T/N : I know I've been late and missed an update, but I had an appointment with an eye doctor.
My favorite past time, reading, was giving me head aches, turns out I was in need of glasses.
Bone Daddy is getting real old I tell ya.
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How could such a coincidence exist in this world?
Adam couldn't help but marvel at such a bizarre turn of events. The Gorgon Hive Mind seemed to perfectly understand his intentions, thoughtfully injecting a massive amount of consciousness into the Norn Queen.
To the uninitiated, it looked like a desperate attempt to resist based on the warping phenomena previously inflicted upon the synapse creatures; to those in the know, it looked like door-to-door delivery.
A look of joy gradually colored Adam's eyes as he sized up the gargantuan beast before him. Far from feeling fear, he laughed out loud. It was as if someone had handed him a pillow just as he was getting sleepy.
He needed a reliable breakthrough point to directly duel the Hive Mind—which existed as an entity within the Warp—rather than simply slaughtering Tyranid organisms and increasing his reality strength by devouring them bit by bit. While that path was safe and convenient, it was far too slow for his true objective: gaining not just the resources for promotion, but the reality strength required to perform mass conversions.
This Norn Queen perfectly met all requirements. How could he possibly decline the Hive Mind's "kindness"?
"—This truly is a magnificent piece of raw material."
Feeling that gaze, which felt tangible, even the bloodless and tearless Hive Mind felt a shiver of dread, as if a penetrating and massive physical pressure had enveloped its entire body.
Wait, it wasn't an illusion.
The Norn Queen's body lurched, and blood seeped slightly from its frame. It could feel its cells dying rapidly under the influence of a radiation-like power; it was suddenly becoming weak.
What was this? Why had it detected no psychic fluctuations?
In the next instant, Sybilla—having received instructions via mental link—struck.
With her as the center, roaring psychic energy surged like a tide. Transparent ripples instantly swept through the surroundings, freezing and locking everything in space. Even the swarming Zoanthropes, which were preparing a psychic counterattack under the Hive Mind's control, were pinned in place by this terrifying power, unable to move.
However, amidst this sluggish silence, a wild roar erupted!
With movements slowed several-fold, the Norn Queen began to struggle violently. Its motions grew faster and faster, its hideous face snarling, ready to devour its prey!
Then, the counterattack came.
Its thick claws slammed into the floor beneath its feet and yanked upward, sending a hail of debris flying toward the two humans.
Adam wasn't surprised by this result. After all, that's how psychic powers worked. In this idealistic universe, even if your psychic strength rivaled a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch, you would sometimes encounter enemies immune to psychic spells for unknown reasons. Take the Imperial Astartes, for example: both Dante of the Blood Angels and Calgar of the Ultramarines had records of moving freely within time-stasis psychic spells.
This was doubly true for the leader of this Hive Fleet—the Norn Queen.
As if vectors had been reversed, all the debris suddenly plummeted to the ground. In the moment the dust cleared, the Norn Queen saw clearly that one of the enemies before it had vanished.
A split second later, it exploded with a speed entirely unbefitting its massive bulk. Its gargantuan body twisted violently, swinging its thick talons as it glimpsed a figure behind it just as he raised a hand.
Adam clenched his fingers into a fist and gave a light tap in the air before him. It was a touch that seemed remarkably gentle.
Yet, the Norn Queen's heavy psychic shields shattered layer by layer. Web-like cracks appeared upon them, and the sound of breaking glass was constant.
Wait, it wasn't "like" the sound of breaking glass. It *was* actual glass.
Watching its psychic shields turn into shimmering glass shards in the air, even the soulless Norn Queen was momentarily stunned.
"Perfect!"
Seeing the Norn Queen's true form exposed and defenseless, Adam's eyes lit up. He raised his arm. Following his motion, a colossal palm rose from the ground behind him, its fingers spreading wide. The shadow it cast completely engulfed the mountain-like Norn Queen.
The next moment, the giant palm slammed down and snatched it up.
Refined in an instant!
***
*Out of moves—*
In the Warp, the Hive Mind contemplated. The unknown warping ability the target had used when charging into the bio-ship was now acting upon the Norn Queen. The swarm's strategies had some effect, but it was nowhere near enough. Perhaps only the arrival of the main Tyranid fleet from outside the galaxy, with its even more gargantuan power, could provide sufficient resistance.
But Hive Fleet Gorgon clearly couldn't do that. After all, this fleet was merely a splinter force broken off from Hive Fleet Behemoth.
*Prepare to evacuate.*
Without any negative emotion, the Hive Mind calmly made the logical choice. The target had previously displayed soul-devouring capabilities; the Hive Mind could already perceive that the portion of the swarm-will attached to those synapse creatures had vanished without a trace. If this continued, the losses would only grow.
Suddenly, an anomalous variable interrupted the Hive Mind's thoughts. It suddenly felt it.
That Norn Queen... wasn't dead yet?
How was that possible?
Its massive will flooded into the Norn Queen's shell, and the Hive Mind slowly looked around. At this moment, a figure that appeared remarkably massive reached a hand out toward it.
Adam picked up the Norn Queen model—which had been turned into a miniature—from the ground and held it in his palm. Their gazes met.
What did this target want to do?
Before the Hive Mind could figure it out, the answer was revealed with clinical efficiency.
Following that invisible connection and aided by his spatial perception, Adam's consciousness pierced through the veil between the material universe and the Warp. He manifested as a virtual humanoid identical to his real-world self, standing within the deep void of the Warp.
He looked around curiously. As far as the eye could see, there was a shadow so thick it was almost tangible. It was the Shadow in the Warp. Under this shadow, even a Chaos Lord under the four gods would suffer significant weakening.
Adam, however, ignored it. He simply looked up at the Hive Mind, which was so massive it blocked out his entire field of vision.
The Hive Mind felt a sense of unbelievable absurdity. He actually dared to do this? To enter the Warp and face the Hive Mind directly?
Again, the Tyranids were not just a pack of ignorant beasts following instinct to devour everything in their path, as some biological magi of the Mechanicus claimed. Among them, the supreme governing consciousness was known as the "Great Devourer." The collective will of the swarm constituted it, yet it was also a part of them—opposing yet unified.
While the Gorgon Hive Mind could not compare to the main Tyranid force heading toward the galaxy, it was by no means to be underestimated. In the infinite wars fought before arriving in this system, the civilizations it destroyed—many more advanced than humanity—only dared to strike at it in the material dimension. They tried to destroy the physical bodies of the Tyranids so that the will in the Warp would become like water without a source and naturally wither away.
Never had a single organism dared to hunt the consciousness within the Warp like this! Never!
The next moment, infinite psychic might manifested. The Hive Mind roared, and a wall of death extending from infinite distances above, below, left, and right rose before Adam. Then, like the heavens collapsing, it slammed down upon him!
"So strong. Too strong."
Even facing such a terrifying strike, Adam smiled. A soft sigh echoed out. He had come to the Warp to hunt enough souls, not to be a meal for the Great Devourer.
Because—don't forget. This was the Warp.
Back when he first arrived in this universe, Adam realized that the reality strength of the Warp was lower than baseline reality. One could perform reality warping here that was unimaginable in the material universe, making it a perfect playground for a Green Type. At that time, he was merely a novice Level 2 Reality Warper. Now, he had advanced to Level 3. What would it look like when he exerted his full power here?
The answer was about to be revealed.
The Hive Mind's movement suddenly halted. This was not by its choice.
Countless invisible arms rose from behind Adam, intertwining, growing, twisting, and overlapping. They spread out from the center like blooming petals, finally forming a bizarre, giant wheel. Thousands of overlapping arms reached upward, steadily propping up the descending Hive Mind like a pillar holding up the sky. The two sides fell into a stalemate!
But Adam's warping didn't stop there.
The Hive Mind froze. It began to notice that not all of those thousands of arms were merely resisting its offensive. Some had begun to entangle with one another, their fingers twisting into intricate signs and runes.
If a Foundation researcher were present, they would surely recognize this: it was a "gesturograph."
This anomaly, designated SCP-3688 and also known as "Motion Hazard," required an entity to perform specific movements and gestures to trigger physical and psychological anomalous effects, which would persist according to the user's will.
In the next moment, a deluge of abilities was unleashed.
PMK01 (Stasis Field), PMK02 (Time Warp Field), PMK04 (Replication Field), PMK05 (Annihilation Field)— (Note 1)
Invisible, intangible forces of annihilation spread, dancing alongside countless anomalous attacks! For a time, the Hive Mind—which clearly held the advantage in scale—was being beaten back step by step!
However, facing this result, Adam frowned slightly. This was a bit troublesome.
The sheer volume of the Hive Mind was too massive. Even though this Gorgon Hive Mind did not include the unknown Great Devourer outside the galaxy, it still encompassed a countless number of swarms under the fleet—an integrated gestalt supported by innumerable living beings.
At this moment, Adam was using his reality-warping power to forcibly suppress the enemy's actions, but because the enemy's "health bar" was simply too thick, he couldn't kill it in a short amount of time.
Still, it wasn't a huge problem.
"I don't believe this," Adam growled. "Today, one of us has to die!"
***
Back in the material universe, on the Tyranid Hive Ship.
Dense footsteps and the cacophony of biological shrieks echoed through the flesh-walls. Sensing the heavily wounded Hive Mind, the Tyranid organisms began to surge within the mother ship. A swarm of this scale was like an unstoppable, violent flood. Any resistance should have been like throwing pebbles into a tsunami—incapable of providing any real obstruction.
But as an Alpha-level psyker, Sybilla was definitely not a "pebble." She was a towering mountain.
Sybilla drew her force sword. Her vast psychic power surged once more, turning into physical lightning storms that swept through everything nearby. Then, she gave a wave of her hand.
A rift appeared, and a terrifying torrent of energy poured out, raging violently against every reachable material, easily grinding everything to dust.
The classic telekinetic psychic spell—"Vortex of Doom." The telekinesis user tears a hole in the veil between the material universe and the Warp, releasing energy sufficient to destroy all nearby enemies.
Having just wiped out a wave of incoming enemies, Sybilla thought for a moment and pulled out a teleportation beacon. Regardless of the xenos' desperate struggle, she had to be ready to protect Lord Adam.
Right then, a sudden change occurred!
Within that Warp rift, streaks of golden light flashed, even momentarily escaping Sybilla's psychic control. Realizing something, Sybilla didn't stop it; instead, she used her psychic power to expand the rift further.
Then, a legion emerged from the rift. Their bodies were wreathed in black flames, and their shoulder plates were decorated with skull icons. Like shadows from death itself, they stepped out in silence.
The muzzles of their bolters spat black tongues of flame, weaving a dense hail of fire. When the tide-like Tyranids crashed into the solid shield formation they had formed, the xenos were easily shattered like waves hitting a rock.
The Legion of the Damned!
Sybilla, who had witnessed the Thunder-cast Custodes project, understood their origin. She couldn't help but murmur, "My Lord above—"
***
At the same time, Adam, who was battling the Hive Mind in the Warp, also felt it.
Streaks of golden light appeared—the psychic power of the Emperor. The golden double-headed eagle mark on the back of his hand glowed in unison. A beam of golden light flying from afar split the long night like the dawn. The psychic power within it caused the Hive Mind to convulse violently and struggle frantically.
Adam turned his head and saw a figure enveloped in golden light. She wore shimmering golden armor, her massive pure white wings spread wide, and her holy, compassionate face was clearly visible.
It was Lucia!
What moved Adam even more was the scale of Akiva radiation surrounding this Living Saint. It was the power of faith condensed from the devout worship of dozens—no, hundreds—of Imperial worlds, skillfully bound and utilized by her reality warping!
Lucia nodded to Adam and raised the longsword in her hand. It was as if a massive will had descended into her. The light on the sword, beneath layers of gold, also concealed a streak of deep black.
That was—Destruction and the End.
"The Emperor's Will is a Torch, piercing the shadows and annihilating the ghosts." Lucia chanted softly.
"Strike!"
With one slash, the massive Hive Mind was heavily wounded on the spot, its body expanding continuously. But this expansion was not a sign of imminent disintegration; it didn't perish under this terrifying strike as common logic dictated. Instead, it struggled amidst the convulsions, and its scale began to quietly recover!
With no time to exchange pleasantries with the long-lost Lucia, Adam immediately turned his gaze toward a distant direction. In the Warp, there is no true distance, but that entity was extremely far away in a special sense, for it was far outside the galaxy.
Wait, this scale?!
Are you kidding me!
Even as vast as the Gorgon Hive Mind was, it couldn't even begin to compare! Was *this* the true Great Devourer?
Without a second of hesitation, Adam spoke.
"I say: The Gorgon Hive Mind does not equal the Great Devourer."
The word became law! The inequality was settled!
The connection to the distance was severed in an instant.
Under the several follow-up strikes delivered by Adam and Lucia working together, the Gorgon Hive Mind finally reached the end of its road. It let out an unwilling shriek and entered the death that was long overdue.
With its death, a torrent like a Warp storm suddenly expanded from that position, spreading through the Warp toward the entire galaxy. Every sentient being in the galaxy with a connection to the Warp—whether human, xenos, or Chaos—sensed this incredibly exaggerated anomaly.
Their eyes widened in shock.
What was that?