Under the dark night sky, stars obscured by light pollution and atmospheric haze, dense crowds of slum dwellers gradually surrounded Nolan's position. They emerged from side streets and alleyways, footsteps shuffling in eerie synchronization.
Their numbers swelled with each passing second, bodies pressing closer together as the human noose tightened. The mass of humanity blocked every visible escape route, cutting off options with simple overwhelming presence.
At that moment, the crowd spontaneously created a passage through their ranks. Bodies shifted aside with mechanical precision, responding to some unspoken command that rippled through them like current through water.
A blond man wearing an exquisitely designed blood-red robe, the fabric shimmering with quality that contrasted sharply against the surrounding poverty, slowly walked through the human corridor. He emerged at the front of the assembled mass, stopping several meters from Nolan's armored position.
A bright smile spread across his handsome features, the expression carrying confidence and theatrical flair. He raised a metal scepter gripped in one pale hand, the ornamental weapon catching ambient light.
He opened his mouth to deliver what was clearly meant to be a grandiose speech directed at the blue metal giant standing before him.
"Honorable blue devil, you..."
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The terrifying roar of mass-reactive rounds discharging tore through the slum's night sky, obliterating whatever flowery words the priest had prepared. The deafening gunshots carried far beyond the immediate area, the sound waves traveling through narrow streets and bouncing off buildings. The noise woke countless sleeping civilians in their cramped hovels, jerking them from uneasy dreams.
The Blood Coven priest who had just appeared was blown into pieces of bloody flesh and bone fragments before he could finish his opening sentence. The bolter rounds struck with devastating precision, each explosive warhead detonating inside his body. The mass-reactive shells transformed him into scattered gore in the literal blink of an eye.
Blood sprayed in arterial fountains. Meat scattered across a wide radius. Bone shards embedded themselves in nearby walls and the ground.
Even most of the slum dwellers standing near him caught the backsplash. Bloody fragments spattered across their faces and clothing, warm viscera striking skin. They released a series of involuntary screams, pain and shock breaking through whatever mental control held them.
"Fire! Maintain accurate shooting! Conserve ammunition!" Nolan's voice emerged through his helmet's vox-grille with command authority, cutting through the screams and chaos.
Wearing his sealed metal helmet that revealed nothing of his expression, he swept his gaze across the slum dwellers before him. They seemed endless, a sea of human bodies stretching into darkness beyond the searchlights' reach.
He immediately transmitted orders to the automatic servo robots through their tactical network.
The next moment, guns that had been tracking targets opened fire simultaneously. Flames erupted from multiple muzzles, the weapons spewing solid bullets at tremendous velocity. Muzzle flash illuminated the night in strobing patterns.
The servo robots fired at the slum dwellers whose facial expressions shifted rapidly from numb vacancy to ferocious aggression. The controlled civilians roared with inhuman sounds, waving their improvised cold weapons as they charged forward with suicidal determination.
In an instant, extremely fragile human bodies were torn apart by the sustained barrage. The high-caliber rounds ripped through flesh like tissue paper, creating piles of broken meat and shattered bone that flew in every direction. Bodies exploded, limbs separated from torsos, heads burst like overripe fruit.
Even the wet, filthy ground gradually disappeared beneath the flow of hot blood. The red liquid poured from countless wounds, running across pavement in streams that gathered into pools, then rivers. The smell of copper and offal filled the air with nauseating intensity.
However, even as they were blasted into bloody pulp by continuous, terrifying firepower that should have broken any human assault, the slum dwellers wearing blood-red cloaks showed absolutely no intention of retreating.
As if they had lost all capacity for rational thought, all survival instinct, they continued rushing toward the blue metal giant. Their bodies climbed over the corpses of their fallen fellows, feet slipping in blood and entrails, never slowing.
The only emotional fluctuation visible on all those ferocious faces was endless madness, a frenzy that seemed to penetrate into their very bone marrow. Eyes rolled white, mouths frothed with spittle, veins stood out on necks and foreheads.
At that moment, Nolan held his bolter in one hand, firing continuously with practiced rhythm. Each trigger pull sent another explosive round screaming toward targets. He maintained the defensive line through sheer firepower, his position the anchor point for the servo robots' formation.
He even experienced a strange, unsettling sense of déjà vu, as if he were facing a Genestealer Cult instead of mere humans. The same mindless aggression, the same willingness to die in waves, the same complete disregard for casualties.
"David, scout the nearby terrain immediately! Plan an evacuation route in advance!" Nolan's order emerged without him turning away from the battle, his attention remaining fixed on the approaching horde.
These slum dwellers had been controlled through some method he didn't yet understand. Mental domination, chemical conditioning, perhaps genuine supernatural influence given what he'd learned about the cult.
Regardless, they represented mere cannon fodder deployed by the Blood Coven to consume ammunition and exhaust his forces. Even if he killed every single one, the action would prove meaningless tactically. The real enemy remained hidden, observing, planning.
At that moment, one automatic servo robot's heavy gun cycled empty with a distinctive click-clack sound. The ammunition drum spun uselessly, completely depleted.
The machine responded instantly to the changed situation. It quickly retracted the useless firearm into its metal shell housing, securing the weapon.
Two curled mechanical tentacles extended suddenly from concealed compartments, unfolding to full length. The appendages whipped through the air with sharp cracks.
Then the servo robot waved its only close-combat weapons at slum dwellers who had closed to melee range, the tentacles striking with bone-breaking force. Metal met flesh with wet impacts.
The bolter Nolan gripped tightly in his palm produced the subtle sound of an empty chamber, the firing pin striking nothing. The weapon had run dry.
He quickly reattached the bolter to his waist mounting point, the magnetic clasp engaging automatically.
His free hand reached back over his shoulder, fingers closing around a familiar grip. He pulled the C'tan Phase Sword from its position on his power pack's mounting bracket.
Although Nolan still carried numerous explosives on his person, grenades and shaped charges secured in various pouches and compartments, and he had deliberately preserved some ammunition reserves for emergency situations, he made a tactical decision.
Facing these crazed people surging forward like an unstoppable tide, endless bodies replacing each fallen attacker, he chose to solve the problem through more direct methods.
The old ways. Steel and strength.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
In an instant, accompanied by harsh sounds of air friction against the power armor's metal shell, wind resistance creating turbulence around his accelerating form, Nolan charged.
A blue figure as massive as a bull rushed forward with devastating momentum. The servo motors in his armor screamed at maximum output, driving him to speeds no unaugmented human could match.
The extremely hard ceramite plating covering his armor knocked away every crazed person unfortunate enough to stand in his charge route. Bodies flew through the air like ragdolls, bones shattering on impact with the speeding armor. Some struck walls or ground with fatal force, necks breaking, skulls fracturing.
When Nolan crashed deep into the heart of the mob, surrounded completely by pressing bodies and flailing weapons, he acted.
The C'tan Phase Sword gripped tightly in his palm swung in a wide, sweeping arc. The alien blade hummed as it cut, phase technology allowing it to pass through matter at the molecular level.
In the blink of an eye, every insane person within a seven or eight-meter radius found their bodies completely split in two. The phase sword had carved through them all simultaneously, the cut so clean that bodies remained standing for a heartbeat before physics asserted itself.
Then the halves toppled. Upper torsos slid from lower bodies, falling heavily into the stinking blood that had risen to nearly cover the soles of Nolan's mag-boots. The impacts splashed countless droplets of foul-smelling gore into the air, coating everything nearby.
Hiss. Hiss. Hiss.
The phase sword continued its deadly work as Nolan drove his power armor forward, swinging the weapon several times in rapid succession. Each stroke carved through multiple bodies, the blade never slowing, never catching on bone or gristle.
Most of the crazed people on the immediate battlefield were cleared temporarily, their assault broken by the sudden eruption of overwhelming violence in their midst.
Only piles of incomplete corpses remained scattered across the ground, painting a scene of absolute carnage. Steam rose from opened bodies, internal heat meeting cool night air.
Simultaneously, the remaining insane people still pouring from the slum's narrow roads seemed to experience something approaching actual fear for the first time since the battle began.
They stopped their forward advance immediately, feet freezing mid-step. Even the hideous expressions twisting their features became strangely stiff, animation draining away as if whatever controlled them had paused to reassess.
At that critical moment, accompanied by the sound of liquid flowing with purpose rather than simple drainage, something impossible occurred.
The stinking blood that had submerged the tops of Nolan's mag-boots began flowing rapidly as if possessed of independent life and will. The crimson liquid moved against gravity, defying natural physics.
Directly above the position where the blond priest had been blasted to pieces by bolter fire, his remains scattered across a wide area, the blood converged.
A humanoid figure composed entirely of flowing, stinking blood slowly materialized under the slum's night sky. The form rose from the pooled gore, taking shape from liquid nightmare.
"Damn blue devil!" The blood-construct's voice emerged wet and bubbling, words formed through liquid rather than solid vocal cords.
"You destroyed my carefully chosen, meticulously maintained body!"
The bloody head of this impossible figure shook slightly, movements sending ripples through its entire fluid form. Features became barely distinguishable, a blurred face emerging from the crimson mass.
It was unmistakably the blond priest, somehow reconstituted after his violent death. The same features, though rendered in blood rather than flesh.
"I won't forgive this insult! The Blood Cult will never let you escape punishment either!"
Just as the blood-colored humanoid condensed by the blond priest's consciousness began cursing at the blue metal giant standing several meters away, Nolan acted with explosive speed.
A brilliant burst of energy light suddenly erupted from the nozzle positioned at the power pack's rear. The thrust added tremendous velocity to Nolan's already considerable acceleration capabilities.
The massive driving force combined with the speed generated by his power armor's own servos transformed him into blue lightning cutting through the dark night sky.
He rushed toward the blood-colored humanoid with devastating purpose.
In an instant, the liquid figure had no time to dodge or defend. Nolan's armored shoulder struck it with the force of a speeding truck, the impact scattering the blood construct back into countless droplets of stinking gore. The priest's form exploded outward, losing all cohesion.
However, Nolan's mag-boots had barely touched down on ground mixed with blood-soaked soil, his charging momentum only just arrested, when the situation changed again.
The stinking blood droplets scattered in every direction began flowing back together rapidly. They gathered into a concentrated mass with purpose that defied natural laws.
Another blood-colored humanoid condensed once more from the reassembled liquid, reforming into the priest's approximate shape.
"Gulu... Hahaha!" The wet, bubbling laughter emerged from the reforming head. "I'm immortal! You cannot hurt me at all! I want to see how long you can maintain this resistance... Gulu!"
The blood-colored figure shook its flowing body like some invisible slime given temporary solidity. Words emerged indistinct and mocking, confidence radiating from the impossible creature.
"Tsk. Immortal?" Nolan's voice emerged quietly through his vox-grille, the tone suggesting thoughtful consideration rather than concern.
He gripped the phase sword tightly in his palm for a moment longer, studying the reforming priest with calculating attention.
Then he shook his metal helmet slightly, decision made.
The C'tan Phase Sword, still emanating its characteristic green glow, was returned to its mounting position on the power pack's back. The blade secured with a magnetic click.
The next moment, accompanied by Nolan raising one sturdy arm with deliberate ceremony, something new appeared.
A metal structure covered with mysterious, unknown complex patterns that seemed to writhe and shift when viewed directly materialized in the air. The engravings suggested meaning just beyond comprehension, symbols that hurt to observe too closely.
A massive scythe, the weapon easily as tall as a man, gradually emerged in Nolan's metal palm. Dazzling green light flashed between the blade's cruel edge, illuminating the night with eldritch radiance that cast everything in sickly emerald hues.
Forged with technologies older than the Eldar and tempered in uncountable wars, it embodied the Necrons' deathless, unyielding dominion over all living things. This weapon had carved its way through civilizations across the stars for over sixty million years.
The Warscythe. A Necron instrument crafted to cut through matter, spirit, and hope alike. A weapon made to kill even that which was never meant to die.