"Veen! Veen! Veen! Veen!"
The alarm wasn't just ear-piercing; it carried a rhythmic cadence that was deeply unsettling.
Andy was currently standing in a corner of the warehouse, pinching a ruined primer in his hand and contemplating where to source some even slightly pure nitric acid. However, without warning, this damn alarm shattered his train of thought.
Immediately after, dense gunfire erupted outside. It was the characteristic crisp crackle of the newly manufactured stamped autoguns—firing without restraint, a relentless pitter-patter that merged into a single wall of sound.
Andy's electronic eye flickered with a red light. In reality, he wasn't worried about the shelter's safety. He had personally reinforced the defensive walls using a double-layered steel plate structure sandwiched with sandbags; even a bolter would have to hammer at it for a long time to break through.
What he was worried about was something else: inventory.
Gunfire of this density meant at least a thousand rounds were being consumed every minute. And every gram of propellant in those bullets had been painstakingly scraped together by Andy from his meager stockpiles.
"Damn it, you wasteful bastards."
Andy tossed aside the scrap in his hand and reached for the behemoth leaning against his workbench.
A Twin-linked Heavy Stubber.
The weapon weighed eighty-five kilograms, not including the two-meter-long ammunition belts. In the organization of the Imperial Guard, this was a company-level support weapon, usually mounted on a Chimera armored transport or a fixed tripod, requiring a three-man crew to operate.
But Andy didn't need an assistant gunner. His hydraulic joints emitted a faint hum as he lifted the iron beast with one hand as easily as if he were carrying a chicken. Two golden ammo belts hung crosswise over his shoulders, clattering against each other with every step.
Andy strode toward the defensive wall. Before he even reached the top, he saw Gamma-9 huddled behind a sandbag, trembling, holding an autogun with his lone eye squeezed shut, pulling the trigger frantically toward the sky. The guards beside him were much the same—each with their heads buried behind cover, holding their guns over their heads for "blind firing."
This style of shooting was extremely popular in the Underhive and Hive Bottom, known as "Faith-Based Shooting." As long as I fire enough bullets, the Machine God or the Emperor will surely guide one of them to hit the enemy.
Wasteful! Absolute waste!!
"Cease fire!" Andy's voice boomed through his external speakers. "Everyone, cease fire!"
But the noise of the battlefield was too great. The recruits, blinded by battle-lust and fear, couldn't hear him—or rather, they didn't dare stop. Fear had locked their finger muscles; they clamped down on the triggers and wouldn't let go until the firing pin hit empty air with a click-clack, signaling it was time to change magazines.
Andy delivered a swift kick to Gamma-9's backside. "Gamma-9! Who is the enemy?"
Gamma-9 jumped in fright, nearly dropping his gun. "Archmagos! It's the Skinners! Blood-Fang has come for revenge!" Gamma-9's face was a mask of terror. "There are too many of them! Vehicles everywhere!"
Ignoring him, Andy walked directly to the embrasure. It was indeed lively outside. Amidst the swirling dust, dozens of heavily modified vehicles were circling the shelter.
Leading the pack was a giant truck, originally some kind of heavy-duty mining dump truck. Now, its front was welded over with rebar spikes, several layers of chains hung outside the cab, and a few rotting corpses dangled from the sides. A shirtless brute wearing a human-skin mask stood on the roof of the truck. He held a megaphone in one hand and brandished a power axe in the other, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"I am Blood-Fang! Hand over the tin man! I'm going to strip him for parts! I'm going to skin every last one of you to make seat cushions!!"
The leader of the Skinner gang, Blood-Fang—a typical Underhive warlord. He thought hanging layers of rebar and chains on his vehicle would stop bullets; in reality, that only created more ricochets and shrapnel, shredding his own men into bloody messes.
Andy propped the heavy stubber onto a dust-covered sandbag. The twin barrels emitted a dark, cold glint. This weapon fired 12.7mm full-power armor-piercing rounds. These bullets weren't designed to hit people; they were designed to punch through light armored vehicles or thick-hided xenos.
When they hit a person, there was no such thing as "bleeding" or "wounding." If even a sliver of the bullet grazed a limb, the entire appendage would be blown clean off. A hit to the torso would result in the person being snapped in two. This was the absolute justice brought by caliber.
He didn't need a scope; Andy's STC fire-control system generated a red crosshair directly onto his retina. Blood-Fang, still screaming atop his truck, sat right in the center of that crosshair. Andy's hydraulic arms locked the weapon's frame, creating an absolutely stable, rigid connection.
"Shut up. You talk too much," Andy whispered.
Then, he squeezed the heavy twin-triggers.
THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!
It wasn't a crisp rat-tat-tat, but a heavy, soul-shaking boom. With every discharge, a ball of orange-red flame erupted from the muzzles. The massive recoil pushed Andy's body back slightly, and the concrete slab beneath his feet even began to crack. But under the control of those hydraulic iron hands, the muzzles remained perfectly still. The trajectory was as straight as a las-beam.
In the distance, Blood-Fang's screaming stopped abruptly. The first bullet shattered his megaphone along with half of his jaw. Then came the second and the third. The once arrogant figure instantly disintegrated into a red mist of blood!
The heavy stubber rounds didn't stop there! They tore through Blood-Fang's tattered remains and punched into the cab of the giant truck. The chains and skulls hanging outside provided no protection; instead, they were caught up in the bullets' massive kinetic energy and turned into lethal shrapnel themselves!
BOOM!
The cab's armored glass exploded. The driver inside hadn't even processed how his boss had disappeared before he was turned into mincemeat. The out-of-control truck swerved violently to the left, slamming into an armed motorcycle charging alongside it. The dozens of tons of mining truck crushed the bike into a metal pancake. The fuel tank exploded, sending flames spiraling into the sky!
But it wasn't over. Andy didn't let go of the trigger! He tilted the muzzles slightly, and the tongue of fire began to sweep through the Skinner convoy!
For these civilian vehicles without armored protection, 12.7mm rounds were the Grim Reaper. Bullets punched through hoods, shattered engine blocks, pierced fuel tanks, and ignited the fuel! In less than thirty seconds, the open ground in front of the shelter became a burning hellscape!
The Skinners, who had been charging frantically, were stunned. They were used to shooting at each other with autoguns for hours with few casualties; they were used to the melee of chainswords. They had never seen a scene like this. It wasn't just people dying—it was people and vehicles being shredded together!
Anyone attempting to hide behind a car door or a tire was punched through along with their cover. Before this overwhelming caliber, cover was merely psychological comfort.
"Run!!" someone screamed.
The remaining vehicles began to pull U-turns frantically, some even ramming their own men in their haste to escape. Countless living bodies were flattened into meat pies in an instant.
Andy released the triggers. The barrels were glowing red, emitting wisps of blue smoke. Two ammo belts were spent, and the ground was littered with oversized brass casings.
A deathly silence fell over the surroundings. Gamma-9 and the guards, who had been firing wildly just moments ago, stood with their mouths agape, looking at Andy and then at the piles of burning scrap in the distance. The autoguns in their hands suddenly felt as ridiculous as toys.
Look, this is divine punishment! This is the lightning of the Omnissiah!!
Andy rolled his slightly overheated shoulder joints. Looking at the field of corpses and wreckage, he felt no joy of victory. On the contrary, he felt a bit of a sting for those two ammo belts. That was several hundred rounds of full-power ammunition; the copper alone weighed dozens of kilograms.
"No, I have to find a way to compensate for this!"
Andy soon spotted the compensation. The STC scan results showed that on the abandoned Skinner trucks, there were numerous crates wrapped in waterproof tarps. It seemed these lunatics had brought homemade explosives to blow the gates.
Composition analysis: ammonium nitrate, fuel oil, and some low-grade nitroglycerin. Although the purity was low and the ratio dangerous, they contained a massive amount of nitro compounds. Once refined, they would be ready-made raw materials for smokeless powder—or even precursors for manufacturing strong acids.
Andy's electronic eyes lit up again. These weren't enemies; they were a delivery service for chemical raw materials!
"Gamma-9, the battle is over." Andy pointed toward the smoking battlefield. "Take men to scavenge the field immediately. Especially the homemade explosives on those trucks—even if it's just one blasting cap, dig it out carefully for me."