The moment Adrian realized his enemy was the Tyranids, his expression darkened.
The Tyranids—known across the galaxy as the Great Devourer—are among the most terrifying horrors in existence.
Driven by the will of the Hive Mind, these monstrous predators from beyond the galactic void consumes all biomass in their path. Worlds that fell under their gaze were rarely saved. Most were simply swallowed whole, drowned beneath an endless tide of chitin, claws, and hunger.
Only a handful of exceptional worlds—places such as Baal, home of the Blood Angels; Macragge, realm of the Ultramarines; or vital forge worlds of the Adeptus Mechanicus—had any real hope of receiving large-scale reinforcements from the Imperium. And even then, victory came at a devastating cost.
Kadaku was no such world.
It was only a jungle death world, one part of the Recidious System—strategically useful, yes, but nowhere near as important as the homeworld of a Space Marine Chapter.
From what Adrian knew of the Imperium, there were only two possible fates awaiting Kadaku and the system around it.
The first was obvious: resist briefly, then be buried beneath an endless sea of Tyranids.
The second was even crueler in its own way: be "temporarily abandoned" by the Imperium and left to die for the sake of some greater strategic calculation.
Either way, the ending remained the same.
Biomass.
Nothing more than food for the swarm.
Adrian forced himself to recall what he knew about Space Marine 2, trying to piece together the direction of events.
Gradually, the outline of the story returned to him.
Even by the end of the game—after Titus had defeated the schemes of the Thousand Sons sorcerer Imurah—the Tyranid invasion of the Recidious System had not been halted.
On the contrary, the swarm continued to advance.
In the later stages of the conflict, the Tyranids even erected massive capillary towers across Kadaku, huge organic structures that began draining the world of its biomass. Bio-Titans appeared on the battlefield as well; towering monstrosities whose mere presence signaled the invasion had reached its most catastrophic stage.
The more Adrian thought about it, the more his scalp prickled.
A splitting headache began to build behind his eyes.
He could not help but curse inwardly.
Why is it that other people transmigrate into low-difficulty worlds like Resident Evil, while I get thrown straight into Warhammer on hell mode?
And not just any enemy, either.
The Tyranids were widely considered one of the factions most likely to outlast everyone else in the galaxy's endless war.
Shaking his head, Adrian forcibly suppressed his spiraling thoughts.
Panic would not save him.
His gaze returned to the system panel before him.
At the very bottom, he noticed a small gift-box icon marked with a glowing red dot.
"So, this is the 'newbie item' the system mentioned…"
The moment he chose to open it; a flash of white light bloomed across the panel.
When the light faded, a blue serum appeared before him.
[Super Soldier Serum
(Weakened Version — No Side Effects)
Source: Marvel Universe
Effect 1: Enhances the user's physical capabilities to the peak level of an ordinary human without altering the user's lifeform.
Effect 2: Grants the passive skill Combat Instinct.
Note:Hey, Steve, why is your head pointy?
Use now?]
Adrian did not hesitate.
He chose [Yes] immediately.
This was a battlefield. Hesitation could get him killed before his next breath. If a Tyranid suddenly rushed the trench, he would need every possible advantage just to survive the next minute.
The serum dissolved into white light and flowed into his body.
Because this was the no-side-effect version, there was no violent agony, no screaming transformation—only a deep, unmistakable awareness that something inside him was changing on a fundamental level.
His body began to grow.
Bones that had long since stopped developing creaked and lengthened, driving his height from roughly 1.7 meters to nearly 1.9. Muscle fibers thickened and multiplied, growing denser, stronger, more efficient. Tendons tightened. His entire frame broadened as though some hidden limit had been broken.
In only moments, Adrian's build transformed completely.
He looked as if he had been reforged from the inside out—larger, harder, sharper.
Even his proportions shifted toward a kind of ideal balance, every movement suddenly carrying a sense of coiled power.
The standard Imperial armor he had stripped from the corpse earlier had originally hung loose on him.
Now it was tight.
His newly expanded muscles pressed against the plates, making the battered armor seem almost too small.
Yet even more important than the changes to his body was the second effect listed on the panel:
[Combat Instinct]
The meaning was almost exactly what the name implied.
It granted him the ability to react more efficiently in battle, to make sharper decisions under pressure, and even to sense danger before it fully arrived. It was not foresight, but something close enough to matter on a battlefield.
Even if Adrian had once been an ordinary civilian with no formal combat training, this passive ability elevated him almost instantly.
His reflexes, judgment, and battlefield responses were now on the level of a hardened veteran.
Combined with the enhancement to his body, Adrian knew he still could not compare to monsters like the Adeptus Astartes—those transhuman war gods with two hearts and three lungs.
But among ordinary humans, he was no longer weak.
At the very least, he had stepped into the realm of the Imperium's elite mortal soldiery.
Then a thunderous voice tore through the trench.
"Attention!"
Adrian looked up.
A nearby officer—one of the Astra Militarum, clutching a plasma pistol in one hand—was shouting over the roar of gunfire.
"The Tyranids are closing on the line!"
"Prepare for close-quarters combat!"
"No one retreats!"
His voice rose even higher, hard as iron.
"We are the Cadian Eighth! Where we stand, there is Cadia!"
"Cadia stands!"
"CADIA STANDS!" the trench roared back as one.
The surviving soldiers answered in unison, their voices filled with exhaustion, fury, and stubborn defiance.
No one spoke of retreat.
No one even considered it.
The cry snapped Adrian fully back to reality.
He lowered himself, then cautiously raised his head just enough to peer over the edge of the muddy trench, careful not to expose too much of himself.
At any moment, fleshborer beetles, living ammunition, or explosive spores could come screaming through the air.
What he saw made his breath catch.
About fifty meters ahead, a tide of Tyranids was surging toward the trench line.
They came in a frenzy of claws and alien shrieks, hurling themselves forward through a storm of lasfire as though the casualties meant nothing—which, to them, they didn't.
Most of the creatures were gaunts: smaller Tyranid forms built for speed, numbers, and slaughter.
Among them stalked larger Tyranid Warriors, towering node-organisms wielding symbiotic weapons and exerting direct control over the lesser creatures.
Further back, several artillery beasts lobbed corrosive spores high into the air, their living projectiles drifting down toward the Imperial lines like seeds of death.
The battlefield was collapsing into the exact kind of nightmare Adrian had feared.
Even after the Super Soldier Serum, even with his body strengthened and his instincts sharpened, he knew the truth all too well:
On a battlefield like this, one mistake was enough.
A single moment of carelessness, and he would be torn apart by claw and fang—then rendered down into biomass for the swarm.