Chapter Thirty-One: The Battle of Makurag, Part Three – The Chaos Psyker

"It's a psyker, power level unknown—concentrate all fire!" The three Traversers, joined by twenty mortal auxiliaries and a Leman Russ tank, directed their combined firepower upon the ruined building sheltering the psyker.

In an instant, torrents of destruction reduced the house to rubble, and the entire street vanished beneath a shroud of dust and smoke.

Suddenly, with a thunderous clatter, an immense invisible force hurled the Leman Russ tank onto its side.

"Telekinetic psyker! Prepare for close combat!" Wang Lei, his gaze fixed on the overturned tank before him, drew his power sword and called out to his two teammates.

At that very moment, a shell from an autocannon ripped through the fog ahead, striking Wang Lei squarely in the chest plate.

This time, the shell did not ricochet—it pierced straight through his ceramite armor and drove into his chest cavity, shattering one of his hearts and damaging several organs.

Yet the formidable physiology of an Astartes refused to yield to a single shell. His secondary heart instantly resumed its duty, pumping blood through his body, while the Larraman’s Organ swiftly sealed and regenerated his wounds.

Wang Lei rapidly adjusted to the shock of the hit. Having been among the first Traversers and survived the battles on Klesus, he had already died four times.

Once he steadied himself, he raised his bolter and unleashed a burst toward the source of the autocannon fire.

The burning bolts cut through the haze, followed by a faint, wet sound of flesh being pulverized.

"Direct hit!"

The keen senses of the 'Lyman's Ear' caught the subtle noise, allowing Wang Lei and his companions to hear it clearly.

With power swords in one hand and bolters in the other, they charged towards the target.

"That probably wasn't the psyker. Psykers aren't that easy to hit," Wang Lei remarked to his teammate.

But as soon as the words left his mouth, a massive invisible force struck him, sending him flying.

Though Wang Lei was thrown back, the psychic shockwave revealed the psyker's position; the smoke around him dispersed outward, marking his presence.

His two teammates fired a burst of bolter rounds at the spot and rushed forward.

As before, the bolts struck a pale blue barrier, detonating harmlessly as their fuel was spent.

This time, however, the two Traversers reached the edge of the psyker’s shield. Their power swords crashed down upon it.

There was no sensation of striking solid matter; the blades sank as if into a mass of viscous, hardened liquid, meeting no resistance.

Though the swords pierced the barrier, some unseen force held them fast, allowing no further advance.

At last, the two Traversers got their first good look at the psyker.

He was draped in a robe stitched together from human skin, covered in the blasphemous eight-pointed stars of Chaos. Twisted faces were sewn into the hood, their features contorted in agony.

The psyker wore the hood low, and the faces upon it twisted and writhed with his movements, animated as if truly alive.

Clutched in his hand was the upper torso of a man, the autocannon still gripped in lifeless fingers—unmistakably the one Wang Lei had just shot.

Such a scene would have shattered the sanity of any ordinary mortal.

Though these two Traversers had already died twice and possessed formidable mental fortitude, the grotesque sight of the psyker still left them deeply sickened.