11: In Chapter 11, the Grey Knights discovered a problem: the insects were deliberately retreating.

The scorch mark on the Brood Queen's left shoulder was expanding. Bern's power halberd struck the same spot for the third time; the psychic flames finally burned through the gelatinous buffer layer, scorching the muscle tissue beneath the carapace. The Brood Queen's front-left limb lost thirty percent of its strength, causing a slight stagger upon landing.

But she did not retreat. Because the tunnel behind her had not been completely destroyed.

The transfer procedure for the gene sample bank was ninety-four percent complete. Psyker remains, Keeper of Secrets energy residues, Chaos adaptation gene modules, human genetic sequences—all samples were being pumped through emergency mycelial conduits to deeper layers, entering an auxiliary storage chamber seventy meters below the tomb. The Drones were sealing the ends of the conduits with calcified secretions; each conduit would be dissolved from the inside after being emptied, leaving no traces for tracking.

Four of the six Zerglings had already been destroyed. Every strike from the Grey Knights' power weapons was lethal—the new type of carapace that bolter rounds could not penetrate could only withstand one or two extra slashes from the Holy Hammer's Power Sword. The remaining two Zerglings ceased their attacks, shifting to pure harassment tactics, weaving at high speed through the gaps in the Grey Knights' formation, forcing the Justicar to constantly divide his attention.

Bern had seen through this tactic. He no longer chased the Zerglings, instead locking all his attention onto the Brood Queen. "The target is protecting the tunnel behind her," he said over the comms. "She is stalling for time to cover an evacuation. Whatever is behind her—we cannot let her succeed. All units, break through."

Eight Grey Knights activated their psychic amulets simultaneously. A silver radiance of holy power exploded in the darkness; the creep's digestive fluids evaporated the instant they touched the radiation of holy power, revealing the original stone floor, corroded and riddled with holes. The Zerglings' harassment tactics failed under the area suppression of the psychic amulets—their movement speed was slowed by the psychic force, as if they had stepped into a pool of transparent glue.

Bern charged toward the Brood Queen. His power halberd traced a silver arc, targeting not the Brood Queen's body, but the mycelial tunnel behind her. The Brood Queen made a move that caught Bern off guard—she did not dodge, but instead caught the halberd head-on with her own carapace.

The psychic flames pierced through the Brood Queen's right shoulder carapace. The gelatinous buffer layer was burned through, and the muscle tissue carbonized in the flames. But the Brood Queen's body structure had made a final adjustment before the attack arrived: she had transferred all Hive Mind nodes in the right shoulder area to the rear of her torso; the right shoulder was already an empty shell when it was struck. Key command functions remained completely undamaged.

Meanwhile, the last transport conduit inside the mycelial tunnel finished emptying. The Drones sprayed calcified fluid, sealing the end of the conduit into a mineral texture identical to the surrounding rock. One hundred percent. The sample bank transfer was complete.

The Brood Queen emitted a short, sharp chirp. Retreat.

The two surviving Zerglings turned simultaneously, disengaging from both sides of the battlefield and diving into pre-set retreat tunnels beneath the creep. The Brood Queen herself covered the retreat; her front-left limb was no longer agile, and the wound on her right shoulder was still burning with psychic flames, but her movement speed still far exceeded that of human infantry—the Tyranid muscular system did not rely on localized oxygen supply, so damage to a single limb would not hinder the whole body.

Bern pursued for fifteen meters before his path was blocked by a suddenly rising wall of mycelium. The mycelial wall was not meant to stop him—he cleaved through it with a single strike of his power halberd. But cleaving the wall took two seconds. The creep on the ground began to wither as a whole—it wasn't being destroyed; the Brood Queen had issued a self-destruct command before evacuating. The hyphae of the creep dissolved segment by segment, the digestive fluids were pre-diluted, and all organic matter that could expose the genetic information of The Swarm was rapidly degrading.

Two seconds later, the Brood Queen had vanished into the ventilation duct.

When Bern cleaved through the mycelial wall, he faced a dead end. The entrance to the ventilation duct had already been collapsed and sealed from the inside, the collapse disguised as natural rock strata with calcified secretions. Scans showed that the tunnels behind had all collapsed, making tracking impossible.

"Target escaped," he said over the comms, his voice devoid of anger, carrying only a rare hint of alertness. "Record the following information: The target possesses autonomous learning capabilities at a tactical level. She learned to disrupt formations, learned to stall for time, and learned to destroy her own retreat paths. She learned during combat—just now, right in front of us. Report to the Inquisition: This kind of xenos does not fight on instinct alone. She can think."

Deep in the tomb, twelve humans in iron cages heard the sounds of battle. The psychic explosions of power weapons intertwined with the chirping of the bugs, becoming a low rumble conducted through the rock walls. Caroline Valen pressed her back against the cage bars, using her body to shield the old miner behind her.

"They are engaging the Grey Knights," the One-eyed Sergeant whispered.

"And they aren't dead yet," Caroline stared at the faint glow of the creep. The glow was slowly fading, the mycelium was withering, but the purple had not completely vanished. If the Brood Queen had died, the creep should have died out in an instant, rather than receding in a controlled manner like this. This meant the Brood Queen was retreating, not defeated. A bug had completed an organized retreat under the assault of the Grey Knights. No xenos in the Imperial records could do this—except for the Tyranid Hive Tyrants, but that was a forced breakout achieved by piling on numbers, not a tactical retreat.

She gripped her dagger, not knowing whether she was more afraid of those purple bugs now, or the Grey Knights about to enter the cage area.

The Brood Queen crawled deeper underground. The psychic flames on her right shoulder were finally extinguished by fire-extinguishing enzymes secreted by the inner layer of her carapace, and the carbonized tissue at the edges of the wound was severed and shed. Her movement speed gradually slowed from an initial all-out sprint to a standard cruising speed; by the time she reached the auxiliary storage chamber, she had returned to a normal state—except for the structural damage to her front-left limb and right shoulder.

The auxiliary storage chamber had been completed by the Brood Queen only seventy-two hours before the battle. Located seventy meters below the tomb, it had been expanded from a natural geothermal fissure; the space was much smaller than the Hive core above, but its concealment was extremely high. The walls of the storage chamber had been repeatedly coated by Drones with calcified creep, appearing as completely solid rock strata under scanning beams.

The gene samples were intact. Psyker remains, Keeper of Secrets energy residues, Chaos Hound gene fragments, complete human genomes—these were the most precious assets of The Swarm in this universe. With them, the Brood Queen could re-establish a complete gene analysis system at a new stronghold.

The Overmind's will flared within the Hive Mind. It was not a reprimand, nor an emergency order, but a new prioritization: repair the Brood Queen, assess battle damage, analyze Grey Knights tactical data, and plan the site selection for the next stronghold.

The reconnaissance squad in the Hive City Ruins transmitted an update. The energy fluctuations of the Necron Node had changed after the Grey Knights landed. It was more active than before.

"New variable. Retrograde trajectory of Warp storms detected. Eight psychic anchor points are moving above you. Your retreat path veered south, avoiding the impact points of the anchors—this was an effective tactic. I have updated my assessment of you based on this: survival probability is high. I am adjusting the awakening sequence."

The Overmind read this message and, for the first time, developed an interest in the logic of the Necrons. It was not curiosity, but an acknowledgement at the level of efficiency for an existence that could maintain rational logic after sleeping for sixty million years.

"Brood Queen. After repairs are complete, list the Necron Node as a priority contact target for the next phase."

The Brood Queen received the order. She curled her body in a corner of the storage chamber and began to secrete a pupal shell for repairs. The Drones surrounded her, injecting nutrient fluid into the pupal shell through capillary channels. The new carapace would regenerate within forty-eight hours, and the damaged muscle tissue would be rebuilt within one hundred and twenty hours.

On the surface, the Grey Knights were conducting mopping-up operations in the tomb. They discovered the twelve human survivors in the iron cages. Bern used psychic scans to check each person one by one, reading their souls to see if they had any traces of corruption. He found no traces of Chaos. But he didn't find anything else either—he could not find evidence that they had been "used" by The Swarm. No genetic contamination, no parasitism, no visible modifications of any kind. Those purple bugs had simply locked them up and kept them.

"Containment," Bern ordered. "Isolate and interrogate. Take them all back to the Inquisition."