The roar from the explosive bombs was a series of deafening, concussive thumps that resounded through the night sky, momentarily drowning out the ship's alarms and the distant hum of the Valkyrie's engines.
More than a dozen unlucky humans, caught in the overlapping blast radius, were instantly blown into unrecognizable pieces. A large, wet-sounding spray of splattered bones and flesh peppered their nearby teammates. Those who survived the initial blast collapsed, wailing in agony, their bodies riddled with shrapnel and fragments of their former comrades.
With the powerful boost from the electro-fiber bundles, Nolan, as strong as a bull, became a two-meter-tall, black-and-red storm. He rushed directly into the enemy's front line.
A huge red gauntlet waved casually. The movement was almost lazy, yet the impact was absolute. A single blow was enough to smash an enemy's entire upper body into a fine, red pulp.
Then, Nolan, showing no mercy, turned the muzzle on the gauntlets again.
BOOM!
The roar of the bombs sounded once more, this time at point-blank range. He used only one round to smash through several overlapping human bodies, sending a spray of gore onto the deck chairs behind them.
After a few dozen seconds, a lifetime for the guards, the gunfire surrounding the Hunting Lord armor gradually became sparse.
Finally, it disappeared completely.
At this moment, only the high-pitched, terrifying buzz of the Hellgun kept coming from not far away, punctuating the silence with shrieks of its own.
Around Nolan's landing site, the dozens of enemies who had dared to attack him were all reduced to blood and flesh scattered across the ground. The air was thick with the coppery, iron-rich smell of blood and the sharp tang of cordite.
"Surrender! We surrender!"
Three human bodyguards, trembling so hard their gear rattled, their lower bodies dark and wet with urine, subconsciously discarded their guns. The weapons clattered loudly on the deck.
They knelt amidst the carnage, their faces pale and horrified, trying to beg for mercy from the terrifying, silent mechanical monster in front of them.
Nolan, who remained silent, took heavy, measured steps.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
He walked in front of them, the metal of his armored boots scraping on the bloody deck.
He turned his wrist, and a click-whirr sound came from the glove as it refilled the ammunition of the grenade gun.
He asked in a low, amplified voice, devoid of all emotion:
"How many superpowered individuals are in your bodyguard team?"
At this time, a white man with a flickering, terrified gaze glanced at the mutilated corpses around him. He kept swallowing his saliva, his throat clicking.
"I... we are actually... just a little bit stronger in terms of strength and recovery ability. Just enhanced, not... not like that!" he stammered, gesturing vaguely at the sky.
Nolan tilted his head, looked back at the piles of corpses on the deck, and fell silent.
Then, he raised his hand, the massive red gauntlet pointing at the lasers that occasionally flashed in the dark night sky. He continued to ask, his voice just as flat.
"What's the situation with the flying one, the one with laser eyes?"
Before the white bodyguard could speak again, the other black bodyguard quickly shuffled forward on his knees, his hands raised high.
He tried to squeeze out a twisted, desperate smile.
"That's one of the boss's confidants. His name is... we don't know! We are just paid bodyguards. By the way, please, please be careful. Our bodyguard captain is also the boss's confidant. She... she has very powerful superpowers. She's good at controlling magnetic fields and metals."
The silent Nolan nodded slightly.
He casually removed the heavy Grav-Chute from his back and threw it onto the nearby deck with a heavy clang.
At the same time, he picked up the Gauss blaster, its transparent pipes glowing with a strange, sickly green light.
Faced with a variety of superpowers, it was time to use the extremely materialistic, physics-defying Necron technology to deal with them.
However, just when Nolan was about to continue asking, a series of scorching, bright white lasers suddenly brushed past his Refractor Field.
The terrifying laser storm, accurate and utterly without warning, smashed the three surrendering humans in front of him into countless pieces of meat in the blink of an eye.
"Boss! The deck has been cleared!"
Then, Jessica's trembling voice, obviously full of a dangerous cocktail of tension and excitement, reached Nolan's ears via his internal comms.
Nolan, wearing his helmet, turned his head slowly. He glanced at the white-and-gold recruit who was approaching quickly, her hellgun still smoking, its barrel glowing a dull red.
He did not comment on her small, murderous mistake just now.
Nolan exhaled, a hiss of static over the comms. He ordered again, his voice cold and all-business.
"Jessica, enter the lower cabin. Quickly clear the enemy and evacuate any innocent crew members on the cruise ship."
Jessica nodded heavily, her entire body still thrumming with adrenaline.
"Yes, boss!"
She held the still-cooling hellgun and ran towards a nearby hatch.
Nolan waited until the back of her combat armor disappeared into the stairwell.
Wearing his helmet, he scanned the empty, body-strewn deck again.
He lowered his head, pondered for a moment, and, following the ship's layout in his memory, he ran towards the upper cabin.
A minute later, a closed, reinforced internal hatch blocked his path. He didn't slow down. He tore it open with his huge, red-gauntlet fists.
Accompanied by a violent, high-pitched screech of metal twisting, the heavy metal hatch was ripped from its hinges and thrown to the ground with a deafening CRASH.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
The next moment, flying metal fragments, pieces of the destroyed door and nearby wall fixtures, seemed to come to life.
They suddenly flew up from the nearby ground, hammering against the armor's Refractor Field with a sound like a hailstorm of rocks.
At the same time, at the end of the brightly lit corridor, a white-haired girl with blood streaming from her nostrils rushed out of the shadows.
She raised a white-skinned palm, her expression completely blank, her fingertips trembling from the strain.
A large number of rotating and jumping metal fragments kept hitting the Refractor Field, a relentless, noisy assault, trying to cause more damage to Nolan.
However, the Refractor Field of the Hunting Lord, made specifically for Hive Nobles and their ridiculous, violent games, was far from being easily broken by a superpower who could control magnetic fields.
Before Nolan could raise his muzzle again, the white-haired girl, seeing the metal fragments were futile, seemed to change her mind.
She suddenly raised her other palm.
Her shaking hands, both now aimed, pointed in Nolan's direction.
The white-haired girl didn't care about the sticky, bright red blood that kept flowing from her nostrils and over her lips, a sign of her immense exertion.
An invisible magnetic field, a tangible pressure, gradually penetrated the Refractor Field, acting directly on the metal of the Hunting Lord armor itself.
The next second, Nolan felt his limbs grow heavy, then suddenly be pulled. Relying on his own inhuman strength and the huge bonus from the electro-fiber bundles, Nolan fought against the invisible pull.
He managed to lift the Gauss blaster in his gloves, his arm shaking with the effort as the armor's joints whined in protest against the magnetic hold.
He pulled the trigger suddenly.
A terrifying, silent green beam shot out from the muzzle.
It crossed the entire corridor in the blink of an eye and hit the white-haired girl's chest with perfect, pinpoint accuracy.
In an instant, the girl, a blank look of surprise in her eyes, didn't even have time to make a sound.
Her entire body rapidly, and silently, evaporated, completely restored to a cloud of scattered, glowing green atoms that hung in the air for a second before fading.
Clack-clatter-clang.
Accompanied by the sound of a large number of metal fragments, now inert, falling to the ground, the corridor was silent again.
Nolan lowered his head and glanced at the Gauss blaster.
He subconsciously murmured, his voice a low, satisfied rumble.
"Maybe in addition to the bolt gun, I also like the stuff of the Necrons..."
Then, Nolan, who had returned to silence, drove the electro-fiber bundles of the Hunting Lord.
He began to run deep into the corridor, his heavy footsteps pounding on the carpet.
The tall figure arrived in front of a gorgeously decorated, oversized metal door.
Without hesitation, Nolan pulled the trigger of the Gauss blaster again.
Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.
A series of terrifying green beams corroded and evaporated the heavy metal, melting it away like it was sugar.
With the harsh sound of a large amount of molten metal falling, Nolan, his murderous intentions building to a peak, stepped into Dario Agger's private cabin.
However, the bloody scene that came into view made the tall, armored figure pause for half a second.
It was not fear. It was confusion.
Under the illumination of bright, opulent chandeliers, countless mutilated bodies of men, women, and the elderly were scattered in every corner of the massive cabin.
The thick, smelly, coppery blood flowing from the corpses had almost soaked the ornate wooden floor, turning the plush carpets a black-red.
Judging from their gorgeous and expensive torn clothes, they seemed to be the board members of Roxxon Industries.
At the same time.
A bull-headed monster, its torso still grotesquely clad in the shredded remnants of an exquisite suit, was sitting in a massive leather boss's chair.
It stared greedily at the mechanical monster that broke in, its blood-red eyes glowing.
It was still gnawing on a broken human arm, the crack of bone audible in the quiet room.
It slowly raised its other hand.
A mysterious crystal ball, emitting a brilliant, sickening, colorful light, gradually pulsed with waves of strange, visible energy.
"Welcome to my Minotaur," the monster rumbled, its voice deep and wet. "Damn bastards, you..."
However, before the other party could finish his words, Nolan had already raised his weapon.
Green beams from the Gauss Explosion Gun shot towards the Minotaur.