Yuki was sent tumbling by Tigurius's psychic shockwave, his body carving a deep furrow through the ruins. Before he could stand, a Brutalis Dreadnought smashed through a broken wall and charged, its massive talons thrusting down with devastating momentum.
"This isn't right, is it?"
Yuki dodged at the last possible second, but the power claw still skewered his shoulder blade. The searing pain sharpened his mind. Dangerous green acid immediately began to corrode the Dreadnought's metallic claws, emitting a bone-chilling hiss. Smoke poured from the Dreadnought's mechanical arm as its power systems groaned under the overload.
This brief stall gave Yuki the chance to tear himself free. Clutching his smoking wound, he retreated rapidly. By now, more and more Ultramarines were converging from all directions, with Ultramar Auxilia units and tanks closing in. Hopper's silhouette was quickly swallowed by the growing crowd; she continued to fire, but in the face of this overwhelming reinforcement, individual heroism seemed to dim.
Yuki assessed the situation quickly. Killing Hopper in the heart of such a dense encirclement was now nearly impossible. Bolters spat fire from every direction, and scouts occupied high ground, locking onto his every move from above.
"It seems today is not the day you die."
Before Tigurius's staff could descend, several air-tearing shrieks echoed from the sky. Several Cerebrates and Carnifexes slammed into the ground like meteors, their carapaces colliding with the stone pavement in heavy thuds. The moment they landed, these creatures formed a defensive formation, shielding Yuki in the center.
Yuki never bound himself to conventional tactics. Since Space Marines excelled at drop-pod assaults, he would naturally push the Tyranid advantage in aerial insertion to its limit. These elite units were chosen specifically to be sacrificed; their sole mission was to buy their master precious seconds for extraction.
The Carnifexes advanced with heavy strides, their massive bodies acting as mobile fortresses that soaked up every bolt shell aimed at Yuki. Their carapaces peeled away under the concentrated fire. Simultaneously, the Cerebrates released powerful psychic waves that clashed violently with Tigurius's spells in the void. While a single Cerebrate was no match for the Chief Librarian, the network they formed through the Hive Mind created a barrier that was difficult to breach.
In this brief stalemate, Yuki focused his entire psychic reserve into a single point and shattered the barrier Tigurius had set. Energy fragments erupted like scattering stars as the barrier broke, but Yuki's silhouette had already vanished into the shadows of the ruins.
"Chief Librarian, we must pursue!" Hopper shouted urgently.
Tigurius raised a hand to stop her. "Hopper, look out!"
The suicidal frenzy of the Cerebrates and Carnifexes, who completely disregarded their own survival, made it clear to everyone that pursuit was impossible. They even began self-destructing just to delay the enemy for a single extra second. Hopper could only watch the direction where Yuki had disappeared, her knuckles white from gripping her weapon.
On the eastern side of the plaza, the third squad of the Ultramarines Sixth Company encountered a gruesome scene: over twenty Termagants were slaughtering civilians hiding in the ruins. With the roar of chainswords and precise bolter fire, the xenos were quickly eliminated. The warriors formed a defensive perimeter to cover the survivors' evacuation, yet none noticed the dozens of spore mines drifting through the gaps in the buildings.
When the first spore mine detonated, the entire squad—along with the civilians they had just rescued and the remaining Termagants—was engulfed in a green cloud of explosive mist. When the smoke cleared, only a scorched crater filled with shards of ceramite and chitinous plating remained.
The same tactics were repeated across other sectors of the city. The Tyranids disregarded casualties entirely, actively trading suicide attacks for minor tactical gains. In the port district, a group of Hormagaunts intentionally led the fighting toward promethium storage tanks; the resulting explosion instantly consumed combatants from both sides. This willingness to destroy biomass just to inflict damage completely subverted the Imperium's understanding of the Swarm.
"Are they insane?" a sergeant roared over the vox. "These xenos have abandoned even the most basic logic of survival!"
From his hiding place, Yuki observed it all through the hive's vision, feeling quite satisfied. Under his control, more hive units began to target various energy facilities. Another promethium warehouse went up in a pillar of fire, the blast even catching an entire tactical squad fighting nearby.
"As I thought, these people don't understand my intent. To them, the Tyranids are still just mindless xenos fighting only for food."
By using a small number of troops to cause massive destruction, the likelihood of the Ultramarines' main force remaining tied down grew. Next, he just had to find a way to leave Macragge, hopefully taking whatever remained of his fleet with him.
Yuki had long prepared his escape. He set his sights on a Thunderhawk gunship used by the Ultramarines to deploy reinforcements. The hydraulic system of the hatch emitted an abnormal hiss as the tightly sealed door was torn open by a Harpy. Yuki's disguised form appeared inside the airlock, his ceramite plates still stained with fresh blood.
"My Lord?" the mortal soldier on guard asked in shock, dropping his dataslate as his eyes darted between Yuki and the recently completed mission report. According to the manifest, everyone was already on board. The sudden appearance of this "Ultramarine" made him instinctively reach for his laspistol.
But he would never have the chance to learn the truth. Yuki's gauntlet pressed against the man's chestplate, and a psychic pulse instantly pulverized his internal organs. By the time the soldier slumped to the floor, Yuki was already in the pilot's seat.
Why steal this Thunderhawk? The Tyranids would perceive Yuki and identify the gunship as "friendly," while the Ultramarines' identification systems would tag the Thunderhawk as an ally. Under this double disguise, he moved like a ghost through the fires of war.
As the gunship broke through the atmosphere, a Bio-Cruiser was already waiting in the void. This was planned by Yuki in advance; this ship took no part in the battle, its only task being to remain hidden. The mission to distract the main fleet was complete, and Yuki had even managed to steal quite a bit of data. It was time to run.
As the Thunderhawk entered the cruiser's ventral bay, the fleshy hatch sealed immediately, swallowing the human construct whole. In the neural cockpit, Yuki's consciousness merged rapidly with the ship. He waited patiently for two standard hours, feeling the streams of consciousness sent back from various nodes on Macragge's surface. When the final memory of the battle flowed into the primary brain via the psychic network, he gently nudged a navigation tendril.
The biological engine emitted a low hum, and the cruiser slid silently into the void, leaving behind the human fleets still locked in a bitter struggle.