Chapter 298: The Pain Fiend
The Pain Fiend twisted its grotesque body and climbed back to its feet. It began to shift, mimicking the forms of the various species present, including humans, and even taking on the appearance of Gabriel himself.
"Jonah! Restrain it with your powers!"
Gabriel knew that killing this thing through physical means would be incredibly difficult. The Adeptus Mechanicus and the Inquisition had made many efforts in the past, all of which had failed. In the end, it had been sealed away using psychic powers and an artifact from the Dark Age of Technology.
Only one company and a single sacred Dreadnought were with Gabriel. The other companies were scattered throughout the massive factory. Faced with a horde of xenos pumped full of potent combat drugs, the battle had shifted from a firefight to a sacred melee. The Dreadnought was killing the xenos in the most brutal ways imaginable and was now charging toward the Pain Fiend.
However, the Pain Fiend simply morphed into the likeness of a Dreadnought itself. It then let out a piercing psychic shriek that filled the Astartes within the Blood Ravens Dreadnought with such extreme agony that he was frozen in place. The Pain Fiend then charged forward and tackled the Dreadnought, sending the war machine crashing to the ground.
The only good news was that none of these xenos seemed capable of causing large-scale psychic damage. And the Blood Ravens, in addition to their physical Astartes prowess, also had a psychic advantage. The First Company, led by Gabriel, had been enhanced by Lucan's Divinity Machine, and now had ten Librarians who could wield their powers without significant risk of losing control. With Lucan's support, the now 2,000-strong Blood Ravens Chapter had nearly 100 Librarians in its ranks. A whole company's worth of Librarians in a single Chapter—anyone who ran into them would be in for a shock.
They used their powers to contain the xenos' charge. They enhanced their battle-brothers and unleashed destructive bolts of psychic lightning and mind-controlling psychic interference, which slowed the xenos' assault. One by one, the creatures were annihilated by the psychic onslaught.
Jonah also raised his force stave, his eyes flashing with psionic light, and the runes on his power armor began to glow. The Pain Fiend, which had been about to destroy the Blood Ravens Dreadnought, was forced back into its original form by the psychic power and was held, struggling, in mid-air. The psychic power Jonah now displayed was more than double what it had been when he first met Lucan. Being able to frequently use his powers without worrying about losing control had allowed his mastery to advance by leaps and bounds.
Jonah and the other Librarians all felt that this ability to freely use their powers without fear was a wonderful thing.
Seeing the most threatening of the creatures now under control, Gabriel threw himself back into the battle against the other xenos.
The fight had come quickly, and it ended just as fast. The numbers of the out-of-control xenos began to dwindle, and not just because of the Blood Ravens' attacks. Many of them began to collapse on their own, their bodies breaking down from the overdose of combat drugs. Their enhanced bodies could not withstand such a high dosage. The extreme combat drugs had granted them a brief period of immense power, but at the cost of burning through their life force at an incredible rate.
Even the Blood Ravens felt a chill watching the scene. A xenos that had been fighting them just a moment ago would suddenly melt, and in a few seconds, would be reduced to a foul-smelling puddle of goo on the ground. The goo was also highly corrosive. These Dark Eldar combat drugs were a true poison to any race. Even the Dark Eldar themselves would not inject such a high dose into their own bodies.
Only a few of the most physically resilient xenos did not completely collapse. But without the pressure of their numbers, the remaining creatures were simply focused down and killed. As long as you had a physical form, if bolts didn't work, there was plasma. If plasma didn't work, there was melta. There was always a way to kill something permanently.
When Gabriel used Forgebreaker to smash the last resisting xenos to death, the only creature left was the Pain Fiend, still suspended in the air. Even after being injected with such a massive dose of combat drugs, the monster still hadn't died. It was a testament to its terrifying vitality.
"Chapter Master... we can't kill this monster," Jonah grunted, the strain evident in his voice.
"Is the teleporter on the Omnissiah's Secret operational?"
"Yes!"
"Throw a psychic beacon into a nearby Dark Eldar settlement and teleport it there," Gabriel ordered. "We're not going to be in Commorragh forever. Let the Dark Eldar deal with this monster themselves!"
Since they couldn't find a way to kill it, letting it run rampant in the enemy's territory was the best solution Gabriel could think of. Let the Dark Eldar reap the bitter fruit they had sown.
Soon, with the help of the psychic beacon, the terrifying xenos vanished from their sight. How many Dark Eldar would be killed by it was no longer Gabriel's concern.
As the area was cleared, the Apothecaries, using nano-med guns, began to treat the wounded and extract the gene-seed of the fallen. The Blood Ravens had lost over thirty members in the recent battle—a not insignificant loss. If not for the emergency treatment from the nano-med guns, their casualties would have been even higher.
As the various companies began to regroup at his position, he learned that nearly every company had suffered casualties. The Dark Eldar had not just one of these chambers; the released xenos had attacked every single Blood Ravens company.
Although it was still painful, in the past, casualties like this would have been a crippling blow. But with the Blood Ravens' current numbers and recruitment speed, they could quickly make up for these losses. And the more violently the Dark Eldar reacted, the more it proved they were on the right track! Their 'Acquisition Aura' was clearly working!
After most of the Chapter had assembled, Gabriel had the fleet deploy a large number of Widow Mines. A dense swarm of the mines flew into the pipeline before them.
In the core control area of the factory, a Haemonculus stood with an incredibly glamorous female Eldar, observing Gabriel and his forces. This female Eldar was the leader of the Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue, Lady Malys.
She waved a fan in her hand. She appeared calm, but her heart was in turmoil. Her plan to completely kill the intruders had failed, and her chest heaved with suppressed rage. Feeling the beating of her heart, the power from the Laughing God, she felt a sliver of relief. She had foreseen that the factory would be attacked and had made corresponding arrangements, but she had never expected an invasion of this scale on Commorragh itself.
And weren't there a few too many people attacking her factory? And how did they know its location?!
Most importantly, there were ten warships in orbit. She had originally thought the attack on her factory was the work of a rival Kabal, and she had even laid an ambush in the Crimson Port with a large number of her own Kabalite soldiers. But now, they had all been killed by the warships and the Blood Ravens.
The number of Blood Ravens had also exceeded her imagination. When had these Mon-keigh Astartes become so cheap? Judging by their identical livery, all these Astartes were from the same Chapter. There were a thousand here, and another thousand attacking the other area she controlled.
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