliva corroded the exposed steel rebar with a hissssss.
What kind of Boo-Napper who only dared to abduct Bangboo had ever seen something like this? This black-faced monster spitting acid looked like some rare Thiren. Their equipment was also top-tier. Had his people provoked some terrifying force they shouldn't have?
His mind raced. He had heard that the Defense Force had special-operation squads. Maybe these two were members of such a unit.
He swallowed hard, the wounds on his neck stinging his nerves. This job is way above my pay grade. That Bangboo that looked so old—could it be some kid's treasured possession? This is bad. I'm finished.
"That— that Bangboo… the knife, knife, knife please… it's still at our base! The heat's been on lately, so we haven't dismantled and sold it yet!"
Hearing him finally loosen up, Cerakos shifted the knife slightly away from his neck.
"Good. You're going to lead us there and bring those Bangboo back. You don't have any objections, do you?"
That demand clearly put him in a bind, and he began to stammer. Seeing his pathetic state, Ignis had no patience left for further nonsense.
"I'm giving you a chance by letting you lead us. Don't mistake mercy for weakness."
Those words immediately threw the Boo-Napper into panic. Compared to the two men in bizarre armor, he was far too weak. There was no room for resistance at all.
But betraying his boss was also something he didn't dare to do. The problem was, he couldn't afford to offend either side. For a moment, he was trapped in a dilemma.
Just as the Boo-Napper was about to give in, Ignis heard something—footsteps. Someone was approaching.
"Bingbong! I'm here to save you!" someone shouted as they came closer.
Ignis turned around. Roughly twenty or thirty figures wearing half Bangboo heads surrounded them.
"You got here pretty fast. Someone must've tipped you off." The Salamander put his helmet back on. "Looks like there were still people hiding under that passage."
His gaze swept over the armed crowd, and he shook his head. "Let me give you some advice. Drop your weapons and surrender."
"Brothers!" the leader slammed an axe made from half a large gear into the ground. "You hear that? He wants us to surrender?"
The lackeys burst into coordinated laughter. Only Bingbong, still held by Cerakos's grip, stayed silent.
"We Bangboo Boo-Nappers never surrender to anyone. You two, on the other hand, are surrounded. Your armor looks nice. Should fetch a good price."
The leader's arrogance nearly made Ignis laugh out loud.
Right. Two Space Marines, surrounded by twenty or thirty gang thugs.
"These guys banging around are giving me a headache," Cerakos muttered quietly.
"Careful, Cecilia," Ignis whispered as well, raising his shield to cover the young lady.
"Oh? Letting him go?" The leader saw Bingbong being released and thought the two had backed down. His mood instantly improved. "Looks like you've got plenty of valuable stuff on you. Hand over half of it, and I'll let you walk."
Cerakos was left speechless by their stupidity. Where did they get the confidence to think flesh and blood could stand against him? He drew his power sword and quietly increased thrust to his jump pack, ready to break out at any moment.
Ignis was equally baffled. Did these people have something wrong with their brains? Their armor was obviously not cheap. Where did this confidence come from?
Seeing the two take combat stances, the leader understood that fighting was inevitable. He shot a glance at one of his underlings, who immediately pulled several small spheres from his pocket and threw them.
Watching the spheres fly toward him, Ignis regretted not bringing any ranged weapons—otherwise, he could have intercepted them directly. Cerakos reacted swiftly, stepping forward as his blade flashed. The spheres were instantly cleaved in half.
Purple gas spread out from the shattered spheres, enveloping everyone.
The two Space Marines, sealed in power armor with filtration systems, were naturally unaffected. But Cecilia and Bingbong had no protection at all and quickly began coughing violently.
Ignis immediately channeled his psychic power, raising a spherical shield to enclose the two of them and isolate them from the fog.
The color alone spelled danger, yet the sacred markings on the Salamander's face did not react. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Ether crystals forming on the ground. This fog was extremely high-concentration aerosolized Ether.
A roaring sound filled the air as the jump pack's turbine spun at high speed. The blast of wind scattered the fog. Cerakos's killing intent was no longer concealed.
Using high-concentration Ether like this was meant to push them into Hollow erosion, turning them into Ethereals. His senior, Sergeant Calyx, had died that way. Now these people wanted to do the same to Cecilia.
No matter how kind-hearted a Lamenter might be, this was enough to ignite furious rage.
The Son of Sanguinius kicked off the ground and descended like a raptor. The speed and force were overwhelming, crushing the man who had thrown the spheres flat on the spot.
Normally, such a death would terrify anyone who witnessed it. But these people showed no fear at all. Instead, they swarmed toward Cerakos, raising crude weapons and charging with howls.
Such attacks were painfully slow to a Space Marine.
His blade traced a line of light. The men in front were instantly decapitated, blood spraying skyward. The moment his armor was splashed with the first drop of blood, the lightning claw struck, piercing straight through a hapless victim's chest and lifting him into the air.
With that man hanging from his left hand, Cerakos's right-hand blade never paused. Several rapid slashes were unleashed in less than a second. More heads flew, blood erupting like fountains. Streams of enemy blood ran down his yellow armor, while the man impaled through the chest still struggled.
By normal logic, killing seven or eight people in mere seconds should have made any criminal group flee or at least hesitate. Yet these people felt no fear at all and continued charging. Their leader even tore off his shirt, revealing a filthy torso, and raised his crude axe as he roared and attacked.
Something was wrong. With morale and coordination like this, why be criminals at all? Wouldn't any legitimate job pay better?
In a fleeting glance, The Salamander noticed a mark on the leader's left chest—the sigil of the Prince of Pleasure.
Slaanesh?
Alarm bells rang in his mind. They've already infiltrated this place?
As the leader charged, his body began to mutate. His muscles swelled, his height increased, and purple scales grew across his skin. A mane sprouted along his spine. His skull elongated, reshaping into something like a dog or donkey. A long, barbed tongue extended from the stretched maw.
His left hand grew into a pincer claw, a hooked tail sprouted from his back, his knees bent into reverse joints, and his feet became hooves.
He looked like a standing Slaanesh fiend, yet still retained a vaguely human form.
Cerakos was shocked. He hadn't expected to encounter Chaos filth here.
He flung the man hanging from his lightning claw away. The power sword charged, its blade glowing blue. With a metallic crash, the Slaanesh fiend's claw struck the sword. Twisted Chaos energy and the blade's disintegration field devoured each other, erupting into an explosion.
Using the shockwave, Cerakos retreated several steps. He needed distance to better observe the monster's movements.
But the creature didn't seem to care that its claw had been blown open. Pain only excited it further. Snorting heavily, it lunged at the Lamenter.
The axe in its right hand aimed for the Son of Sanguinius's head, while its tongue shot toward the visor of his helmet. The grotesque Slaanesh creature looked as though it wanted to pin him down and indulge itself.
The lightning claw crackled. The sword couldn't be swung in time, but the claws were ready. Cerakos reached for the beast's heart, attempting to destroy it outright.
With a zzzzrrrk, metal talons pierced flesh. The disintegration field shattered bone, exposing organs. Blood and viscera sprayed from the wound.
The Slaanesh fiend let out a low roar—but there was little pain in it, only pleasure.
A chill ran through Cerakos. If that blow had landed on a Space Marine, even an Astartes body would have been utterly destroyed. Yet the fiend did not die. Its breathing was ragged, frothy blood spraying from its mouth, eyes bloodshot and ecstatic.
Bathed in violet-red light, its ruptured organs began to regenerate. A brand-new heart grew from torn muscle, reconnecting with severed vessels. Saliva poured from its mouth, but its jaw was gone—only its tongue protruded.
The Son of Sanguinius felt revulsion. He realized the fiend had latched onto his left arm, deliberately impaling itself on the lightning claw again and again. The disintegration field destroyed its flesh, only for new flesh to grow back. Torrents of filthy blood sprayed out, far more than any normal creature should possess.
The Slaanesh fiend's body began to swell and expand, like an inflating balloon. It dropped the axe—it no longer needed it—and grabbed Cerakos's shoulder instead. Its regenerated claw was now larger and sharper, striking straight for his neck.
The power sword slashed toward the fiend's left elbow, but it twisted and clamped the blade with its pincer. Cerakos tried to pull free, but the fiend's strength far surpassed his own.
His posture was collapsing. In a few seconds at most, he would be crushed to the ground by this terrifying Slaanesh monstrosity.
Then came a thunderous BOOOOM.
The pressure on Cerakos suddenly lessened.
It was Ignis. The Salamander had finally arrived in support.
Ignis stared at the Slaanesh fiend, fury filling his heart. He would never forget—beneath the Faunus Quarter, a damned Slaanesh cultist had turned into the same thing.
That time, he had been forced to strangle a girl named Iori.
Her name was still engraved on his pauldron.
Merciless rage surged with each thunderous strike of the thunder hammer. Golden psychic flames engulfed the abominable beast. Its massive body began to wither, its fearless posture vanishing.
The relentless flames of humanity's protector burned away its essence. The Prince of Pleasure could no longer grant it blessings.
"Die! Monster!"
With the final roar, the thunder hammer smashed down upon the fiend's head.
When the thunder faded, only a rapidly shriveling headless corpse remained—along with the Son of Vulkan, blazing with wrath.
Ignis rushed over at once and hauled Bingbong up by the collar.
"Tell me! Why did he turn into that?! How much do you know?!"
Faced with Ignis—eyes spewing fire, facial muscles bulging, teeth grinding audibly—the slick Boo-Napper finally felt true fear.
"I—I don't know!" he screamed in panic. "I'm just a nobody! I can take you to the base!"
===BREAK===
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