The Emperor’s Angel of Death

"It's a purestrain Genestealer, try to take it out from a distance."

Bararez immediately warned the squad's warriors. Then, two Terminators wielding assault cannons began firing to the side, tearing apart the Genestealers attempting to flank them—their hunchbacked bodies were ripped apart in a storm of cannon fire and gore.

The other Terminators also opened fire, using storm bolters and plasma pistols, weapons that had become standard issue within the White Templars.

Painful screams echoed through the room. After realizing they couldn't get close, they actually chose to retreat.

"Sergeant, this is Team Dean."

Suddenly, another voice came over the comms, that of another tactical squad leader.

"All members have reached their positions."

This was an assault squad, their mission to use jump packs to reach the top level of the platform while the Terminators drew the enemy's attention.

"Begin the assault."

Bararez finished speaking and checked his auspex, confirming that the squad's life signs were directly above him.

Soon, through a thick metal plate, he heard explosions—the signal of the assault squad throwing grenades downwards. Then, their chainswords and bolters would roar.

"Push harder, brothers, let's clean this place up!"

Third Company Captain swung his thunder hammer, knocking the first Genestealer aside. Its shattered body crashed against the metal wall of the corridor. As the second alien pounced, he raised his fist and smashed it into the creature's head, sending it into convulsions, then stomped on the stunned monster's head, crushing it. Another quickly lunged at him, claws raking at his abdomen, diamond-hard claws trying to tear through the metal-protected organs.

He swung his hammer, and the monster's chitinous neck snapped with a crack, collapsing to the ground.

Boom—

Suddenly, an explosion erupted ahead, blasting several Genestealers into the air. The second Terminator squad had also fought their way up to the second level from another direction, their bolters and plasma guns blazing.

"Flank secure."

The final yellow light heralded the arrival of the Emperor's fire. Heavy flamers spat flames that flickered along the gaps between the massive gantries and cranes, incinerating a group of Genestealers attempting to jump down from the overhead framework and land behind Bararez.

The aliens writhed in the flames for a second or two, then turned into smoldering piles as the flames died down, leaving only patches of burning promethium scarring the walls and floor.

Bararez ignored them, passing through the dying flames to meet up with the other squad, and headed towards a closed door.

However, the auspex indicated that Genestealers were lurking nearby. At Bararez's command, a Terminator wielding an assault cannon opened fire on the nearest door, blasting it to pieces. The mangled corpses of three purestrain Genestealers fell to the ground along with the wreckage.

But more Genestealers were revealed as the door was breached, but they suffered the same fate as the others, foul blood splattering on the riveted bulkheads.

Soon they entered a loading area, the wreckage of cranes and lifts tilting crazily in the shadows above. The massive blast door had been blown inward at some distant time due to a ship collision. An angled balcony jutted out over the doorway. One by one, hybrid psykers leaped over the railing, landing gracefully on the loading dock floor, and unhesitatingly charged towards the Terminators, while below them, hordes of infected and neophytes, with nowhere else to go, fought to the death.

Bararez calmly opened fire, adjusting his rate of fire, first killing a repairman wielding a stolen Guard lasgun and a gaunt woman with razor-sharp claws.

The others unleashed a dense wall of bullets at the charging Genestealers. Dressed only in tattered work jumpsuits and wielding makeshift weapons, they fell like wheat before a scythe, yet continued to advance relentlessly.

The hybrid psykers leaped over the backs of their dying comrades, powerful legs allowing some of them to perform high flips, but they were comically riddled with bullets before they could land.

Screams and roars echoed through the chamber. A hunchbacked brute wielding a massive scrap iron hammer charged out of the mist towards the Terminators, but a plasma blast struck the abomination's left knee, forcing it to kneel. Bararez roared and strode forward, slamming his iron-shod boot down on top of the other, intact knee, and was met with a terrifying, chitinous crunch—like the brittle, wet sound of stepping on a swollen insect.

The abomination began to scream, jagged and bloody bone protruding from its ankle. Bararez raised his hammer, smashing it down again and again on its huge, solid body, like a farmer threshing grain. The alien, unable to resist, could only raise its arms in a futile attempt to block the blows, but its hand was shattered with the first strike, then its chest was caved in, and foul, stinking pus splattered all over him.

"Mommy, where are we going?"

Willy stood barefoot on the cold ground, clutching a tattered, patched-up doll with four arms. She looked at her mother, who was struggling to pry open a rusted-shut circular hatch, with a lost expression.

She was less than a meter tall, very thin, her face was dirty with snot, and her head was bald with some hyperplasia on her forehead. She only wore a gray, ill-fitting, and ragged piece of clothing, like an oversized dress. As a fourth-generation member, her appearance was extremely close to human, but she had gained stronger resistance and faster growth. She was actually only three years old but had the physique of a normal human six or seven years old.

"Mommy, where did the uncles and aunts go?"

Because she was still young, she could not establish a complete psychic connection, but she vaguely felt that she was constantly losing something during this time.

Just a few days ago, she was happily playing and learning with her friends in the "New Home", hoping to grow up quickly and help her relatives and parents with their work. They only had a slight impression of the cruel life in the past—the cold, dark underground mine, with only sporadic food and sewage, which was already the best that their parents could provide, even risking their lives to "steal" it from the garbage dump, and those ubiquitous thugs in armor wielding electric batons.

Willy once had a friend who was accidentally discovered stealing the other party's water bottle and was beaten to death with an electric baton.

Fortunately, the adults finally drove away those bad guys, and they were finally able to leave the underground and live on the surface. It's just that Willy's father seemed to have sacrificed himself in the battle with the bad guys, so when her mother was working, she could only live a collective life in the "kindergarten" under the care of the aunts.

But in a large family, every aunt regarded the children as their own flesh and blood, so there was no difference.

But such a good day did not last long. Not long ago, she was still playing the game of piling coal balls when her mother suddenly ran over and picked her up, and then ran for her life, all the way to the dark and humid underground passage, and found an abandoned metal shack, and then it was like this now.

Her mother seemed to be trying to open that thing.