Umbrella, The Light of Humanity

The interior of the pyramid facility.

Magnus and Leon led the Glory Guard through the entrance, and came to a spacious hall with an aesthetics that humans can easily understand, and a square and flat architectural style.

The light of artificial stars sprinkled into it through multiple reflections, combined with the cyan-blue shimmer overflowing from the regular gaps, making this place even brighter.

However, in the hall at this moment, except for the top that remained the same, the bottom and surrounding areas were almost completely polluted by the Flood.

At the corner between the metal wall and the floor, sticky fungus-like "living" plants are spread all over, twisting and wriggling constantly, and spraying turbid gas through tiny holes.

However, the most densely packed infection spores in the hall should be the countless fighting body Flood Demon.

The arc-shaped spiritual energy barrier created by Magnus made them look like a solitary boat sailing against the current in a corpse-colored ocean.

"Wow! Wow!"

"Crack!!"

"Ri~ whoosh!"

The Honor Guard used bolts, psionics, and mounted plasma cannons to clear the way for the upper regions of the pyramid.

Many paladins even raised their right hands, took off the power giant sword on their backs, and after holding it firmly, used the Terminator's reactor to supply energy, producing a turquoise energy stand to wrap the blade.

Even their Primarch, Leon, took down the "Lion King Epee", which was nearly three and a half meters long and had a cold blade.

As Sui Bian's gunman, Leon still has a Cassius gun attached to the back of his power armor for emergencies.

Looking at the seemingly inexhaustible flood demon.

See also Barrier with frequent fissures.

Magnus and Leon under the helmet looked dignified, especially Magnus who needed to constantly release spiritual energy to maintain the barrier.

After a real confrontation, the two primarchs discovered that the Flood is extremely resistant to psionic energy, and can also suppress the use of psionic energy by psykers.

Based on these characteristics, the Flood Demon is indeed like a weapon, specifically aimed at psykers, or a weapon aimed at different dimensions.

Although substantive spiritual attacks, such as the spiritual lightning released by Sekhmet, can still scorch the combat body, their power is far less than before.

Moreover, in order to thoroughly prove that the Flood is a weapon against psychic energy, Magnus immediately released a psychic energy pulse, trying to make the infected spores and combat bodies "explode" themselves.

But after the pulse, the Flood wave was safe and sound, which showed that the conjecture of the two Primarchs was correct.

Immediately afterwards.

While maintaining the barrier, Magnus raised his clenched right hand forward and said in a deep voice, "Since you guys can't let yourself explode, then let's devour you with a sea of ​​flames."

talking.

The five fingers of Magnus' right hand suddenly stretched out, causing a circle of raging fire to ignite "out of thin air" around the barrier.

"Hoo~----!"

Then, as he said, the fire swept across the sky and covered the sky, and wherever it went, living fungi, infection spores, and various forms of the Flood were all reduced to ashes.

In just two breaths, the "sea of ​​fire" successfully emptied the spacious hall and even the flood demons gathered in the bottom area of ​​the pyramid.

Even though the Flood will make the actual psionic attack far worse than before, this is the "sea of ​​fire" released by a Primarch, not the "lightning" released by a Sekhmet.

"call…"

Seeing that the flood wave was temporarily emptied, Magnus took a light breath and relieved a little of his fatigue.

Without hindrance, everyone left the hall at a faster pace, and walked silently through a "Z"-shaped passage, gradually approaching the middle layer of the pyramid, and finally reached the air corridor that was enough to span the area.

One came here.

The two Primarchs were in a trance, returning to their childhood when they were studying and living in the brood.

Because looking down the corridor, there are neatly arranged cylindrical breeding tanks, which are very similar to the breeding tanks that produce tyrants or hunters in the brood.

But the most obvious difference is that the breeding tanks of the mother's nest have transparent tank walls, while those below are non-transparent.

From this point of view, the Brute Beasts regarded the flood demons sealed in the breeding tank as a weapon that could help them completely destroy the elite fleet, or even the entire elite race.

As the origin of the leaked Flood, the area below the air corridor has become the most suitable habitat for the Flood.

Humid, warm and rotten.

However, apart from the infected spores scattered among the cultivation tanks and various forms of flood demons, the most vigilant...

It is a group of indescribable "sarcomas".

The body is huge, like splicing and gluing the bodies of elites and ghost beasts together to form a messy "sarcoma".

Its height is on par with the air corridor.

suddenly!

"Gulu... Gulu..."

With the sound of the viscous object unfolding, the top of the "sarcomas" opened densely, and there were thousands of "eyes" of different sizes and colors, staring at the people in the corridor in the air.

"..."

Witnessing such a scene that is difficult for ordinary people to look at directly, and even directly collapses, the two Primarchs and the Glory Guard did not show any surprise or panic.

But Magnus found that if he wanted to continue to maintain the barrier, the spiritual energy consumption was actually several times that of before.

"It turned out to be...human..."

At this time, he, and everyone else, heard the extremely thick nasal voice, slightly stuttering, but quite "sincere" words:

"Destroying...a different space...makes our goals...unite. If we are willing to cooperate and cease the war, then we can...complete the goals as soon as possible.

Before that, I can also...help...human beings...solve the Covenant Empire, any race that has...hostility, win-win..."

While talking about this group of "sarcomas", it is actually constantly releasing some kind of wave band that can interfere with the normal thinking of intelligent life.

Such distorted appearance characteristics, as well as the release of deceptive wave bands, are enough to prove that this group of "sarcomas" is a corpse brain beast that represents the Flood's escape from the wild state and is ready to lead the Flood to continue to evolve.

As for the reason for stuttering, it is because the Gravemind is still in its infancy, which means it has not yet fully formed.

"..."

However, the Glory Guards, who have been keeping silent all this time, ignored the "cooperation" and "win-win" of Gravemind Beast.

I saw that they had already raised their guns and aimed at the uncomfortable eyes.

"Wow! Wow!"

"Puff! Puff!"

The moment the fire snake was spit out from the muzzle of the gun, Thousand Eyes were "poked and exploded" one after another.

Now that the psychic energy has been continuously suppressed, the Sekhmets no longer release psychic lightning, and instead adopt the fire output of parallel bolt guns.

And the four paladins with plasma cannons on their left arm armor even fired four blue light cannons at the Gravemind.

In the end, the Gravemind directly "exploded".

"Wow~!"

The dark green blood exuding a rotten smell fell to the surroundings like rain.

But from the beginning to the end, the corpse brain beast did not let out a single wail, as if its body was destroyed, it was no big deal.

Because Leon and Magnus knew that destroying the Gravemind's body would only buy some time, and before long, the Flood would be able to "pile up" another body for the Gravemind to use.

Looking at the alarmed infected spores and combat bodies, they are rushing towards the air corridor where they are.

In order to get it done once and for all, and with the absence of the Gravemind, Magnus once again released the "sea of ​​fire" after the effect of suppressing psionic energy was weakened.

After the fire dissipated and the high-temperature "purification" was completed, everyone did not stay too long, and those who left the corridor continued to move forward.

soon.

They came to a gate in the top area of ​​the pyramid.

The gates, walls, and floors bear the marks of plasma cannon blasts, as well as dried purple and red blood stains, pointing to a fierce battle.

Take a look.

Leon found a terminal-style device on the right side of the gate.

See here.

Holding the sword in his right hand, Leon took the initiative to walk out of the spiritual energy barrier, came to the terminal and stretched out his left hand.

The induction is the approach of "human beings", and the terminal is successfully activated to generate a blue ball of light the size of a football.

The moment Leon's left hand came into contact with the ball of light, the gate that had been sealed for a long time was finally opened again, so that everyone could continue to the top and core area of ​​the pyramid.

Wait for everyone to walk in.

Leon manipulated the terminal installed here to close the gate to ensure that the Flood would not be disturbed during the investigation.

Waiting for him to turn around and look around.

Leon found that in this empty room with weak light and a clean and tidy floor, there was only one translucent crystalline sphere floating in the center that was only twice the size of a golf ball.

The Glory Guards dispersed and kept vigilant, while Magnus lifted the energy shield barrier and walked not far from the sphere with Leon.

at this time.

Without waiting for any Primarch to reach out and touch them, the two of them seemed to have walked into the sensing range of the sphere, and immediately, the sphere spontaneously burst into light blue light.

Afterwards, more and more "spots of light" poured out from the corners of the room, bypassing the glory guards blocking the way and drifting towards the sphere.

I saw that the "spot of light" centered on the sphere gradually condensed into a "human" body with excellent proportions, including limbs, torso and head.

After another burst of blinding light.

A "human" with a height of about 2.5 meters appeared in the sight of the honor guards and stood in front of the two Primarchs.

Take a closer look at each other.

"She" has obvious human female features, has black mid-length curly hair, and wears a flawless white dress.

Even the face and appearance are exquisite facial features in line with human aesthetics. The only difference is that the height is far higher than that of ordinary humans, and it is comparable to the Astartes who are detached from mortals.

"Very advanced holographic technology." Leon commented.

"But this shouldn't be the point, brother." Magnus said to Leon beside him: "If the holographic image shows the forerunner, don't you think its appearance is too close to us humans? ?”

"Well, a little bit." Leon nodded slightly.

The other party scanned the entire room expressionlessly, then raised his head slightly, looked at the two primarchs in front of "her", and said in a human language with a somewhat awkward accent and a cold voice:

"The scan is complete, the identity verification is a recycler, please issue an order."

recycler?

The two Primarchs looked at each other, and then Magnus said, "Do we have control over the entire facility?"

"yes."

"Can I understand you as artificial intelligence?"

"no."

This time, the other party gave a negative answer and continued to explain:

"I am the memory storage body of the administrator of Shield World 0314, which does not have the function of independent thinking. At the same time, according to the 145th amendment of the latest code, all artificial intelligence must be destroyed forcibly and must not be put into use again."

After listening to the words that seem to be artificial intelligence, but are actually memory storage bodies, it shows that this is indeed the shield world, and it also shows the attitude of the "manager" towards artificial intelligence.

There is a lot of information.

However, now is not the best time to delve into the other party's past, so Leon, who was thinking about how to complete the task, said to him:

"Since we are recyclers, we need to recycle all the data stored in this shield world."

heard the words.

The memory storage body first dissipated, revealing the floating sphere, and replied: "Everything that the manager of Shield World 0314 knows is stored here."

After finishing speaking, "she" recondensed into the previous appearance, silently waiting for the next order.

After getting a satisfactory answer, Leon asked the last question: "Is it possible to overload artificial stars to completely destroy the entire shield world, and do you have the authority to control the overload?"

"Yes, have."

Leon, who received all the answers, didn't say any more, stepped forward, and stretched his left hand towards the abdomen of the memory storage body, forcing the other party to dissipate the image, thus successfully holding the sphere that stores everything.

"..."

To his brother's rude behavior, Magnus just shrugged his shoulders, apparently he was used to it.

Leon held the sphere, turned around and returned to Magnus's side, and said, "Let's go."

"Okay." Magnus naturally had no objection.

next.

Everyone left the empty room, Magnus also re-opened the spiritual energy barrier, and withdrew from the pyramid back the same way.

On the way, Leon notified the flight formation circling on standby to prepare for a rapid evacuation, and also notified the Teutonic Knight to take the highest standard disinfection measures.

After solving the wave after wave of the flood, everyone finally rushed out of the pyramid.

The flying formation also counted the time well. When they were about to rush out of the pyramid, the four Viking fighters immediately carried out the "ground scrubbing" action, and then cooperated with the third psychic flames released by Magnus to successfully clear the ground. A "green" landing zone.

The large transport boat that opened the rear hatch took this opportunity to descend and keep a certain distance from the ground, allowing Leon, Magnus and others to enter the cabin.

After confirming that everyone has boarded the plane, the crew immediately closed the hatch and steered the transport boat away from the ground.

At this time, the landing area had been swallowed by the Flood, but they could only look up at the sky with distorted faces, and followed the flying formation that gradually disappeared.

It is also the same way back.

The flight formation passed through the gloomy and dark passage, sailed out of the inner earth smoothly, and sailed out of the atmosphere without slowing down, heading for the Teutonic Knight waiting for them.

———————

…

Shortly after.

Inside the hangar, which has been sanitized by technicians.

Leon unfolded his helmet, spread his left hand flat, and said indifferently to the memory storage body that was still emitting light blue light independently:

"Executing the artificial star overload program."

"Yes, please stay away from Shield World 0314 as soon as possible and keep a safe distance."