Without the railcars, Zehaka and his pack actually moved faster.
However, their numbers were greatly reduced. Aside from the Primal Mutalisks circling above, the slower units couldn't keep pace with Zehaka and his Ravasaurs. Left with no choice, Zehaka abandoned the laggards, leaving them to incite bloody riots throughout the Hive's lower sectors. The battle had shifted: it was no longer a clash of armies, but a duel of generals.
Zehaka's massive frame reached the third checkpoint in record time. Just two kilometers beyond the gate lay the primary entrance to the Mountain Cannon.
As soon as the Imperial garrison spotted him, Zehaka leaped over the city wall from a nearby spire, bypassing the towers entirely. He landed on all fours inside the station behind the fortifications, exposing his back to the stunned defenders only to unleash a devastating "spine-burst." Like a colossal organic shotgun, the volley instantly shredded every Imperial unit within fifty meters. Leman Russ tanks and Rhino transports were punched through as if their armor were parchment.
"Fire! Fire everything!"
Artillery from the surrounding districts began to rain down, but Zehaka ignored the explosions blossoming in his wake. Running on all fours, he covered the remaining two kilometers in less than a minute. Behind him, the Ravasaurs—the size of Dreadnoughts—wreaked havoc. They moved with the agility of a storm, clearing the garrison so quickly that the Imperium's billions of soldiers were rendered useless; they simply couldn't reach the front lines fast enough.
Zehaka finally reached the mountain-sized outer wall of the Volkanon. Even for a Zerg, the sheer sturdiness required to withstand the recoil of such a weapon was awe-inspiring. He approached the main munitions entrance, found the terracotta-steel gate, and once again melted a path through with his plasma breath.
He stepped into the interior of the Mountain Cannon. It was cavernous, silent, and pitch-black. Following the scent of chemical propellants and gunpowder, Zehaka navigated toward the primary ammunition depot. In the shadows, he saw rows of dormant Servitors and laborers—his strike had been so swift they hadn't even been activated.
"Everything is going according to plan."
Zehaka found the magazine. It wasn't hard to spot; any room designed to house shells larger than a Scout Titan stood out. The sight of the massive projectiles suspended from the ceiling by heavy iron chains gave even the Overmind pause.
"Those shells could actually kill Zehaka," the Overmind noted. "Quickly, blow them up."
Zehaka's abdomen pulsed and unfolded. From a specialized incubation cavity emerged a "Mini-Zehaka"—a two-meter-tall clone. Possessing genetic sequences from both Brood Queens and Roaches, Zehaka could sprout these autonomous offspring to act as remote agents. The small Zehaka scurried up the chains, intending to act as a living detonator for the macro-shells.
But as he reached the top, he saw them: a group of Inquisitors waiting in the rafters, and melta-bombs already clamped to the chains.
"By the Throne, the beast can spawn offspring?!"
Inquisitor Atlas was among them. "Don't just stand there! He's spotted us! Detonate the charges!"
The Inquisitors triggered the melta-bombs. The thick iron links snapped with a white-hot hiss, and the suspended macro-shells plummeted, rolling across the floor toward Zehaka like falling mountains.
"The irony," the Overmind thought. "I just said those shells could kill him, and now the humans are trying to crush him with one."
"Get out of the way, Zehaka!"
Zehaka coiled his powerful legs and leaped, digging his claws into the ceiling and hanging upside down. The Inquisitors watched in stunned silence as the multi-ton shell thundered harmlessly beneath him and crashed into the far wall.
From his vantage point on the ceiling, Zehaka glared down at the floor. In the shadows, squads of Imperial Storm Troopers and combat Servitors finally emerged. These half-human, half-mechanical weapons, modified by the Tech-Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, boasted firepower far beyond an ordinary soldier.
Atlas was suddenly chased by the Mini-Zehaka. The clone was exceptionally agile, forcing the Inquisitor to roll and dodge frantically.
"Kill the small one first!"
The Servitors' heavy bolters chewed into the clone, tearing a crater in its side, but it only hissed and pounced on the nearest gun-servitor, shredding its mechanical frame.
"Ignore the distractions, Zehaka. Detonate the magazine. I can regrow your consciousness in a new body if I must."
Zehaka obeyed. He opened his massive maw, aiming his plasma breath at the unexploded shells on the floor. However, the shell casings were designed to resist extreme temperatures and pressures; ten seconds of fire wasn't enough to pierce them.
The Imperium, however, had one final trick.
"Initiate the firing sequence! Clear the chamber!"
Atlas and the other Inquisitors scrambled into a reinforced bunker, leaving their Servitors behind. The Great Volkanon began to roar—a deep, tectonic vibration that made the Overmind uneasy.
"What are they doing?!"
The realization hit too late. The mountain-sized weapon didn't need to aim at an enemy; it just needed to fire a round already seated in the chamber. Even if fired into empty space, the atmospheric displacement and internal recoil within the structure would generate a shockwave equivalent to a nuclear detonation.
Zehaka was inside the barrel's housing.
"Burn the shells, now!"
It was too late. The Volkanon fired. The roar was deafening, a sound of divine punishment that shattered every window and eardrum for kilometers. The violent shockwave swept through the structure, a wall of pure kinetic energy.
Zehaka, standing at the epicenter of the impact, was slammed against the masonry. Stunned and broken, he collapsed, unable to move as his nervous system reeled from the direct discharge.
"Is... is it dead?"
Atlas and his men staggered out of their bunker, their ears bleeding despite the protection. Seeing Zehaka's broken body, a flicker of hope rose in their hearts.
But it was short-lived. Zehaka's eyes snapped open. His legendary regeneration flared to life. He forced himself upright and unleashed a final, desperate stream of plasma at the fallen macro-shell. This time, there was no one left to stop him.