"CLANG—!!!"
The deafening screech of metal colliding echoed through the enclosed shaft, shaking eardrums until they ached.
Korber's chainsword didn't slice straight through the monster's flesh. Instead, it slammed violently against a dark-red biological scythe.
The massive recoil forced Korber back half a step, but the hydraulic systems in his armor instantly locked up, forcibly stabilizing his center of gravity.
The blow shattered the monster's cloaking, fully exposing its form.
Instead of being sent flying like an ordinary beast, it executed an incredibly bizarre twist mid-air, completely defying physical inertia.
Its spine seemed entirely devoid of joint limitations. Its upper body snapped a full 180 degrees, using the momentum of the spin to swing its scythe. Leaving a dark-red afterimage in its wake, the blade lunged straight for the joint connecting Korber's neck.
Had he still been wearing the old T-9000 exoskeleton, Korber would be a dead man by now.
Hydraulic transmissions carried a delay—roughly 0.2 seconds. If your brain thought about raising a hand, it took a fraction of a second before the arm actually moved.
In high-level combat, that split second was enough to die three or four times over.
But now, he wore "Vanguard" power armor, and his flesh was integrated with Type-IV bio-neural bundles.
This reverse-engineered, high-tech material derived from Eldar wraithbone converted his neural impulses directly into electrical signals. Transmission speeds exploded.
Before Korber could even process the thought "I need to dodge," his body had already reacted.
The thrusters on the back of the power armor unleashed a sudden burst of air, shifting his heavy iron frame half a meter to the left.
Shuck!
The scythe grazed his helmet, carving a deep gash across the shoulder pauldrons. Sparks showered over Korber's visor.
"Die!"
Korber roared. Instead of retreating, he lunged forward!
With a savage roar, the chainsword swung upward in a vicious slash.
The tin can't's agility completely shattered the monster's expectations. Its slender hind legs kicked off the ground, propelling its entire body backward to open up some distance.
But Korber refused to give it breathing room. Running the power armor at maximum output, he pressed the attack.
The two instantly clashed in a frantic melee.
Chainsword and bio-scythe collided madly within the narrow space, every impact generating a brilliant burst of sparks.
Standing nearby, Jethro and the other Storm Squad soldiers stood frozen in shock.
They held their hellguns raised but dared not fire, terrified of hitting Korber by mistake.
"What—what the hell is that thing?"
Jethro's eyes widened so far his jaw dropped low enough to fit a grenade.
During his years in the Underhive, Jethro had encountered plenty of mutants and beasts. They fought using raw brute force or relied on overwhelming numbers.
But this xenos was different.
It was absurd!
It refused to trade direct blows with Korber. Instead, it utilized its long limbs and bizarre joint angles to constantly circle him, maintaining an aggressive assault.
It tested its opponent. It tapped the tip of its scythe against the joints of the power armor. The moment it realized the angle was bad and wouldn't penetrate, it instantly altered its stance to try again.
It even understood how to utilize the terrain. Several times, it retreated behind thick structural pillars, using the shadows to disrupt Korber's vision.
A cold sweat broke out across Jethro's back as a chilling realization dawned on him.
This thing wasn't a beast at all—
This was a fucking warrior!
A xenos warrior that had undergone rigorous training and possessed an exceptionally high combat intellect!
"We're screwed—"
Jethro looked around the deep, dark shaft and the dense network of maintenance platforms lining the walls.
If this thing was intelligent, then this place—
This had to be their nest!
Maybe it was a barracks, or some sort of outpost.
Jethro instinctively touched his throat, a wave of lingering fear washing over him.
Just moments ago, he had been leaning over the railing, planning to spit down into the darkness!
Thank God he hadn't!
If that spit had landed on someone's head, more than just this one creature might have swarmed up!
In the center of the battlefield, the situation shifted abruptly.
Realizing it couldn't match the power armor in a contest of brute strength, the xenos changed its tactics.
It feigned a vulnerability, intentionally exposing a gap along its left ribs.
Korber took the bait. The chainsword swept forward with a howling wind.
The instant the teeth were about to bite into its flesh, the xenos folded its body like a sheet of paper, dodging the blades by the absolute slimmest of margins.
Immediately after, it hooked its scythe around Korber's left arm and pulled violently.
SCREECH—
The agonizing sound of twisting metal echoed out.
A clean gash was torn open right through the Vanguard power armor's thick arm plating. Black smoke even billowed from the servo motors.
"Fuck!"
Korber cried out in pain. Although the blow hadn't pierced his flesh, the terror of having his armor breached sent his adrenaline skyrocketing.
Instead of backing away, he used the momentum of the creature's pull to slam his entire body forward.
It was an incredibly risky move.
But his gamble paid off.
The xenos's scythe was wedged deep in the armor's seams, preventing a quick withdrawal.
The two collided heavily.
Korber released his right grip on the chainsword and balled his hand into a fist, forcing the power armor's hydraulic systems into immediate overload.
"Snap for me!!"
The fist smashed directly into the right arm joint holding the scythe.
CRACK!!!
The crisp sound of fracturing bone echoed through the shaft.
The xenos unleashed a piercing, shrill shriek that sounded like grinding glass.
Its slender right arm bent at an unnatural angle, completely broken. The biological scythe slipped from its grip, clattering loudly against the floor.
Severely wounded, the xenos didn't linger. It snapped its jaws open and exhaled a thick cloud of purple mist.
The fog proved highly corrosive and obscuring, rendering Korber's sensors completely blind.
By the time the smoke cleared, the monster was gone.
Only a puddle of green blood and the severed arm remained on the ground.
"Huff—huff—"
Korber collapsed onto the floor, panting heavily as his entire body trembled.
In that final stretch, if his reactions had been even 0.1 seconds slower, or if that scythe had cut just a fraction deeper, it wouldn't have been the xenos losing an arm—it would have been him.
"Old Kor! You alright?!"
Jethro rushed forward, propping him up.
"I'm fine—not dead yet—"
Korber stared at the severed arm on the floor, terror still lingering in his chest.
"Damn it, that thing is too unnatural—"
Fort Horizon, Scientific Research Tower, Third Floor.
This space had originally been a spacious, multi-purpose laboratory, but Andy had since commandeered it and converted it into his private workshop.
Compared to the subterranean workshops filled with the stench of engine oil and the clamor of clashing metal, this place—
It was absolute heaven!
Though Andy was an Iron Man, he still retained a fair amount of human aesthetic preferences.
He had bright, warm LED strips installed along the walls, illuminating the entire room with a clear, cozy light. The floor was laid with anti-static carpeting and freshly repainted, making it far more comfortable than Sisyphron's old office.
At this moment, Andy sat before a wide workbench, holding a precision laser screwdriver, his mood exceptionally bright.
Hovering over the table in front of him was a silver-white metal sphere, roughly one meter in diameter.
Hexagonal solar panels lined its surface, while four miniature anti-gravity thrusters along its perimeter fired in brief bursts, subtly adjusting its orientation.
The Skynet-1 Low-Orbit Base Station—a fine piece of tech whose core components had just rolled off the assembly line.
Commonly known as an electronic buoy, or a low-orbit satellite!
Andy had specifically cobbled this device together to resolve their severely primitive communications issues.
After all, anyone who used the communication tech of the Warhammer universe knew exactly how it felt.
It was astonishingly atrocious!
Short-range relied on auspex scans and radio, which turned entirely to static at the slightest hint of interference.
Long-range relied on Astropaths dreaming up messages, which was pure mysticism—whether a message landed safely depended entirely on the whims of the Warp.
As for mid-range, such as over-the-horizon communication across a planet's surface, it generally required laying thick, cumbersome wired cables. It was incredibly primitive.
For Andy, who was accustomed to full-map hacks and real-time strategy perspectives, this was utterly intolerable.
So, utilizing the STC database, he engineered this "Skynet-1."
The principle was simple: integrate a highly sensitive signal transceiver array, optical reconnaissance probes, thermal imaging radar, and various other components into a single sphere.
Using an anti-gravity engine, it would hover at the lower boundary of the stratosphere, roughly twenty thousand meters up.
At this altitude, it could bypass most ground-level interference and harsh weather conditions while covering a radius of five hundred kilometers.
The finest feature was its power system.
Andy had lined it entirely with highly efficient solar panels, combining it with the energy integration technology he had previously reverse-engineered from the Jokaero. As long as the planet's star didn't burn out, it could hang in the sky indefinitely without needing fuel or recharges.
Speaking of that energy integration technology, Andy felt quite proud of his progress.
Though he still hadn't fully grasped how the space orangutans managed to cram fusion-level energy into a single ring, analyzing the energy storage circuits of that digital weapon had yielded significant breakthroughs.
The resulting battery packs, while still roughly the size of a fist in diameter, had been shaved down to a thickness of just two centimeters. Holding it felt like holding a high-density metallic disc—the absolute limit of current manufacturing and material sciences.
Attempting to scale it down further would require spatial compression tech at a microscopic level. The STC data on that front remained entirely dark, leaving Andy without a clue for the time being.
Regardless, he wasn't trying to forge micro-assassination weapons to wear on his fingers. This current size fit perfectly inside drones and electronic buoys. Stable performance was what mattered; scaling it down further offered no practical benefit.
"Once I build a few hundred of these and scatter them into the sky—"
Andy tightened the final screw, calculating happily.
"I can establish a real-time surveillance and communication network across Fort Horizon and far beyond."
"When that time comes, I can sit right here at home and see exactly where mutant herds are gathering, where resources are located, and where enemies are trying to sneak into my base."
Surely that beat sending scouts to map the terrain on foot?
Knock, knock, knock.
Urgent knocking shattered the quiet of the room, interrupting Andy's daydreaming.
"Come in."
Andy didn't lift his head, focusing on executing the final signal calibrations.
The door opened.
Jethro and Korber stepped inside.
The two Storm Squad veterans looked somewhat disheveled. A deep scratch scarred the shoulder pauldrons of Korber's power armor.
Yet their expressions remained thrilled, and between them, they carried an elongated object wrapped in a waterproof tarp.
"Boss! We found something huge!"
Jethro slammed the bundle onto the workbench, producing a dull thud.
"We discovered a massive underground shaft in the western ruins. This freakish thing was hiding inside!"
As Jethro spoke, he pulled back the tarp.
The dark-red, spine-covered severed arm of the xenos, along with its still-razor-sharp biological scythe, lay exposed beneath the lights.
A sickening stench of blood instantly ruined the fresh air of the workshop.
Andy set down his screwdriver. His electronic eyes scanned the severed limb, his pupils contracting slightly.
This biological structure... this carapace texture...
Andy instantly triggered the retrieval function of the STC database.
A blue laser array swept across the cut on the arm, analyzing the DNA sequences and cellular structures within.
A few seconds later, a notification box popped up.
[Species Identification Complete.]
[Target: Wraith.]
[Assessment: Devoid of a gestalt consciousness. Characterized by exceptional agility, stealth, complex biotechnology, and fierce territorial aggression. Typically operate in packs, highly social. Adults possess formidable biological cloaking capabilities.]