In the shadowed depths of the Khanty-Mansi Dome, laser rifles, forged by the most skilled artisans of the hive, unleashed beams of searing brilliance. Two incandescent rays, loosed almost simultaneously, pierced the eyes of an Ogryn with unerring precision, blinding the hulking brute in an instant.
"Blast it, the lad's onto us!"
The guide, a figure dwarfed by the towering Ogryns yet marked by cunning, bellowed to the squad's leader—a colossus who stood head and shoulders above his kin, capable of counting to five and thus dubbed "Smart Head."
"Charge! Kill him, or we're all dead!" Smart Head roared, brandishing a massive club.
"Smash!"
"Meat!"
The Ogryns, inflamed with primal zeal, echoed his cries of "Smash!" and "Meat!" as they surged forward. Yet, in that moment, another of their number crumpled, felled by a precise strike.
Ogryns, with their colossal strides, moved with a speed that rivaled a sprinting human. At full charge, they resembled the armored behemoths of Tetzvok's great wars, unstoppable as human tanks.
But their speed availed them naught against Nimrod's bullets. His Primarch's mind, a crucible of calculation, factored in terrain, distance, the Ogryns' velocity, and their massive frames as variables. In a heartbeat, he constructed a lethal model, his shots guided by superhuman precision.
Two more Ogryns fell, their bodies pierced by four beams as if drawn inexorably to their doom.
Smart Head, reacting with rare instinct, shielded his eyes with his left arm and adopted a zigzagging sprint, weaving through the narrow passage.
His gambit succeeded—no beam found him.
The two guides, however, faltered, their resolve shattered by Nimrod's uncanny marksmanship. They had heard tales from the well-traveled Arbites overseer, Dimitrov, that wounds fatal to humans were mere trifles to Ogryns. Laser bolts, searing through their thick hides, left only superficial wounds, incapable of felling such giants. This was the bedrock of Dimitrov's confidence.
Yet, they now witnessed Nimrod's every shot strike the Ogryns' vulnerable eyes with surgical accuracy, whether the brutes stood still under ambush or charged at full tilt.
Recalling Nimrod's conquests over twenty work cycles, their courage evaporated. As one, they turned and fled.
"Cowards!"
Estupinian's guard captain, a grizzled veteran, sneered at their retreat, his heart burning with indignation. His master's distrust, favoring brainless Ogryns over his elite squad, relegated them to a mere supporting role.
[Intellect and discipline are the true essence of battle!]
"Attack!" he bellowed.
Twenty elite guardsmen, honed by rigorous training, unleashed a torrent of gunfire toward Nimrod.
In the next instant, the two fleeing guides collapsed, their skulls shattered by precise shots, their bodies thudding lifelessly to the ground.
The guard captain reeled, stunned that the youth could evade their barrage while simultaneously felling two men with lethal accuracy.
Instinctively, he ducked behind an abandoned lathe, seeking cover.
A guardsman, missing the captain's cry, glanced back—only to see his leader's crown blasted open, eyes wide in death, sprawled upon the floor. Darkness claimed him next.
As Smart Head reached the passage's mouth, no living soul remained behind him, though he neither noticed nor cared. His mind, singular in purpose, fixated on crushing the target youth and earning his reward of meat rations.
Spotting Nimrod draw a chainsword, its teeth snarling, awaiting him at the passage's mouth, Smart Head swung his club with thunderous force.
A deafening crash resounded as the club struck the wall of an abandoned factory overhead.
Nimrod, exploiting his positioning, had lured Smart Head's strike into obstruction. Seizing the moment, he vaulted upward, his roaring chainsword cleaving into the Ogryn's thigh.
"Agh!"
Smart Head howled, nearly a quarter of his thigh's flesh sheared away, exposing bone.
"Smash you dead!"
Learning from his error, Smart Head swung again, avoiding the stone walls but striking a metal conduit, denting it deeply.
Nimrod circled the Ogryn, exploiting the passage's confines. Smart Head's towering frame, equal to the passage's height, wielded a club over a meter long, yet every swing was hampered by the narrow space.
Each of Nimrod's strikes carved into the Ogryn's legs, the wounds accumulating with relentless precision.
With a thunderous crash, Smart Head collapsed, only then realizing his legs were severed.
"Send two squads," Nimrod commanded. "One to haul him back, the other to guard."
"Take care—do not damage his arms."
"Yes, boss!"
Two squads swiftly arrived, awestruck by the Ogryn's sheer bulk. Even in the Lower Hive, where Nimrod's men ate well, the Ogryn's girth rivaled four or five of them combined.
After dispatching the squads to transport the primary material, Nimrod gestured to Bukayo, who gazed at him with unbridled worship.
"Lead on!"
"Yes, boss!" Bukayo replied, his voice ringing with pride as he squared his shoulders and took point.
The company pressed forward until a dense lattice of webbing loomed before them. Bukayo whispered to Nimrod, "Boss, we're less than a kilometer from the spider's lair in the abandoned dome. We've entered its alert zone."
Nimrod nodded slightly, his superhuman senses piercing the layered webs, detecting the colossal presence beyond.
"Set it ablaze!"
Ten gang members hurled incendiary bottles, their promethium-laced contents igniting a conflagration. The webs melted, vanishing at a visible rate.
Charred, fragmented corpses tumbled to the ground, their ashen forms a grim testament to the spider's predation.
His men's eyes stung, prompting them to don respirators. As their vision cleared, they beheld the carnage—bones strewn across the floor, none intact.
Bukayo, his voice tinged with concern, cautioned Nimrod, "Boss, when I scouted earlier, I saw the Black Widow feeding."
"It stands over twenty meters tall, its lung sac as large as three or four grown men."
"When it inhales and exhales, the sound is shrill, disorienting the mind. Those caught in its blast have their bones shattered, collapsing in despair as it approaches."
Nimrod glanced at Bukayo, impressed. To witness such terror and remain composed marked the boy as exceptional.
He turned his gaze forward, sensing the Black Widow's approach. To the rat-catcher squads, he ordered, "Disperse and attack, but avoid the lung sac."
"Yes, boss!"
The rat-catchers sprang into action, taking cover behind derelict machinery.
Tense, they watched a behemoth crawl overhead, its massive lung sac dangling mere meters above the ground.
One rat-catcher, trembling, fired prematurely. His unaimed shot struck the lung sac.
Nimrod cursed inwardly, but relief followed—the bullet ricocheted, the sac merely quivering.
[Worthy of a Sequence 8 potion's primary material, far tougher than ordinary lungs.]
The Lung Spider's fourteen eyes glinted with cold malice. Its sac inhaled sharply, the passage whipped by a hurricane's force.
As it prepared to unleash its devastating blast, a gunshot rang out, a beam piercing one eye.
With other materials secured, capturing the spider alive was unnecessary—only the lung sac was required.
The spider's thirteen remaining eyes fixed on the youth below.
Meeting Nimrod's obsidian gaze, its massive frame shuddered, primal instinct warning of a threat surpassing all others combined.
A deafening roar, akin to cannon fire, shook the passage, tremors reverberating through the metal.
Bukayo and his comrades glanced at their boss, fear gripping them as a shockwave pulverized derelict equipment into fragments.
"Boss!" Bukayo wailed, his heart breaking. Since fleeing to the Lower Hive, he had endured starvation and hardship until Nimrod's rise brought sustenance and purpose. Without him, the gang would fracture, and Bukayo dreaded a return to his former misery.
In that moment, a radiant beam illuminated Bukayo's eyes, banishing his despair.
Another of the Black Widow's eyes was pierced—Nimrod lived!
Beams flashed, smoke cleared, and when Bukayo saw Nimrod again, the spider was blind, its eyes extinguished.
It inhaled deeply, loosing blind shockwaves in all directions.
"Target its legs!" Nimrod bellowed.
His men unleashed a hail of bullets, riddling the Black Widow's limbs.
The blinded spider thrashed futilely, claiming four rat-catchers before succumbing.
Nimrod severed the lung sac with his chainsword, ordering four rat-catchers to carry it back to the Magnito Steelworks.
There, he began compounding the "Barbarian" potion.
A Psychic Crystal was cast into a vat of Rasvort, igniting the furnace with blinding radiance. Mithral Steel, added next, melted swiftly into molten streams.
The Lung Spider's sac followed, eliciting explosive cracks from the furnace.
[I hope it doesn't rupture.]
Nimrod's concern flickered, but his hands remained steady, tossing Smart Head's arm into the mix.
The explosions ceased, replaced by a resplendent black glow.
As the light faded, Nimrod scooped a viscous black gel from the furnace, its form seamless, leaving no residue.
Raising his head, he consumed the Sequence 8 "Barbarian" potion in a single draught.