22: Only monsters can kill monsters.

[Deduction Epoch: M2 Nadvak Fortress Main Gate]

The Nadvakians did not understand "architecture."

In their twisted logic, cities were not built brick by brick, but "grown" like tumors.

When the radiation-filled sandstorms subsided slightly, that desecrated fortress—straddling the throat of the canyon and guarding the only path to the underground gene bank—finally revealed its true form under the grey aurora.

It was not a fortress in any human sense.

It was a massive, slowly pulsating cancerous tumor.

Twisted Terran Mega-beast bones were used as load-bearing beams, pale and carrying the stench of marrow.

Hardened chitinous shells were layered upon one another, serving as walls to defend against physical strikes.

A semi-biological grey secretion—looking like a mixture of saliva and cement—bonded them together.

On the slick walls, one could even see thick, vessel-like conduits pulsating, transporting unknown nutrient fluids, completely blocking the only road to the Caucasus core.

This was not just a fortress; it was a living, breathing, massive organism.

There were no human guards.

Standing upon the pale bone walls were mutant guards.

The madmen of Nadvak had long since abandoned the aesthetic known as "humanoid."

These defenders possessed insect-like compound eyes, with an inhuman cold light flickering behind those cloudy lenses.

Their skin displayed the sickly pallor characteristic of subterranean creatures, the result of long-term lack of sunlight and immersion in biochemical agents.

Even more nauseatingly, their four arms lacked palms.

Instead, clusters of tangled sarcomas and cartilage had grown directly together with the Spine Rifles in their hands.

The barrels were extensions of finger bones, ammunition was fed directly through blood vessels, and the triggers were the twitching of nerves.

"Hiss—!!!"

A sharp alarm suddenly blared.

It was not the electronic sound of a vibrating metal diaphragm, but a shrill screech emitted through the trachea of some giant creature buried under the fortress foundations when its lungs were violently squeezed.

The sound waves echoed through the canyon, shaking the snow on the mountaintops until it fell in flurries.

There were no negotiations.

There were no calls for surrender.

In this mad Epoch, in this universe where there is only war, language is the excuse of the weak; only bolt shells are the universal currency.

Arik Taranis stood in the wind and snow.

The brand-new Mk II "Crusader" pattern power armor encased him completely; the fully-enclosed Wrath Helmet isolated him from the outside cold—enough to freeze alveoli—and the hallucinogenic air.

He looked at the dense swarms of Xenos, looked at the fortress that desecrated the purity of human genes, and his mouth curled into a cruel arc beneath his faceplate.

"No need to save ammunition."

His voice came through the external vox-grille, deepened into a low rumble like thunder by the processing.

"Because our magazines are filled with the Emperor's wrath."

There was not even a need for a specific order to fire.

Thirty Thunder Warriors simultaneously raised the heavy Bolters in their hands.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Dull gunshots tore through the sandstorm; it was the roar of 0.75 caliber mass-reactive rounds leaving the barrels.

Each bolt shell trailed a pale exhaust flame, like a swarm of angry wasps, accurately burrowing into the bodies of the mutant guards.

Squish—Boom!

This was more than just a kinetic strike. The moment the bolt shell burrowed into the flesh, its delayed fuse was activated.

A millisecond later, high explosives detonated inside the Xenos' chests, abdomens, and heads.

The mutant guards, who had been screeching just moments before, were instantly blown into clouds of foul-smelling blood mist.

Severed limbs, internal organ fragments, and the wreckage of Spine Rifles flew in all directions, staining the pale bone wall in mottled dark red.

"Seize their blood!"

Arik roared as he launched the charge.

Boom!

The Mk II power pack on his back vented two streams of white, high-temperature exhaust; the powerful thrust instantly accelerated this half-ton iron body.

Like a humanoid battering ram launched from a barrel, carrying a momentum that could crush everything, he slammed violently into that biological wall.

The surviving mutant guards on the wall began to counterattack.

What they fired were not metal projectiles, but countless crystallized stings and highly corrosive acid spheres, splashing down like a rainstorm.

"Maintain formation! Don't stop!"

Arik bellowed into the vox-channel.

If they had the technology of their prime, or future Terminators armor, they might have easily vaporized these attacks with ion shields. But now, they only had hard Ceramite.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—

The acid hit the Ceramite pauldrons of the Mk II power armor, making a bone-chilling corrosive sound, etching ugly dents and sending up plumes of pungent white smoke.

Crystallized stings struck sparks off the metal surface, making sharp clinking sounds, yet they could not penetrate the thick armor plates.

One Thunder Warrior's shoulder joint was hit by an acid sphere; the seal was burned through, exposing the bright red, swollen muscle fibers beneath.

Agony struck.

But he didn't even wobble.

The [Pain Conversion] module inside his body operated instantly, transforming the pain signals transmitted by his nerves into high concentrations of combat hormones.

Instead, stimulated by the intense pain, he let out an even more frenzied roar, his speed surged, and his Bolter fired more accurately and fiercely.

Pain.

It was the only proof they were still alive; it was Fuel, it was power.

"For—Unification!"

Boom!

Arik slammed heavily into the fortress gate.

It was not made of wood or steel, but a bone lattice woven from the ribs of some Terran Mega-beast, its hardness exceeding even common alloys, and possessing a sickening resilience.

Sizzle—!

The Chainsword in Arik's hand roared, its monomolecular teeth spinning frantically as it bit deep into the bone.

There were no fancy techniques, no exquisite swordsmanship.

Only the purest, most primitive, and most unreasonable violence.

The high-speed rotating teeth instantly sent bone shards and charred flesh flying.

The output of the Mk II power armor's servo-bundles was pushed to the redline, and the hydraulic rods emitted an overloaded shriek.

It was a power originating from deep within the genes, a power that was about to burn itself out.

"Open!!!"

Accompanied by a hair-raising sound of snapping, three massive ribs, each half a meter in diameter, were forcibly sawn through.

Arik raised a heavy power boot and kicked away half of the still-twitching bone plate.

He threw himself like a cannonball into the biochemical corridors inside the fortress.

A foul wind hit him.

The air here was even more turbid than outside, filled with the smell of formalin and rotting meat.

"Roar—!"

In the shadows, three streaks of red lightning pounced.

They were three Gene Hounds wielding biochemical claws.

They had no skin, their red muscles exposed; to pursue ultimate speed and lethality, the Nadvakians had stripped them of all pain nerves and defensive capabilities.

They sought to stop this intruding steel monster.

Arik did not dodge or evade.

The Mk II power armor's advanced neural link system gave him faster reaction speeds than the Mk I, but he chose not to avoid them.

Because he was the spearhead, he could not stop; once he stopped, the momentum of the charge behind him would be hindered.

Puncture.

A Gene Hound's biochemical claw pierced the ballistic coating on the surface of his breastplate, but it made a screeching friction sound upon contacting the Ceramite core plate, leaving only a few deep scratches without managing to pierce his heart.

Taking advantage of the opponent's post-attack lag, Arik suddenly threw open his arms like a massive pair of iron pincers, circling the three pouncing monsters into his embrace.

"Got you."

His arms closed, hydraulic power at full throttle.

Crack! Crack!

The clear sound of bones snapping echoed through the corridor.

The spines of the three Gene Hounds were forcibly snapped, and their chests collapsed.

The foul blood from their ruptured organs sprayed all over Arik, flowing down the gaps in his power armor and staining the golden Lightning Emblem crimson.

"Inferior creations."

Arik tossed the three twisted corpses aside like trash.

He looked up, his crimson eyes scanning the surroundings through his tactical visor as more enemies swarmed in terror.

Red warning runes had already begun to appear at the edge of his vision, a sign that the [Pain Conversion] module was operating frantically and even overdrawing his body.

[Severe Warning: Core body temperature has risen to the critical threshold.]

[Current Heart Rate: 280 BPM.]

[Combat Hormone Level: Lethal.]

[Estimated Physical Collapse Time: 118 minutes.]

Less than two hours.

He had two hours to seize the hope of survival for himself, for his brothers, and for that "Creator" watching them from the holographic pod.

"Jon!"

Arik did not look back, but he knew where the man was. His roar vibrated through the corridor via the external vox-grille.

"Here! Sir!"

A small figure wearing simple flak armor emerged from the shadows of the power armor.

It was Jon.

The Mortal Auxiliary soldier who had survived the last battle.

He tightly gripped the Autogun he had scavenged from a pile of corpses, its barrel already glowing red from continuous firing.

Though his legs were shaking violently, and though his face under the gas mask was twisted with fear, he did not retreat a single step.

Because he knew that in this hell, the only way to survive was to follow this giant closely.

"Take men underground."

Arik raised a blood-stained power fist, pointing toward a massive vent deep in the fortress that was spewing cold air and the smell of formalin.

His instincts as a gene-warrior were alarming frantically.

That scent—one that could be smelled even from hundreds of meters away, nauseating yet incredibly enticing in its pure life essence—originated from there.

That was the unpolluted Primordial Gene Bank.

The cornerstone of the Astartes Project.

"There is something there the Emperor needs. Whether it's blood, flesh, bone fragments, or data slates."

Arik's voice was cold and brook no argument.

"As long as it looks useful, pack it into the crates for me!"

"And if someone stops us?" Jon asked tremulously.

Arik turned around, facing the hundreds of gene-modified soldiers surging from the depths of the corridor alone.

The Chainsword in his hand, already smoking and overheating with broken teeth, was raised once more, its engine letting out a dying roar. He stood like a dragon guarding treasure, blocking the path for all the Mortals.

"Leave this place to us."

"Go take back our future!"

"Kill!!!"

Thirty Thunder Warriors let out a synchronized roar and, following their commander, launched a counter-charge.

Behind them, Jon gritted his teeth and, waving his hand to lead a suicide squad, rushed toward that dark abyss.

"For the Emperor! For the future!"

---

Deep underground in Nadvak, there was no wind, only a silence capable of freezing alveoli.

"Warning: External armor damage rate 89%."

"Warning: Reactor shutdown. Backup power exhausted."

"Warning: Vital signs... Error. Unable to read."

Arik Taranis could no longer hear these alarms.

His auditory nerves had been burned out by high-voltage currents three minutes ago; the world now was a silent black-and-white film to him.

But he could still see. Through his half-shattered visor, he saw a silver-white tide of countless figures pouring in through the alloy gate he had blown open.

They were the Nadvak Heavy Guard.

They carried Melta Cutters and Heavy Shock Hammers, looking as if they intended to crush this barbarian who dared desecrate the vault of the "Master of Mankind" into meat paste.

Arik leaned against a cold gene storage tank, the chipped Combat Knife in his hand already broken in two.

He did not swing his blade.

He didn't even have the strength left to lift a finger.

The "fire" inside his body had burned through his internal organs.

If someone were to peel open his power armor at this moment, they would see the muscles inside flowing like melting candles—a phenomenon of protein collapse following the complete rupture of the gene chains.

Under normal circumstances, he should have already exploded into a puddle of high-temperature organic sludge.

But it was very cold here.

Too cold.

The earlier explosion had shattered the cold storage's cooling circulation system.

Liquid nitrogen at minus 160 degrees, mixed with some unknown preservative coolant, was gushing from the cracks in the overhead pipes like a blue-white blizzard, drenching his smoking black power armor.

Hiss—!!!

When the high-temperature armor met the cryogenic liquid, it emitted a shrill sound of vaporization.

A massive amount of white steam instantly swallowed everything.

Did it hurt?

No, it didn't hurt anymore.

Arik even felt a long-lost... tranquility.

That heat which tortured him every moment, as if it would burn his very soul dry, finally subsided under the wash of this extreme cold.

His skin cracked from the frost and was then instantly frozen shut.

The boiling blood that flowed out turned into red ice crystals the moment it touched the air.

His heart, which had been on the verge of exploding, was forcibly "suppressed" by this chill, its frantic beating plunging from 300 times per minute to a mere 3.

Thump... thump... Arik lowered his head, his crimson eyes staring at his own chest.

The armor there had split open, and through the crack, he saw his heart maintaining a subtle and eerie state of "suspended animation" under this extreme temperature difference.

Is this the destiny the Emperor wanted for us?

Not to die in battle, but to... become specimens?

The enemies from outside rushed in.

The foremost Nadvakian guard raised a shock hammer and swung it violently at Arik's head.

Arik wanted to laugh, but his facial muscles had already frozen hard.

He simply watched the hammer fall.

Clang!

There was no spray of flesh and blood. Only a sharp sound, like striking granite.

The guard froze in shock.

He felt as if his hammer had struck a solid steel statue.

The massive recoil cracked the webbing of his hand.

Arik remained in that head-bowed posture, motionless.

Under the combined effect of liquid nitrogen and high temperature, his human tissues, power armor, and the fluids that had flowed out had fused into a substance even harder than Ceramite.

He had become a "statue."

A statue whose heart was still beating faintly, but whose flesh was completely frozen.

More enemies swarmed forward.

They used Melta Guns to burn and lasers to cut, attempting to destroy this intruder.

But that thick layer of ice shell and coolant constantly repaired the damage.

As long as the cooling system here did not stop, and as long as the gene-fire within Arik did not extinguish, this "clash of hot and cold" would keep him in this state of being neither alive nor dead, forever hardened.

Like a stone that could not be digested, he was stuck fast in the heart of Nadvak.