126: Chapter 127 This is a different price

There was no sound when that Plasma Cannon shot was fired.

The high-energy plasma mass ionized the surrounding air the moment it left the muzzle; the extreme white light blinded TW-078's tactical eyepiece, and the audio receiver module in his helmet overloaded and fused instantly, plunging the entire world into absolute silence.

By the time his visual enhancement system came back online, the dark-gold-armored six-legged walking vehicle—which had just vaporized the alloy gate along with the iron crates—was already half gone.

The three mechanical legs on the left side and half of the weapon mounting platform had vanished into thin air; the cut glowed with a blinding orange-red, and the metal at the edges dripped down like melting wax.

The thing hadn't even had time to fall over.

The remaining three mechanical legs were locked firmly to the ground, the hydraulic system emitting a shrill screech as it maintained a bizarre, half-crippled balance.

But this balance only lasted for a second.

From the highest point of the harbor ruins, that pure black iron tower jumped down.

From a fifty-meter height difference and without any deceleration thrusters, C-19's master-crafted power armor smashed directly onto the back of the remaining golden vehicle like a meteorite.

A dull boom finally reached TW-078's brain, which had recovered half of its hearing.

The vehicle's remaining mechanical legs snapped simultaneously.

The massive metal hull was stomped directly into the concrete floor by this unreasonable gravitational acceleration; cobweb-like cracks crawled frantically outward from the impact point, spreading all the way to TW-078's feet.

Over forty gene-enhanced infantrymen of the Golden Legion reacted after a brief moment of daze.

Their nerves were directly connected to their armor, making their reaction speed fifty percent faster than an ordinary human's; in the past, this was the asset they took pride in, the confidence that allowed them to walk tall in Manila Fortress.

Twelve Plasma Halberds were raised simultaneously, their eerie blue high-heat light blades locking onto C-19, who stood atop the vehicle's wreckage, from all directions.

A squad leader of the Golden Legion revealed a gruesome smile.

They knew that black-armored monster was strong; anything that could shoulder a cannon was definitely a heavy unit, and the common weakness of heavy units was being slow.

A synchronized thrust from twelve halberds was something a clunky iron lump definitely couldn't dodge; as long as the armor was sliced open, the flesh inside would be instantly cooked by plasma fire.

This was the truth they had established upon these ruins.

Then, this truth was crushed by a single hand.

C-19 didn't dodge.

Holding the two-meter-long Plasma Cannon in one hand, he didn't use it as a ranged weapon but treated it like a giant iron hammer, swinging it in a horizontal semi-circle with a trail of pure black afterimages.

The air was violently torn apart, producing a sonic boom.

The three Golden Legion soldiers charging at the front, along with the halberds in their hands, were shattered instantly by this swing.

There was no parrying, no struggle; the B+ rank Energy Shield didn't even last half a second under such absolute violent physical impact, exploding directly into a shower of light.

The metal shafts of the halberds bent into bizarre right angles; the soldiers' composite armor shriveled like soda cans crushed by a steamroller. The sounds of bones shattering rang out in a dense cacophony, and flesh mixed with machine oil sprayed from the gaps in the armor, splashing onto those behind them.

The squad leader's smile froze on his face.

His boasted fifty percent reaction speed became a joke of slow motion in the face of C-19's movements.

He watched as the black monster shouldered the cannon once more and drew the Chainsword from its waist with the other hand.

The serrated teeth began to spin frantically.

The cleanup began.

TW-078 lay in the ashes, watching this one-sided slaughter.

This wasn't a clash between two armies.

This was one person sweeping the floor.

The Golden Legion infantry tried to pull back, tried to suppress with firepower, and tried to form a defensive formation.

It was all for nothing.

C-19's pace was so fast it defied common physical sense; every step he took stomped a crater into the ground.

The heavy black armor didn't cause him any lag; he was like a meat grinder with the agility of a cheetah, dismantling every life that appeared in his field of vision with precision, coldness, and zero wasted movement.

The Chainsword bit through armor, severed spines, and tore through organs; the entire process was as smooth as flowing water, devoid of hatred or anger, possessing only pure work efficiency.

Two minutes.

Forty gene-enhanced infantrymen were turned into fragments littering the ground.

The warehouse became so quiet that only the hum of the Chainsword's motor idling could be heard.

C-19 turned off the Chainsword, flicked the blood from the blade, and walked over to the squad leader he had intentionally left alive.

The squad leader's legs had been completely sawn off below the knees, the wounds conveniently cauterized and sealed by high-temperature plasma so that not much blood even flowed; he leaned against a broken steel beam, his helmet torn off, face pale, and eyes filled with completely shattered terror.

He thought he was a gene-modified elite.

He thought he had touched the threshold of human evolution.

Today, someone told him in the most elegant yet brutal way that his boasted evolution wasn't even a sub-par product in front of a true Space Marine.

C-19's large hand, clad in a master-crafted gauntlet, gripped his throat and lifted him up, leaving his feet dangling.

"Coordinates." C-19's voice came through the external speaker, cold without a trace of warmth.

The squad leader pried desperately at the black wrist with both hands, gurgling noises coming from his mouth, his eyes darting frantically downward in an attempt to suggest he would rather die than surrender.

C-19 didn't ask a second time.

His other hand reached out and gripped the power armor joint on the squad leader's left shoulder.

His fingers exerted force.

A tooth-aching sound of twisting metal rang out as the adamantine-forged fingers forced their way into the gaps of the composite armor, pinching the fragile collarbone and nerve bundles inside.

The squad leader's eyes bulged, and a wretched scream that tore his vocal cords erupted from his throat.

His nerves were directly connected to the armor.

While C-19 crushed the armor, he also crushed the man's neurons.

That kind of pain was amplified a hundredfold and poured directly into the cerebral cortex; no anesthetic could block it.

"I'll talk... I'll talk!" The squad leader writhed frantically in mid-air, face smeared with tears and snot.

C-19's fingers loosened by half an inch.

"The pole... under the Antarctic Ice Sheet... in the fault of the Mariana Trench extension zone!" the squad leader shouted incoherently. "They built a charging array there... that's all I know... kill me..."

C-19's fingers tightened again, this time around the neck.

*Crack.*

The neck bone snapped.

He casually tossed the corpse onto the ground and opened an encrypted communication line directly to Li Cang.

Inside the Holographic Operations Cabin.

Li Cang finished listening to this brief report.

He sat in his chair, holding a freshly opened can of protein drink, but didn't drink.

Antarctic Ice Sheet, Mariana Trench extension zone fault.

No wonder the previous waves of reconnaissance units couldn't even find a shadow.

Thunder Warriors couldn't go to such geographical dead zones at all; the extreme low temperatures and high-pressure environment there were places where only mechanical equipment equipped with special life-support systems or true Astartes could operate.

The opponent had built Facility Three there specifically because they had calculated that the Empire's current troop composition had shortcomings in environmental adaptability.

But the opponent had overlooked one thing.

Li Cang switched his gaze to the panel of the Primarch Gene Laboratory.

Inside thirteen incubation chambers, subjects enveloped in green life-support fluid were undergoing final neural remodeling; their bones and muscles were expanding and mutating at a speed visible to the naked eye.

There were still one hundred and sixty-six hours until the surgery was completed.

This batch of new recruits, which he had just spent over fifty thousand GP equivalents to create by scraping together everything he had, was prepared specifically for such extreme environments.

You get what you pay for.

A fifteen-day Macro-cannon countdown, a seven-day surgical period.

When these thirteen monsters stepped off the tables, they would go to that dead zone beneath the ice sheet to give the Sun Warriors a practical lesson on absolute violence.

Li Cang tilted his head back and downed the protein drink in one gulp, the cold, hard liquid crashing down his esophagus into his stomach.

"Everyone, the base is to contract its defensive lines; suspend all expansion operations," he issued the command in the global channel.

"Wait for them to wake up."