The klaxon's blare faded, replaced by the unnerving sound of immense, chitinous claws scraping against the adamantium floor. From the newly opened gate, a nightmare slithered into the arena.
It was a creature of biological perfection and utter malevolence. Its body was a lithe, powerful frame of black and purple carapace, moving with a liquid grace that belied its size. Four powerful limbs ending in razor-sharp talons carried it forward, while two smaller, upper arms were tipped with immense, scythe-like claws that dripped with viscous fluid. Its head was a shielded, eyeless horror, a lipless maw filled with rows of needle-like teeth. A long, segmented tail tipped with a bony blade whipped back and forth, and from its back, two steaming bio-chimneys vented a foul, acidic vapor.
It was a Tyranid Warrior, a synaptic lynchpin of the Hive Mind, but this one was larger, faster, and scarred with the marks of countless battles. A prime specimen.
"Test Subject Beta," Kael's voice echoed from the gallery, cold and dispassionate. "A Tyranid Warrior, alpha strain. Its synaptic link to the local Hive Mind has been severed. It is operating on pure, predatory instinct. Its only desire is to kill and consume. Let us observe how the asset's 'pacifism' fares against a being that is the very embodiment of mindless hunger."
In the gallery, Corvus felt a knot of tension tighten in his gut. An Ork was a brute, but a Tyranid was a living weapon, honed by millennia of evolutionary warfare.
The Tyranid Warrior let out a high-pitched scream that vibrated in the teeth, a sound of pure, unadulterated killing intent. Unlike the Orks, it did not charge blindly. It began to circle, its movements fluid and predatory, its head-shield testing the air, its entire body a coiled spring of murderous potential.
Rimuru stood in the center of the arena, his gaze fixed on the creature. He felt no malice from it, no hatred. There was only a blank, overwhelming biological imperative. Hunt. Kill. Feed. It was as simple and absolute as a rock falling to the ground.
<
So talking is definitely out this time, Rimuru mused.
The Tyranid decided the time for stalking was over. It lunged. It didn't run; it exploded forward, a black and purple blur of claws and chitin that covered fifty meters in the blink of an eye. Its primary scythe-claws, capable of shearing through tank armor, slashed downwards, aimed at bisecting Rimuru completely.
Rimuru didn't even seem to move. The claws descended, passing directly through the space where he had been standing a microsecond before. He had taken a single, almost imperceptible step to the side, his timing so perfect that the wind from the blow barely stirred his clothes.
The Tyranid, its attack missing, used its momentum to spin, its bladed tail scything through the air where Rimuru's head should have been. Again, Rimuru simply ducked, the tail whipping harmlessly over him.
In the observation gallery, Captain Arken leaned forward, his cybernetic eye zooming in, trying to comprehend what it was seeing. "He's not fighting back. He is simply… not where the attacks are."
"His predictive capabilities are flawless," Kael breathed, his knuckles white where he gripped the railing. "He is moving with a level of efficiency that rivals an Eldar Harlequin. No wasted motion. Pure, defensive perfection."
The Tyranid shrieked in frustration. Its biological imperative was being thwarted by an opponent who refused to be hit, yet refused to strike back. Driven by instinct, it reared up, its maw opening to spit a volley of biological projectiles—fleshborer beetles.
The swarm of living ammunition shot through the air, each beetle a tiny, chitinous bomb designed to burrow into flesh and detonate.
This time, Rimuru acted. He raised a hand, and a small, shimmering black orb, no larger than his fist, appeared before him. It was a pocket of Imaginary Space. The entire swarm of fleshborers flew directly into the orb and vanished without a sound, consumed by the infinite void within.
Rimuru lowered his hand, the orb disappearing as if it had never been. He looked at the Tyranid, a hint of pity in his golden eyes. It was a magnificent creature in its own way, a perfect predator. But it was also a slave to its own nature, incapable of anything but violence. Forcing it to fight was a cruelty.
He decided to end the test on his own terms.
"It's a beautiful creature," he said, his voice carrying up to the gallery. "But it is in pain. It is alone, cut off from its mind, and driven only by a hollow instinct."
He took a single step forward, and in that instant, the distance between him and the Tyranid Warrior vanished. He was inside its guard, standing directly before the horrifying, shielded face. The creature had no time to react.
Rimuru gently placed his open palm on the center of the Tyranid's armored chest. There was no flash of light, no violent explosion. There was only a single, quiet word.
"Sleep."
A wave of incredibly dense, pure magicules, imbued with a powerful pacifying and soporific will, flowed from his hand directly into the creature's bio-systems. It was not a hostile attack; it was a command for the creature's own biology to shut down.
The Tyranid Warrior froze. The killing light in its instincts dimmed. Its hyper-aggressive metabolism slowed to a crawl. The massive, scythe-like claws went limp, and its entire body sagged. With a soft, final hiss from its bio-chimneys, the perfect killing machine collapsed to the arena floor, completely unconscious but entirely unharmed.
Rimuru stood over the sleeping monster, patting its head-carapace gently. "There, now. No more nightmares."
He turned and looked up at the gallery again, his expression no longer one of boredom, but of quiet, firm disapproval.
"I believe this concludes your 'examination'," he said, his voice losing its politeness and gaining a hard, royal edge. "I am not your test subject, Interrogator. And I am not a weapon to be analyzed. We had a bargain. I fulfilled my end. Now, I expect you to fulfill yours. If you wish to continue treating me as an 'asset'…"
A flicker of his aura, a microscopic fraction of his true power, was released. It was not an attack. It was a statement of fact.
In the gallery, the three Space Marines felt it. It was not a psychic push or a physical threat. It was a sudden, crushing weight of pure, existential dread. It was the feeling of a mountain suddenly appearing in the room, a mountain so vast it blocked out the sky. Corvus staggered back, his hand flying to the Aquila on his chest. Captain Arken stumbled, his Terminator armor groaning under a pressure that wasn't there.
Only Interrogator Kael remained standing, though he gripped the railing to steady himself, his face pale, a single drop of sweat tracing a path down his temple.
The pressure vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
"...Then you will find me to be a very, very poor one," Rimuru finished, his voice once again calm and polite. The message, however, had been delivered with absolute clarity. The games were over.