On the perimeter, the glamorously dressed nobles covered their mouths, whispering with cruel anticipation.
“That wimp from the Underhive is definitely getting blown to pieces today.”
“Commander! Let’s fight them to the death!”
The bald lieutenant’s eyes were bloodshot, the veins on his neck bulging.
He racked his gun’s bolt violently.
The other eight soldiers roared in unison, fearlessly forming a human shield to block for Seth Knight.
Seth Knight didn’t budge.
He leisurely pulled a cheap, Underhive-brand cigarette from his pocket.
He lit it.
Taking a deep drag, he exhaled a long trail of choking gray smoke.
Without even raising his eyelids, Seth Knight looked through the crowd of soldiers at the dense, armed grid outside.
“Seven, six, five…” The captain’s countdown continued.
Right then, “All of you, stop!” a stumbling figure rushed out from the shadows of the compartment, stepping directly in front of all the aimed barrels.
A dead silence fell over the crowd.
The watching nobles on the periphery stared, their eyes nearly popping out of their skulls.
It was none other than the Count’s eldest daughter, Yulia!
Her current state was breathtakingly provocative.
Her haute couture evening gown was savagely torn, exposing large patches of fair skin to the cold wind.
Her hair was disheveled, and her expensive stockings were riddled with over a dozen runs and tears.
Spreading her arms wide, Yulia shielded Seth Knight’s compartment, screaming hysterically at the private army outside, “Lower your weapons! Fall back, all of you!”
This sudden turn of events left the private soldiers dumbfounded.
What was going on?
The eldest daughter was actually protecting that lowly, live-in son-in-law?
Behind his shield, the guard captain’s expression shifted rapidly.
A few seconds later, a look of extreme madness and ruthlessness flashed in his eyes.
The Count had issued strict orders beforehand: no one was to disrupt the “grand event” in the estate tonight.
If the eldest daughter was in the way, they would just eliminate her too!
“The eldest daughter has been bewitched by that waste’s heretical sorcery!” the guard captain roared into his megaphone, twisting the narrative.
“By order of the Count, neutralize all threats!”
“Open fire!”
“Mow them down along with that transport!”
The private soldiers gritted their teeth, their fingers tightening around the triggers.
Snapping into the cruelest, most ruthless persona of a high-born noble, Yulia whipped out a master authority key and aimed it at the two Sentinel Walkers.
“Mech units!”
“I am the first heir of this family!” Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
“Deactivate main battery lock immediately! Reverse your cannons!”
Yulia’s voice pierced the night sky: “Otherwise, your families’ organs will be hanging as wind chimes in a sewer rat’s nest by tomorrow morning!”
This naked death threat instantly shattered the mental defenses of the mech pilots.
They were just paid mercenaries; there was absolutely no reason to gamble their families’ lives.
*Hummmmm.*
The heavy clanking of mechanical gears suddenly engaged.
Far from firing, the two four-meter-tall Sentinel Walkers rotated their heavy upper chassis in unison.
Their gaping cannon barrels instantly swiveled away from the Chimera Armored Transport, locking dead onto the defensive shield barricade where the guard captain stood!
A massive uproar ensued!
The nobles on the periphery were utterly dumbfounded.
The private soldiers felt a chill run down their spines, not daring to move a single muscle.
Throughout it all, Seth Knight leaned against the vehicle door smoking his cigarette, not even lifting a finger.
This death trap had been effortlessly dismantled by the dog at his feet.
Cold sweat instantly soaked the guard captain’s combat uniform.
He knew he was finished.
Shifting from humiliation to unbridled rage, his eyes turned blood-red.
“Steve! You filthy heretic!”
“I’m taking you down with me!”
He drew a large-caliber bolt pistol from his waist.
Shielded by his barricade, he snapped the barrel up, aiming straight between Seth Knight’s eyes.
He pulled the trigger!
But before this lethal shot could fire, Yulia reacted like a rabid dog whose tail had been stepped on.
She aggressively snatched a standard-issue lasgun from the bald lieutenant beside her.
She aimed straight at the guard captain’s lower body and decisively squeezed the trigger!
*Pshht!*
A blinding high-energy beam cut through the night sky.
The extreme heat instantly vaporized the captain’s kneecaps.
“Aaah!” the captain shrieked in agony as his legs buckled, crashing face-first into a pool of his own blood.
The bolt pistol flew from his grip.
But Yulia had no intention of stopping there.
Striding up to the crippled captain, she raised the heavy stock of the rifle.
She slammed it down viciously onto his terror-stricken face!
“You miserable slave! How dare you disrespect the Master!”
*Crack!*
“Die! Die! Die!” This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
*Crack!
Crack!
Crack!*
Accompanying her maniacal curses, heavy, dull impacts echoed across the plaza.
Blood and tissue splattered everywhere.
The once elegant and poised daughter of the Count had transformed into a savage butcher.
She beat the captain’s face into a heap of bloody, unrecognizable mush.
Total silence!
Not a single sound was made.
Every guard, soldier, and spectating noble looked at the blood-spattered, panting Yulia, their minds utterly blown.
This was pure madness!
It defied all reason!
*Clatter.*
No one knew who let go first.
The sound of weapons hitting the ground cascaded like falling dominoes.
Soon after, over a hundred heavily armed private soldiers went weak in the knees, hitting the ground with a collective, heavy thud as they knelt.
The nobles on the periphery also found their legs giving out, pressing themselves flat against the ground, too terrified to even raise their heads.
They felt a soul-deep, absolute terror toward the smoking man leaning against the transport.
Yulia tossed aside the rifle, which was now sticky with shredded flesh and brain matter.
She turned around, walked back to the transport, and linked her arm with Seth Knight’s, walking toward the grand, carved double doors of the Count’s main manor.
Suddenly, Seth Knight stopped.
His senses, heavily augmented by the Super Soldier Serum, caught an extremely discordant noise.
From behind those heavy doors, a melodious classical symphony was playing in the grand hall.
Yet underneath that elegant music, there was a distinctly chilling, hair-raising sound.
“Crunch… Crack…”
It was the sound of living bones being crushed and chewed, accompanied by greedy, heavy swallowing and chewing.
Yulia clearly sensed something as well.
The color that had just returned to her face drained instantly, leaving her deathly pale.
She trembled like a leaf in the wind, her teeth chattering as she whispered in a voice thick with dread:
“Ma… Husband…”
“The ‘Envoy’ from the Warp…”
“It… is having its ‘meal’ inside…”