From Governor Flax’s own mouth, the group learned of a dark, twisted secret tied to the Flax dynasty’s honor.
A century ago, Flax’s parents took control as the rulers of the Cryptus System.
They governed well, cared for their people, and ushered the system into a golden age of rapid prosperity.
To push their domain’s influence even further, they traveled to neighboring systems to negotiate trade agreements.
This outward expansion exported Cryptus goods and brought back immense wealth and rare resources.
The citizens were wealthy, the culture was enlightened, and society was thriving.
However, after returning from one of these expeditions, Flax’s parents were completely changed.
They no longer cared about Flax, nor did they care about the planet’s development.
Soon after, his mother gave birth to another child.
As the former only child, Flax was instantly marginalized.
All resources, affection, and power were stripped from him and poured entirely into this new baby.
As the child grew, the aristocracy started noticing terrifying red flags.
Even for sanctioned abhumans, babies simply aren’t born with four arms, razor-sharp claws, and a maw full of needle-like fangs.
The child matured at an impossible rate.
During this time, palace servants and noble guests began vanishing without a trace.
Fear and paranoid whispers spread like wildfire through the upper spires.
The nobles slowly realized that Flax’s little brother might be something far, far worse than a mere mutant.
When the mutilated corpse of the fiancée Flax’s parents had arranged for the brother was found stuffed into an underhive sewage pipe, the nobility’s terror hit its absolute breaking point.
They rallied behind the young Flax and launched a bloody coup.
The rebel alliance slaughtered the former Governor’s loyalist guard.
In the end, Flax personally executed his own parents because, even to their dying breath, they fought him to buy enough time for his monstrous brother to escape into the shadows.
Taking his seat as Planetary Governor, Flax dispatched kill-team after kill-team into the depths of the hive to hunt down the escaped monster and end the nightmare.
Unfortunately, every single attempt failed.
Worse, the monster’s brood rapidly multiplied in the dark, eventually earning it the horrific moniker: The Spawn of Cryptus.
Out of options, Flax was forced to completely abandon the Underhive, strictly forbidding any Underhive citizens from ever entering the Spire in a desperate bid to halt the cult’s infiltration.
This was exactly why he had completely neglected the Hive City for decades.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t kill the brother lurking in the shadows.
Fighting the cult only seemed to make them adapt and spread even faster.
Finishing his grim tale, Flax slumped back into his silk cushions, looking utterly drained.
“Now the story’s over, and so is everything else.” “You found me…
which means it followed you, and it found me too.” Suddenly, the servitors standing dormant in the corners of the room violently convulsed.
They simultaneously unhinged their jaws, broadcasting a hollow, mechanical drone.
[Warning.
West District defense grid offline.
Blast Door A52 compromised…
Warning.
Unauthorized biological entities detected in the bunker…] Amidst the servitors’ frantic warnings, a piercing, ear-splitting screech echoed through the complex.
A split second later, all the ambient lighting in the subterranean city died, immediately replaced by the strobing, blood-red glare of emergency sirens.
Flax smiled, a look of morbid, hopeless relief washing over his wrinkled face.
“He’s here.
My brother, Tiberius Flax.
He’s come for his long-awaited revenge.” Dhrost turned to his officers.
“Fix bayonets.
The enemy is here.” “General, we are at a massive disadvantage fighting in this environment,” a staff officer warned, his voice tight.
They could barely hold off Genestealers on the open surface.
Fighting in cramped, pitch-black subterranean corridors was literally the Genestealers’ home turf.
Winning a firefight down here was mathematically impossible.
They were all dead men walking.
“Forefather, we need your hel—” Before Dhrost could even finish his sentence, his eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
Vane casually whipped out a massive stack of torches and rapidly spammed them across the walls with lightning speed.
In the blink of an eye, the pitch-black underground city was brightly illuminated, completely banishing the shadows.
“What in the Emperor’s name are these?” Bishop Barachiel walked up to a torch, thoroughly bewildered.
They looked like standard primitive torches, but they burned endlessly without consuming any fuel and cast an unnaturally bright, warm light.
“Incoming!” a guardsman screamed.
From the depths of the tunnels came the terrifying sounds of hissing and rapid, scuttling claws.
Handheld auspex scanners beeped furiously, registering a massive swarm of fast-moving red dots closing in.
“Open fire!” an officer bellowed.
The soldiers squeezed their triggers.
Searing red las-beams punched down the corridors.
Aided by the torchlight, everyone clearly saw a terrifying tidal wave of Genestealers sprinting out of the darkness, climbing over the walls and ceilings.
“Without fortified trenches or heavy artillery, there is no way we can hold off a swarm this size!” “Keep dreaming!
Even with trenches and artillery, we’d still be dead!” “Looks like we’re genuinely returning to the Golden Throne today.” “I just hope they don’t rip me into too many pieces.
I don’t want to look awful when I meet the Emperor.” Faced with this utterly hopeless situation, the Imperial soldiers were already coming to terms with exactly how they were going to die.
Suddenly, a row of floating blocks materialized out of thin air right across the corridor in front of them.
Searing hot lava poured down from the blocks, instantly creating an impassable, glowing wall of molten magma.
When the Genestealers blindly charged into the lava curtain, they were instantly engulfed in flames, shrieking in pure, unadulterated agony.
The vast majority were flash-fried into charred husks before they even made it halfway, collapsing to the floor and filling the air with the putrid stench of burnt alien meat.
The handful of Genestealers that somehow miraculously powered through the magma were immediately focus-fired into oblivion by the guardsmen.
Vane turned back to Dhrost.
“What were you saying just now?” Dhrost: “…” You already fixed the problem, what else am I supposed to say?!
“Forefather, you blocked the enemy, but how are we supposed to get out?
We can’t just trap ourselves in here and starve!” Dhrost pointed at the lava-filled tunnel.
The Tyranids couldn’t cross the magma, but neither could the fragile humans.
And even if they could, there was still a literal army of Genestealers waiting on the other side.
“Get out?
That’s the easy part.” Vane looked straight up at the ceiling.
“We just dig a path straight out.” “We’re thousands of meters below ground!
We don’t have heavy mining equipment.
Digging out by hand would take until the end of time!” Hearing Vane’s proposal, Dhrost felt his vision go dark.
“Just watch and learn.” Vane smirked and telepathically ordered Steve to mine a staircase straight to the surface.
Steve whipped out his enchanted netherite pickaxe and started aggressively mining the dirt and stone above them.
Thanks to the Vein Miner mod, a single swing shattered dozens of blocks at once, instantly carving out a massive, perfectly square tunnel stretching upwards.
As he mined, Steve automatically laid down minecart tracks to prepare for the ride up.
Under everyone’s utterly dumbfounded gazes, a diagonal tunnel leading straight to the surface, complete with fully laid iron tracks, materialized at lightning speed.
“Praise the God-Emperor!
This is undeniably His divine miracle!” “He sent an angel!
He sent a Living Saint to deliver us!” Bishop Barachiel, ever the professional fanatic, immediately fell into his day job, zealously preaching to the crowd and hyping up Vane’s holy status.
It took Steve barely ten minutes to dig through several kilometers of solid bedrock and crust.
The efficiency was downright terrifying.
“Hurry up, get in.” Vane pulled a stack of minecarts out of his inventory, linked them up into a makeshift train on the tracks, and ushered everyone inside.
“Is this thing seriously not going to fall backward halfway up?” Staring at the crude iron tracks and the rickety little carts, everyone shared the exact same fear.
But putting their absolute faith in Vane, they all obediently climbed in and sat tight.
Once the carts were full, Vane flicked a redstone lever.
The powered rails engaged, and the minecart train shot up the tunnel toward the surface like a rocket.
Cut off by the lava wall, the Genestealers could only watch helplessly as their trapped prey literally drove out through the ceiling, screeching in impotent rage.
– By the time Dhrost reached the surface, his brain was completely fried, reduced to a static void of blankness.
An absolutely guaranteed death trap, resolved without breaking a sweat.
If this wasn’t literal divine intervention, there was no other rational explanation in the galaxy.
Roar!
Halfway to the spaceport, Flax’s mutated brother—the Spawn of Cryptus, the Genestealer Patriarch that ruled the entire system’s cult—caught up to them.
Its alien mind was consumed by pure, unadulterated hatred.
There was absolutely no way it was letting Flax escape.
Seeing the Patriarch rush them, Vane didn’t hesitate.
With Steve at his side, he charged right back.
After casually dicing up a wave of vanguard Genestealers like vegetables, he came face-to-face with the Spawn of Cryptus.
The Patriarch glared at Vane with absolute malice.
This was the damned human who had completely ruined its meticulously planned revenge and hunt.
Letting out another deafening screech, the Spawn of Cryptus lunged at Vane, swinging its massive, razor-sharp rending claws to tear him to shreds.
“Let me show you Minecraft’s ultimate sealing jutsu.” Vane calmly pulled out a large wooden boat and placed it directly on the ground in front of him.
Bound by the unbreakable, fundamental laws of Minecraft physics, the very second the Spawn of Cryptus lunged forward, its hitbox clipped the boat.
It was instantly sucked into the passenger seat, completely immobilized, sitting perfectly upright and completely frozen in the wooden dinghy.