12: Chapter 12 The judge's report contained a sentence he had never written before.

In the briefing room of the Emperors Hammer, the air was thick with the scent of cold metal and sacred oils. Marcus Aurelian sat at one end of the long table, his hands clasped under his chin, listening to Bern's after-action report. He had held this pose for twelve minutes, motionless.

"In summary, the target displayed at least three characteristics that should not appear in xenos organisms." Bern's voice came from his helmet's speakers, carrying the metallic resonance typical of power armor. "First, self-destruction capability. It systematically destroyed all biological samples before retreating—the creep, carapace fragments, shed tissues—all began to degrade within seconds of the withdrawal order. The samples we obtained had degraded to nothing more than basic amino acid sequences, making it impossible to trace the complete genetic structure."

"Second, the speed of tactical learning. During its first contact with standard Imperial purge tactics, it completed the transition from passive defense to active formation-breaking in the middle of the engagement. Note, in the middle of the engagement, not after the battle. It watched us, it understood the weaknesses in our formation, and then it acted."

"Third." Bern paused for a second. "It refused to die. Even with its right shoulder pierced by a power halberd, its left forelimb half-destroyed, and all the creep self-destructed, it completed its withdrawal. This is not the fighting capability of a bug—this is the manifestation of a tactical will."

The briefing room fell into a brief silence. Tech-Priest Melchior tapped his fingers on his data-slate three times and looked up. "The sample analysis results are in."

"Speak."

"The carapace fragments remaining at the scene—or more accurately, the fragments we collected before they degraded—showed a chitinous lattice structure never seen before." Melchior projected the molecular structure onto the briefing table. "Observe the lattice arrangement. This hexagonal nested structure can not only deflect Warp energy but also has a certain degree of resistance to the psychic attacks we use. Although not strong enough—Bern's power halberd proved that—if they continue to optimize this structure..."

"They will." Marcus finally spoke. He lowered his hands and placed them on the table. "The core characteristic of this xenos is not its carapace or its claws; it is its evolutionary speed. Every contact we make becomes fodder for its next evolution. It is not just genetic consumption—what it learns from us is more than just biological information. It is learning how we fight. It is learning the Imperium. It is learning the Grey Knights."

He stood up, walked to the projection, and zoomed in on the 3D scan of the catacombs. The map was marked with the activity trajectory of The Swarm—the spread direction of the creep, points of combat contact, and withdrawal routes.

"What disturbs me most is not that it successfully withdrew." Marcus pointed to the starting point of the creep's spread. "It is that before it retreated, it had already built a backup nest here—in the rock layer seventy meters below the battlefield. At the same time the Brood Queen was engaging us in the upper levels of the catacombs, the Drones were constructing a reinforced storage chamber seventy meters underground. This was not a flight after defeat, nor was it randomly digging a hole to hide. It was a prepared withdrawal. A strategic relocation."

He turned around and looked at Bern. "Those human captives. Your assessment."

"Twelve survivors. Two Imperial Guard sergeants, ten civilian miners. No signs of Chaos corruption." Bern removed his helmet, revealing a gaunt face long eroded by psychic power, with deep-set eye sockets and a ring of unnatural silver light around his pupils. "But this is the strangest part."

"Why?"

"They did not parasitize them. No infection, no modification, no biological contamination of any kind. They only fed them—a fungal derivative, a nutrient solution, with ingredients safe enough to be listed on the Imperial Guard's emergency rations list." Bern's tone carried a rare sense of confusion. "These xenos took very good care of the humans they captured."

The briefing room fell into silence again. This silence was longer than the last. The Inquisition had seen countless xenos races: the Tyranids would consume everything, Orks would enslave captives, and the Aeldari would use humans as pawns. Not a single xenos race would provide food to human captives after winning a battle.

"They are studying us." Marcus said slowly. "Not treating us as food, but as samples, as sources of information. They kept the captives not out of mercy, but because living humans are more valuable than dead ones. They need to read everything about the Imperium from us—tactics, language, psychological patterns, response mechanisms."

He returned to his seat. "Those two Imperial Guard sergeants. Deep interrogation; I want to know what they said to them, what they did, every single detail. Send the rest to the isolation cells."

Bern nodded and put his helmet back on.

"One more thing." Marcus looked at the Astropath at the other end of the long table. "Package all the data from this engagement and send it to Terra. Mark it as 'Highest Priority'. Use full encryption protocols for the content, and copy it to the Inquisition Central, the Astra Militarum Intelligence Department, and the Imperial Guard Headquarters." He paused. "If necessary, request support from the Ultramarines from Terra."

The Astropath's pupils dilated slightly. Requesting Ultramarines support meant that Marcus had rated the threat level of this new xenos as Sector-level—higher than the vast majority of Chaos rebellions and Ork invasions.

"Are you that certain they have more than one nest?" Bern asked.

"You just said it destroyed all samples. You just said it prepared a backup nest in advance. You just said it learned during combat." Marcus looked at Bern. "A creature that can do these three things and survive cannot be a lone xenos on this planet. It is a vanguard, not a remnant—what we saw today was not its main force. It was merely an outpost."

Deeper down. Seventy meters vertically below the catacombs, in a location that the Inquisition's scanners showed as solid rock, the Brood Queen's pupa shell was emitting an extremely faint bio-fluorescence.

The temperature inside the pupa shell was precisely maintained at thirty-seven degrees, the optimal temperature for chitin synthase. The Brood Queen's pierced right shoulder carapace had already completed the first stage of regeneration—a new basal layer of carapace had been laid down, only sixty percent of the thickness of the original, but the density of the lattice structure had increased by fifteen percent. This was an "anti-Psyker reinforcement" test variant from pre-battle research, not yet verified. The Brood Queen had applied this unverified experimental protocol directly during the repair process because combat data indicated that the existing carapace's deflection rate was insufficient.

The Overmind monitored the entire process within the Hive Mind. He did not intervene in the Brood Queen's autonomous repair decision because he believed this decision was correct. A warrior in battle does not need a commander to teach them how to bandage their own wounds. As the first secondary command node of The Swarm capable of independent tactical decision-making, the Brood Queen's autonomy was itself a result of The Swarm's evolution.

Inside the backup storage chamber, the Drones rebuilt the genetic analysis system. This system was more compact than the one in the upper catacombs—the space was only one-third of the original, with less biomass reserve and more limited creep coverage—but it retained the complete functional modules. The crystalline fragments of the Psyker's remains were retrieved, the samples of the Keeper of Secrets' energy residue were reclassified, and the Chaos Hound's genetic fragments were neatly arranged in the analysis sequence.

The Overmind's consciousness examined these samples one by one. The difference between the Grey Knights and Chaos Psykers was the core subject he was studying at this moment.

Human Psykers access the Warp through specific neural networks in their brains, converting their will into supernatural influence on the real world. But the Warp itself is the source of Chaos, and every use of psychic power is a gamble with Chaos. The stake is the soul, and the price of losing is corruption. The Imperium's soul-binding ritual can reduce the risk, but it can never eliminate it—as long as psychic power is being used, there will always be a possibility of corruption.

But the Grey Knights are different. Their psychic power carries a certain special brand—when Bern cleaved the Brood Queen's carapace with his power halberd, the Brood Queen's sensory system recorded the wavelength characteristics of that energy. It was not ordinary psychic power, not mere Warp energy projection. That energy had been "filtered" by some higher-level power, adding a barrier between the user and the Warp. What the source of this barrier was, the Overmind could not yet confirm, but he already had a guess.

The Emperor.

The supreme existence of the Imperium of Man who sits upon the Golden Throne, uses psychic power to light the Astronomican, and guides humanity through the Warp. This was the first time The Swarm had witnessed energy characteristics related to him since entering the Warhammer universe, even though this was but a drop in the ocean of the Emperor's power. The Imperium uses his holy power to bless equipment and his light to protect Psykers. He is not an existence like the Four Chaos Gods, but he is also by no means just a powerful Psyker.

The Overmind marked the Grey Knights' energy characteristics as a new topic: "Emperor's Psychic Sample. Pending further contact and verification. Highest priority."

This contact also had a more concrete gain. The Brood Queen successfully broke the Grey Knights' formation on the battlefield, based on a tactical model derived entirely from Caroline Valen's verbal accounts and neural signal decoding. The value of this human sergeant had been repeatedly confirmed, but unfortunately—she had already been taken away by the Grey Knights, and her intelligence window was thus closed.

There is no regret. Regret has no place in The Swarm's efficiency system; every loss has a corresponding gain, and every closed window opens a door to a larger space.

The Brood Queen moved slightly within the pupa shell. The new left forelimb had completed neural connection and was testing the range of motion of the joints. The test results were transmitted to the Hive Mind in synchronization, with data streams precise to the torque output value of every joint motor. In one more standard rotation cycle, the Brood Queen would be able to restore full combat capability.

"Upon completion of repairs, continue contact with the Necron Node. Prepare for the next stage of expansion."

New commands flowed into the Hive Mind. Meanwhile, the genetic analysis sac deep within the storage chamber began to operate, as the Grey Knights' psychic data was being compared with the Keeper of Secrets' Chaos energy data. The Overmind had to complete the second-generation upgrade of the anti-Psyker carapace before the next Imperial strike force arrived. The time window was still tightening.

On the surface, the Grey Knights' Thunderhawk Gunship took off for the last time, carrying twelve pale-faced human survivors. Caroline Valen looked through the porthole as the grey-green planet gradually became a tiny dot, clutching her severed arm, saying nothing. She did not know what she would face next—the Inquisition's interrogation rooms were equally chilling, but at least there, it was human.

In orbit, the Emperors Hammer turned, and its Warp engines began to warm up. Marcus Aurelian's final order spread throughout the fleet: "All ships, enter combat readiness. This is not the end. This is the beginning."