Amidst the explosions and flying gore, the sorcerer on the high platform finally awoke from his ritualistic frenzy. He looked at the chaotic mass of followers below, scurrying like headless chickens, and a flicker of rage crossed his eyes.
He raised a staff twisted from bone and metal, and in a voice imbued with psychic power, he roared, attempting to restore order: "Stop! Cowards! Those who flee will be deemed to have forsaken the dark Gods, and your souls will suffer eternal torment in the warp!"
His voice drowned out some of the lingering explosions, and some of the fleeing cultists abruptly halted.
"Fight for the glory of the Gods!" The sorcerer's voice was full of temptation. "Those who fight will be watched over by the dark Gods! Your bravery will earn you eternal blessings!"
His efforts did indeed have an effect.
Long-term brainwashing and Chaos corruption had already warped the minds of these people; the human instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm was disappearing from their brains. Driven by the fear of eternal torment and the greed for blessings, they truly stopped, their crimson eyes turning towards the players at the entrance, and began to attempt to organize a charge.
If this sorcerer had been given enough time, he might truly have been able to stabilize these tens of thousands of chaotic cultists. In that case, the players would have lost half the battle—there were tens of thousands of cultists here by a rough count, and if they were truly organized to charge the players, although the players were not afraid of death and could not die, the capture of the Chemical Refinery would definitely be dragged into a quagmire. Tens of thousands of people, even if they stood still and let the players kill them, it would still take quite a while.
The most important thing in this battle was to achieve a quick victory. No one knew when the cultists from the main battlefield would return to reinforce, nor did anyone know how long Commissar Walter's promised delay could last. If the enemy's main force returned before they could take and consolidate the defenses here, then this mission would already have failed.
But fortunately, the sorcerer's attempt was decisively shattered.
"Seventh Squad, charge!" Robert saw signs of the cultists beginning to organize and immediately gave the order, "But don't stop throwing grenades!"
Cain, the ogryn, who had been stifled by the stealthy creeping all the way, immediately let out a furious roar filled with excitement and anger!
"Awooo—!"
His voice was like a clap of thunder, so loud that it momentarily drowned out all other sounds on the battlefield. Several players next to him showed painful expressions, and one of them couldn't help but curse, "Holy crap, I feel like my eardrums burst."
Led by Cain, the Seventh Squad charged fiercely into the cultists' lines like a tiger entering a flock of sheep. The peripheral cultists, who had just been incited by the sorcerer and hadn't yet formed an effective formation, were directly scared senseless by the terrifying momentum of this humanoid beast—literally scared senseless. They stood dazed, watching grenades explode at their feet, watching bayonets and scorching laser beams strike them.
The sorcerer's organization undoubtedly failed. Lacking quality education and the discipline of junior officers, the cultists' fragile morale easily collapsed again. As the Seventh Squad pierced through, the entire cultist group completely disintegrated. And the sorcerer on the high platform soon disappeared amidst the chaotic scene; perhaps he used some psychic power to quietly leave, or perhaps his own psychic power was weak, and he died directly under a stray bullet or grenade from an unknown source.
The battle quickly transitioned into a pursuit phase. The players began to hunt down the fleeing cultists; of course, they weren't necessarily trying to kill them all. With just a hundred people, it would be extremely difficult to catch tens of thousands of pigs scurrying everywhere, let alone humans with two legs who could hide. The players' mission only required them to thoroughly drive them out of the Chemical Refinery.
A squad of a dozen cultists fled in a panic through the complex pipes and corridors, while behind them, several players calmly and leisurely followed—they had already seen the map and knew that the path ahead was a dead end.
"Hehehe... just keep running..." One of the players let out a sinister laugh, deliberately letting the cultists ahead hear him, "Let's see where you can run to!"
His companions beside him also burst into hearty laughter.
Looking at the terrified and utterly frightened expressions of the cultists ahead, and then at the players behind, approaching with evil smiles like cats toying with mice, for a moment, it was truly hard to tell who the villains were.
However, the cat-and-mouse smiles on the players' faces abruptly ceased the next moment, freezing in place.
Their gazes passed over the trembling cultists and, by unspoken agreement, focused on the ceiling above them—in the darkness shrouded by pipes and shadows, a clear, white outline, a warning that only appeared on enemies, was silently lurking.
The shape of that outline was extremely peculiar. It resembled a giant, curled-up insect, with a smooth and elongated head, four strong arms tucked along its sides, each arm ending in what appeared to be blade-like claws. Its entire body was covered in some kind of carapace, perfectly blending into the darkness; had it not been for the game system's enemy identification function, it would have been impossible to detect its presence with the naked eye.
The pursuing players exchanged glances, their eyes filled with solemnity and a hint of imperceptible excitement. Clearly, everyone had seen that thing.
A hidden plot? Or was this the true Sir of the Chemical Refinery?
They did not immediately shout warnings, but instead displayed astonishing tacit agreement. The few of them maintained their unhurried posture, cleanly executing the cultists who had fallen into despair and were repeatedly kowtowing for mercy, with bayonets and laser guns.
Then, at the same moment the last cultist was killed, the small squad instantly turned their weapons and unleashed all their firepower, without warning, onto the unknown creature on the ceiling!
Two fragmentation grenades arced briefly, thrown precisely below the outline. Immediately after, seven or eight crimson laser beams, guided as if by invisible fingers, converged on the same point within a fraction of a second.
Theoretically, an armored vehicle caught unprepared by such a dense concentration of fire would absolutely suffer heavy damage.
But unfortunately, that was only theoretical.
Just a split second before the grenades were about to explode and the lasers were about to hit, the outline merely flashed past. Its speed was too fast for the naked eye to catch, like a purplish-black lightning bolt, easily evading all of the players' premeditated attacks.
The exploding grenades and missed laser beams created a shower of sparks and debris on the ceiling.
Before the players could react from the shock of their attack missing, the dark figure had already plunged into their midst.
Everything happened in an instant. The impossibly sharp claw-blades cut through bulletproof armor like a hot knife through butter; the players couldn't even let out a scream, their bodies all sliced into several pieces in a single moment. Scorching blood and internal organs splattered across the entire corridor, dyeing the cold metal floor a shocking crimson.
Liam, the genestealer, after elegantly and efficiently killing this squad of players, immediately left the scene. It was not here to fight the Imperial army; it had a more important mission.
Even so, it felt a hint of confusion. Its stealth technique, which merged with the darkness, was something many psychics might not even be able to perceive; how had these mortals discovered it?
"Never mind, the hivemind will redeem everyone equally," it muttered in its non-human mind, its figure flickering several times before disappearing into the deep shadows of the factory.
It completely failed to notice that, after it left, the dismembered, utterly dead bodies on the ground blurred faintly, then restored themselves to their original state.
The resurrected players stood still, staring blankly at the place where the carnage had just occurred, their faces full of shock.
One of the players pulled up the system log, and when he saw the identity of the guy who had killed them, marked in red font, he couldn't help but curse, "Holy crap! A genestealer!"