"The machine spirit is displeased!!!"
Watching the excavator wildly waving its mechanical arm, the hive city workers and gang members fell into a panic.
It swayed its body and rotated its tracks like a living creature, kicking up a shower of rubble on the ground.
"The excavator's gone mad?!" The gang members retreated in terror.
They quickly raised their autoguns and unleashed a barrage of bullets at the small excavator.
The bullets struck the excavator's low-grade ceramite casing, sending sparks flying.
Even the low-grade ceramite casing could not be pierced by the gang members' autogun bullets.
The hail of bullets seemed only to make the excavator even more frenzied.
Its mechanical arm swung violently, smashing into a nearby building, causing the structure to shake and debris to scatter under the immense force, making the gang members scramble to dodge.
"What the hell do we do?" the leading gang member shouted at the workers.
Machines coming alive—they had only heard of such things in rumors and stories, and their understanding of "The machine spirit" was limited to knowing the term.
The workers were equally bewildered; they knew a little about machines, but were completely clueless about something as mystical as "The machine spirit."
"Should we appease the machine spirit?" a worker suddenly asked.
"Yes, yes, I remember! At times like this, we should appease the machine spirit!" Another worker nodded vigorously.
"The stories I heard in the tavern said the same thing—appease the machine spirit!" The workers chattered.
The leading gang member nodded, grabbed a nearby gang member, and pointed at the crazed excavator, saying:
"You, go appease the machine spirit."
"Me?" The young gang member pointed at his face, utterly bewildered, and said, "I… I go appease the machine spirit?"
"Is that for real?"
"Hurry up!" The leading gang member roared.
The young gang member shivered and timidly walked forward.
He knew nothing about appeasing the machine spirit; he could only extend his hands and, using the skills he employed at night to serve his wife, stroked the excavator's casing.
His movements were gentle and sickeningly sweet.
"Is that really going to work?" The leading gang member frowned as he watched the scene unfold.
As the young gang member stroked and rubbed, the excavator actually stopped.
"It really worked?" The leading gang member's eyes widened.
The workers nearby also gasped in surprise.
"I… I can appease the machine spirit!" The young gang member was overjoyed.
He turned his head and gave a thumbs-up to the other gang members behind him.
The other gang members applauded at once.
Then, the excavator raised its mechanical arm high behind the young gang member.
Bang!
The mechanical arm crashed down heavily, and the young gang member's eyes rolled back as he fainted.
The excavator's wheels began to spin madly again, and its mechanical arm swung wildly.
Alexander felt some sweat trickle down his forehead.
Controlling the excavator with psychokinesis from such a distance, making it seem like the machine spirit was rampaging, was quite draining.
Fortunately, the entire gang stronghold was in chaos; even the gang members guarding the water source were drawn away, attempting to subdue the mad excavator.
This was an opportunity.
Alexander glanced at Mont, who understood immediately.
He used his rust-covered dagger to cut his own arm, and bubbling blood welled out.
Mont picked up a stone from the ground and dripped the blood onto it; the stone was instantly corroded with numerous tiny pits, which filled with his blood.
"Just throw this stone into the water pool," Mont said to Alexander.
Alexander nodded, picked up the stone, and his body vanished from his spot in an instant, reappearing a moment later beside the gang stronghold's water pool, where he tossed the stone into the water.
Under the rubble pile not far away, the excavator, no longer under Alexander's psychokinetic control, had stopped.
The gang members were both surprised and exhausted, watching the excavator, drenched in sweat.
"That should do it," Alexander nodded slightly, his figure vanishing from the poolside and instantly reappearing beside Mont and Marquite.
"It's in," Alexander nodded slightly to Mont and Marquite.
The three of them stayed in the shadow of the house, watching the panting gang members and Hive City workers nearby.
Before long, almost all of them had drunk water that had been tainted with Mont's blood.
And then, nothing happened.
Alexander's eye twitched slightly.
Indeed, a few gang members had started having diarrhea, and a few others were complaining of stomach discomfort.
But… but most people seemed unaffected.
Mont noticed Alexander's slightly twitching eye and said, a little uncertainly:
"People's constitutions cannot be generalized."
"Some people might get diarrhea immediately after drinking unfiltered water."
"Others might not feel stomach discomfort until half a day later."
Hearing this, Alexander's eye twitched even more violently.
"No, buddy," Alexander said, covering his head and looking at Mont, "is the toxicity of your blood on the same level as unfiltered water?"
Mont nodded somewhat guiltily.
"The toxic components in my blood are secreted and stored by glands… they're inherently limited."
"I used up quite a bit just now to deal with you, so the toxicity might be a bit low now."
"Just wait a bit longer, wait a bit longer."
Mont spoke with less and less confidence.
It really wasn't his fault, Mont muttered to himself.
Just now, he had been startled by Leman Russ's terrifying face.
He couldn't hold it in and squeezed most of the toxic substances from his glands into his blood, using them up. Now, his blood's toxicity was a bit too low.
"Just wait a bit longer, be patient." Mont looked at Marquite beside him, "Right, brother?"
Marquite also seemed a bit embarrassed and couldn't help but turn his head away.
Looking at the two incompetent cultists in front of him, Alexander felt a sudden urge to collapse.
Which genius in Nurgle's Garden corrupted these two incompetent cultists?
Other cultists are blessed by Nurgle, by the Great Clean One. Were you two blessed by a nurgling? So incompetent.
Alexander shook his head and extended his hand towards Mont: "Lend me your dagger."
"Huh?" Mont was stunned for a moment, then handed the scarlet, rust-covered dagger in his hand to Alexander.
Alexander weighed the dagger; he decided to solve the problem in a simpler, more direct way.
Under Mont's bewildered gaze, Alexander's figure vanished from his spot in the blink of an eye.
He suddenly appeared behind the leading gang member, holding Mont's dagger across his throat.
The surrounding gang members were startled and quickly raised their autoguns, aiming them at Alexander.
"Nobody move!"
"This dagger of mine is coated with a deadly corrupting venom. Just a small scratch can turn a person into pus, their soul corrupted, falling into the domain of daemons, never to return to the Golden Throne for all eternity."