That piercing chill originating from its life instincts had not yet dissipated before a substantial massive impact descended the next second.
Bang—!!!
That Qu could not even make any effective reaction before it felt an irresistible, overwhelming force like a starship collision solidly smash into its back.
Rip—!!!
The teeth-setting sound of biological tissue tearing was clearly audible through the body's tremors.
Its proud, sturdy wings, capable of swatting away an Astartes, twisted and deformed under this strike, scattering scales and shattered wing membranes in all directions.
Its entire body was hit as if by a battering ram, and in an unprecedentedly miserable posture, it was forcefully kicked out of low orbit, turning into an out-of-control shooting star plummeting rapidly toward the planet Saraso below.
In the intervals of its tumbling descent, its damaged compound eyes barely caught a fleeting glimpse of the attacker—
It was a metal giant even taller and more imposing than an Astartes.
The other party stood in the void, his entire body covered in exclusive Primarch power armor that was as pitch-black as midnight yet gleamed with a cold, dark blue light under the starlight.
The helmet's design was as hideous as a demon, emitting an ominous blood-red glow from the position of the eyes.
The most heart-palpitating aspect was the decorations hung on his armor—various alien skulls of different shapes and sizes. Some seemed to still retain the agony and ferocity of their dying moments, while others were meticulously polished to a shine, like medals of victory.
These skulls swayed slightly with his movements, as if silently recounting the destruction of numerous worlds.
His terrifying appearance and ferocious aura far exceeded any existence the Qu had ever seen before.
Night Haunter had personally taken action.
Having landed a successful strike, Curze did not pause in the slightest.
He looked down at the planet and the miserable falling trajectory, a trace of cruel pleasure seemingly flashing across his face beneath the visor.
Immediately after, the thruster nozzles on his back and legs suddenly lit up with dark blue plasma flames, and a thin yet tough energy shield subsequently appeared on the surface of his armor, enveloping his entire body within it.
The next moment, like a dark god riding the flames, he voluntarily charged into the atmosphere of the planet Saraso.
The violent friction between the shield and the atmosphere generated a dazzling, scorching red shockwave, wrapping him in a roaring ball of fire like a retrograde comet reeking of death, closely following his prey as he brazenly crashed toward the surface.
The scene abruptly shifted to the surface of Saraso, a bustling metropolis named Kailash.
This was once an important industrial and trade center of the Sarasoan civilization. Although the towering architectural complexes had been severely damaged during the previous worm invasion, with many blocks engulfed in raging fires and thick smoke obscuring the sun, thanks to the stubborn resistance of the local garrison and a relatively solid city defense system, it had not yet completely fallen like other cities and was still engaged in fierce urban warfare.
The surviving soldiers and civilians relied on the ruined walls, using crude weapons to fight against the worm creatures that sporadically broke through the defense lines. The air was permeated with the smell of gunsmoke, blood, and even despair.
Suddenly—
Boom—Rumble—!!!
An ear-piercing screech that tore through the air came from far to near, reaching its peak in an instant.
Then, a streak of light smashed ruthlessly into the city's central square at a slanted angle like a meteorite.
An earth-shattering boom rang out.
The ground was easily torn apart and lifted, instantly forming a massive impact crater over fifty meters in diameter.
The shockwave, carrying gravel and dust, spread outward in a ring, further collapsing the ruined buildings around the square. Some nearby Sarasoan soldiers and civilians were blown away or buried before they could even react.
As the smoke and dust slowly dispersed, in the center of the impact crater, a twisted figure emitting a faint glow struggled to stand up.
And this was precisely that Qu.
Its current appearance was extremely wretched. Its proud four wings were severely damaged and drooped behind it, its smooth body surface was covered with scratches and charred burn marks, and that long, fleshy tail also trailed weakly on the ground.
It shook its seemingly dizzy head, its compound eyes flashing with pain and extremely violent light.
It, a Qu that styled itself as a higher lifeform and took pleasure in modifying living creatures, had never suffered such humiliation!
To actually be kicked back to the ground from space like a rubber ball?!
Right at this moment, some clueless and curious Sarasoan civilians, along with the soldiers responsible for guarding the nearby area, cautiously approached the edge of the impact crater to check the situation.
!!!
Upon realizing that the entity inside the impact crater was a Qu, the civilians immediately let out terrified screams.
The soldiers instantly raised their live-ammunition firearms, aiming at the bizarrely shaped existence at the bottom of the crater.
These slight movements, along with those gazes full of fear and vigilance, acted like the final spark igniting a powder keg, completely detonating this Qu's accumulated shame and fury.
Hiss—!!!
It let out a sharp, ear-piercing hiss that acted directly on biological nerves.
Moreover, this hiss was filled with offended fury and an urgent need to vent its brutality.
The next moment, its tattered wings forcefully spread to their maximum, and biological energy surged madly around its body.
Buzz—! Buzz——!
A massive number of the previously seen basketball-sized flying meat balls swarmed out from other directions once again.
But this time, their speed was faster, their numbers denser, and the malice they exuded was even more undisguised.
Like a hungry swarm of locusts, they pounced on the approaching Sarasoan soldiers and civilians.
!!!
The soldiers pulled their triggers in vain, but the live ammunition had very little effect on the meat balls, and the civilians did not even have the chance to run away.
A horrifyingly tragic scene played out.
A mother tightly hugged her child, but the meat balls ignored her embrace and covered both mother and child together.
Amidst mournful wails, their bodies softened and fused, ultimately collapsing into a constantly pulsating meat lump with two agonized faces surfacing on it, becoming a grotesque decoration on the square.
An old man tried to run away, but his legs were caught and covered by the meat balls. His flesh and bones were instantly decomposed and reshaped, turning into a fixed structure similar to tree roots, firmly planting him into the ground. His upper body still retained a terrified expression, but he could no longer move an inch, just like a living sculpture.
Screams, cries, the sounds of bones shattering, and flesh twisting rose and fell in succession.
This Qu was venting the humiliation it had just endured in the cruelest and most blasphemous way, modifying the surrounding Sarasoans into various twisted, horrifying monsters or landscapes devoid of self-consciousness.
It wanted to make this lesser race personally experience the price of angering a Qu!
However, its fury had not yet been fully vented before—
"Heh."
A light chuckle, like a dark wind blowing from a ten-thousand-year ice cave, echoed directly and clearly in the deepest part of this Qu's consciousness.
That laughter was filled with undisguised contempt, mockery, and a cold pleasure as if appreciating a prey's dying struggle.
"Scum is indeed scum."
!!!
This brief mockery, like the sharpest ice pick, ruthlessly pierced through the Qu's thought core.
Its consciousness, boiling with rage, was instantly enveloped by a deeper chill originating from an unknown fear.
It jerked its head up, its compound eyes frantically scanning the surroundings, trying to find the source of the voice.
Flee!
It must flee from here immediately!
Leave this star system!
Find its kin!
Assemble a grand army and make a comeback!
It would repay all the humiliation suffered today thousands and tens of thousands of times over!
It would modify that black giant and his accomplices entirely into the ugliest, most agonizing living specimens!
The instinct for survival overwhelmed everything. It could not even bother to continue punishing those Sarasoans, as its tattered wings vibrated desperately, trying to ascend into the sky once again.
But it was too late.
A shadow, like tangible darkness, silently shrouded it.
Curze, like a specter stepping out from the deepest nightmare, was already hovering directly above the impact crater, right over that Qu's head.
He looked down at the Qu below, whose movements were stiffened by fear. The blood-red gaze revealed through the visor's monitors seemed to flash with a predator's excitement.
"Your art is so clumsy it makes one laugh."
As the cold words fell, Curze flicked his arms, and a pair of power claws mounted on his arm guards, namely Mercy and Forgiveness, instantly popped out.
The edges of the adamantium-forged sharp claws flashed with the dangerous, dark light of a disruption field, emitting a low energy hum.
The next moment, like a predatory night bat, bearing an air-tearing screech, he transformed into a pitch-black whirlwind of death and brazenly lunged at the Qu trying to escape at the bottom of the crater.
The hunt entered its final execution phase.
!!!
Facing Curze lunging head-on, the instinct for survival forced this Qu to erupt with all its strength.
The four tattered wings vibrated madly, churning the surrounding air and emitting screeches like tearing fabric.
Biological energy burst forth from its body with unprecedented intensity, forming an intensified biological force field around it, as solid as a crystal barrier, attempting to block that pair of power claws exuding the aura of death.
However, Mercy and Forgiveness merely made a casual swipe—Rip—!
That force field, sufficient to deflect most types of attacks, was easily torn apart and annihilated upon contacting the high-frequency vibrating disruption field on the edges of the power claws, failing to form even a moment of hindrance.
!!!
Horror was once again clearly reflected in the Qu's compound eyes.
It violently swung its long, fleshy tail; the bone joints at the tip instantly opened, spraying out a thick, dark green biological acid that emitted a pungent, fishy stench.
This acid possessed extremely strong corrosiveness and neurotoxicity, enough to instantly melt through titanium armor equipped with an energy shield.
But Curze only turned his body slightly. The corrosive acid brushed past his shoulder guard, splashing onto the square behind him, immediately etching out sizzling deep pits in the ground and emitting billowing yellow smoke.
His movements were so fluid it was as if he had anticipated it long ago, carrying the leisure of toying with prey.
With the attack missing, the Qu let out a silent screech. A mental shockwave acting directly on the soul level swept toward Curze like an invisible tsunami.
This was its trump card as a higher organism, enough to instantly burn out the brains of most intelligent lifeforms or plunge them into eternal madness.
But when this mental shockwave struck Curze's equally unfathomable barrier of consciousness, which had long been tempered into indestructibility by countless darkness and prophecies, it was like a clay ox entering the sea. It merely caused the Primarch's brow beneath the helmet to furrow imperceptibly, without even causing the slightest delay in his movements.
"Is this all you are capable of?"
Curze's voice came through the helmet's speakers, carrying a trace of disappointed mockery amidst its coldness. "It seems you are good for nothing but bullying the weak."
Physical attacks were ineffective...
Energy attacks were ineffective...
Mental attacks were ineffective...
The Qu sank into absolute despair and madness.
It no longer attempted to attack Curze directly, but instead poured all its fury and fear out onto the surrounding environment.
It wildly flailed its tattered wings and tail, unleashing powerful biological energy shockwaves or summoning more flying meat balls, indiscriminately attacking everything in sight.
Boom!!!
An energy beam shot out from its compound eyes, severing an already crumbling hundred-meter-tall building at its waist. The upper half of the structure collapsed with a deafening roar, completely burying the street below and the Sarasoans who had no time to escape.
Every flap of its massive wings whipped up devastating hurricanes, sweeping vehicles, rubble, and even unfortunate civilians high into the air before smashing them down ruthlessly.
The flying meat balls spread like a plague, flushing out the survivors hiding in the ruins and twisting them at extreme speeds into various grotesque, agonizing living sculptures or weapons of war, exacerbating the chaos and death in this area.
The battle between Curze and the Qu, a fight to the death between two individual organisms, had a blast radius and destructive power no less than a small-yield nuclear weapon bombardment.
Under their tangled combat, the entire Kailash city center turned into a true living hell at a visible rate, with the casualty numbers of the Sarasoans climbing exponentially.
However, Curze was completely indifferent to this.
His eyes, hidden behind the blood-red visor, remained locked onto the Qu the entire time.
Like the most patient hunter, he was in no rush to deliver a fatal blow. Instead, he continuously used his power claws to add bone-deep wounds to the Qu's body, tearing off patches of its wing membranes and breaking the joints of its tail bone by bone.
He was enjoying this process, enjoying the sight of this Qu struggling in despair and roaring in fear.
Every swing of the sharp claws carried the gratification of avenging the countless human compatriots in the 22nd Universe who had been modified and endured eternal agony.
Towards these indigenous intelligent creatures of Saraso, Curze could not muster the slightest sympathy in his heart.
In his cognition, apart from the Empire's human compatriots, as well as sub-humans or alien races that had obtained Imperial certification and enjoyed legal rights, the existence of all other alien lifeforms in the galaxy was in itself an original sin.
Their life and death were no different from the weeds by the roadside or livestock waiting to be slaughtered.
His sole purpose in descending here today was this Qu. As for whether the civilization on this planet survived or perished, it was completely outside his scope of consideration.
Finally, after enduring countless cuts and tortures, feeling its life energy rapidly draining away, the will of this Qu completely collapsed.
It no longer attempted to counterattack, nor did it vent to destroy. Its only remaining thought was to flee!
It recklessly channeled all its biological energy, attempting to dart toward the high sky. Even with only half a wing left, it had to escape this specter demon that brought it endless nightmares.
"Trying to leave?"
Curze let out a cold sneer.
The ongoing mockery and torture abruptly came to a halt.
His figure blurred instantly, and with a speed far exceeding the Qu's outburst, he moved later but arrived first, appearing directly above it.
The next moment, the dark blue claw shadows bloomed like a lotus of death in the night sky, weaving into an unavoidable net of destruction.
Swish—! Swish——!
The sound of sharp blades slicing through flesh was as dense as a rainstorm beating against banana leaves.
The tattered wings were instantly shredded into countless fragments of flesh and blood.
The Qu's limbs and its long tail were precisely stripped and severed from its torso under the effect of the disruption field.
In merely the time of a single breath, the Qu that was wreaking havoc just moments before was left with only a bald head covered in claw marks and its main torso. Like a roughly dismantled toy, it fell from the sky back to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Blood gushed out from the horrifying wounds, rapidly pooling into a thick puddle of blood beneath it.
And Curze slowly landed beside the Qu, looking down condescendingly at this mass of remains that was still twitching slightly. He then gave a cold order to the belated Night Lords: "Collect its head and torso, ensure its life activity is maintained, and hand it over to the Bio-Division. Let them thoroughly study the structure of these scumbags.
In addition, attempt to decrypt any biological memory storage modules it might have. I need to know all the intelligence regarding the Qu civilization."
The hunt was over; next would be dissection and analysis.
And the tragic fate of this Qu was merely a beginning...
______
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