Warhammer: Primarch's Life from the Beginning

As Leo stepped over the contracting membrane, a bounce came from beneath his feet.

This is a nursery.

The aliens' nursery.

The space was much larger than the outside passage, as if it had been hollowed out and filled with some kind of living thing. Grooves lined the cave walls, each holding dozens of humans in place. Their limbs were bound by fleshy straps, their bodies embedded in the walls, only their chests, abdomens, and faces visible. Translucent tubes extended from the cave walls, connecting to their mouths, noses, abdomens, and backs. A murky liquid flowed slowly within these tubes, carrying a stench of life drained from them.

Most people were unresponsive. A few had their eyelids still twitching, their eyeballs moving unconsciously beneath their eyelids, as if trapped in a nightmare from which they could never wake. Their lips were chapped, their skin covered in sweat and mucus, and their chests rose and fell so lightly as to be almost imperceptible.

Leo understood that the impression this sight left on him would likely stay with him for a long time, until it was worn away over the years, reminding him that the universe he lived in was extremely dark and cruel.

Leo stopped at the entrance.

Both of them saw those abdomens.

The abdomen of the parasitized individual bulges high, its skin stretched thin. Beneath the skin, the outline of a carapace moves. It's not the kicking of an infant, but the stretching of limbs and bony plates within the mother's body. Some abdominal surfaces still bear claw marks, pushing outwards, tearing through fine lines of blood, barely held together by fluid secreted from fleshy ducts.

The cave walls were covered with vesicles.

The smaller ones, no bigger than a fist, pulsated gently between the blood vessels. The larger ones resembled curled-up bodies, translucent, revealing juvenile aliens curled up in the liquid inside. Their claws were clasped to their chests, their backs covered in carapaces, their heads bowed, occasionally twitching. Further away, several vesicles had ruptured. Newborn monsters slid out, their bodies coated in nutrient fluid, struggling to unfold their limbs upon landing, but because they were not yet fully formed, they could only writhe on the ground.

Items were scattered on the ground.

The identification tags were half-submerged in slime, their edges corroded. These things came from different places, and they were discarded on the same patch of ground.

Kara slowly knelt down, her power armor knees sinking into the wet, slippery ground, splashing up a little dark liquid. She held the bomb gun upright in front of her, clasped her hands over the gun, lowered her head, and began to recite the state religion's prayer.

Her voice was muffled by her helmet as she prayed for the Emperor's final mercy for the victims.

These people are beyond saving; only death can truly free them from this suffering.

Kara stood up and drew her chainsaw sword from her waist. "We shouldn't let them suffer like this anymore."

"Hmm, let me do it."

Leo drew the Divine Punishment Sword expressionlessly.

He gazed at the strange lumps of flesh on the surrounding walls, thinking that the only way to bring these poor civilians of the empire back to the Emperor's side was to do so. He then said, "These aliens are a cancer on the empire."

As the sword was drawn from its sheath, the vesicles within its cavity contracted simultaneously. The unruptured larvae twitched in the liquid, seemingly sensing the impending extinction. Golden flames spread from the blade, first flowing along the inscriptions, then engulfing the entire sword.

Leo gripped the hilt of his sword tightly.

His gaze swept over the figures on the cave wall, landing on their slightly trembling eyelids. Some of them might still have a shred of consciousness, others might have already lost it. Whatever the answer, it wouldn't change what was to come.

A surge of psionic energy swept outwards.

Golden flames swept across the first row of grooves, instantly severing the fleshy tubes. The parasitized beings made no sound; their bodies, unconscious, were engulfed by the sacred fire, turning to ashes along with the alien fetuses within them. The second row of flames followed closely behind, slicing diagonally through the vesicles on the cave walls. The young aliens, before even touching the ground, were ignited in the liquid, their curled limbs rapidly collapsing.

Leo swung his sword again.

The flames spread into a sea.

Organic vesicles burst one after another, igniting the chitinous walls and causing the blood vessels in the cave walls to convulse. Purple viscous fluid gushed from the ruptures, only to be incinerated by the psionic flames before it even hit the ground. The cavity began to convulse violently, and the ground undulated.

Several sections of the wall suddenly broke.

Pureblood genestealers poured out of the rift, their bodies pressed against the wall, claws outstretched, moving with the speed of knives drawn from the darkness. But just as they locked their gaze on the giant standing not far away, preparing to pounce on the intruder, they collided with the still-spreading psionic flames.

The shells burned in mid-air, the bodies cracked, and the limbs curled up into a ball. Some tried to bypass the fire from the side, but their forearms turned to ash the moment their claws touched the golden light. The monsters behind did not stop; Terra's instincts drove them to continue attacking, and one after another they died in the fire, their corpses not even leaving a complete shape.

Leo stood in the center, his sword lowered.

The sacred flame spread outwards along the ground, cave walls, and pipes. The nursery no longer resembled a nest, but rather a tumor that had been burned through. It contracted, convulsed, and collapsed. Purple slime splattered everywhere, pulsating blood vessels burst in segments, and muffled thuds of vesicles falling echoed from the darkness overhead.

Just as the last vesicle was engulfed by fire, the entire nest began to shake.

It is not a localized twitching.

Something deep inside has been awakened.

In the darkness of the distance, a low, guttural cry, acting on the mind, pierced through the rock strata and echoed in Leo's consciousness, carrying anger and the frenzy of his people being burned.

Kara suddenly covered her helmet, and the sound continued for a while before stopping.

"What was that sound?" She looked at the several openings in the space, guessing that it might be some kind of reinforcements.

Leo tilted his head slightly, seemingly unaffected.

"It's possible that some powerful individual of this type of alien is guarding this place, and our movements may have woken it up."

"Since we've come this far, let's go deeper and finish it off. Then we can go back out and have someone clean this place up."

But he knew that these cockroaches were very difficult to eradicate completely. Ever since the Tyranids set their sights on the galaxy, countless imperial worlds had been more or less eroded by these insects.

Kara sheathed her chainsaw and surveyed the ashes-covered landscape, devoid of any living creature. She crushed a half-charred eggshell under her foot; these things were, after all, flesh and blood, far removed from demons.

"This way." Leo had already walked towards the nearest cave entrance, and the flames on the holy sword subsided into a dark golden light around the edge of the blade.

The two left the place that had once been a nursery. The last vesicle wall behind them collapsed in the high temperature, falling to the ground with a damp thud before falling silent. The passage ahead sloped downwards, and the bioluminescence on the walls gradually changed from eerie green to dark red, while the psionic feedback in their senses grew stronger.