Chapter 132: Seed of Thunder

Bang! Bang! The distinctive sound of high-caliber gunfire echoed continuously through the simulated urban area.

Boom! Boom! D-class personnel, clad in prison uniforms and equipped with advanced weaponry, exploded on the spot. Blood, flesh, and debris splattered outward in a gruesome display, as a thick mist of blood enveloped the scene. It seemed as though the large-caliber bullets had a secondary explosive capability, which caused such devastating carnage.

"Run... run!" 

"What the hell is that thing?!"

The D-class personnel, who had previously held their ground against the BOWs and even gained the upper hand, lost all morale after seeing their comrades explode one after another. They frantically turned and fled, desperate for survival. Some of them even kicked their so-called comrades to disrupt their escape, hoping to buy themselves a few more moments of life. This kind of treachery was normal for them.

If not for the explosive chips implanted in the back of their heads, forcing them to follow Atlas's commands, they would have used their weapons to execute anyone they disliked the moment they got their hands on them.

However, there was an incentive for those who cooperated and survived—they would earn the privilege of a private shower and an extra two meals of desserts and snacks each day. Their motivation was driven entirely by a brutal desire to live and claim these small luxuries.

When facing BOWs that could be taken down with firearms and plasma cannons, their morale soared. But when confronted with a "human" who wielded long-range weapons and possessed a physique as formidable as the BOWs, their first instinct was to flee. After all, Atlas's requirement was simply to "survive," not explicitly to "eliminate the enemy." Hence, running and hiding became the most logical choices.

In no time, the D-class personnel at the intersection scattered like wild animals, leaving behind only pools of blood and mangled corpses.

---

At the same time, in a nearby apartment stairwell:

Huff... huff... A D-class personnel who had successfully escaped to this point sat on the stairs, panting heavily, trying to calm his nerves. This young man with a buzz cut had committed multiple armed robberies and murders before his capture and imprisonment. In theory, he should have been desensitized to death and violence.

But the weapon used by that "person" was something beyond reason. One hit meant certain death—explosive, gruesome death. It was more of a small cannon than a large-caliber gun.

The explosive rounds Atlas provided to the D-class prisoners included 6.2mm and .30cal high-explosive rounds, but they could not obliterate a body so completely. What disturbed him even more was the footage he had captured through his helmet's monocle holographic screen. It had recorded the appearance of the "person," or rather, the "heavily armored soldier."

Standing at least 2.7 meters tall, perhaps even 2.8, the soldier had a body that seemed even more robust than the Tyrants they had encountered. He wielded the large-caliber gun that had torn his comrades to shreds. The soldier's entire body was encased in black heavy armor, with no visible mechanical exoskeleton, as though all his strength came from pure muscle.

What truly unnerved the man was the soldier's face—grotesque, covered in stitches, with blood-red skin and eyes that glowed with a pale golden light. It was less of a human and more of a "ghost." Could it be an advanced Tyrant model? Or another humanoid biological weapon?

The man didn't know. He had no idea what kind of biological weapons Atlas had, but he knew that staying meant certain death.

Bang! 

Before he could revel in his escape, that fatal gunfire rang out again. The large-caliber round easily penetrated the wall and burst into the stairwell.

Boom!

In an instant, his world went dark. The moment he heard the gunshot, his consciousness faded, unaware that his body had been blown apart.

If one were to trace the path of the bullet from the stairwell, through the apartment lobby, and out onto the street:

Thud, thud.

They would hear the heavy footsteps. They would see the same heavily armored soldier who had just killed the man. He looked exactly like the figure captured on the helmet's screen, and his armor had no power-assisted mechanisms—just pure protective plating. He relied solely on his own vision, unaided by any devices, to aim and kill with precision.

As for how the soldier knew where the man was hiding, it wasn't due to any supernatural ability. The man's heavy breathing in his attempt to calm down had betrayed his position.

The soldier continued strolling down the street at a leisurely pace, efficiently picking off the D-class personnel who had tried to hide or flee. One particularly aggressive D-class prisoner, unwilling to surrender, attempted to ambush the soldier with a plasma cannon during a brief moment when the soldier was reloading.

However, the soldier detected the attacker's movements and effortlessly dodged the plasma shot, sidestepping the projectile. After evading, he calmly reloaded and resumed his relentless onslaught.

If one were to view the scene from above, they would notice that there were a total of ten heavily armored soldiers, all armed with large-caliber rifles, systematically clearing out the D-class personnel, who outnumbered them by a factor of sixty.

Though these D-class prisoners were some of the most violent and depraved individuals, and many fought back desperately when escape proved futile, the ten soldiers faced increasing pressure. Some of them were even targeted with concentrated fire.

While the soldiers' black armor could withstand most conventional rounds, it couldn't handle the extreme heat of plasma blasts. Furthermore, the D-class personnel were equipped with .30cal smart machine guns loaded with high-explosive, homing, and armor-piercing rounds. Despite the term "security" in their title, Atlas's armed security forces were trained and equipped to protect critical facilities, ensuring their combat effectiveness.

In this field test, Atlas had been "generous" enough to supply the D-class with cutting-edge weapons and gear. The only problem was their lack of combat discipline and coordination. 

In the end, the only ones left standing in the streets were the black-armored soldiers wielding large-caliber rifles.

---

Meanwhile, in the observation room on the northern edge of the simulated town:

"The combat test has concluded. All 620 D-class personnel have been killed." 

"Six of the test subjects sustained varying degrees of damage but remain fully operational. Two of them are severely injured and require immediate recovery and repair, while the other two have lost biological function and are no longer usable." 

"Data will be fully compiled in thirty minutes and uploaded for analysis by the biological department."

Seated at their consoles, the staff members reported their findings to their supervisors and superiors, relaying key details. Meanwhile, a group of researchers from the biological department, dressed in white lab coats and holding sleek tablets, gathered to review the test footage and discuss their preliminary findings.

Near the observation window, the head of the biological department, Alexia Ashford, stood with her arms crossed. She looked down at the simulated town with a smug smile, unable to hide her sense of pride as she spoke to Samuel Young, who stood beside her:

"Ten against six hundred—six slightly injured, two severely wounded, two dead. What do you think? Doesn't that ratio blow the old super-soldier program out of the water? Haha!"

Her laughter filled the room.

"Cough," she quickly cleared her throat, realizing her slip, and continued in a more composed tone: 

"This test proves the feasibility of the gene seed. But given the data and current performance, I believe we still have a long way to go before we meet your expectations. At the very least, the super soldiers in our minds should have self-awareness and the ability to think for themselves, not like these mindless drones down there."

"Their biggest flaw right now is that to fully utilize their potential, they need you to control them directly. If they are just mindlessly enhanced soldiers, they're not much better than the neuro-controlled Tyrants."

Samuel nodded slightly, deep in thought, his brow furrowed. He refrained from making any verbal remarks. The black-armored soldiers who had annihilated the 600 D-class personnel with ease were the products of Alexia and her team, created by implanting the current generation of gene seeds into ten cloned bodies.

Back in 1993, when the first space portal opened, Samuel had introduced Alexia to the concept of gene seeds. He had also given her permission to use his cloned bodies for various experiments. These included hundreds of viral trials using extracts from the Flower of God, as well as the Veronica and T-virus.

Though the experiments might have seemed "mad," Samuel's clones were simply empty shells, devoid of any consciousness. However, due to Samuel's unique physiology, the clones could not maintain stability and would eventually self-destruct and die. This meant Alexia and her biological team were always racing against time, trying to complete experiments and gather samples before the clones perished.

Through these experiments, Alexia had successfully cultivated a viral strain derived from the Veronica virus. This variant was more stable and gradually enhanced biological functions, repairing defects over time. Even so, if a regular person were infected, they would still turn into a "zombie."

Alexia never intended to weaponize the strain. Instead, she used it to continue infecting Samuel's clones. After Robert (Guilliman) and Sanguinius reached maturity, the biological department began cloning them, using their blood, cells, and tissues to conduct further gene seed research in conjunction with Samuel's clones.

Because of the genetic bond between father and son

, the Primarch clones faced the same problem—they were difficult to stabilize and would collapse after a short time. However, the addition of these experimental subjects advanced the research on gene seeds.

After years of testing, Alexia finally succeeded on June 12, 1999, extracting a fleshy gland from one of Samuel's clones—a prototype gene seed.

From there, Alexia cultivated gene seeds using the genetic information of Robert, Sanguinius, Lion, Horus, and Magnus's clones, with each seed containing unique attributes of the respective Primarch.

But as Alexia had pointed out, the current gene seeds still had a long way to go before reaching the desired level of performance. The gene seeds of the Primarchs were far less stable than Samuel's own.

As a result, the biological department decided to cryogenically preserve the Primarch gene seeds for future research while focusing on Samuel's gene seed.

On June 20 of this year, the department selected ten of the strongest clone soldiers, originally modeled on long-deceased D-class personnel whose biological data and tissue samples had been preserved. 

Under normal circumstances, after the clones were created, their brains would undergo surgical removal by robotic arms. However, before the procedure took place, the biological department removed ten fully intact clone bodies from the production line, transferred them to the biological experimentation center, and implanted the gene seeds.

When signs of extreme rejection began to show, the clones were placed into specialized incubation tanks. This accelerated the gene seed's transformation of their bodies while preventing death from rejection.

The only downside to this approach was the cost. The nutrient fluids and stabilizing agents required for each clone were over ten times that of a mass-produced Tyrant. Fortunately, the biological department had vast resources at its disposal, and they understood that high-cost experiments were necessary to gather substantial data for future mass production.

By July 26, after over a month of accelerated transformation, the clones had grown to a height of around 2.5 meters. Their skin, muscle, and bone density had all undergone significant enhancement.

Next, the biological department performed several augmentation surgeries, including the implantation of secondary hearts and lungs, the carbon fiber reinforcement of bones, the injection of nanobots carrying 24th chromosome gene information, and the further enhancement of sensory systems such as sight, hearing, and smell.

In the end, these ten clones became soulless super soldiers, devoid of self-awareness or independent thought.

Only through Samuel's psychic control could they exhibit the agility, precision, and strength they were meant to have.

As Samuel observed the test results, he couldn't help but think that the appearance and combat performance of these clones bore a striking resemblance to the Thunder Warriors from Warhammer 40k.

___________________

Read Ahead

P@treon.com/Mutter