Alexei looked at the blue jade in his hand with a complex expression, then looked up at the black-robed figure lying shattered on the ground not far away. "Of all the people you could have followed, you chose that bird-man. Now look at you, tricked, aren't you? Tsk tsk."
Alexei shook his head, crushed the jade into dust, and let it fall to the ground. He had already guessed who provided the item. After all, the Changeling's extreme fondness for pranks made no distinction between friend and foe. This piece of jade had completely destroyed the labyrinth carefully laid out by the Watson family and had even marked the location of the Void Shield array.
This spared the Astartes from having to search for it; they simply rushed over and flattened everything. Looking at the mutated corpses of the black-robed figures scattered across the ground, the war for the Watson family fortress was basically over. The battles at the other fortresses were also reaching their final stages.
Alexei walked out of the building and looked at the sky. "Now it's time to resolve the riot in the Lower Hive." As for the Underhive, the swarm would naturally handle that. While those flies were deadly vectors of viral infection for humans, for the swarm, they were a premium source of biomass.
With a shift of his thoughts, he transmitted new orders to the commanders in the Lower Hive.
"Charge! Charge!" a hooded man shouted repeatedly among the emotional crowd. "We have the numbers! They used to be just like us, and they only have guns now because of good luck. Why should they strip us of our faith? They betrayed the Emperor! Charge and take their weapons!"
As the crowd's voices grew louder, their eyes turned bloodshot and their anger intensified. Unable to suppress their emotions any longer, they charged toward the positions guarded by the PDF.
"Sir..." A PDF soldier tremblingly held his old autogun, looking at the squad leader beside him. They had joined the PDF just to survive and had never encountered such a scene before. Some did not even know how to fire a weapon.
"Don't hesitate! Fire! Fire! A bunch of suicidal fools!" The squad leader looked at the Lower Hive laborers rushing toward them with bloodshot eyes and raised his autogun. With a loud crack, a bullet flew from the barrel, tearing open a laborer's head. Following that, the PDF across the entire position began pouring out bullets.
However, they had never received formal training. They did not know how to aim, let alone how to properly manage ammunition or distribute firepower. By the time the first magazines were completely emptied, the entire position fell silent.
"No, no, no..." The PDF soldier frantically grabbed a magazine from his waist, trying to reload his gun, only to find his trembling hands unable to snap the magazine into place. He heard heavy breathing, looked up shakily, and saw a bloodshot-eyed laborer standing before him with a shovel. "Bro... brother..."
"Roar!" With an angry shout, the laborer raised his iron shovel and swung it straight down. Just as the PDF soldier thought he was about to die on the spot, intense gunfire erupted instantly. The laborer's forearm holding the shovel exploded into a bloody mist.
Gasping for breath and still shaken, he looked behind him to see a tall figure in power armor standing beside him, a heavy firearm continuously firing into the distance.
"Position 114 is experiencing a riot. We have arrived on scene and are clearing hostile targets."
Dozens of Aiur Guards in power armor appeared on the position. With the spike discharge from their Gauss rifles, the bodies of the irrational laborers were torn apart one by one. Yet even so, the defenseless laborers did not stop, continuing to rush forward frantically.
"The rioting crowd is abnormal. They have lost their minds and are only charging forward instinctively to attack. They show no hesitation in the face of death, as if they have no concept of fear." The captain of this Aiur Guard company noticed the situation immediately and reported it to Alexei.
Meanwhile, not far away in the shadows, the hooded man who had been inciting the crowd saw that things were going poorly. Just as he prepared to retreat into an alley to escape, he crashed into an invisible wall. He turned around to see a figure in combat gear materialize from the shadows. "Hello, mate."
The next moment, the hooded man was knocked unconscious by a psychic shock. The Ghost pressed a hand against his head. The moment contact was made, the man's body began to shake violently. After a moment, the Ghost released his hand and crushed the man's head with psychic energy.
Far away in the Upper Hive, Alexei received these reports immediately. He frowned. "Able to drive surrounding people into a state of rage... but this doesn't look like Khorne's methods. He should despise psychic users who put on these kinds of mystical acts the most. Just which faction does this Emperor's Benevolence and Mutual Aid Society belong to..." he murmured in confusion.
However, now that the precise factor was identified, the riots could be ended. Alexei immediately contacted Allie, telling her to head to the riot sites. She only needed to use psychic shocks to knock out the rioters; after all, they were just a group of manipulated people who didn't need to be exterminated.
Following the order, the young girl appeared almost instantly at one of the active riot scenes. She hovered in mid-air, surrounded by the glow of psychic energy, her clothes and hair moving without wind.
The Lower Hive laborers below were packed tightly together, raising steel pipes and iron shovels as they roared in unison. The moment they saw the girl, everyone fell dead silent.
Suddenly, they felt something sweep across them. The next second, several screams erupted from the crowd as the suspicious hooded individuals mixed among them instantly exploded into a bloody mist.
The girl's voice resonated in everyone's minds. "Quiet down. You have been deceived. Return to where you belong and do not throw away your lives for nothing." As her voice faded, everyone felt their anger fade, replaced by a sense of peace. They looked at each other.
The sound of a steel pipe dropping echoed through the crowd, followed by a continuous clattering as everyone threw their weapons to the ground. The dense crowd then knelt, offering prayers to the girl in the air. Her approachable demeanor and the beams of holy light around her led these laborers to believe she was an emissary of the Emperor walking the mortal world.
The PDF had already rushed over from nearby to secure the situation. Seeing this, Allie did not linger. She immediately headed to the next rioting position. With her continuously pacifying the crowds, the risk of a full-scale riot in the Lower Hive was completely neutralized in no time. Those strange hooded individuals were also reduced to dust under the sweep of Allie's immense psychic energy.