"Boom!"
The Psionic Orb effortlessly ripped through the twisted flesh, simultaneously blasting open the door to the food storage. "It's these monsters, warped by the Marker, that should be expelled from the Ishimura," Marcus declared, his gaze directed at the monitor on the ceiling. He knew Dr. Elizabeth Cross was watching him.
"Entering zero-gravity state soon," the Ishimura's computer voice echoed, a stark pronouncement. Marcus slowly stepped through the damaged doorway, immediately floating in mid-air. Within the cavernous, dark food storage, a colossal shadow clung to the warehouse wall. Around it, numerous unassimilated crew members' bodies and various debris drifted in the zero-gravity environment. As the computer system detected personnel entry, lights flickered on one by one throughout the warehouse. Only when all the lights illuminated the space did Marcus finally see the Leviathan in its entirety.
Countless masses of twisted flesh were piled together, from which eight thick tentacles extended, swaying aimlessly. Additionally, countless smaller tendrils spread out, drawing biomass from various compartments that once held food. At the very center of this grotesque pile, a large mouth, shaped like a sea lily or some other echinoderm, constantly opened and closed.
The sudden illumination seemed to rouse the dormant Leviathan. After the massive central maw let out a terrifying roar, several tentacles rapidly lashed out, striking towards Marcus. He quickly drew his Plasma Pistol and blasted off one of the attacking appendages. The neurothrope beside him spat a Psionic Orb, also severing two of the tentacles. The Leviathan before him was enormous, and Marcus knew that he and a single neurothrope couldn't possibly handle it alone. He immediately opened his system panel and summoned an Enhanced neurothrope and a Tyranid Hive Tyrant. He wasn't some noble knight bound by chivalry to fight one-on-one. "Never fight one-on-one if you can gang up," was one of Marcus's core tenets.
The newly summoned Enhanced neurothrope immediately used its Mind Power to strengthen the neurothrope and Tyranid Hive Tyrant beside it. The Tyranid Hive Tyrant roared, Mind Power crackling around its bone blades and tentacle whip, then charged towards the Leviathan. The neurothrope and Enhanced neurothrope constantly dodged and weaved through the food storage, simultaneously unleashing powerful Psionic Orbs, bombarding the Leviathan's surface.
The Tyranid Hive Tyrant swung its Mind Power-infused bone blades and tentacle whip, furiously hacking at the twisted flesh before it. The Leviathan possessed an enormous body, yet its defensive capabilities were surprisingly poor, and its self-healing ability was nowhere near as abnormal as the Hunter's. Its attack methods were also very simplistic, consisting only of randomly flailing its eight tentacles, utterly failing to hit the agile two neurothropes. As for the Tyranid Hive Tyrant? It had withstood melta bombs; this was merely a tickle.
It didn't take much effort for the neurothrope and Enhanced neurothrope to blast huge wounds into the Leviathan's surface. The Tyranid Hive Tyrant had already forcibly severed several thick tentacles. The heavily wounded Leviathan let out another colossal roar, and the surrounding bright lights immediately extinguished. Immediately after, the Leviathan opened its ugly, gaping maw and rapidly spat out large, yellow, fleshy tumors, barraging Marcus and his Tyranid Warbeasts.
Floating in mid-air, Marcus narrowed his eyes, having long anticipated this move from the Leviathan. His Mind Power immediately enveloped nearby debris, sending it to intercept the incoming fleshy tumors. "Boom! Boom! Boom!" The large fleshy tumors that made contact with the debris detonated prematurely, completely failing to hit any targets.
Seeing that neither tentacle attacks nor ranged attacks could harm any targets, the Leviathan immediately entered a berserk state. Countless yellowish-green deadly gases rapidly dispersed from the Leviathan's body, quickly filling the entire food storage. "Poisoning hazard detected," the Ishimura's computer voice droned. "It's expelling all its stored gas; it must be almost finished!" Dr. Elizabeth Cross's voice, amplified from somewhere in the warehouse, added.
Looking at the rolling yellowish-green toxic gas, Marcus smirked. His own physical constitution rendered him immune to ordinary toxic gas, and furthermore, he was wearing a fully enclosed helmet, so these toxic gases naturally had no effect on him. As for his Tyranid Warbeasts, they were completely unaffected, as if they had returned home. Tyranids themselves are masters of gas warfare; the toxic gas released by a Toxicrene is far more potent than the gas released by the Leviathan before them.
His Psychic Flying Knife shot out, rapidly carving through the Leviathan's flesh. Green decaying poison and blue magical flames constantly appeared. Cooperating with the relentless offensive of the other three Tyranid Warbeasts, the Leviathan quickly began to falter. The tentacles originally adhering to the bulkhead began to snap off one by one, and countless streams of fresh blood gushed out.
Marcus narrowed his eyes, quickly opened his system panel, and retrieved an Predator shoulder cannon. He then adjusted its output power to maximum, ready to fire at any moment. Finally, under a Psionic Orb bombardment from the Enhanced neurothrope, the Leviathan shrieked and completely detached from the bulkhead, being sucked into the void by a powerful suction force. Marcus seized the opportunity, using the shoulder cannon to fire a maximum power Plasma shell.
An unimaginably huge Plasma sphere roared from the muzzle, caught up with the Leviathan already plummeting into the void, and then exploded with a thunderous roar. The force of the explosion directly tore the Leviathan's massive body into pieces, and countless shattered fragments of flesh were pushed away from the Ishimura by the shockwave, finally freezing into ice.
"The power is actually this great," even Marcus himself was startled by the maximum output of the Predator shoulder cannon. This was the first time he had used the shoulder cannon at its full power.
After the Leviathan was gone from the food storage, a strong suction force swept in. Marcus reached out and grabbed a nearby handrail to avoid being sucked into the void. The two neurothropes used Mind Power to stabilize themselves, completely unaffected by the suction, while the Tyranid Hive Tyrant simply plunged its bone blades and scythe claws into the bulkhead, anchoring its body. Soon, under Elizabeth's control, the hatch slowly closed, and the suction disappeared without a trace.
After defeating the Leviathan, Marcus did not rush to leave the food storage. Instead, he called the Tyranid Hive Tyrant to his side. Immediately, Marcus took something out of his system warehouse: an Alien Facehugger egg!
The Alien Facehugger egg, which had been tightly closed, slowly opened as soon as it was retrieved, sensing the powerful life forms present around it. A Facehugger, shaped like a combination of a spider and a scorpion, leaped out of the egg. It then rushed towards the Tyranid Hive Tyrant in front of it. The Tyranid Hive Tyrant immediately raised its bone blade, about to cleave this creature it perceived as an ant. But Marcus immediately stopped it. Under his command, the Hive Tyrant entered a state of dormant hibernation. In this state, it only possessed the most basic life activities and would not react to any external or internal interference. This was perfect for the Facehugger's egg-laying and the Alien's incubation.
The Facehugger climbed onto the Tyranid Hive Tyrant's struggling head, then aimed its oviduct at the Tyranid Hive Tyrant's mouth. An Alien embryo was quickly injected into the Tyranid Hive Tyrant's body. If Marcus had not ordered the Tyranid Hive Tyrant to enter a dormant state, this Alien embryo would have been impossible to implant into its formidable body.