chsdbacks Chapter 63 Destroyed Spaceship
Chapter 63 Destroyed Spaceship
The timer skipped several more days.
Liu En walked at the head of the group. His consciousness covered an area several kilometers ahead, and the direction of the passage, the location of the cabins, and the moving entities hidden in the shadows were all unfolded in his perception—not by infrared, not by thermal imaging, but by the direct perception of his consciousness itself.
Kara, with two companies and five hundred machine servants, followed several hundred meters behind. The pack-type machine servants carried supplies and moved through the middle of the column, their six legs treading over the metal scraps and pipe remnants piled up on the passageway floor.
Because of Liu En's heightened perception, he was practically unstoppable in this environment. The deeper they went into the wrecked ship, the more they discovered. Every cabin buried under the debris had to be cleared out, and every sealed box had to be opened and inspected. But Liu En's approach from the beginning was to treat each item differently: for items where the blueprints were already available, he would simply mark the coordinates and leave them for transport on the return trip; for items where the blueprints were not yet available, he would disassemble samples to obtain information about their material composition before archiving them. There were also broken, unique items that were not suitable for others to know about, which he would secretly disassemble, leaving only the blueprints behind before leaving.
For Kara and the garrison, the greatest apparent value of this wrecked ship voyage lay in the military supplies salvaged from its various compartments—well-preserved standard power armor, crates of explosive ammunition, various types of individual weapons, vehicle parts, communication equipment, engineering tools, and a large quantity of Imperial standard spare parts and consumables. These items would fetch a price in any Imperial world and would be sufficient to arm the Black Pearl's subsequent expansion forces. The items Liu En dismantled deep within the wrecked ship were things the garrison had never seen before, nor were they recorded in their records.
The attacks by the green-skinned tribes have decreased. Occasionally, groups of three to five, or seven to eight, would rush out from the side paths deep within the wrecked ship, their rifles jammed, so they would swing their machetes.
The gene-stealers appeared deeper within the wrecked ship. The first encounter was in a tunnel mostly blocked by debris. Liu En's consciousness picked up on an unusual signal—not greenskins, but a more compact and faster silhouette. The muzzle flash of the Casteran's bomb guns illuminated the tunnel walls with an orange-red hue. Covered in grayish-purple carapace, purebloods, the Tyranids' top infiltration unit. Dense crawling sounds came from deeper within the tunnel.
Liu En's field covered the gap in front of him. Upon sensing it, the pureblood chicken thief that had pounced into the air disintegrated in mid-air, turning into a cloud of atoms. The material composition information was archived, tagged "Terren - Gene Stealer - Pureblood - To be studied".
He said in the garrison channel: "Genestealers, purebloods, very fast. Watch out for ceilings and pipework ducts. The veterans call these things 'sneaky,' call them whatever you want, don't let them get close."
For the next month, the cunning attacks occurred every few days. But Liu En was at the forefront; his awareness detected the creatures' movements in advance, allowing him to report detour routes in advance via the garrison's communication channel. Over the course of more than a month, not a single member of the team died as a result of the cunning attacks.
The Cyclone torpedo was found that day in a large compartment at the end of the passage.
The chamber was deep, its entrance completely blocked by several layers of collapsed wall armor and three sections of broken piping. Liu En's consciousness penetrated the thick sedimentary layer, scanning the interior of the chamber and spotting several thick, cylindrical metal outlines. The material had an unusually high density, a multi-layered composite structure, and intricate internal cavities.
Liu En walked over and stood at the entrance of the passage. The area was covered by collapsed debris, and the decomposition command was issued. The thick layer of sediment and broken pipelines turned into a cloud of atoms. The hatch was revealed; the door was severely corroded, but the emblem etched on its surface was still there—the insignia of the Tribunal.
Behind the door was a short passageway, leading to another sealed door. Pushing it open, a searchlight swept inside, revealing several large, cylindrical missiles lying horizontally on the floor of the compartment. Each missile was over ten meters long, covered with a thin layer of radioactive dust, and stacked on a movable missile transport rack. The protective outer shell of the packaging boxes had not completely peeled off, indicating a sufficient level of sealing.
Cyclone Torpedo. The standard weapon issued to the Empire when carrying out extermination orders.
Liu En walked to the nearest Cyclone torpedo and placed his palm on its outer shell. The field of influence was activated, his consciousness reached it, and the decomposition command was issued. It wasn't about disassembling the outer shell, or taking a sample; it was about disassembling the entire torpedo. The outer shell, the internal multi-stage warhead structure, the plasma compression chamber of the molten metal warhead, and the core fragmentation device of the second-stage improved Cyclone torpedo—all were reduced to atomic clouds at the atomic level and flooded into the storage chamber. Information about the material composition was fully unfolded in higher-dimensional space.
One after another. In less than a few minutes, all the Cyclone torpedoes in the compartment had disintegrated completely. Only a thin layer of radioactive dust remained on the ground. Liu En created a new category in the database, tagged "Empire·Extinction Order·Cyclone Torpedo·Secret," and placed it in the encrypted layer. He didn't mark it and turned to leave.
The timer skipped several more days.
The gene-stealer attacks have become less frequent in recent days. They haven't disappeared; they're redeploying. Liu En's consciousness detected this change days ago—the grayish-purple silhouettes were no longer scattered and wandering, but were beginning to converge into a hidden space deeper within the wrecked ship. The purebloods' movement patterns had changed from scattered points to converging points. They were reducing their forces.
The areas the Greenskins dared not approach, the Cunning dared. Genestealers could defeat Greenskins not through direct confrontation, but through agility and cunning. The Greenskins' rifles had a very low hit rate against fast-moving targets in the tunnels, and their machetes were often pierced by claws from the side before they could even be swung. But Greenskins could withstand the attacks, while the Cunning was faster. In this area deep within the wrecked ship, Greenskin patrols had long since disappeared—not wiped out, but deliberately avoided. They knew what lived here.
Liu En's consciousness extended even deeper. Several kilometers away, in a concealed space shrouded in layers of collapsed debris and abandoned cabins, numerous gray-purple silhouettes overlapped. These were no longer the scattered reconnaissance units of before; they were nearly a hundred purebred chicken thieves densely deployed. Their lurking postures were completely different from before—when lurking, they curled up to reduce their heat signature; when entering combat mode, all four pairs of limbs extended simultaneously, their tearing claws springing out from their folds. They were present on the walls of passageways, above pipelines, inside ventilation ducts—everywhere they could hide.
Their previous sporadic attacks were probing—measuring firepower density, alert distances, and the commander's decision-making logic. Liu En had sensed their movement trajectory in advance and avoided their ambush area. They didn't obtain any combat data, but the assessment report was already complete.
Today, they have sufficient troops.
And a larger silhouette lurked deeper within that hidden space. Not a pureblood cunning fox, not a hybrid. The patriarch. The leader of the gene-stealers, the strongest and most dangerous of their descendants. It was a size larger than a pureblood, its carapace twice as thick, its four pairs of claws longer. Its low-frequency heartbeat, unlike that of other purebloods, struck the very core of its consciousness like a dull drumbeat.
Genestealers can fight without a chieftain, but while the chieftain roams the battlefield, all the nearby thieves can use his evolved hive's telepathic abilities to swarm through enemy lines. Liu En's consciousness detected this connection. The telepathic signals of dozens of purebloods were all linked together through the chieftain's psionic transmission channels. It wasn't dozens of independent individuals, but a single, unified whole, an organic war machine with the chieftain as its central nervous system.
They are waiting. Waiting for his team to enter that space.
Their cunning far surpassed that of the Greenskins. They used advance units to spend several days figuring out the garrison's route, then concealed their main force several kilometers ahead at a passageway intersection, preparing to launch a simultaneous attack from all sides when the garrison reached a specific position. Confined spaces, multi-directional firepower—every escape route was calculated.
Liu En quickened his pace. His consciousness spread precisely throughout the channel.
"Kara. At the intersection of the passages ahead, there are gene stealers. There are nearly a hundred of them, plus one chieftain. They've gathered in a concealed space and pre-positioned ambush positions at the fork in the road. I'm going there now; you take your men and follow. Don't get separated, and don't split up."
Kara's voice immediately cut in. "These cunning bunch? Nearly a hundred? And the clan chief too?"
"Yes. Their previous sporadic attacks were probing. This time it's the main force." Liu En's consciousness marked several key locations on the terrain of the intersection area. "The passage is narrow, limiting the field of fire. I need the mechs to draw fire from the outside, while you build positions from the rear. The mechs should stop at the corners of the passage and not enter the intersection area."
He didn't say, "I'll deal with the chieftain." But Kara understood what he meant.
"Captain, you're all alone—"
"I'm not alone. The mechs are with me," Liu En said. "You hold the position and don't let anything flank us. There will be wounded, but no one will die. I promise."
Kara paused for a second. "Understood."
Liu En, leading forty Casterlan mechs and one hundred armed servitude units, arrived ahead of schedule at the entrance to the passageway intersection. The field unfolded, its consciousness covering the passageway from the node chamber to the intersection entrance. Adamantite skeletons grew from within the bulkheads, their supporting structures reinforcing the entire passageway behind the visible original bulkheads. Layers upon layers of ceramic-steel composite armor plates were embedded near the passageway exit. The forward position featured a concave, curved design to maximize the firing arc while providing depth for the defenders to rotate. The servitude units placed ammunition boxes behind the front line, and the Casterlan mechs' waiting positions and firing windows were all pre-planned.
He marked the new, reinforced coordinates and firing range zones for Kara in the garrison's communication channel. "The position is deployed; you can proceed directly to your positions."
When Kara arrived at the position with his two companies, the pack-type errand boys had already completed their formation at the corner of the passage. Weapons checks were completed, and ammunition distribution was finished.
Liu En deployed Kara behind the position to command the overall situation, while he himself led forty Castellan mechs and one hundred armed servants to the entrance of the intersection area.
The senses picked up on the chieftain's first signal—the psionic transmission channel, like an activated bundle of nerve fibers, linked the chieftain's fighting will with that of dozens of pureblood thieves. A complete combat neural network. The chieftain was the central processing unit, and the purebloods were the remote terminals. Through the power of the hive's will, the chieftain used his activated psionic energy to incapacitate a unit, then swung his massive tearing claws at the enemy. Under the chieftain's psionic field, the thieves' reaction speed and combat coordination were synchronized to an extremely high level.
The instant the patriarch unleashed the first psionic pulse from his concealed position deep within the convergence zone, nearly a hundred pureblood chicken thieves simultaneously awoke from their slumber. They vaulted from the pipe mezzanines, leaped from the ventilation shafts, and surged forth from the cracks in the bulkheads. Grayish-purple carapaces rippled and intertwined in the darkness of the passageway. They were silent. Their entire bodies were covered in chitinous exoskeletons, all six limbs moving simultaneously, their tearing claws folded against their chests as they ran, the only sound the sharp, dense keratin at their claw tips striking the metal walls—a cacophony of sounds, like a torrential downpour on a tin roof.
There were no deafening roars like those of the Greenskins, no bursts of gunfire, only the sounds of claws striking metal surfaces and the rustling of chitinous carapaces rubbing together. The sounds poured in simultaneously from multiple branching paths in the intersection, amplifying and resonating within the passageway, drowning out the sound of heavy explosive rounds being fired.
The Casterlan mechs' firepower slammed head-on into the latest wave of pureblood thieves. Explosive guns fired in volleys through the tunnel, the orange muzzle flashes turning the tunnel walls into a flickering battlefield. Chitinous exoskeletons could withstand conventional small arms fire, but not the caliber of explosive rounds. The carapaces of the first few purebloods shattered, their bodily fluids splattering onto the bulkheads and floor. The rear tier stepped over the remains of their comrades, clearing obstacles and continuing their charge.
The second wave swooped down from the ventilation ducts above the passage, leaping into the air towards the back of the mech ranks. The mechs' sensor arrays locked onto their aerial trajectories, and their explosive guns tracked and fired, causing them to explode in mid-air, scattering grayish-purple limbs across the ground.
The third wave emerged from the maintenance bay beneath the passage, their claws reaching for the mechs' six-legged joints. Liu En's field of vision covered the maintenance bay exit; his consciousness touched the parts of the gray-purple outlines that had penetrated the gaps, and the mechs' internal organs were dismantled one by one at the atomic level. The few cunning creatures that had rushed to the halfway point of the maintenance bay entrance were now motionless, collapsing at the edge of the crack. Their carapaces were intact, and there was no blood.
The chieftain's psionic pulse intensified. Deeper within the convergence zone, it used the hive's will to stimulate psionic energy, steadily enhancing the cunning thieves' combat rhythm and coordinated reactions. The psionic channel, like a glowing cable, connected the chieftain to all the branch nodes. Its combat neural network was constantly operating. The purebred cunning thieves didn't need to see or hear the enemy; the psionic channel directly injected the chieftain's tactical commands into their combat centers. Synchronized attacks, synchronized turns, synchronized target switching—a single psionic pulse sent a complete tactical sequence.
Damage began to appear on the outer perimeter of the mechs—not from being pierced, but from several cunning creatures simultaneously stabbing into the joint gaps with their tearing claws. The terracotta armor plates could not withstand the repeated, overlapping punctures; the cooling pipes were severed, and hydraulic oil sprayed out fine white steam in the low-pressure environment. One mech fell, then another.
The cunning changed tactics. They launched more waves of attacks, shorter in duration, and with tighter intervals between them. This made it impossible for the minions' firepower to keep up with their speed of advance.
Liu En's domain covered the current battle zone. Dozens of grayish-purple silhouettes moved at high speed within his domain, tearing claws folded in front of their chests, ready to spring out at close range, their jaws, filled with sharp teeth, opening and closing briefly with each head movement. His consciousness didn't dismantle the carapace, nor the claws—the disappearance of those things required explanation. His consciousness directly probed into the round head, reaching the disproportionately large brain. The brainstem, cerebellum, cerebral cortex, neuronal synapses—all the central nervous system structures were clearly presented in his perception.
The decomposition command is issued. The central nervous system transforms into an atomic cloud at the atomic level.
A cunning little bird suddenly lost its balance halfway through its charge. Its four pairs of limbs continued to move forward, but the signals from its central nervous system couldn't reach its extremities. It staggered a couple of steps and fell. There were no wounds, no blood, and its carapace was intact.
Next one, next one, and the next one after that.
Kara, positioned at the firing range, continuously suppressed the pureblood thieves surging towards the tunnel entrance with long bursts of heavy explosive rounds. She shouted in the tactical channel, "Captain, the pressure on your side is too high, I'll lead a team to hold them off!"
"Hold the entrance. Maintain the firing line blockade." Liu En's consciousness continued to spread across the battlefield in the convergence zone. The patriarch's psionic pulses continued, and the psionic channel was still sending tactical commands to the branch nodes. But the number of branch nodes was decreasing. Some nodes were no longer receiving feedback signals; the signal lines were broken. The patriarch began to move, its silhouette shifting in another direction from behind cover deep within the convergence zone—not an escape, but a tactical turn. It was mobilizing reserves to flank the garrison and outflank the rear of the defensive regiment's position.
The cunning warriors recklessly used a frontal assault to suppress the firepower of the Casterland mechs, while their main force advanced through the side passage. Dozens of purebloods almost simultaneously stepped onto the passage wall, flanking the garrison's position from the side.
Liz crouched at the medical station, the nozzle of the hemostatic spray gun hissing as it applied the laceration to the wounded soldier's chest. This biological wound was completely different in shape from those caused by shrapnel, a type of external injury requiring immediate treatment. She moved swiftly—cutting open the sealant around the damaged power armor, cleaning away the chitinous debris around the wound, applying hemostatic agent, and stitching it up.
Liu En's consciousness swept across the medical station. The wounded soldier's vital signs displayed detailed physiological parameters in his perception—the location of the bleeding point, the angle of bone fragment displacement, and the distance to the severed blood vessels. While maintaining the neural decomposition of the cunning individual within the field, he also sent a wisp of consciousness into the wounded soldier's body. He stopped the bleeding, repositioned the bone fragments, and rebuilt the blood vessels. Liz was unaware of all this; she only saw the wounded soldier's vital signs stabilize rapidly within seconds. She lowered her head and continued stitching.
The clan leader, from a concealed position behind the intersection, sent new tactical pulses to all the cunning individuals. Attack commands were issued uniformly.
The tide of soldiers didn't surge in from the front. It surged out simultaneously from above, below, the side walls, the pipe cavities, and the ventilation shafts. They didn't run in the passageways; they climbed the passageway walls, using their claws to pierce the gaps in the metal plates of the bulkheads as leverage, propelling their chitinous exoskeleton-clad bodies rapidly across the vertical surface. Using all six limbs, they infiltrated every nook and cranny of the garrison's position.
Kara's command switched to all channels simultaneously: "Attention all units, Chicken Stealth has entered the position!"
The heavy bomb exploded at the corner of the passage, shattering the carapaces of several purebloods and splattering bodily fluids onto the bulkhead. One leaped from the pipework compartment, landing beside a transport-type servant. Before the servant's optical lens could lock onto its target, the tearing claws had already pierced its shell. Liu En's consciousness ripped out its brain before it could pounce on the second servant. It collapsed beside the gash it had torn open.
A cunning creature pounced on Kara. Liu En's consciousness ripped its brain off before it could tear Kara apart. The thing, suspended in mid-air, lost its target and crashed down an arm's length away from her. A fresh claw mark appeared on Kara's carapace—not pierced, but the claw tip had sliced into the seam of her shoulder armor and slipped out. She glanced back at the intact carapace on the ground, but said nothing. The heavy-explosive shells continued to fire.
The number of wounded is rising. Not on the same scale as the Greenskins, but every opening they make is more precise than the Greenskins'. The tearing claws slice into the seams of the power armor, causing shrapnel-like penetrating wounds. Some have their chestplates pierced by the claws, some have their carotid arteries severed by the claw tips, and some have their femoral arteries pierced.
Liz alone wasn't enough. But she didn't stop.
The cunning creatures lurking in the blind spot of the passageway emerged from Kara's firing range and pounced on the transport-type mechs in the ammunition storage area. Liu En's domain now extended to the back of the passageway corner, his consciousness locking onto the central nervous systems of the purebloods climbing there, disintegrating them. Their claws were still embedded in the gaps in the metal plates of the bulkhead, their corpses hanging high in the passageway, their carapaces intact.
The mechs' lines began to falter. Not because their firepower was insufficient, but because they were too cunning and fast. They rushed into the ranks during the mechs' reloading breaks, launching attacks from blind spots where the mechs turned. Two more mechs fell.
Liu En withdrew his attention from the direction of the clan leader, and the field of energy fully covered the combat zone in front of the mech ranks.
A cunning creature pounced on the torso of a Casteran mech, its tearing claws piercing the optical lens mount. Liu En's consciousness probed into its head, disintegrating it; the corpse hung on the mech's shell. The next one charged past its companion's corpse. Disintegrated, then the next, and so on. Every cunning creature in the area suddenly lost speed, staggered, and collapsed halfway through its charge. No wounds, no blood, the shells intact. The mech's explosive guns continued firing, clearing away the incapacitated remains one by one. A thick layer of cunning corpses piled up at the front line.
But there was more. Dozens of grayish-purple silhouettes emerged simultaneously from several branching paths in the intersection, climbing the walls and ceiling of the passageway, their tearing claws slicing through the metal surfaces with ear-piercing shrieks.
The chieftain moved. Its silhouette emerged from behind cover at the rear of the intersection, rapidly advancing towards the mech line. The cunning minions formed a protective formation around the chieftain, their six legs moving at high speed across the passageway. Simultaneously, the chieftain activated a long-range psionic pulse, locking onto Liu En's location.
Liu En's consciousness pierced through the encirclement of the pureblood thieves, scanning the unusually developed central nervous system cluster inside the chieftain's head. It wasn't the brain of a pureblood; it was a more advanced signal processing organ. The brain, encased in its carapace, was disproportionately large to the body's overall structure, with a synapse density several times that of a pureblood. It used it to command its swarm, activate psionic powers to paralyze enemies, and make tactical predictions. Under the telepathic coverage of the evolved insect hive, the chieftain granted the entire swarm of thieves extraordinary coordination and synchronization abilities, allowing them to surge through the defenses like a swarm of insects.
Liu En's consciousness did not disrupt the clan leader's central nervous system. He was waiting for the clan leader to enter the area of effect. The clan leader's guard formation was too dense, with the chitinous exoskeleton's carapace layers folded within it, and the length of the tearing claws fully extended during high-speed movement, making them the most conspicuous in the entire formation.
The clan leader entered the field's range through his senses.
Liu En waited less than a second. The patriarch's activation psionic pulse exploded in the particle layer of the field, opening a channel to all its branch nodes. The psionic wave burst forth from its central nervous system cluster, like a glowing cable, connecting the patriarch to the brains of every pureblood. Liu En's consciousness didn't dismantle the patriarch's central nervous system from the outside; it went directly deep along the psionic pulse's transmission channel, penetrating directly into the patriarch's central nervous system cluster from the end of its psionic generator.
That exceptionally developed cluster of central nervous systems unfolded layer by layer in his perception—not just a combat command organ, but the central processing unit of the entire race. The firing patterns of neuronal synapses flickered violently under the stimulation of psionic pulses, compressing attack commands into dense data streams, pumping them along that invisible cable into the brains of every pureblood.
At this moment, Liu En's consciousness touched the clan leader's brain. The decomposition command was issued.
It's not about removing the claws or the carapace. It's about removing the patriarch's central nervous system.
The chieftain's four pairs of limbs simultaneously lost all signal input. His massive body remained in a charging stance, but all motor functions ceased synchronously—not convulsions, not paralysis, but a complete lack of command. The chieftain staggered forward a step, but failed to take a second, collapsing to his knees with a thud. The Tear Claw remained in an attack stance, but was no longer moving.
The psionic channel collapsed. The psionic connection that had sustained the entire synchronized assault severed sequentially from the chieftain—the central processor—down to all the branch nodes. The pureblood cunning thieves collectively lost their will to fight the moment their chieftain fell. It wasn't cowardice; their central nervous system was gone. Their war machine had been dismantled from its core. They retreated like a tide from the front lines of the mechs back into the depths of the channel's convergence zone, disappearing into the gaps between the scrap heaps and the collapsed debris, vanishing at the edge of their perceptual boundaries.
The front line fell silent. Only the hissing of the heavy-explosive shell barrel cooling fins and the suppressed groans of the wounded remained.