Warhammer 40K in a box

Chapter 439 Purification Operation - Part 1
The piercing alarm, like the wail of a dying beast, tore through the pale sky of Murmansk.

The heavy alloy gate crashed down with a whistling sound from the hydraulic system, completely sealing off the military fortress.

The cold muzzles of the anti-aircraft turrets pointed towards the sky, and the deep hum of the macro gun array charging made the air tremble.

The city, a fortress built atop a necropolis in space, was instantly transformed into a massive, steel-cast cage.

Chen Xi stood in the center of the sealed-off welcoming ceremony site, the energy field of his power sword emitting a dangerous hiss.

His gaze swept over the terrified crowd, which was divided into several sections, and finally landed in the direction that Sidja was pointing—three soldiers and a lieutenant were convulsing and deforming in pain, their chitinous shells piercing their uniforms, their claws tearing through their flesh, and emitting inhuman screams.

The fourth generation of sly foxes' disguise crumbled under the powerful void power of the Silent Sister.

"Martial law for the entire city! Level 1 purification procedure activated!" Chen Xi's voice echoed throughout the entire airport through the megaphone of his power armor: "Sage Olivia, I need you to connect to the City Thinker Network immediately!"
Scan all life signals in the city and establish a database of abnormal biometrics!
We will focus on screening individuals with abnormal psionic fluctuations and physiological structures that deviate from human standard values ​​by more than 15%!
Sister Sidgar, deploy an anti-psychic field centered on you, to its maximum extent! Suppress their psychic network!

"Yes, Your Excellency." Olivia's synthesized voice was completely flat, except that the mechanical prosthetic eye under her red hood shone with a blinding red light.

She walked up to several Thinkers nearby, and the mechanical tentacles behind her inserted themselves into the Thinker terminals with remarkable precision, as if they were alive.

A massive data stream began to flood into the core of her logic, with the vital signs, medical records, and surveillance footage of millions of residents in Murmansk being rapidly sifted and analyzed.

While the Empire may have limited control over places like the lower levels of the hive, Murmansk, as a former military fortress and now a colony, has not existed for very long and has a limited population, so it is not impossible to control and monitor the city.

Chen Xi has always placed great emphasis on this aspect of review and monitoring. Imperial colonies in the Rostov sub-sector have regular genetic testing and health screenings, and cities have a large number of surveillance devices.

He originally thought there wouldn't be any problems under such surveillance, but he didn't expect that Murmansk would still be infected by the gene stealers.

This caused Chen Xi great distress and fear, as she worried that there might be more infections throughout the sub-sector.

“Building a biometric model…comparing physiological parameters of known gene thieves…activating the psionic fluctuation detection array…” Olivia’s voice had a metallic quality as she delivered the message that made Chen Xi feel dizzy: “Warning: Multiple weak but synchronized psionic nodes detected, suspected to be the prototype of a honeycomb mind network…the degree of contamination…far exceeds expectations.”

I never imagined this planet was so deeply infected! And it's only been a few years!

Xi Dejia stood like a rock in front of Chen Xi. She took a deep breath, no longer suppressing her true nature, which originated from the void.

An invisible, soul-freezing, icy force suddenly spread out from her center!
A silent cracking sound seemed to echo in the air. Dozens of people in the isolated group instantly let out painful screams or muffled groans—their psychic illusions had been forcibly stripped away!
The exposed features varied: some had unnatural grayish-purple skin and plate-like protrusions on their foreheads; others were more deformed, with large knuckles and hunched backs; and even a few seemingly normal officials, under the force of emptiness, had crudely carved four-armed humanoid statues hanging from cheap metal chains slipping from their necks!

The pious expressions on their faces instantly turned into twisted terror.

"Did you see that, Mayor?" Chen Xi's voice was as cold as ice deep within a starry sea, directed at the pale-faced, almost limp mayor, and also as if addressing all the remaining loyalists of the Empire who could still think: "These are the Genestealers! The most vicious and stubborn 'cockroaches' in the Empire's territory! You thought you only found one? No! By the time you saw one, their nests had already spread throughout the ground, their contamination had permeated generations, and had continued for perhaps hundreds of years!"

He pointed to a fourth-generation sly fox who had been forced out of his true form by the Sidgar Force Field and was being precisely targeted and killed by the Battle Sister's bomb: "Look at them! Fourth-generation hybrids, apart from their purple skin, multiple bones on their foreheads, and shaved heads which are popular in the Empire, they behave more devoutly and diligently than the most exemplary citizens of the Empire!"
They pay excessive tithes, they work tirelessly, and they even shout the name of the Emperor to fight against Chaos!
What a perfect disguise! What a terrifying infiltration!

Chen Xi's tone was full of sarcasm and disgust: "But what is all this for? To pave the way for their true 'gods'—those devourers from the depths of the starry sea! The psionic network they built is the beacon guiding the swarm's arrival!"

Olivia's data tendrils danced at high speed, and analysis results cascaded across the screen: "Preliminary biological scan complete. Based on cross-referencing of anomalies in medical records, a contamination model has been established..."

Your Excellency, the situation is extremely serious; the source of the contamination is not a single-contact transmission.

Abnormal bioactive residues were detected at several nodes in the city's main water supply pipelines...

A highly concentrated sample of secretions, suspected to be from the 'Kiss of the Genethrobot,' contaminated the water source.

Olivia's voice took on a rare solemn tone, "This means that the vast majority of the city's population may have been unknowingly infected with 'seeds' through their drinking water."

“Seeds?” an uncontaminated but water-management official repeated in alarm.

"That's what those monsters use to infect us!" Chen Xi explained sharply, his gaze sweeping over all the pale-faced loyalists present. He used his psionic energy to grab the corpse of a gene-stealer and pry open its mouth: "The gene-stealer's disgusting long tongue has an ovipositor at the tip! This thing can infect you as soon as it pierces your skin!"

But they've found an even more efficient way to infect! They don't need to directly 'kiss' you; they just need to inject 'seeds' containing Tyranid genes into water sources, or even mix them into food or medicine, to infect humans! Once infected…”

Chen Xi paused for a moment, looking at the fear in everyone's eyes: "The host will forget everything, and then be implanted with an irresistible impulse: to find someone to reproduce with! To give birth to the first generation of severely deformed hybrids!"
Then, the monster and its parents will be connected by the hive mind and worship the original gene stealer as a god!
Generation after generation, until the fourth generation perfectly integrates into the population, until the fifth generation reverts to their ancestral form and becomes a new source of pure-blooded infection!

(End of this chapter)