As the infantry advanced, the battle below entered a brutal phase of urban warfare. The leman russ punisher shifted to providing precise fire support, clearing fortified strongpoints with heavy bolter rounds.
"Comrade captain, can you tell me where that genestealer is?" The tank driver asked Mua'dib via radio, his voice somewhat distorted by the growl of the engine.
"Can't find it, that's up to you frontline combat personnel," Mua'dib replied, while blasting a genestealers that lunged from a side pipe into two halves. "Ever since the nuclear explosion, these high-ranking genestealers have all suffered from PTSD, hiding deeper than the last. We can only roughly judge whether there are high-ranking individuals in an area by the number of xenomorphs gathered."
Just then, a third voice suddenly appeared on the communication channel, with a hint of a relaxed smile: "Sounds like you need my help?"
Almost simultaneously, a familiar roar of a turbofan engine came from overhead. Mua'dib instinctively looked up, only to see a Valkyrie assault transport breaking through the industrial smoke above the Mid-Hive, hovering directly above their position.
"You've come at the perfect time!" Mua'dib exclaimed happily, shouting into the walkie-talkie, "Just help us keep an eye from above, to prevent that genestealer from sneaking away!"
"Hmm, I can only try my best to help you," the Valkyrie pilot responded, "After all, the terrain of the Mid-Hive is too complex, a real labyrinth; it might just slip away through some tunnel."
"It's fine, just do your best."
"Hahahaha, as long as you don't mind me taking some of your exp."
Under such basic air-to-ground coordination, the genestealers, already leaderless, were quickly routed. The Valkyrie provided a broad field of view from the air, constantly marking hidden enemy clusters and strongpoints for the ground forces, while the Punisher, guided by the intel, conducted surgical precision strikes. The Helldivers infantry were able to advance smoothly, like a red-hot knife cutting through butter.
"I see something that looks like the target," the Valkyrie overhead suddenly said, just as the ground forces were having a blast. "Punisher, at your nine o'clock direction, approximately fifteen kilometers away."
"Give me a precise location," the Punisher's tank commander immediately responded, his voice exuding confidence, "The Helldivers Company's hand-drawn firing tables are with me right now. As long as your spot is accurate, our heavy bolter rounds will hit."
"Wait a moment, I'm calculating its movement speed..." The Valkyrie pilot's voice became focused. "Coordinates M-33 sector, grid coordinates 945-721, predicted lead 0.5!"
The gunner, already prepared and in a pre-fire state, immediately adjusted the muzzle according to the coordinates and fired instantly.
The heavy bolter launchers on both side turrets roared, and a dozen bolter rounds, trailing smoke, flew with a subtle parabolic trajectory, whistling into the distant darkness.
After a few seconds of silence, exciting news came from the Valkyrie: "Hit! One hit, it's split directly in half!"
"Hahahahaha, it's great having someone spot from above!" The Punisher's tank commander showed a wicked grin. "Give me another dozen rounds, turn that pureblood into minced meat!"
"Wait, hold fire... hold thief!" Mua'dib quickly shouted over the channel, successfully stopping the Punisher from preparing to finish it off... In an abandoned pipe hub station, several tens of kilometers away from the main battlefield, a pureblood genestealer, its upper body a hideous xenomorph and its lower body a pool of bloody sludge, was stubbornly crawling on the ground with its two pairs of sharp foreclaws. Its speed was surprisingly not slow, leaving a long, shocking trail of blood behind it.
"Ugh ah... as long as I can reach that place... as long as I can reach that place..." The genestealer muttered hoarsely, its eyes filled with a desperate desire for survival.
It thought to itself, just ahead, the space inside that opening was extremely narrow. As long as it could squeeze in, those Astra Militarum, who were mere mortals, with their massive war machines and bulky bodies, surely wouldn't be able to follow!
However, just as it was only a few meters away from that life-saving opening, several tall shadows obscured the faint light cast from a broken hole in the ceiling. The genestealer's movements stopped abruptly. It looked up, and its compound eyes reflected several figures. Its heart was instantly filled with despair.
"Heh heh heh heh heh..."
"Heh heh heh heh heh..."
"Jie jie jie jie jie..."
A series of chilling, varied laughs rang out.
"Alright, stop laughing!" A slightly helpless voice interrupted this eerie chorus. The squad leader stepped forward and gave orders to his subordinates,
"Shinnosuke, Patrick Star, tie it up! Tom, find a way to stop its bleeding, don't let it bleed all over the place when we take it away! Tigger, Handsome Hugh, you two go take care of vigilance! Bugs Bunny, report to the captain, the mission to capture it alive is complete."
Watching his soldiers obediently carry out their tasks, the squad leader couldn't help but mutter under his breath, "Damn it, who taught them to name themselves like that? I always have the illusion that I'm constantly traversing multiple universes..."
"Report!" Bugs Bunny trotted over at this moment, handing the walkie-talkie to the squad leader, "squad leader, the captain wants to talk to you."
The squad leader took the walkie-talkie and cleared his throat: "Hello, captain, this is Baldy Qiang."
"You caught it, right?" Mua'dib's voice came from the walkie-talkie. "Then that's good, bring it back quickly. This is crucial to how many pureblood remnants we can catch later."
"captain, what are you planning to do? Interrogate it?" The squad leader wondered, "What can you get out of interrogating a genestealers?"
"Don't worry, you'll know soon," Mua'dib's tone carried a hint of a smile. "Over and out."
The squad leader put down the walkie-talkie, looked at the genestealer tied up like a zongzi, and pouted: "Tch, so mysterious."
Half an hour later, in the center of the First Company's temporary camp, the genestealer, with half its body severed, was hoisted high by a metal winch, several meters off the ground.
Over a hundred players from the First Company formed a huge circle, and under the illumination of several high-power searchlights, the center of the field was lit up as if it were daytime.
Everyone stared blankly at the scene before them: a player was holding a seemingly ordinary black leather whip and violently lashing the genestealer, the whip constantly making crisp cracking sounds in the air.
"Repent for me! Repent for me! Do you understand? Repent!"
That powerful, fearless pureblood genestealer was now crying hysterically, snot and tears streaming down its face, like a frightened child.
"I repent! I repent! I no longer believe in the void lord! I no longer believe, isn't that enough! Stop whipping, stop whipping! Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho..."
"Name: Dark Angel's Interrogation Whip"
"Type: Weapon"
"Quality: Epic"
"Attack Power: Weak"
"Attributes: None"
"Effect One: No Secrets (When whipping an interrogation subject with this whip, the more onlookers there are, the better the interrogation effect)"
"Effect Two: Make Him Repent (No sentient being can endure the lashing of this whip without repenting)"
"Effect Three: Inner Ring within Inner Ring within Inner Ring... (For every bystander present, an additional layer of force is generated during whipping. The pain generated by this force reaches the soul, cannot be reduced by any physical means, and continuously strengthens the whipped subject's desire to repent)"
"Remarks: This is a whip with a story. Although its manufacturing year is indeed in 40K, the patina of time on it indicates that it has already experienced ten thousand years. Do you want to know its story...? You do? Asmodai, make him repent!"