The moment they saw their companion killed, the two remaining purestrains made a decision Lawson had not expected.
They retreated.
Both purestrains leapt backward at the same time, so fast they left behind little more than two purple-gray afterimages.
The remaining thirty-odd hybrids also began an orderly withdrawal at the exact same moment.
The power of the brood's psychic coordination network was displayed to the fullest in that retreat.
Lawson did not pursue.
Chasing into Genestealer territory would have been no different from suicide.
"Cease pursuit. Clean the battlefield where you stand."
The two-kilometer corridor had become a butcher's lane after the three-sided melee.
Green blood.
Purple blood.
And red blood.
Lawson was crouched beside a hybrid corpse, checking for salvage, when something rang inside the deepest layer of his mind.
It was like a thousand voices whispering at once.
Those voices did not come from any physical direction. They seemed to seep upward from beneath the very foundation of consciousness itself, like a sheet of thin ice with countless fish opening their mouths beneath it.
Pain flared suddenly through Lawson's temples.
He knew what it was.
Psychic pressure.
The Genestealer Patriarch was sensing him from far away.
Lawson clenched his teeth hard.
Even though they were separated by dozens of kilometers, the whispers in his skull were growing clearer and clearer.
The Patriarch was probing the strength of his soul barrier.
Like a thief tapping lightly on the shell of a safe in the dark, listening to the echo to judge the thickness of the steel.
At the corner of his vision, the system interface flickered.
[Warning: Detected external psychic field conducting contact-based scanning of the host's soul barrier.]
[Abnormal fluctuations detected in the resonant frequency of the host's soul barrier. Recording data.]
[Potential development path marked. Conditions not met. Temporarily locked.]
Potential development path.
The system did not say what the path was. It only said the conditions had not yet been met.
But the phrase soul barrier resonance was already enough to set Lawson thinking.
Psychic power came from the warp.
And every psyker without exception was able to wield impossible power only because some form of resonant channel existed between the soul and the immaterium.
If the system was describing abnormal fluctuations in resonance frequency, then did that mean his soul had somehow answered the Patriarch's probe?
Psychic power was a double-edged blade.
On the far side of power lay the risk of becoming prey to warp entities.
Lawson did not dare think too far down that road.
Then, just as suddenly as they had come, the whispers vanished.
The Patriarch had withdrawn its psychic tendril.
Lawson realized his back was soaked through with sweat.
He drew a deep breath and stood upright.
The headache was fading, but the leftover pressure still clung to the inside of his skull like a thin layer of heat-burn.
"Everyone speed up cleanup. We pull out in five minutes."
The Deathsworn accelerated the scavenging.
This battle had not been without cost.
Number Four was dead.
A hybrid's chitin claw had punched in through his back, pierced his left lung and heart, and burst out through his chest.
The hybrid that killed him lay beside him, half its head severed by Number Four's last counterstroke. The Fang of Catachan was still buried deep in the creature's cervical spine.
In the final instant of his life, Number Four had taken the enemy that killed him down with him.
Lawson was silent for two seconds.
On the Deathsworn list in his mind, Number Four's status bar had already turned gray.
Because the hybrid that killed Number Four had died to Number Four's counterattack, the system still completed the settlement.
[Biomass +13]
That was the final contribution Number Four had bought with his life.
"Take his body and his weapons," Lawson ordered.
Numbers Eleven and Fifteen lifted Number Four's corpse.
The Fang of Catachan was pulled free from the hybrid's spine, wiped clean, and recovered together with all the equipment Number Four had been carrying.
At the same time, Numbers Thirty-One and Thirty-Four were rapidly restored with 10 Life Points.
Then they withdrew.
Thirty-nine men moved at top speed through the prepared evacuation route, laying down three delayed booby traps along the way, and returned safely to the stronghold.
The first thing Lawson did after getting back was open the system panel.
Life Points and adamant steel had both surged from harvesting the three-sided battle.
The new resource, Biomass, had accumulated to 170 points.
Warp Energy was still only 2 points.
Lawson opened the detailed description for Biomass:
[Biomass: High-density organic energy extracted after killing Tyranid-related lifeforms.]
[Currently available modification: Subdermal chitinous inner armor implantation.]
Lawson's pupils contracted slightly as he stared at that line.
Chitinous inner armor.
To put it plainly, it meant implanting the Tyranids' blade-resistant organic armor beneath human skin.
Once implanted, the result would be equivalent to Imperial carapace armor.
Carapace armor was the peak of non-powered protection for mortals, usually reserved for elite Astra Militarum troops, commissars, and Inquisitorial retainers.
A Deathsworn wearing the equivalent of carapace armor could stand up to multiple direct lasgun hits and resist medium-caliber solid rounds head-on.
If all ninety Deathsworn got it?
That would mean ninety Catachan Jungle Fighters at carapace-armored level.
But the cost field cooled his thoughts immediately.
30 Biomass and 30 Warp Energy per person.
The Biomass was barely enough for three.
The Warp Energy was the real problem. He had only two points in total.
So far, the only daemons he had killed were those two lowest-tier warp imps.
One point each.
To reach that number, he would need to kill many more daemons, or kill higher-ranking ones.
At his current strength, this was not the time.
But the road had already been marked on the map.
Lawson closed the panel.
The Deathsworn's advantage did not lie in immortality.
It lay in replaceability.
As long as Lawson lived, and as long as resources held, a dead Deathsworn could be replaced by a new one.
Lawson spent 100 Life Points and 1 cubic meter of adamant steel to exchange for a new Deathsworn.
"You are Number Four."
The new Number Four placed his right hand over his chest.
"Loyalty!"
Same designation.
Same genetic template.
A completely new individual.
Through Skill Sharing, Lawson resynchronized the core portion of the old Number Four's accumulated combat experience into the new one.
A few seconds later, the new Number Four's gaze had become steady.
Next came expansion.
Adamant steel reserves were abundant, and Life Points had surged from the three-sided battle.
Another batch of Deathsworn solidified out of empty air, and the headcount in the stronghold rose rapidly.
It finally settled at ninety-one, plus Number Six at the armory.
Nine full ten-man squads, each led by a squad leader.
The stronghold itself had expanded into a dual-core structure: the main stronghold for command and rest, and a secondary stronghold for mustering and equipment distribution.
During this busy period of expansion and construction, one small figure had been bustling through every corner of the base.
Little Wrench had begun to show a kind of value Lawson had not expected.