97: Chapter 97 My Lord, Times Have Changed

The Hive Lord revealed an excited, cruel smile, its four giant claws slightly unfurling, its compound eyes filled with the pleasure of imminent revenge.

It could not wait to tear this human into pieces.

Fu Haoran raised a hand and beckoned with his fingers, his tone flippant: "Come on, one-on-one."

The Hive Lord showed no courtesy; all four legs exerted force simultaneously, and its massive body lunged forward like a cannonball.

In the next second, Fu Haoran flashed to the side.

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Revealing the pitch-black muzzle of the executioner mech behind him.

"Fire."

Boom—!

A storm-like rain of metal bullets swept across toward the Hive Lord. The roar of the Twin-linked Heavy Bolters shook the entire corridor, and the shell casings clattered onto the ground, covering it in a layer within the blink of an eye.

Before the Hive Lord could react, it was slammed head-on by the barrage.

The first wave of bolter shells tore open its carapace, splashing green bodily fluids everywhere.

The second wave pinned it against the rock wall, its limbs twitching.

The missile pods on both sides of the mech fired in synchronization, and four high-explosive missiles trailed tail flames as they slammed into its chest cavity.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Four consecutive explosions followed; the Hive Lord's chest was blown clean through, spraying internal organs and shredded meat all over the wall.

The Multi-melta on the abdomen finished charging, and a dazzling beam of melta energy instantly incinerated its final struggle.

The entire process took less than three seconds.

The Hive Lord didn't even have time to dodge before its massive body was torn to shreds in the dense firepower. Carapace, flesh, and bone fragments splattered across the wall like an abstract painting of a pinned specimen.

The mech's firepower did not stop.

Not until the Hive Lord's remains were reduced to a puddle of meat paste did the heavy bolters slowly cease fire, their barrels still emitting blue smoke from the heat.

Fu Haoran walked forward carrying his chainsword, casually swinging it twice through the meat on the ground, splitting the remaining half of the skull in two.

Green brain matter splattered onto his pant leg.

"Just to be safe, a couple of extra strikes," he said, shaking the shredded meat off his saw, his tone as flat as if he were asking what was for dinner.

A deathly silence filled the corridor.

Dredd's eyes were wide as he stared at the meat paste on the ground, then at the calm Fu Haoran. His mouth opened and closed, and after a long silence, he finally choked out a sentence:

"You... you said one-on-one! And then you pulled a sneak attack?!"

"Yeah, one-on-one," Fu Haoran looked back with an innocent face. "It's one-on-one against our group. No problem there."

Dredd was speechless.

Tychus laughed so hard nearby that he could barely hold his Power Maul, his palm the size of a cattail leaf fan slapping heavily on Dredd's shoulder: "Scarface, don't worry about the details. Results are what matter. Look at this pile of meat paste; it died so peacefully."

Fu Haoran felt no inner turmoil.

Only an idiot would risk their life when a problem can be solved with firepower.

However, while it felt good, trouble followed.

He glanced at the executioner mech; the ammunition indicator lights on the chassis were glowing bright red.

The bolters had emptied three ammo belts, the high-explosive missiles were all gone, and the Multi-melta's energy reserves were below 5%... that salvo just now had basically emptied the mech's entire stockpile.

But Fu Haoran did not regret it.

In the 'Blade of Baal,' even the highly capable Blood Angels had suffered greatly at the hands of Genestealer Hive Lords.

A veteran Terminator had been killed by one in a one-on-one duel.

The Captain who followed would have lost as well if he hadn't succumbed to the Black Rage, considering his heart had been pierced.

This showed the strength of a Hive Lord.

Fu Haoran didn't dare gamble on the strength of the Hive Lord before him, so the most effective method was saturation bombing, giving the opponent zero chance.

It was just that the current situation...

"Sigh, we're already here. We'll just have to take it one step at a time."

Fu Haoran continued forward without looking back.

Tychus followed indifferently; anyway, if the sky fell, this devious Governor would be the one propping it up.

...

Fu Haoran stepped over the remaining half of the Hive Lord's head, his heart unruffled, almost wanting to laugh.

Times have changed; a dead enemy is the only good enemy.

The fishy stench deep within the corridor grew stronger, and the psychic pressure of the Sanctuary rolled in like waves of the tide.

[System Prompt: The last line of defense in the Underhive is about to fall. Please complete the kill mission quickly.]

Fu Haoran's footsteps paused, his brows furrowing instantly.

He raised his hand to signal the team to stop and opened Wade's emergency communication channel.

Inside, there was only the crackle of static, the dense roar of bolters, and the heart-wrenching screeches of Genestealers.

...

Hive City Underhive, Promethium Factory Defense Line No. 1.

This place was once a steel fortress built by Wade's own hands, but now it had become a living hell.

Looking out, the streets, alleys, and industrial district workshops of the entire Underhive were filled with a black mass of Genestealer tides.

The boundless black tide surged from all directions, fearlessly slamming into the Aegis alloy defense line.

Charging at the very front were the Hybrid Acolytes. Most still retained human silhouettes; some were once gang members from the Hive's outskirts, some were Underhive scavengers, and there were even middle-to-lower-class Hive citizens.

They had all been silently infected by Gene-seed, becoming cannon fodder for the cult.

They trampled over the corpses of their companions to charge forward. Even if half their bodies were blown apart by bolter shells, they still dragged their bleeding intestines forward until they breathed their last.

The open ground before the defense line was already piled three meters high with flesh and corpses.

Yet the black tide continued to pour in incessantly, growing more numerous as they were fought, as if they could never be killed off.

Lucifelle stepped out of her pocket dimension, blending perfectly into the darkness. Her emerald-green pupils, unique to the Necronss, swept over the chaotic battlefield below without a hint of emotion.

In her immortal life of millions of years, she had seen too many scenes like this.

The screams of biological creatures, explosions, death, and the vanguard hounds of the Tyranids like Genestealers, always using inefficient waves of flesh to gnaw away at the bulwarks of civilization.

The author personally recommends: Hope you enjoy the story of 'Warhammer: Starting as a Planetary Governor, Three Hundred Years of Tax Arrears.'

"Ignorant carbon-based lifeforms."

Cold data streams flashed through her core processor without making a sound; only she could perceive this consciousness.

"Dying for a hollow faith, betraying their kin just to survive—it is no different from sixty thousand centuries ago."

Her gaze swept over the infected civilians and then fell toward the promethium storage tanks deep inside the factory. In an instant, she calculated the precise time this defense line would collapse—seventeen minutes earlier than Wade's estimate.

"Fire! Shoot them all to hell!"

Wade stood on the factory's highest command tower, roaring out orders.

His power armor was covered in gashes and scratches, the wound on his left shoulder was still seeping blood, and his face was bloodshot, no longer possessing his previous calm confidence.

Twelve Tarantula Sentry Turrets roared simultaneously, their Twin-linked Heavy Bolters plowing bloody furrows through the black tide.

The main guns of the leman russ tanks behind the barricades thundered. High-explosive shells detonated in the densest parts of the swarm, but they could only clear a vacuum of a dozen meters, which was filled by a new black tide in the next second.

But no one dared to fire with full force.

Behind the defense line lay the core energy source of the entire Hive City: the Promethium Refinery.

Dozens of giant promethium storage tanks stood deep within the factory. If a stray bullet hit them and triggered an explosion, half of the Underhive would instantly turn into a sea of fire, and the entire Hive's energy system would completely collapse. Then, everyone would die without the Genestealers even having to lift a finger.

The Leman Russ main guns didn't dare fire rapidly, the Sentinel Mechs' missile pods didn't dare fire in volleys, and even the heavy bolters had to have their firing angles controlled. Everyone was constrained, forced into passive defense.

Even more lethal was the infiltration.

The Genestealers were like sewer rats, getting in through every crack.

Ventilation ducts, sewers, wall crevices, and even abandoned industrial pipelines—Genestealers were crawling in everywhere.

The sounds of explosions inside the defense line never stopped.

Ammunition depots were blown up, communication antennas were dismantled, and heavy weapon positions were ambushed. Soldiers guarding the lines were frequently having their throats slit by "comrades" they had fought alongside for hours who suddenly sprouted bone claws.

It was the Sanctus, along with deeply infected traitors.

They hid among the defenders, launching fatal strikes at the most critical nodes, making the already strained defense line even worse.

"Colonel! The left flank has been breached again! They're rushing in with explosives strapped to them!"

A soldier's heart-wrenching scream came through the communicator.

Wade snapped his head around and saw dozens of infected cultists in front of the left flank, their bodies strapped with promethium explosives, screaming as they charged into the breach in the defense line.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The chain of explosions shook the entire command tower. The three-meter-thick alloy armor plating was blown open with a massive hole, and the black tide instantly poured through the gap.

"Reserves! Follow me! Plug that gap!"

Wade grabbed his chainsword and led the reserves down.

The chainsword whirred as it spun. He split open a human bomb lunging at him with one stroke and cut down two purestrain Genestealers that had crawled in with a backhand swing, but the soldiers behind him were still falling in droves.

The breach was torn wider and wider, and Genestealers poured in like a tide.

After fighting for a full twenty minutes and paying the price of nearly a hundred soldiers' lives, the gap was finally plugged again.

Wade leaned against the armor plating, gasping for breath. Just as he was about to send a distress signal to Fu Haoran, he saw a dozen private shuttles suddenly take off from the direction of the Upper Nest, flying toward the star system outside the Hive City.

It was the Hive nobility.

Taking advantage of the chaos at the defense line, they were fleeing with their family fortunes and private guards.

What made his eyes nearly burst with rage was that three of the shuttles, before taking off, actually fired rockets at the defenders' evacuation route, blowing up half of the only passage to the Upper Nest.

"Scum of the Grinna Family!" Wade smashed a fist against the armor plating, his knuckles splitting and blood flowing freely.

He finally understood why the defense line was full of holes and why the Genestealers could always accurately find the weak points.

It wasn't just the remaining traitors of the Grinna Family; the nobility of the entire Hive City were taking advantage of the cult rebellion to fish in troubled waters, even going so far as to collude with the Genestealers to destroy the defenders' retreat.

Traitors stabbing from the back, Genestealers attacking from the front—the defense line was already on the brink of collapse.

Wade returned to the command tower. Looking at the casualty statistics and ammunition reports, cold sweat drenched his back.

An adjutant approached, his voice trembling: "Colonel, we can't hold out. Let's retreat. If we don't, we'll all die here."

Wade remained silent for a long time, his fingertips turning white from clenching.

He looked toward the depths of the Underhive, where Fu Haoran was still inside to decapitate the Hive Lord.

If he retreated, Fu Haoran and his group would be caught in a pincer attack and completely trapped in the Underhive.

"Keep holding," Wade's voice was hoarse but carried an unquestionable firmness. "Send all reserves to the front, contract the defense line, and defend the factory's core area to the death. Four hours at most. If there's no news from the Governor after four hours, we'll blow the factory's core devices and retreat to the Upper Nest."

He knew very well that this was the absolute limit the defense line could endure.

...

Deep in the Underhive, Fu Haoran turned off the communication with Wade.

Wade's roars and the sounds of explosions in the channel still echoed in his ears, weighing on everyone's hearts like a giant stone.

"Speed up," Fu Haoran's voice was cold. "We must settle this quickly. Only when the Hive Lord is dead will the remaining cultists scatter."

Tychus grinned as he held his power hammer, taking a deep drag from the cigar at the corner of his mouth: "Don't worry, I guarantee it won't live past today."

Dredd gripped his chainsword and nodded, the hesitation on his face gone, replaced only by resolve.

The team set off again, heading toward the Sanctuary in the deep darkness.

However, everyone knew that with the lack of supplies, the upcoming fight was destined to be a brutal one.

In the shadows on both sides of the corridor, something was squirming, and a faint scraping sound was creeping closer along the rock walls.