3: The Curse of Genes and the King of the Wasteland

Static noise on the holographic screen danced frantically before being torn apart by a forceful signal.

The perspective was no longer a god-like bird's-eye view; instead, the camera felt as if it were being violently dragged down by an invisible giant hand, passing through the thick radiation clouds of the stratosphere that carried an acidic, corrosive scent.

It even smashed through several pieces of orbital debris floating at low altitude before finally slamming heavily into the ground.

[Deduction Epoch: M2 Europa Radiation Wasteland]

Pain.

This was the only signal in Arik Taranis's mind after he regained consciousness.

This pain wasn't the sharp sting of skin being sliced, but a dull ache that made every cell nucleus scream.

It was as if a pair of rusty genetic scissors were forcibly dismantling his double helix structure, stuffing in fragments of some wild beast, and then welding them back together with crude chemical bonds.

Flowing through his veins was no longer warm Mortal blood, but a high-energy alchemical elixir known as "Thunder."

This murky, mercury-colored liquid burned the vessel walls like lava, urging the secondary-modified, reinforced heart in his chest to pound against his ribs at a frantic rate of three hundred beats per minute.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

It didn't sound like a heartbeat; it sounded like a single-cylinder diesel engine on the verge of exploding due to overload.

"Huff... ha..."

Arik opened his mouth, which was as dry and cracked as withered tree bark, and greedily inhaled a breath of air.

The air was murky, carrying the scent of sulfur, ionized ozone, and the sickly-sweet smell of old, decaying corpses.

This was the scent of Terra, the unique fragrance of this desperate era known as the "Old Night."

He tried to lift his hand.

"Zzt—creak—"

Accompanied by a dull and tooth-aching sound of metal friction, a giant hand covered in coarse Ceramite armor entered his field of vision.

It was by no means a product of precision craftsmanship.

It consisted of thick, rough plates of gray iron, still bearing the marks of a forge hammer, bolted directly onto artificial servo-muscle bundles with massive industrial rivets.

Exposed hydraulic lines expanded and contracted with his movements, their interfaces spewing black exhaust and oil stains.

Mk I Thunder-pattern power armor.

It lacked the fully enclosed life-support systems of the later Astartes power armor, nor did it have an elegant, streamlined design.

It was so crude it was almost a joke; the upper body was heavy armor mounted with a miniature fusion engine, while the lower body consisted of simple reinforced greaves and a leather war-skirt.

It was like a torture device worn on the body, the massive cooling grilles on the back emitting a roar like a tractor.

Its design had only one purpose: to amplify the wearer's strength to the extreme, even if the cost was burning out the user's nerves or shattering their eardrums.

Arik turned his stiff neck, his cervical vertebrae letting out a series of sharp cracks.

The cloudiness on his retinas gradually faded, and he saw the scene behind him.

This was a temporary hatchery converted from an abandoned genetic laboratory.

Under the dim red emergency lights, three hundred giants nearly three meters tall with malformed muscles, just like him, were waking from cryogenic slumber.

The scene was like a scroll from hell.

Some giants were slamming into walls in agony, trying to alleviate the intense pain caused by rapid bone overgrowth; the concrete walls crumbled like biscuits under their fists.

Some knelt on the ground, clawing at their scalps and letting out meaningless beastly roars into the void—a side effect of the brain being temporarily unable to process the excessive combat hormones.

Others curled up in corners, their bodies twitching and foam leaking from their mouths.

They were monsters.

They were weapons of war, forcibly matured in laboratory culture tanks by the man who called himself the "Emperor," using the flesh and blood of hundreds of Mortals as the price.

They had no names, only numbers.

They had no future, only war.

Lifespan?

Even if they didn't die in battle, these violent genetic mutations would cause their organs to fail within a few years.

But they were strong enough.

Arik leaned against the rusty wall to stand upright.

His Ceramite war-boots crushed the glass test tubes on the floor with a crisp snapping sound.

Through the shattered dome, he looked out at the dim yellow sky.

There was no sunlight there, only radiation dust swirling through the air, dyeing the world a sickly, withered yellow.

"Is this... the world we are to conquer?"

He whispered to himself, his voice hoarse and coarse, like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.

Suddenly.

A strange vibration transmitted through the rock layers beneath his feet to the soles of his war-boots.

It wasn't an earthquake.

It was the rhythmic, heavy sound of mechanical grinding.

Arik's genetically enhanced ears twitched slightly. He filtered out the sound of the wind, filtered out the roars of his companions behind him, and precisely captured that sound.

The crisp crunch of tracks crushing rubble.

The roar of multi-cylinder internal combustion engines.

And the metallic clatter of heavy firearms being cocked.

"Enemy attack."

He didn't shout, but simply pulled down the goggles on his helmet calmly.

On the inner side of the goggles, a tactical interface so primitive it barely displayed two lines of data flickered a few times, finally settling on a blurry red light.

This early tactical auspex was completely unable to distinguish specific units; it could only provide a rough judgment based on thermal signatures.

[Warning: High-energy heat source detected.]

[Distance: 800 meters.]

[Quantity: Battalion level.]

Rumble—

At the end of the ruins on the horizon, a massive pillar of dust rose.

It wasn't any regular army; in this chaotic era, there were only warlords and raiders.

Three modified half-track armored personnel carriers crashed through the abandoned perimeter wall.

These vehicles were welded with spikes and bull bars hung with desiccated corpses; a twin-linked Heavy Stubber had been crudely welded onto the turret position.

The vehicle bodies were smeared with profane Chaos totems and blood-red skull symbols.

Following closely behind were hundreds of armed thugs wearing exoskeletons and carrying old-fashioned laser rifles and kinetic autoguns.

They rode bipedal Sentinel mechs or led several bio-modified genetic hounds dripping with green, toxic saliva.

This was the hunting party of the Frank Scavenger Legion, the most common warlord force in the Europa war zone.

They possessed defective relics from the Dark Age of Technology, viewed human life as worthless, and took pleasure in hunting survivors and selling genetic glands and organs.

"Stop!"

On the lead half-track, a one-eyed warlord whose face was half-replaced with a metal plate waved a power claw.

His arrogant laughter, distorted by electronic static, came through the loudspeaker.

"Look, brothers! A bunch of oversized hairless monkeys!"

The one-eyed warlord did not immediately order them to open fire.

In his experience, these malformed mutants that escaped from laboratories were usually not very bright and had thick skin, making them excellent material for gladiatorial slaves.

"Looks like the product of some failed lab... Surround them! Skin them; slaves of this size can be traded to Duke Valbak for three crates of pure water!"

Bang!

As a show of force, a high-energy laser beam grazed Arik's shoulder pauldron, precisely leaving a scorched black mark on the Ceramite.

The high temperature instantly conducted to his skin, bringing a stinging burning sensation.

But Arik didn't move.

Neither did the three hundred Thunder Warriors behind him.

They were like a group of newly awakened black statues, standing silently in the shadows of the ruins and the swirling yellow sand, letting the wind and sand lash against their crude, even oil-leaking power armor.

They were waiting.

Not waiting to negotiate, nor were they paralyzed by fear.

It was the instinctive gaze of a predator staring at its prey's throat before pouncing... [Epoch League · Judge Group 103 Live Stream Room]

"This is simply ridiculous."

Tactical analyst Karen frowned deeply, his knuckles rapping on the table, the sound especially clear in the deathly silent stream room.

"Facing mechanized infantry and heavy fire vehicles, this 'Thunder Unit' didn't immediately look for cover? They haven't even deployed a skirmish line; they're just huddled at the entrance?"

Karen quickly pulled up a data comparison of both sides, the holographic projection constructing a cruel disparity in combat power in the air:

"The opponent has three half-track combat vehicles equipped with large-caliber Heavy Stubbers. The infantry is equipped with laser rifles. Meanwhile, CN-9527's units only have bone swords in their hands.

This is 800 meters of open ground. Launching a charge at this distance, even warriors in power armor would be torn apart by the dense net of fire."

"What's even more fatal is that Mk I power armor."

Karen pointed to the enlarged details on the screen, his face full of disbelief.

"This kind of relic doesn't have a fully enclosed system at all; the joints aren't even sealed. As long as the other side fires a gas grenade or sprays the weak joint areas with heavy machine guns, this unit will be wiped out."

Isabelle didn't speak.

She pushed up her glasses, tuned out Karen's tactical analysis, and locked her gaze onto Arik's eyes visible through the goggles.

If it were a normal soldier, there should be fear, calculation, or a desire for survival in their eyes right now.

But there was nothing in those eyes.

No fear.

No reason.

Not even a concept of 'self'.

There was only an absolute tyranny, forcibly suppressed by drugs, alchemy, and mental imprints, on the verge of erupting like a volcano.

"No, Karen," Isabelle said softly, her voice carrying a trace of imperceptible trembling, "you're using the logic of conventional warfare. But that creator... he's not using tactics."

"Look at what that is."

Isabelle pointed to a corner of the screen.

There, a gust of wild wind swept through, and the swirling radiation dust and acidic smog were pouring in through the gaps in the ruins, instantly swallowing the silhouettes of those hundreds of giants.

Visibility dropped to less than fifty meters.

"He's waiting for the wind," Isabelle murmured... On the battlefield.

The wind rose.

The murky yellow sand obscured the sky, and visibility became extremely low within seconds; what was once a clear view turned into a chaotic gray-yellow.

The one-eyed warlord cursed and pressed the switch on his individual thermal imager: "Damn weather... Everyone pay attention! Free fire! Don't worry about keeping them alive, just break their legs!"

"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—"

Three Heavy Stubbers roared simultaneously, large brass shells clattering onto the vehicle roofs like a rainstorm.

Dense tongues of fire tore through the smoke, indiscriminately covering the laboratory exit.

Thud! Thud!

Large-caliber solid rounds pierced Ceramite and tore through flesh.

A Thunder Warrior standing in the front row was hit in the chest by several large-caliber bullets at once.

The high-kinetic warheads blew apart that crude piece of chest armor, shredding the alchemical muscles beneath.

Blood gushed out, staining the ruins at his feet red.

But he didn't fall.

He didn't even let out a scream.

The giant simply looked down at the large hole in his chest, then looked up, and on that blood-stained face, he pulled back his lips into a hideously savage smile.

There was no pain in that smile, only a hair-raising ecstasy.

His adrenaline was secreting frantically, and the drug called "Thunder" was boiling at the wound, forcibly stopping the bleeding and stimulating his nerve endings with intense pain, bringing an almost orgasmic impulse to kill.

"For... Unity!"

Arik Taranis let out the first roar.

This roar was like a signal, instantly detonating the miniature reactors inside the three hundred giants behind him.

"Vrrr—!!!"

Three hundred backpack cooling grilles overloaded simultaneously, the black exhaust and heat waves they spewed instantly distorting the surrounding air.

That massive industrial noise converged, drowning out the gunfire and the wind, like true rolling Thunder grinding across the wasteland.

Arik moved.

He didn't use any tactical evasive maneuvers, nor did he look for cover.

He simply pushed the power armor's output to the red line and kicked off the ground.

Boom!

The rocky ground beneath his feet instantly shattered, exploding into a deep pit.

This giant, nearly three meters tall and clad in hundreds of kilograms of heavy armor, actually erupted with an initial speed comparable to a heavy motorcycle at the moment of takeoff.

He turned into a gray torrent of steel, braving the dense rain of bullets and crashing head-on into the yellow smog.

One hundred meters.

Laser beams scorched his shoulder pauldron, but he didn't even wobble.

Two hundred meters.

Heavy Stubber bullets severed the arm of a comrade beside him; the severed arm flew up, and blood splashed on his face, but this only made his charge even faster.

This was the underlying logic Li Cang had set during the blueprint stage—

Since there were no resources to build guns and cannons, then turn yourself into the sharpest blade.

Since there was no cover, then use the enemy's corpses to block bullets.

Since there were no tactics, then use absolute speed and strength to tear them to pieces before the enemy could react.

A distance of eight hundred meters would be a death charge for a Mortal army.

But for these monsters injected with alchemical elixirs, it only took a dozen seconds.

The one-eyed warlord was still barking orders into the loudspeaker: "Left! There's a heat signature to the left! Adjust the turret..."

His voice stopped abruptly.

Because a massive black shadow had already torn through the dust cloud in front of him.

It was a metal faceplate like a demon's, spewing scorching exhaust.

A pale-white serrated sword, polished from a human spine, was held high.

"Die!!!"

Arik's roar accompanied the falling bone sword.

Crack!

There was no fancy technique.

Pure strength, coupled with the terrifying enhancement of the power armor's servo-muscles, made that bone sword slice through the protective steel plating of the half-track and the man inside like butter, splitting them both in half.

Blood, oil, and organs instantly exploded, spraying all over Arik.

It was warm.

This sensation made every cell in his body cheer in delight; it was the release of a destructive desire etched into his genes.

He pulled out the bone sword, turned around, and looked at the group of scavengers who were already paralyzed with fear.

Combat?

No.

This was a massacre.