Chapter XI

There was no communication between the Imperial Guardsmen and the Genestealer's the moment the Guardsmen braced themselves behind some cover they brought up their Las carbine rifles and began laying out a hail of lasers that disintegrated a chunk of flesh on any Genestealers when hit.

The Genestealers however didnt just stand in the rubble of their operations to be shot for nothing as from large holes bored under the rubble came even larger Genestealers armed with two rocket launchers began shooting missiles to break apart the cover the Guardsmen were hiding behind.

But those larger Genestealers didn't last too long as from across atop another building a loud bang rang out that pierced the sounds of laser fire ionizing the air and the more primitive guns the Genestealers were using.

The loud bang was the report of a sniper taking his shot and the man's aim was true as one of the larger Genestealers wielding heavy weapon ordnance dropped dead as his head exploded.

While the Guardsmen taking the front and church operatives taking up the rear with surgical strikes, they made a decent combination disregarding the Guardsmen being blown to bits as their cover wasn't at all made to be taking high explosive ordnance or a deluge of rounds from a minigun.

The next issue a few minutes later was how I saw the smaller menial Genestealers who initially unburied the tunnels to their operations had unearthed a large hole and from it, a sort of life brought up something that brought me some worry.

"How the hell did they get a tank!" I cursed as Las fire and even grenades shot into the overly thick armored vehicle did absolutely nothing to it.

The tank looked to have been a remodeled mining machine and the Genestealers had repurposed its great horsepower from drilling and tugging around massive amounts of ore and materials to instead carry an obscene amount of armor that was complemented with small canons and flame throwers that clearly showed this tank was meant to be used in this very situation as it didn't need to be fast as the streets were so packed.

It just needed to be able to withstand constant mortar fire and any other explosive ordnance as it acted to breach any defenses with its large drills on the front of the tank.

I took in the battlefield more completely and guessed there were a couple of thousand Guardsmen down here and normally that would be a drop in the bucket, but the Underhive's streets were so fucking close that even when the Guardsmen were exchanging fire with the Genestealers atop buildings the reality was that the streets were already packed with fighting bodies, especially with the massive tank trudging towards the Guardsmen's position.

Looking past the tank I saw the lift that pulled it from wherever it came from had descended to perhaps pick up another vehicle making me bite my lip as I considered if this was where I wanted to interject within the battle.

Seeing the Genestealer Cults literally roll over any defense and attack the under-equipped Guardsmen came with I stood up and my Dharma Sword flashed into my hands as I stood at the edge of the building.

"Split the clouds of heaven with one sword," I said solemnly as I drew upon my Sword Seed and my heart heated up at using a fifth of my Qi when I sent out as a large crescent moon of silver energy was launched off my blade and with a mighty screeching noise the sword Qi arc cut halfway into the armored tank before it lost its energy.

I then explosively launched myself off my building wreathed in the pure Yang fires of a sun to dodge the Genestealer's retaliatory machine gun fire and caused a large explosion of high-temperature flames that spread across the rubble of the Genestealer side of the battle.

Knowing that I was literally outnumbered more than a thousand to one I quickly dashed towards the hole where the lift was and with my violently billowing flames wreathing me the last fire and indirect debris that collided with me didn't bring me any harm or knock me off course as I swung my sword sending another powerful arc of Sword Qi that collapsed a chunk of another building to drop onto some entrenched Genestealers as I fell into the lifts tunnel.

Once I fell for more than a few seconds I quickly kicked the square-shaped tunnel's wall to bring me towards a corner and then I used my boots to slow my descent as they grinded against the walls.

Looking down now that I wasn't about to fall to my death as I slowed my fall to a much more manageable level, I saw the well-lit bottom was more than a couple hundred meters down.

"This is getting closer to the Hive Sump. No wonder no one found them!" I cursed knowing how the Sump of a Hive City was literally a hellhole as it was so hostile to life with all the filth and pollutants that only mutants and lesser demons that got summoned due to simply how shitty it was down there could survive. Humans never went down there unless it was completely necessary and even then, parties that went down that deep hardly ever returned.

As I approached the lift tunnel's end, I noticed how the four walls actually didn't meet the floor of the ground beneath and as soon as I hit the floor, I saw I was in a huge open hanger structure with tanks and other armored vehicles clearly being loaded to battle the Guardsmen up top.

Then there was the angry ant nest of uncountable thousands of Genestealers for as far as I could see that were rushing around in a rat race.

Happy that I was wearing a thick hood that covered a good chunk of my features I quickly ran forward and merged into the crowd before more Genestealers could alert the others as I saw more than a couple of the closer ones freaking out and pointing at me for somehow surviving the three hundred some meter fall.

'Where the hell is the Patriarch!" I cursed under my breath as I was carrying a large pile of metal parts while I ran at a human-like speed around the edges of the hanger in search of a large sign stating 'brood lord' here or something as I knew this damn place was going to be a maze and I honestly didn't know if all these monsters had some kind of telepathic connection or something.

But hearing more explosions coming from above as more tanks and heavy munitions rode up on different elevators, I knew I needed to find the Patriarch which should I kill them would send the whole army of Genestealers into disarray and allow the Guardsmen to more easily kill them.

But my thoughts were sent head over heels as from another side tunnel on the other side of the Hanger I saw something that made me freeze in extreme surprise.

Silently with machine precision a contingent of a hundred Interrogators basically Inquisitor's in training, grimly ran into the hanger and executed all who were around them before they all lifted what looked to be a grenade launcher as they took cover and knowing that those crazy bastards wouldn't hide from a simple explosion for no reason I swiftly dropped my parts I was using as cover and jumped into the open hatch of one of the surrounding vehicles.

"Shit!" I cursed as half a dozen Genestealers whirled on me for dropping into their armored troop carrier and not wanting to use my Qi on sending unnecessary sword Qi attacks I dashed forward with my body wreathed again in flames.

With my Cultivation and the two body cultivation arts I had I was easily able to overpower the Genestealers and each punch acted like a heavy bolter impacting them as my fists ploughed through flesh and burnt out the senses of Genestealers before my hands landed upon them.

The tank I was within was then violently thrown towards its side sending me and the ashes of the Genestealers in the tank against the wall before the tank bottom heavy design ensured, we didn't end up on its side or anything.

With the brief moment of calm before the Genestealers began shooting at the elite church agents I looked out briefly over the edge of the tank and saw my target of interest as the battle became far more chaotic as seemingly Guardsmen, Church Soldiers, and what looked to be a group of Adepta Sororitas, Sisters of Battle valiantly crying out as they ran into battle in the Emperors name.

Knowing this battle was far too insane for me to simply wander around in a black cloak in order to find the Patriarch, I decided to fully join Humanities offensive after I found some kind of yellow industrial paint, they were using to coat the tank I used the pain on the front and back of the cloak I was wearing by using my fingers to as best I could draw the Imperial Aquila of a set of wings and bird on each of the wings.

"Hopefully they don't just shoot me..." I muttered as I looked around to see where the best place for me to join the fight was.