I summoned the Fourth Scourge in Warhammer

Chapter 28 Unity
Amidst the flames of the explosion and the flying blood and flesh, the wizard on the high platform finally awoke from the frenzy of the ritual. He looked down at the believers below, who were in complete chaos, fleeing in all directions like headless flies, and a flash of fury crossed his eyes.

He raised a staff twisted from bones and metal, and roared in a voice imbued with psychic power, attempting to restore order: "Halt! Cowards! Runaways will be seen as traitors to the Dark Gods, and your souls will be tormented for eternity in the Warp!"

His voice drowned out some of the aftershocks of the explosion, and some fleeing cultists abruptly stopped in their tracks.

"Fight for the glory of the gods!" the wizard's voice was full of allure. "The warriors will be watched over by the dark gods! Your bravery will earn you eternal blessings!"

His efforts did indeed have an effect.

Prolonged brainwashing and chaotic contamination had distorted these people's minds, and the instinct for self-preservation was disappearing from their brains. Driven by the fear of eternal torment and the greed for blessings, they finally stopped, their bloodshot eyes turning to the players at the door, and began to try to organize an attack.

Given enough time, the wizard might actually be able to stabilize these tens of thousands of chaotic cultists. If that happens, the players will have already lost half the battle—the cultists here number in the tens of thousands. If they were to organize and confront the players, while the players are fearless and unlikely to die, their assault on the chemical refinery would be bogged down. Even if tens of thousands of them just stood still and let the players kill them, it would still take quite a while.

The most crucial element in this battle is a swift victory. No one knows when the cultists on the main battlefield will return to reinforce, nor how long Commissar Walter's promised delay will last. If the enemy's main force returns to reinforce before they have captured and consolidated their defenses here, then this mission will have already failed.

Fortunately, the wizard's attempt was thwarted cleanly and decisively.

"Seventh Platoon, charge!" Seeing that the cultists were beginning to organize, Ruan Wenbo gave the order without hesitation, "But don't stop throwing grenades!"

Oglin [Eagle Cop], who had been feeling suffocated by the stealthy, stealthy approach, immediately let out a roar filled with excitement and anger!

"Ow—!"

His voice was like a thunderclap, so loud that it briefly drowned out all other sounds on the battlefield. Several players next to him grimaced in pain, one of them exclaiming, "Holy crap, I feel like my eardrums are bursting!"

Led by Eagle, the Seventh Platoon charged into the cultists' lines like tigers among sheep. Those cultists on the periphery, just incited by the wizard and not yet able to form an effective formation, were utterly terrified by the terrifying power of this humanoid behemoth—literally terrified. They stood frozen in place, watching grenades explode at their feet, watching bayonets and scorching laser beams hurtle towards them.

The wizard's organization had undoubtedly failed. Lacking proper training and discipline from lower-ranking officers, the cultists' fragile morale crumbled once again. With the breach by the Seventh Squad, the entire cult group completely collapsed. The wizard on the platform quickly vanished amidst the chaos, perhaps using some kind of psychic power to leave quietly, or perhaps his psychic abilities were too weak, and he simply died from a stray bullet or grenade that came from nowhere.

The battle quickly transitioned into a pursuit phase. The players began hunting down the fleeing cultists, though they weren't necessarily aiming to exterminate them. With just a hundred people, capturing tens of thousands of fleeing pigs would be extremely difficult, let alone two-legged humans capable of burrowing. The players' task was simply to drive them completely out of the chemical refinery.

A group of a dozen cultists fled in panic through the complex pipes and corridors, while behind them, several players followed leisurely and unhurriedly—they had already looked at the map and knew that there was a dead end ahead.

"Hehehe... You can run slowly..." one of the players let out a sinister laugh, deliberately letting the cultists in front hear it, "Let's see where you can run to!"

His companions around him also burst into laughter.

Looking at the panicked and terrified expressions of the cultists in front of them, and then at the players behind them with evil smiles, approaching step by step like cats playing with mice, it was really hard to tell who the villains were.

However, the cat-and-mouse smiles on the players' faces vanished in an instant, freezing on their expressions. Their gazes passed over the trembling cultists and focused simultaneously on the ceiling above them—in the darkness shrouded in pipes and shadows, a clear, white-outlined silhouette, a marker that only appears on enemies, lurked silently.

The shape of the silhouette was extremely bizarre. It resembled a giant, curled-up insect with a smooth, elongated head and four strong arms folded at its sides, each arm ending in what appeared to be a sharp, claw-like appendage. Its entire body was covered in some kind of carapace, blending perfectly into the darkness; were it not for the game system's friend-or-foe identification feature, it would be completely invisible to the naked eye.

The pursuing players exchanged glances, their eyes filled with seriousness and a barely perceptible excitement. Clearly, everyone had seen that thing.

Hidden plot? Or is this the real boss of the chemical refinery?

Instead of immediately shouting warnings, they displayed remarkable teamwork. Maintaining their previous unhurried demeanor, they swiftly and decisively executed the cult members who had fallen into despair and were beginning to kowtow and beg for mercy, using bayonets and laser guns.

Then, at the same moment they killed the last cultist, the squad instantly turned their guns around and unleashed all their firepower without warning on the unknown creature on the ceiling!

Two fragmentation grenades traced short arcs and were precisely thrown below the outline. Immediately afterward, seven or eight crimson laser beams, as if guided by invisible fingers, converged on the same point within fractions of a second.

Theoretically speaking, an armored vehicle subjected to such concentrated fire without any warning would definitely suffer severe damage.

Unfortunately, that was just theory.

Just before the grenade exploded and the laser was about to strike, the silhouette flashed by in an instant. Its speed was too fast for the naked eye to perceive, like a streak of purplish-black lightning, easily dodging all the players' carefully planned attacks.

The grenade exploded with a bang, and the missing laser beam sent sparks and debris flying across the ceiling.

Before the players could recover from the shock of their missed attack, the dark figure had already rushed into their midst.

Everything happened in an instant. The incredibly sharp claws sliced ​​through the bulletproof armor like a hot knife through butter. The players didn't even have time to scream before their bodies were cleaved into pieces in a flash. Scalding blood and entrails splattered throughout the corridor, turning the cold metal floor a shocking crimson.

[Ghost Claw] Liam Bright, after elegantly and efficiently annihilating the group of players, immediately departed. He wasn't there to fight the Imperial army; he had a more important mission.

Even so, it still felt a trace of doubt. Its stealth skills, which allowed it to blend into the darkness, were something even many psionicists might not be able to detect. How had these mortals discovered it?

"Never mind, the God of the Stars will redeem everyone equally." It muttered to itself in a non-human way, and with a few flashes, it disappeared into the shadows of the factory. It didn't notice at all that right after it left, the shattered, unrecognizable corpses flickered vaguely on the ground for a moment before returning to their original state.

The resurrected players stood frozen in place, staring blankly at the carnage that had just unfolded, their faces filled with shock. One of them pulled up the system log, and when he saw the identity of the guy who had killed them, highlighted in red, he couldn't help but curse: "Holy crap! Pure-blooded sly!"

(End of this chapter)