66: There's nothing a railgun can't solve.

[Holographic Operations Cabin]

For the first time, piercing red alarms flashed incessantly across Li Cang's operation interface.

On the screen, the green light representing N-05 flickered frantically a few times before going out completely.

[Unit: N-05 - KIA (Mental breakdown; 'Purification Protocol' executed by friendly forces)]

Li Cang's pupils contracted sharply.

This was the first non-combat casualty his First Legion had suffered since their transformation was completed.

The soldier hadn't died to an enemy's claws, but to an invisible, intangible 'mental pollution'.

He looked at the tactical map.

The remaining thirty-eight Astartes were pinned down behind cover made of bone and chitin.

Surrounding them were endless, tide-like swarms of Genestealers.

At the center of the battlefield, a massive red zone representing a strong psionic field was constantly expanding. It was like a beating heart; with every pulse, the Astartes icons on the map would flicker, indicating their minds were under assault.

"'Holy Word' suppressors can only filter out background noise; they can't block a 'directional skill' of this level."

Li Cang's fingers tapped rapidly on the console, pulling up the blurred data of the enemy hero unit.

[Unit: Priestess of the Moon (Hero Unit)]

[Power Level: T3 (Psionic)]

[Abilities: Mind Spear (Single-target Snipe), Psychic Scream (Area Suppression)]

[Location: Inside the dome of the 'Spawning Egg' (Protected by physical cover)]

"Using hundreds of meters of biological tissue as cover to take potshots from behind?"

Li Cang laughed in anger as he looked at the analysis results.

"Classic 'Artillery Mage' playstyle. Despicable, but effective."

Conventional tactics had failed.

Asking the Astartes to charge while enduring mental attacks would only waste their lives for nothing.

And the Adeptus Mechanicus fleet was just watching from the side. That old fox Kelbor-Hal would love nothing more than for Li Cang to lose more men so he could drive the price down in future negotiations.

The only way to break the deadlock was through himself.

Or rather, the "Sword of Truth" still standing by in orbit above his head.

Li Cang took a deep breath, a hint of pain flashing in his eyes at the cost.

He opened the fleet weapon control interface, his finger hovering over the largest, reddest, and most expensive icon.

[Weapon System: 'Mars' Pattern Macro-cannon Array]

[Firing Authorization: Requires 2000 GP / per shot]

Two thousand GP.

That was almost the entire profit from his last battle.

This single shot would send him straight back to poverty.

But Li Cang did not hesitate.

War was not a dinner party; being stingy wouldn't solve problems.

Sometimes, you had to use a louder voice to drown out the enemy's chanting.

"C-19."

Li Cang's voice reached the frontline Commander's mind directly via the data link.

"Abort the advance."

"Give me a set of coordinates."

...[Lunar Surface - Outskirts of Laboratory No. 7]

Half of C-19's body was already numb.

Despite the layers of dampening from his power armor and genetic modifications, the continuous mental shocks still felt like countless steel needles stabbing into his temples.

He saw his brothers around him; some were agonizingly slamming their heads against the ground, while others were frantically reciting unintelligible battle prayers, trying to use logic to combat the madness.

If this continued, everyone would become a lunatic like N-05 within ten minutes.

Right then, the Commander's cold voice rang out like a divine revelation.

"Give me a set of coordinates."

C-19 understood instantly.

He snapped his head up, looking toward the massive, heart-like pulsating biological dome in the distance.

"Coordinates..."

He pulled a flare gun from his waist—a tool normally used to mark rally points or extraction zones on the battlefield.

He flipped the safety and aimed the muzzle at the sky.

"The coordinates are right here!!!"

He roared and pulled the trigger.

Screee—!!!

A deathly pale flare whistled into the clouds, exploding in the dim sky like a brief, desperate meteor... [Holographic Operations Cabin]

[Target Locked: Flare coordinates.]

[Ballistic Calculation... Complete.]

[Macro-cannon One, charging complete.]

"Fire."

Li Cang closed his eyes and pressed the red button.

He couldn't bear to watch.

Not because of the gore.

But because his heart ached for those 2000 GP... [Lunar High Orbit - "Sword of Truth"]

As Li Cang's command was issued,

A mountain-sized Macro-cannon turret on the broadside of the 1.6-kilometer-long black dreadnought slowly rotated.

Inside the barrel, electromagnetic coils emitted a blinding blue light.

There was no sound.

In the vacuum, a tungsten alloy armor-piercing shell the size of a car, equipped with stabilizing fins, was instantly accelerated to sub-light speed by immense electromagnetic force. It cleared the barrel and plummeted toward the pale planet below like a spear of judgment from a god... [Lunar Surface]

All sound on the battlefield vanished.

Whether it was the roars of the monsters or the gunfire of the Astartes.

Because a more primal, more colossal terror had shrouded the land.

The sky was torn asunder.

A massive, burning trail descended from the heavens like a pillar of fire reaching to the sky, lighting up the dim firmament as if it were day.

The high temperatures brought by that trajectory even caused the flesh and tissue on the surface to spontaneously combust.

Inside the 'Spawning Egg' atop the mountain, the Gene-Priestess let out a terrified scream for the first time.

She could use her mind to warp the will of Mortals, but she could not warp the laws of physics.

BOOM—!!!!!!!!!!!!

No words could describe the scene at this moment.

The sound was late to arrive.

First came the light—an intense glare capable of incinerating any retina.

Next came the silent, devastating release of kinetic energy.

The Macro-cannon shell, at a precise angle, directly pierced the seemingly tough biological shell of the 'Spawning Egg'.

Then, it detonated inside the mountain.

In an instant, that living mountain of flesh expanded and tore apart from within like an over-inflated balloon.

Hundreds of millions of tons of purple blood, tissue fragments, and green nutrient fluid were hurled thousands of meters into the air by the immense explosive energy, forming a spectacular and horrific 'rain of blood'.

Then came the sound.

A terrifying sonic boom, powerful enough to shatter Ceramite armor, swept across the entire battlefield.

Countless Genestealers were instantly torn into molecules by the shockwave.

Even the Astartes lying on the ground were shaken so hard that their power armor alarms wailed in unison, and the internal shock-absorbing gel nearly boiled.

When the dust settled,

The world went quiet.

The mountain was gone.

In its place was a massive crater over five hundred meters in diameter, bottomless, with magma still flowing along its edges.

The Psychic Scream that had been haunting everyone's minds vanished without a trace along with it.

C-19 climbed up from the ground, shaking his dazed head.

He looked at the massive crater, then looked up at the sky.

The black warship hung silently in orbit, like an indifferent god that had just finished passing judgment on everything.

"There is nothing an orbital strike cannot solve."

Li Cang's voice rang in his helmet, carrying a hint of relieved lightness.

C-19 was silent for a moment before pressing his communicator.

"Commander, what if there is?"

"Then use two shots."

Li Cang smiled.

"But for the next one, we'll have to wait until we've emptied out this 'nursery'."

"Clean up the battlefield, C-19."

"Go see what good things those witches left for us."