"What's wrong?" Alexander asked Marquite with an innocent expression.
The hazy grey death intent around him twisted and coiled like tentacles.
Just by looking at him, Marquite felt as if his nerves were being licked by death.
His expression at this moment was like a hapless sycophant whose toes had been stepped on by an Orc, as if he was about to scream.
Marquite stared intently at Alexander.
The gloomy death intent around Alexander slowly faded, but rather than disappearing, it seemed to have fully converged into his skin and flesh.
That was a blessing from the depths of the Warp, terrifying to behold.
In his mind, the angels seemed to be wary of the source of this blessing, only vaguely mentioning something about "The cursed one" and refusing to discuss it further.
Marquite couldn't help but place his hand on the triangular sword at his waist, a deep wariness entering his eyes as he looked at Alexander.
Alexander blinked, looking bewildered.
What was wrong with this cultist Marquite? He looked as if seven nurglings and eight Bloodletters had been shoved up his backside.
Facing Alexander's bewildered expression, Marquite could only twitch his mouth slightly.
He waved his hand, and the plague zombies around him poured into the spiral staircase.
Under his control, these plague zombies entered the underground crypt beneath the government building.
A moment later, Marquite shook his head at Alexander.
The plague zombies that had entered the crypt earlier found nothing.
There was only an empty biomass pool, bubbling.
Neither the Tyranid Behemoth in the pool nor the genestealer patriarch were anywhere to be seen.
But Alexander and Marquite both understood that the genestealer patriarch could not abandon the Warp Engine.
They must be lurking in some shadow of the crypt, waiting for Alexander and Marquite to enter.
Alexander and Marquite exchanged a look, then, protected by the plague zombies, they slowly descended.
The spiral staircase was long, and Alexander stood behind Marquite, his mind churning with thoughts.
He looked at Marquite's back, considering when to stab him in the back, to avoid being stabbed first.
The emperor tarot predicted "hope in the cold darkness."
In other words, the Emperor, in his old age, believed Alexander could defeat the genestealer patriarch and that Tyranid Behemoth, and destroy the Warp Engine.
Could Alexander do it?
He actually could.
Even if the items he currently had couldn't achieve it, he still had over three million in savings.
Using these savings to buy a few powerful items, there was still a good chance of taking down the genestealer patriarch and that Tyranid Behemoth.
The question was, what then?
After spending his savings, Alexander would no longer be able to rent the Adaptation Lamp to resist Nurgle's supernatural viruses.
Without the genestealer as a common enemy, could Marquite and Alexander maintain their previous cooperative relationship?
Especially considering "saving Ashford" as mentioned by Mont and Marquite.
Their idea of saving would likely not be as simple as building a ship and running away with the Ashford people.
Furthermore, what exactly did Mont do? It must have also been beneficial to Marquite.
Yet, Marquite was still useful to Alexander at the moment.
"We're here," Marquite said in a low voice, interrupting Alexander's thoughts.
Marquite's footsteps stopped before the crypt.
Alexander stood behind him, glancing into the depths of the crypt.
Huge metal pillars supported the entire crypt, and the promethium hanging on them had been extinguished.
Only the Warp Engine at the end of the crypt, behind the biomass pool, still emitted a faint blue light.
But it only cast a hazy glow over the crypt, unable to dispel the deep shadows within.
That Tyranid Behemoth and the genestealer patriarch were lurking within.
Leaving aside the Tyranid Behemoth whose true form was unknown,
the genestealer patriarch was a master of ambush in darkness and shadows.
This crypt, with its lights extinguished, was clearly a hunting ground it had deliberately prepared.
The plague zombies shuffled their decaying bodies in the crypt, but the two alien monsters were patient.
Especially the genestealer patriarch, cunning, insidious, and cautious.
It seemed that unless Alexander and Marquite entered, the two of them would not show themselves.
Marquite and Alexander were equally cautious, neither of them rashly entering the crypt.
The air was deathly silent.
For a time, only the plague zombies wandered in the entire crypt, making the atmosphere awkwardly boring and uncomfortable.
"If Horus had half your caution back then, he probably wouldn't have been half-dead from poison in Davine."
Sanguinius couldn't help but complain.
Alexander, without changing his expression, hung Sword of Light. Denkōmaru at his waist and took out an antique, brownish gourd.
"If they don't move, we'll force them to move first."
"Pocket Tornado!"
Alexander pulled out the stopper of the gourd, and a grey-black breeze gathered, transforming into a powerful, howling tornado.
He couldn't find the genestealer patriarch and the Tyranid Behemoth hidden in the darkness, but he knew where the Warp Engine was!
The sharp, ear-piercing sound of the hurricane cutting through the air echoed throughout the crypt.
The hurricane released from the Pocket Tornado roared towards the Warp Engine at the end of the crypt.
If the genestealer patriarch didn't want to watch the Warp Engine be destroyed, then it had to—
A sharp roar suddenly erupted from the crypt's ceiling, the sound urgent and fierce.
A spider-like shadow dropped heavily from the ceiling, accompanied by flashes of pale electric light.
The giant beast's massive body directly tore apart the howling, splitting wind released by the Pocket Tornado.
The dissipating hurricane and the dust stirred up by the falling beast obscured its body; nothing could be seen except for the faintly visible pale electric light.
"All things decay!" Marquite roared, suddenly raising the triangular blade in his hand.
The flesh of the plague zombies in the crypt writhed, their bodies seemingly swelling and strengthening slightly.
They converged, forming a tide of decaying flesh that surged towards the Tyranid Behemoth in the dust.
Damn—
Four sharp blades, wreathed in static light, cut through the air.
The blades were so fast that they left hundreds of thousands of afterimages in the air, effortlessly tearing the surging tide of plague zombies into scattered chunks of flesh.
As the decaying flesh splattered, Alexander also clearly saw the beast's true face.
It was a bipedal, combat-ready Tyranid Behemoth, about seven or eight meters tall, covered in thick carapace, with four sharp blades and a maw full of fangs.
It was—
"Screamer-Killer!" Alexander instantly recognized the true identity of this Tyranid Behemoth.
The largest and most infamous subspecies in the Tyranid Behemoth Executioner lineage.
It was named "Screamer-Killer" precisely because of its signature—
A piercing, sharp roar assailed them, its pitch and volume reaching terrifying levels. Alexander almost felt his internal organs would be shattered.
However, this scream was just the prelude—
A biological plasma, emitting a pale blue cold light, gathered in the Screamer-Killer's mouth, like a newly born star.
The scorching biological plasma shot towards Alexander and Marquite—