The Patriarch roared, psychic tendrils lashing, hunting the source. Someone dared offend their great brood.
His second- and third-generation scions received the signal: the family network was under attack.
A chorus of screams spread. Purestrains and hybrids armed up.
"Enemies in our midst! Members of the Pauper Princes, beware! White monsters can merge into us—stealing our sacred bodies! For the Four-Armed Emperor—hold fast and destroy them!" a cultist shouted.
"For the Patriarch! For the Four-Armed Emperor! Kill the monsters!"
Genestealers grabbed weapons—bolters, lasguns, even plasma. Some had human carapace armor.
A few wore void-capable power armor. Many joined the fight.
The cavern wall split; a silver-white mass oozed in and pooled into spheres.
A thousand throats roared.
Weapons flashed, but the Spheres ignored such trifles and plunged into the ranks.
No gore—white orbs leapt onto hosts, devouring them and reshaping into pale humanoids.
Those pale humanoids turned and attacked their former kin.
"Don't let them touch you! They'll steal your bodies!" the Patriarch's mind-voice rang through the purestrain ranks.
"Keep distance! Fire at range! Use las and bolts!"
Some purestrains unleashed psychic shrieks, trying to halt the advance.
"Raise the wards!" The Patriarch's command boomed. Third-generation purestrains formed ranks; violet barriers layered the passages.
The Spheres slipped through like mist. They are ultimate cosmic parasites.
A fourth-generation hybrid shrieked. His carapace swelled obscenely. He tore at it to reveal writhing silver underneath. "Help me—" His skull melted like wax, replaced by a smooth white orb.
Another fell, transformed, then turned on his own.
Some Sphere-fused hosts combined, forming a four- to five-meter white behemoth.
It fired red beams from its eyes, striking from range.
"For the Four-Armed Emperor!" Three elder hybrids in power armor opened up; plasma washed the mutant away.
But more Spheres seeped from cracks, flowing like sentient quicksilver along walls and ceilings, skirting fire.
"They're below! Watch your feet!"
Too late.
The floor flashed silver. Dozens were swallowed whole. One hacked off his legs, but white tendrils sprouted from the stump.
The Patriarch trembled—when had genestealers become hosts?
He crushed five Spheres with psychic tendrils to rally morale.
If he did nothing, his 200-year brood would be finished.
Damn it—what are these things, and why here?
Useful—but only briefly.
The shards on the ground grew into new Spheres. The eldest second-gen elder fell to his knees—silver leaked from his armor seams.
"Father… they're… rewriting our genes—ah!"
His armor exploded.
A three-meter white giant stood up, its back bristling with plasma-organ cannons.
The Spheres parasitized not only flesh but gear.
In the Sphere's grasp, even Martian rocks become monsters.
"Retreat! Back to the sacred nest!" For the first time, fear cracked the Patriarch's mind-voice.
Survivors blasted the ceiling to collapse tunnels, hurled melta bombs.
In the roaring flames, pale shapes writhed back together. Shattered bits crawled toward hosts.
The Patriarch unleashed psychic shockwaves, trying to shatter their core minds.
But the infected were no longer his children—something worse. Bodies warped, bones inverted, skin overrun by silver. Limbs stretched into pointed tendrils.
Weapons were assimilated—las-barrels became living organs; bolt mags pulsed with white slurry; even armor squirmed as if alive.
Nearby steel and guns were devoured, reformed into biomechanical horrors.
They kept growing; some topped ten meters, with terrifying offense and defense.
"They're… evolving!" a third-gen gasped. His sight showed the truth: the Spheres weren't just parasitizing; they were rewriting DNA, optimizing for war.
It was unforgettable horror.
The ground shook. From the depths came a sickening rumble. The infected stopped acting alone—an unseen will compelled fusion.
Five infected hybrids slammed together, silver glue welding them into one. Bones twisted, muscle bulged—a six-meter white juggernaut rose.
Its head was a knot of fused skulls; four arms sprouted plasma-organ cannons; tendrils arced with laser light.
The same scene unfolded elsewhere. More giants appeared.
"Open fire!" Bolts and beams hammered the beast, only staggering it.
Its skin flowed like liquid metal; wounds sealed at once. Worse, broken Sphere fragments didn't die—they crawled, hunting hosts.
A wounded hybrid stepped on a shard; silver raced up his leg and consumed him in seconds.
Despair broke many—plebeian believers and lightly tainted humans alike froze in terror.
Wasn't this a family blessed by the Emperor? Where is the Four-Armed Emperor?
Rhodes had no mercy for infected humans—he ordered the Spheres to exterminate them.
"Father! We can't hold!" a second-gen elder screamed. Half his armor was Sphere-white; his right arm a tendril. He was being taken, powerless to stop it.
The Patriarch hurled a deafening psychic scream, aiming to crush the Sphere mind.
He touched only boundless hunger—cosmic parasites whose sole purpose is devour, evolve, spread, evolve again.
He had no idea how fearsome they were—threats that even Ultraman Dyna must face in earnest.
"Retreat! Detonate the melta bombs! Bring the hive down!" he finally commanded.
They fell back. Melta charges turned rock to slag, air to fire. Sphere monsters twisted in the heat.
As the flames died, the Patriarch stared—Spheres still wriggled. Charred white slime gathered again.
Worse, they'd adapted—new forms wore heat-resistant shells, even absorbing thermal energy.
"Impossible…"
For the first time, true fear.
Rhodes watched, smiling coldly. Genestealers—just another link in the food chain.
Purestrains were seized and assimilated en masse. A Sphere hovered before the Patriarch, cold light glinting.
White giants—seven to ten meters tall—flooded in, surrounding the brood.
Target confirmed… The old one with strong psychic force is the designated prey. Devour him and the brood loses all resistance. This species uses a strange psychic network to command all kin.
The Patriarch roared; a shockwave shook the cavern.
The Sphere didn't budge—tendrils exploded outward, lancing into him.
He slashed bone blades, severing some, but more silver latched onto his carapace.
The Sphere core flashed, shifting fusion mode. Agony—his flesh was being dismantled; genes forcibly rewritten.
It wasn't just altering his body—it was overwriting his will. No—devouring it whole.
"No… Great Hive Mind… save me!!!"
His roar went silent.
Silver light engulfed him. His shape swelled and twisted into something new—carapace studded with Sphere crystals, four arms turned to energy tendrils. His consciousness was erased.
Horror rippled through the brood.
Fusion complete… Commencing broodwide assimilation.
With the Patriarch fallen, the cult went mad. Believers were infected one after another, flesh and machine melted into biomech abominations.
They merged into a towering seventy-meter white terror. In under a day, the Spheres annihilated the underground cult.
What lurked in the shadows became a monster—not Tyranid thrall, but a Sphere puppet.
The genestealer cult that hid beneath Vigilus for over two centuries was gone.
Target cleared… Awaiting further orders, the Sphere network reported to Rhodes.