The bridge was filled with the bloody mist left by the explosion, but the person Lacus cared about most still seemed to have his head intact.
The heart that had nearly leapt into her throat finally sank back down a little.
But in that instant, the red mist stirred strangely. Something invisible seemed to be crawling out of empty space from the area where the Astartes' heads had exploded.
It looked like a ghost that should have been invisible, its movement only barely revealed because it was passing through the blood mist.
It was like light piercing through fog. Invisible light had been given a physical outline.
Lacus's pupils constricted.
The thing stopped moving, as if it had taken shape. It was the head of a monster, with butterfly-like wings, mantis-like scythe claws, and nauseating tentacles.
And that terrifying head seemed to overlap with part of Kain's own head.
Because the monster's head was behind Kain, blocking Lacus's view of his face.
Trembling, Lacus shifted her viewing angle. She did not need to move to the front. Just by moving to the side, she saw a horrifying scene that made her heart seize.
Kain's head was inside the monster's hideous, gaping maw.
The monster seemed to be injecting some massive amount of venom into Kain.
No!
As a Coordinator, Lacus's mind suddenly formed an understanding.
This was a battle of minds.
Kain possessed the ability to devour another's mind, like a human-shaped black hole. The moment the monster touched him, it was also being devoured.
So the monster had simply increased the flow of mental force, trying to forcibly overload him until he burst.
So, Kain, please...
Crack.
Lacus seemed to hear a sound interrupt her prayer.
It sounded like teeth slamming together after a powerful bite. That sound made her heart skip, because the monster had indeed made a motion as if it had succeeded in biting down.
But because it was not physical, because it was only a phantom-like mental bite, he would be fine.
He had to be fine.
It seemed that Kain had won, because the monster's phantom was fading away.
Yet when it turned transparent past a certain point, Lacus felt her heart stop.
No. It had to be an illusion.
It had to be a distortion caused by the light and the shaking mist.
Once the monster dispersed, everything would surely be...
It vanished.
And the illusion did not vanish with it.
At that moment, Lacus's mind went blank, as if her thoughts had stopped altogether.
『C-Calm down. The livestream is still running, isn't it?』
Calm down?
Were the comments in chaos?
Or rather, the person who sent that message was clearly panicking too, assuming everyone else was just as lost and worried.
But that single line made Lacus's mind begin working again.
Right. If someone died, they would go offline. That meant the livestream would be interrupted.
Since the livestream was still running, then it should not be the worst-case scenario she had imagined.
Besides, Kain had been injured before, and his body had regenerated and healed, hadn't it?
He could definitely regenerate from this too.
In the next second, an abnormal change in the livestream almost made Lacus's heart leap out of her chest, and for an instant, strength seemed to drain from her body.
The image became like a real-world television broadcast suffering interference. The picture suddenly blurred, and snow-like static lines flickered across the screen from time to time.
Not only that, Lacus noticed that she could no longer freely move her viewing angle.
The view had become fixed. It was fixed on a headless body standing before the control console, one hand half-extended in the air, frozen in place. It looked as if he had been about to press the confirmation key on the window in front of him.
Behind that body, the Astartes were also collapsing one by one, each of them headless. Blood gushed from their necks like fountains, rapidly painting the floor red.
Lacus's pupils contracted, then widened again as her focus returned to Kain.
Blood was still flowing from his neck. There was no sign of healing. He was simply still standing motionless.
At the same time, on the screen showing the Tyranids' enormous wormhole, the planet-sized living nest had finally dragged itself out of the narrow opening like a spider.
From a distance, the movement on its surface almost gave the impression of a sneering expression, as if it were mocking their overconfidence.
At that moment, the human side across the entire star system had almost fallen silent.
Now, it was a one-sided slaughter by the Tyranids.
They pried open the metal hulls of human warships, burrowed inside one after another, and began to feast.
In a daze, it was as though the whole star system was filled with the sound of Tyranid teeth chewing.
『Dimensional Foil "Camera" program activated.』
The sudden voice snapped Lacus back to herself. She also noticed that the hand that should have still been suspended in midair had already pressed the confirmation key.
At first glance, it might have seemed like she had simply misread it, and that the hand had already pressed it all along. But she was certain it had not been an illusion.
It looked as if the body had pressed it through instinct alone.
『All phase elements have been filled as "film." Coverage range is...』
『"Photography" ready. Confirm activation of "shutter"?』
At that moment, two choices appeared: yes and no.
It had actually gotten stuck here.
Why did it have to ask for confirmation again instead of activating directly?
Why?
They were clearly only one step away, and yet...
Lacus's pupils trembled.
Because that hand was still moving.
The hand still remembered that such a choice would appear. It knew where to move. It was just sluggish, like a rusted machine.
When it moved over to "yes," it tapped lightly.
Click.
It really sounded like the shutter of a camera being pressed.
At the same time, the world was swallowed by pure white light, as if Lacus herself had been caught in a flash.
The white light soon faded, and the image returned to normal.
Or rather, not normal. It was still in that interference-distorted state, and the snow-like static lines were gradually increasing.
Outside the bridge, the observed view of the universe looked unchanged. The Tyranids were still feasting.
Did the weapon fail to take effect?
Had it failed?
No.
It had worked!
The living nest suddenly panicked, trying to shake itself free and retreat back into the wormhole.
But the wormhole was suddenly compressed flat.
And not just the wormhole. Everything in sight was being compressed flat, as if the entire scene were being turned into a specimen.
The planet-sized living nest in particular was flattening in an irregular pattern.
One moment, the massive spider leg on the right side became a sheet of paper. The next, a leg on the left side flattened, or part of its body suddenly collapsed into a paper-thin layer.
In the blink of an eye, that paper-like transformation spread across a vast area, including the fabric of space itself.
Everywhere was paper.
And those sheets of paper were fitting together perfectly, like countless puzzle pieces assembling into a complete star map.
(End of Chapter)
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