Chapter 13: There Is No Greater Fear Than This
Fifty meters.
That's how tall the second-generation Godzilla stood.
In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, scale is a matter of perspective. Battleships span kilometers. Space Hulks drift for centuries through the Warp, the size of small moons. But on the ground—where flesh and steel clash in close combat—fifty meters is godlike.
To put it into perspective: an Imperial Warhound Titan, the smallest class of God-Engine, stands at approximately 15 meters. Godzilla towered over it. In fact, he stood taller than three Warhounds stacked atop one another.
The Tau, always confident in their technological superiority, had never seen anything like him. Their largest deployed ground suits—the KV128 Stormsurge and the rare LX139 Supreme Battlesuit—were comparable to a Warhound Titan in size and power. But this expedition force had no such assets on the ground. No Stormsurge. No Supremacy-class. Just a few light auxiliaries and orbital fire support.
And none of that mattered now. Because nothing they had could match the sight of that towering reptilian monster rising from the rainforest.
For the Fire Warriors deployed planetside, morale didn't just crack—it shattered. Panic swept through the ranks like wildfire.
"The Greater Good… is *that* the god the locals speak of?"
"It's massive, but… surely it's bound to this world."
"Right. And we've got orbital superiority. Once we open fire from the cruisers, that thing will be vaporized."
"Praise the Ether, praise the Greater Good… this world is ours for the taking."
They comforted themselves with delusions of control. Above, their Merchant-class cruisers—three in total—orbited low, weapons charged. Each was outfitted with electromagnetic railgun turrets designed to punch through the armor of Titans and even crack the void shields of minor Imperial ships. Compared to the Imperium's inefficient plasma weaponry, Tau railguns had superior kinetic penetration, even if their raw destructive output was marginally lower.
They believed those guns would bring Godzilla down.
They believed wrong.
Below, Aurora—the fleet commander—gave the order with unwavering authority.
"All batteries: fire!"
The sky lit up as the cruisers' railguns discharged, streaking projectiles from orbit like iron comets. Each slug screamed through the atmosphere and slammed into Godzilla's massive frame.
The beast staggered.
Not from the damage, but from the force.
There were no detonations. No gouts of blood. The hypervelocity rounds didn't pierce or shatter—*they embedded*. They dug partway into Godzilla's armored hide and stopped there, stuck like thorns in a god's skin.
He didn't fall.
He didn't even roar.
But he felt it.
Pain.
That rare, unwelcome sensation ignited something inside him. Something ancient and wrathful.
*Pain*, Godzilla thought. *This is why I told you clowns not to bring Warhammer into this. I can handle Titans. I'm not built to tank orbital fire from capital ships.*
But there was no going back. The shots had been fired.
And now, it was his turn.
Above, the Tau were already preparing a second volley. Their confidence returned quickly.
"He's stopped! We've wounded it!"
"Prepare another round!"
"The Ether guides our hand!"
But then the readings began.
"High-energy reaction detected!"
"What?! From where?!"
"From… the creature. From *its chest*!"
On Godzilla's back, his dorsal fins flared to life, glowing with an ominous blue light that pulsed with increasing intensity. The energy traveled up his spine and pooled at his throat.
Aurora's eyes widened in horror.
"All ships—raise shields! Emergency protocols!"
"Shields online on flagship! Others initiating—"
"Too late—"
The breath weapon fired.
A beam of pure radioactive plasma erupted from Godzilla's jaws, slicing across the sky with terrifying precision. The jungle below was illuminated as if by a second sun. The beam struck two cruisers head-on—both still vulnerable, shields only halfway engaged.
They were incinerated.
Explosions ripped through the treetops. The shockwaves flattened a swath of jungle. Debris rained from the heavens like burning rain. The third ship—the flagship—managed to activate its shields in time, but even then, the blow rocked it violently, nearly knocking the vessel off-course.
Aurora was thrown into her command throne, holding on as the deck around her shook and alarms blared.
"By the Ether… what kind of energy output is that? This thing… this isn't an animal—it's a living reactor!"
"Commander!" shouted a crewman. "We're detecting intense radiation—lethal levels! The whole blast zone is saturated!"
Radiation.
The Tau had dealt with irradiated environments before—scorched worlds, hostile moons. But this was different. This wasn't a planetary hazard. This was an *attack vector*. The radiation levels coming from the impact zone were high enough to sterilize ecosystems. Even the hardy Kroot wouldn't survive long in that field.
Aurora's blood ran cold.
"This thing… it has a nuclear furnace inside it. This isn't part of the Tyranid swarm. This is something else."
And for once, the Tyranids might've agreed.
*We've eaten the Imperium's nukes before,* the Hive Mind would say. *We took the blast, we regenerated.*
But *this*? This was worse. This wasn't a bomb. This was *Godzilla*.
"Commander, shall we retreat?!"
Aurora stared at the tactical display. Two cruisers were gone. The flagship was damaged. And the monster… it was still standing.
"Yes," she said finally. "Pull us out. We'll call for reinforcements. This world is rich in resources. The Empire will want it pacified."
Engines powered up. The last cruiser began to rise, repulsors pushing it through the dense air. Victory had slipped through their fingers, but survival was still possible.
Or so they thought.
On the jungle floor, Isis—the high priestess of Godzilla's cult—watched with a serene expression.
"You think we didn't prepare for this? You think we'd let a single cruiser escape?"
Beside her stood a strange figure—short, cloaked in the shadows, barely a meter tall. Its skin changed hue constantly, shifting to match its surroundings.
A chameleon.
No, more than that: a [Chameleon Rogue].
A master assassin of the Lizardmen. A living shadow. His name was Oxolius.
Small even by lizardfolk standards, Oxolius was old—older than the Imperium, if rumors were to be believed. Once, he'd infiltrated a daemon gate and returned seven thousand years later, untouched by the Warp, having slain a servant of Tzeentch inside its own realm.
His weapon? A blowpipe.
His method? Surgical sabotage.
Inside the engine room of the escaping cruiser, Oxolius emerged from the gloom. He raised his tiny weapon, inserted a single thorn—drawn from his own back—and blew.
The dart whistled silently through the air. It struck the reactor housing. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the reactor core surged.
The thorn was no ordinary toxin. It was an energy sponge—designed to draw power, convert it, destabilize the field. Within seconds, lightning arced across the chamber. Circuit breakers exploded. Coolant lines ruptured. The ship groaned.
Then came the explosion.
The engines died. The cruiser began to fall.
On the bridge, Aurora staggered as the vessel tilted violently.
"Engine failure—catastrophic!" a tech-priest reported.
"What? No—this can't be—"
Below, Isis smiled as the last Tau vessel began its slow descent back to the surface.
"This is our god's domain," she whispered. "No one leaves without his blessing."
The jungle welcomed its vengeance.
And high above, Godzilla's eyes burned with primal judgment.
The war for the planet had only just begun.
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