This is the bonus chapter for reaching 200 Powerstones.
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In the warehouse district of Merida Town, Tax Bro was directing players as they loaded tons of black iron ore onto the trucks.
[God-Tier Mechanic] scanned the ore purity data with his modified mechanical eye, the lens blinking with a blue light.
"Tax Bro, if we haul this batch back to base, it'll fetch us at least three hundred thousand Imperial Coins."
God-Tier Mechanic's voice was practically shaking with excitement. "That's enough to fully equip another two companies!"
Tax Bro grinned and patted Helovia on the head. "Hear that? This is the capital we're going to use to buy tanks and airplanes!"
Helovia looked up, her green eyes blinking. "Uncle, what's a tank?"
"A tank is..."
Tax Bro scratched his head, trying to explain it in terms a kid could understand. "It's a giant metal box on wheels, with a big cannon on top. One shot can blow a whole building down!"
"And what's an airplane?"
"An airplane is a metal bird that flies in the sky and drops bombs! Pew, pew, pew!"
Tax Bro was gesticulating wildly when he suddenly froze.
He heard a roar.
It wasn't a sound a human could make, nor was it the roar of a normal mutant beast.
It came from the back of the town—a low, raspy sound, like bone being ground into paste.
Immediately following it was a scream.
"What's going on?"
Tax Bro whipped around, snatching the modified shotgun leaning against the ore pile.
The regional channel exploded.
"Holy fuck! What is that thing?!"
"It charged out of the mineshaft in the back mountain! It's so fast!"
"It... it's got someone in its mouth! I think it's the second-in-command of the Blood Scar Gang!"
"Open fire! Shoot it!"
A dense barrage of gunfire erupted from the back of the town, mixing the distinct hiss of lasguns with the roar of solid-slug weapons.
Tax Bro's face darkened. He roared into the channel: "White Scars! SITREP!"
"Irradiated Mutant! Alpha class!"
White Scars' voice was frantic. In the background was the continuous rattle of gunfire and the heavy, dull thud of something massive crashing into the ground. "It's the size of a goddamn Leman Russ tank! Its hide is absurdly thick! Fuck you and your Nurgle-blessed bananas... this thing is a beast! Heavy machine guns are barely tickling it!"
"Position?"
"It's charging toward the plaza! It's too fast, we can't pin it down!"
Tax Bro spun toward [God-Tier Mechanic] and yelled, "Stay here and protect Helovia! I'm going to check it out!"
"Uncle!"
Helovia tried to follow him, but God-Tier Mechanic gently held her back with his mechanical arm.
"Listen to Uncle. It's safe here."
Tax Bro was already sprinting away.
His augmented body burst forth with shocking speed.
When he burst out of the narrow alley and skidded into the central plaza, he saw the thing.
An Alpha Irradiated Mutant.
That was the name the System scan provided, but Tax Bro felt the name was far too civilized for the monstrosity in front of him.
It might have once been a spotted hyena—if spotted hyenas could grow to seven meters long and five meters tall.
Its greyish-yellow fur was covered in dark green radiation spots, the patches glowing with a sickly, eerie light under Aurelian IV's dark red sun.
Its eyes were a milky, cloudy white. There were no pupils, only pure, unadulterated madness.
Its canine teeth jutted outward, each one as long as an adult's forearm, with shreds of bloody meat hanging between them.
The most terrifying aspect was its claws.
They had grown into some sort of keratinized, metallic-gleaming deformed structure. Each claw was half a meter long, the tips as sharp as spears.
Right now, the monster was tearing through the plaza.
"Scatter! Get the fuck back!"
White Scars roared from the other side of the plaza, continuously firing his laspistol. But the beams striking the mutant only left shallow scorch marks on its carapace.
The players' counterattack rained down.
Heavy machine gun belts emptied into the monster, sending a shower of sparks into the air.
Dozens of lasguns focused fire on a single spot, barely managing to burn through a patch of skin the size of a hand, exposing the dark red muscle tissue underneath.
It was useless.
The Alpha simply shook its head, looking annoyed as if it had been bitten by a mosquito.
With a sweeping strike of its massive tail, three players who failed to dodge were swatted away like flies. They slammed into the stone wall of a house at the edge of the plaza, the sickening crunch of their bones shattering echoing clearly.
"Fuck..."
A player with the ID [Cadia Shall Never Fall] had just reloaded his magazine. When he looked up, he saw the massive, bloody maw lunging straight for him.
He instinctively raised his gun and fired, but the laser beam disappeared into the gaping mouth like a drop of water into the ocean.
The next second, he was snatched up in its jaws.
"Holy beans! Your breath smells like shit! AAAHH!!!"
The scream was abruptly cut short.
The Alpha tossed its head back, throwing the player into the air, then opened its maw and caught him perfectly.
A bone-chilling crunching sound echoed across the plaza as blood sprayed from between its teeth.
"I'll fuck your mother!!!"
Tax Bro's eyes instantly went bloodshot.
He remembered that player. In reality, he was a fresh college grad who bragged every day in the group chat about wanting to be the 'Wall of Cadia.'
In the game, he was one of the bravest. He always charged at the very front of the vanguard.
Now he was dead, in the most gruesome way possible.
"Where are the goddamn rocket launchers?! Bomb this motherfucker to hell!! [I Wanna Lick a Skaven Waifu's Feet], where the fuck is your rocket squad?!"
Tax Bro roared into the regional channel.
"Right here, Tax Bro!"
On the east side of the plaza, a player with the ID [I Wanna Lick a Skaven Waifu's Feet] popped his head out, hoisting a homemade rocket launcher on his shoulder.
He was the captain of Crimson Strike's rocket squad.
Behind him, fifteen squad members readied their launchers.
"Aim! Blow this bastard to pieces!"
Tax Bro yelled, simultaneously pulling a massive axe out from his inventory—a custom job forged by Cogboy.
The blade had been reforged from refined alloy bought from the shop, and the edge was treated to be monomolecular. It wasn't quite a Chainsword, but it was more than enough to chop up a mutant beast.
"Reload complete!"
"Target locked!"
"FIRE!!!"
Sixteen rockets soared into the sky on trails of white smoke.
The Alpha seemed to sense the threat. Its cloudy eyes rolled, and its massive body dodged to the side with unbelievable agility.
Ten rockets missed completely, blasting deep craters into the plaza floor.
But six found their mark.
Three struck its front left shoulder, and the other three slammed into its flank.
BOOM! BOOM!
The explosive flash swallowed half the monster's body. The warheads, packed with black powder and scrap iron, unleashed considerable destructive power at point-blank range.
Thick smoke blanketed the plaza.
"Direct hit!" a player cheered.
"Is it dead?"
Tax Bro stared fixedly at the smoke, his grip on the axe tightening.
Knowing the bullshit nature of the Warhammer universe, his rationality told him that a mutant of this caliber wouldn't die that easily.
He was right.
From the smoke, a black shadow burst out with the speed of a hurricane!
A chunk of the carapace on its front left shoulder had been blasted apart. The dark red flesh was peeled back, revealing bones beneath that gleamed like black iron.
There was a hole the size of a bowl in its flank, gushing thick, viscous blood that glowed with a sickly green luminescence.
But it was still alive.
And it was furious.
"ROOAARRR!!!"
The Alpha's roar shook the very ground of the plaza. Its cloudy eyes locked onto the direction of the rocket squad, and its four limbs violently pushed off the dirt.
It was too fast.
The seven-meter-long body blurred into an afterimage, crossing dozens of meters in the blink of an eye.
[I Wanna Lick a Skaven Waifu's Feet] didn't even have time to reload before the bloody maw lunged directly at his face.
The stench of rot washed over him, mixed with the acrid, burning smell unique to radioactive dust.
It's over.
He closed his eyes, preparing to embrace death and the exorbitant Imperial Coin cost of respawning.
But the expected pain never came.
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TL/N: I will be uploading the bonus chapter as soon as we reach the powerstone goals.
I know many people reserve their powerstones for other fic too, but only for this week I recommended giving all your powerstones this fic!
Next Goal = 300 Powerstones.