A thick beam of energy burst forth from the instrument.
The faces of the surrounding crowd, illuminated by the light, squinted, and their hair was constantly blown by the hot wind generated by the surging energy.
Meanwhile, the tightly shut Hive City alloy gate in front began to gradually melt under the continuous bombardment of energy.
Ana stared with wide, dazed eyes, her face full of confusion as she looked at the instrument she had personally built.
Yet, even though every single component came from her own hands, as Ana watched it spew forth such a thick beam of energy, from her expression to the depths of her eyes, there was only endless unfamiliarity.
Ana was that dazed Tech-Priestess.
On the other side, Bruno rested his machine gun on his bulging, muscular shoulder, his gaze also startled into a moment of shock by the violent energy before him.
"This power... it could be mounted on a Knight Titan as its main cannon..."
Both of them looked dumbfounded until the energy gradually weakened and finally disappeared completely, at which point Sith released his hands from the instrument.
"Why did it stop?"
Seeing that the gate was only half melted, the foul-mouthed adjutant Bruno, habitually showing impatience, directly and unhappily asked Sith.
Several veterans of the 101st Regiment around them, seeing Bruno's disrespect, couldn't help but draw their sabers and glare fiercely at him, even though they all belonged to the Imperial side.
Bruno's expression stiffened, his eyelids twitching wildly under the veterans' gaze.
He quickly shut his mouth, his heart filled with a strange feeling.
Bruno was able to become an adjutant, and moreover, the undisputed Commander of this motley crew, precisely because he had fought in a hundred battles!
It could be said that in this messed-up world, his very survival until now was proof of his strength.
Therefore, not only did Bruno dare to be disrespectful to Sith, he even dared to secretly call Ana, the Tech-Priest, a half-wit.
One must know that in the Imperium of Man, no one dared to show any disrespect to the Adeptus Mechanicus, even if the other party was just a low-ranking, unremarkable Tech-Priest.
But this group of 101st Regiment soldiers who suddenly appeared—never mind the young, fierce leader—every single one of his soldiers gave Bruno immense pressure.
In front of these veterans, he himself looked like a greenhorn!
Bruno, of course, knew that there must be people stronger than himself, not to mention across the galaxy or even the sector, but just on his own planet.
The problem was that Bruno could accept a few, or even some, but he couldn't accept that every single person in a random regiment was so powerful, because that was just damn bizarre!
And now, this bizarre group was glaring fiercely at him just because he had been disrespectful to their superior, who was also his nominal superior.
"No energy left, I'll replace it with a new one immediately."
Ana quickly ran over, her bright red Tech-Priest robe, combined with the auxiliary prosthetics on her shoulders, as she opened a valve behind the instrument.
Then, a burst of white smoke accompanied by high-temperature hissing sprayed out. Ana carefully removed the energy cell, looking at it as if it had been completely exploited, revealing a side it had never shown her before. For some reason, Ana felt a bit awkward inside.
But this awkwardness was quickly cast aside. Ana, instead, looked overjoyed, even skipping to replace the new energy cell.
"I knew it, I'm a genius!"
Happy, Ana quickly replaced the energy cell. After a series of skilled operations, without waiting for Sith to take over, Ana activated the instrument herself.
There was no surging energy immediately gushing out. After Ana activated it, the instrument slowly rotated for a long while under the confused gazes of those around, before barely emitting a wisp of energy.
It then fell upon the already somewhat solidified hole in the gate, not only failing to widen the hole, but seemingly heating up the melted alloy.
Ana's joyous expression instantly froze, and Bruno's eyes also widened suddenly:
He moved his lips as if to curse, but he dared not disrespect Sith, nor dared to openly show disrespect to the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Bruno could only hold it in, his face turning crimson, before finally letting out a huge breath and heavily shifting the machine gun on his shoulder to the other side.
"What... displeased again?"
Ana looked utterly helpless, with even a hint of tears in her eyes.
High-ranking Tech-Priests might only possess cold rationality, but Ana, who had only recently joined, still displayed clear emotional fluctuations.
"Let me."
Sith took over the instrument. He was completely out of supplies now, and the fleeing rebels might return with more people at any time. Sith truly had no time to waste.
Sith took the instrument, while Ana's face remained filled with disappointment and deep thought.
But as soon as her head drooped, almost without waiting, a violent surge of energy suddenly erupted, and a dazzling light and scorching gale rushed towards everyone nearby.
The hot wind once again made everyone's hair flutter. The soldiers were happy that the instrument had finally recovered, while Ana, after a brief shock, suddenly looked at Sith with a look of realization.
"I understand!"
"To please the machine spirit of my genius invention, you must add the step of operating it yourself!"
The Adeptus Mechanicus is both rational and superstitious; their rigor can be explained with a small story:
Although they didn't know why they had to dance around the machine before starting it, it had worked when they danced before starting it back then, so dancing before starting it must have its reasons.
Now Ana had come to this realization: it wasn't that her invention had a problem, but that she lacked the crucial step of Sith's personal operation.
Ana quickly recorded the operating steps of her instrument, heavily marking the part that required Sith's personal operation.
While Ana was busy recording her findings, the soldiers who had initially spread out gradually gathered around.
The Hive City alloy gate, already mostly melted, once again visibly transformed into flowing, orange-yellow molten iron.
The once heavy gate had become extremely thin, and at its very center, the energy beam could even be vaguely seen penetrating through it.
Both the 101st Regiment and Bruno's remnant soldiers had instinctively begun to lick their lips, eager to enter the supply station within the Hive City and have a good feast.
However, as the gate grew thinner and thinner, not only did Sith's brows furrow as he looked at the gate, but even the veterans of the 101st Regiment under him, and Bruno, grew increasingly solemn.
Finally, at the very last moment before the gate was about to open completely, Sith, who had been constantly looking at the darkness beyond the gate's crack, suddenly widened his eyes and removed his hands from the instrument.
The surging energy beam gradually dissipated, and the damaged gate was just one more push away from opening.
But the veterans showed no joy; instead, with tense faces, they suddenly aimed their weapons at the gate.
An explosion came from inside the gate!
The last obstruction of the gate vanished with the explosion, and the long-closed gate slowly pushed open from within.
In the narrow, deep entrance passage of the Hive City, the darkness revealed a dense, writhing mass of figures.
As sunlight streamed in with the opening of the gate, even Sith couldn't help but twitch an eye at the sight behind the door.
Behind the door were rebels from an entire Hive City, who had been trapped for an unknown duration!