The Astartes Second Legion Punishers, Designation: Conquered World—Universe 117, beyond the Milky Way Galaxy, approximately 160,000 light-years away, near the Large Magellanic Cloud, in a distant corner of space.
From afar, on a planet within this dwarf galaxy between the Milky Way and the Large Magellanic Cloud, a vast primordial jungle blankets the entire surface.
Unlike the barren landscapes of most observed planets, this world appears teeming with life, as if flourishing with growth.
Yet, upon entering its atmosphere, one would realize that this is a dead, lifeless world—its skies are shrouded in gloom, its land is hazy and dark, and everything about it exudes a sinister oppression.
It is as though someone had deliberately spilled foul-smelling ink over what should have been a harmonious, natural masterpiece.
Within the planet's atmosphere, leaden-black 'mists' swirl ominously, mingling with filthy green spores, forming shifting, unseen miasmas.
The air here is so thick, so suffocatingly toxic, that any ordinary lifeform that merely touches it would likely die from poisoning.
Across the surface, a damp, black-green layer of mold covers most of the terrain. Intertwining vines, in grotesque shades of green, gray, yellow, and purple, spread wildly, carpeting the fungal mats.
Following the growth direction of the countless vines in reverse, one would find themselves in low-lying areas, filled with clusters of holes of various sizes, densely packed together.
Within them, a rippling liquid churns—not the clear, azure blue of pristine waters, but an unnatural, thick, bubbling deep green, resembling the stagnant filth of an ancient, uncleaned urban sewer.
No—even filthier than that!
From these pits, countless slick, oily black-green tendrils emerge. Twisting through the dense root systems of this forest, grotesque flowers bloom luridly, their ripped-open vines revealing muscle fibers resembling animal flesh beneath.
In this polluted, foul, and putrid environment, these abominations writhe and grow.
Their composition appears partially plant-like, yet also reminiscent of the membranes encasing mammalian organs, their surfaces exuding a slow, acrid stench.
Crack!
A sound like an eggshell shattering echoed through the filth, as a hunched figure twisted and crawled forth from the corruption.
It exuded no sign of life, resembling nothing more than a mutant horror dredged up from the depths of a sewage abyss.
Its original species was indiscernible. Its massive, deformed, and bloated body was entirely covered in deep-green, moss-like tendrils, while shattered remnants of armor, now a sickly, diseased shade of excremental green, barely clung to its grotesque form.
From every festering pustule, countless viscous tendrils slithered out. Rotten, ulcerated flesh oozed from ruptured skin, spilling out a black, putrid liquid, which twitched and churned unpredictably within the decaying mass of flesh and gore.
This planet has been entirely infected by this unknown viral substance. It is absolutely uninhabitable for any living species!
"Roar—!"
Suddenly, as if sensing something, the monstrous entity jerked its head up and let out a piercing, shrill scream.
"Roar! Roar—!"
In a chain reaction, the entire fungal terrain seemed to come alive. What once could barely be described as a primordial forest was, in an instant, transformed into a nightmarish hellscape, a scene so grotesque that it could ruin one's appetite.
From beneath the thick fungal mat, countless massive tentacles burst forth—each lined with gaping maws, some bearing limbs, others rows of razor-sharp fangs, stretching endlessly across the terrain. Corrosive fluid sprayed in every direction.
Fleshy orifices, lined with jagged teeth, continuously spewed out masses of black-bristled abominations, stitched together into tumorous meat clumps, like colossal flesh maggots crudely fused into monstrous forms.
The landscape was covered in a sea of foul-smelling mucus, littered with unspeakable horrors of shifting, amorphous forms.
Everything about this scene was utterly nauseating.
It was as if their very existence was a blasphemy—a mockery of the Creator and of all life itself.
At that moment, as if in response to these aberrations, a brilliant orange glow of destruction suddenly illuminated the entire sky.
A heat capable of melting an entire planet, flames powerful enough to consume an entire atmosphere—in an instant, the spore-infested miasma lingering in the air was incinerated completely.
For the first time in countless years, the planet's surface experienced true sunlight.
Boom—!!!
This was followed by a series of deafening thunderclaps, as searing energy spears rained down from orbit, descending like pillars of divine wrath, piercing from the heavens to the planet's core.
It was as if the voice of a god was roaring across the mortal realm.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The terrifying tremors and explosions shook the land relentlessly. Both the earth below and the sky above—all matter caught within the expanding fireball was vaporized.
Mountains boiled. Oceans evaporated.
From outer space, the planet's surface now resembled a gigantic, crimson fireball, continuously expanding in size.
"Flood."
Hovering in low orbit, Selene stood clad in silver-white battle armor. Her waist was cinched tightly, her figure slender yet commanding. She wore a ceremonial crown embellished with subspace lance patterns, with her hair braided into a high ponytail, while strands of hair cascaded naturally at her temples, exuding an elegant yet regal presence.
"As expected, the Forerunners failed to wipe you out completely."
"Aside from the portion that was annihilated in the Milky Way Galaxy by the Forerunner military caste under the command of the Shadow-of-Sundered-Star through the activation of the Halo Array, remnants of the Flood still survived in dormancy within the Large Magellanic Cloud—the cradle of the Precursors, the so-called 'Creators'."
(PS: The military caste refers to the Forerunner military personnel, while the Shadow-of-Sundered-Star was the equivalent of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces in Forerunner civilization.)
Lowering the hand that had unleashed a solar flare bombardment, Selene smiled gracefully.
One hundred thousand years ago, in the final stages of the Forerunner-Flood War, the Forerunners successfully activated seven of the Halo Rings. The devastating cross-phased neutrino pulse eradicated the entire Flood fleet across the Milky Way—of course, it also wiped out all life in the galaxy.
With the activation of the Halo Array, every living organism in the Milky Way Galaxy, save for those protected by the Ark, the Rings, or Forerunner Shield Worlds, was indiscriminately exterminated.
In the aftermath of the war, the Forerunner civilization was left crippled, teetering on the brink of extinction. The few remaining survivors, either dead or gravely wounded, completed their final task—returning the preserved species from the Ark and Keyships to their respective homeworlds. Then, seeking atonement, they chose self-imposed exile.
Thus, the Forerunners, rulers of the Milky Way for tens of thousands of years, were no more.
The Milky Way Galaxy was given a new beginning.
"Whether within the Milky Way or beyond it, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Forerunners never truly purged the Flood."
For instance, on one particular Ring, a Flood army survived, lying dormant within that ominous world, waiting for a "lucky" individual to awaken them.
"But as your inheritor, I shall take responsibility—purging them completely. I will nail shut the coffin lid of the so-called Precursor race!"
The cross-shaped rings in her golden eyes gleamed with undiminished mirth, as Selene extended her hand and clenched it into a fist.
Boom!
In the reflection of her crimson irises, a massive fireball—towering into the heavens—raged. It was a nuclear inferno, burning like a miniature star.
The searing heat waves inevitably expanded outward, crashing against the void of space, sending Selene's hair whipping in the turbulence.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
As time passed, the entire planet became entombed within the fireball, its surface crystallizing, fractures spreading rapidly.
Boom—!
In the end, the planet shattered, erupting like a dying star, disintegrating into a solar storm poised to engulf the entire planetary system.
Yet before the planetary debris could even escape low orbit, an invisible force field intercepted them, neutralizing their kinetic energy. What remained scattered outward—not as chaotic wreckage, but as colossal drifting shards of diamond.
Dispelling the force field, Selene's gaze shifted toward several other planets within the planetary system.
Through her enhanced super-vision, in just a fleeting moment, she observed the tremors beneath the planetary crusts—an ancient fleet, buried for untold ages, was stirring from its slumber, letting out a low, suffocating hum as it ascended into space.
The decayed, bloated hulls of their vessels, grotesquely fused with swollen, fleshy tumors, formed silhouettes so unnerving that merely beholding them would erode one's sanity.
In the reflection of Selene's pupils, the eerie green glow of the Flood fleet flickered.
"A Gravemind?"
"It must have sensed the mass death of its own kind, triggering its self-revival."
The Flood outbreak follows distinct phases—Wild, Cooperative, Interstellar, and Extragalactic.
In its Wild Stage, the Flood typically manifests in four primary forms: Infection, Combat, Carrier, and Gravemind.
Among them, the Gravemind is the highest form of the Flood, the very embodiment of its hive-mind consciousness. Once the Flood accumulates sufficient biomass, it forms a centralized intelligence entity—the Proto-Gravemind.
The moment the Flood successfully births a Proto-Gravemind, it immediately enters the Cooperative Stage.
Upon its formation, the Gravemind takes full control of the Flood army, driving them into an unrestrained rampage, hunting down and consuming all sentient life within the galaxy. The Flood's scale, variety, and sheer numbers begin to skyrocket exponentially.
"So, it's still a Flood army parasitizing Forerunner constructs..."
With her arms crossed over her chest, Selene observed the sight with amused curiosity.
On a few remaining ships, where the Flood infestation had not yet entirely overrun the hulls, traces of the Forerunners' grand geometric aesthetic remained barely visible—intricate, colossal patterns, a testament to their once-magnificent civilization.
To survive for over a hundred thousand years without decay, and to require no maintenance whatsoever, the Forerunner's engineering durability was something that Selene genuinely admired.
"A pity, really. These technological marvels now look like nothing more than a festering cosmic junkyard left to rot for a hundred millennia. Disgusting."
The Flood is not merely a plague, virus, or parasite.
Once it reaches a sufficient scale, it can not only infect and assimilate carbon-based life but even override and infest silicon-based constructs.
The Flood's form is an exceptionally lethal parasitic entity, its biomass composed of an indiscriminate superstructure known as Flood Supercell (FSC). Structurally, it resembles neurons and glial cells, allowing the Flood to self-organize, restructure, and mimic any organic matter it requires.
As for why such an enormous Flood fleet had remained dormant here, instead of launching an assault on the Milky Way, Selene could already deduce a rough explanation.
"After the Forerunner-Flood War, these forces avoided destruction by escaping beyond the Milky Way, thus evading the cross-phased neutrino pulse unleashed by the Halo Array."
"With the Milky Way's biosphere utterly annihilated, the Flood lost its hosts, its food source. Naturally, it went dormant—waiting for the galaxy to flourish once more, for the next generation of civilizations to rise... and to test them, as part of the Precursors' curse upon creation."
"But I have no need for your so-called test. I will cleanse this place before I move in."
Snap!
With a graceful flick of her fingers, dozens of Subspace Spears materialized behind her.
As torrential Honkai energy surged into them, the Subspace Spears twisted, expanded, and extended, transforming—some into Celestial Lances, others into Subspace Rifts.
"Go."
At Selene's command, the Subspace Spears shot forth instantly.
In that instant, the void was illuminated—like a celestial downpour of radiant blades, bursting into colossal violet-red energy blossoms, spanning hundreds to thousands of kilometers.
Everything in the path of the Subspace Blades—
The thin layers of the upper atmosphere, the towering planetary-scale Flood biomass, and the very surface, crust, mantle, and core of the infected world itself—
All of it was cleaved apart.
Immediately afterward, the Honkai energy infused into the Subspace Constructs rapidly dissipated. Under Selene's control, it transmuted into an intensified strong nuclear particle reaction.
Yet Selene appeared unsatisfied. "Not exhilarating enough! Still feels a bit stifling..."
A smile of pure destructive desire spread across her face, the curve of her lips stretching into an increasingly unrestrained arc.
"Strong Nuclear Force—Voidfall."
The violet-red divine patterns behind Selene unfurled.
From the depths of the void behind her, it was as if millions—no, billions—of eerie black suns had suddenly ignited at once.
In an instant, the entire starry expanse was illuminated.
It was like a torrential downpour—no, denser than an entire ocean cascading down at once—a relentless onslaught of Honkai Fusion Bombardments, Subspace Rifts that tore through space, and solar flares blanketing an immense range.
It could be said that the entire planetary system had now fallen within Selene's bombardment radius.
Without a doubt, in a single instant, the Flood fleet was completely annihilated—not even dust remained.
In the span of a single breath, a planet shattered, crumbled, and exploded.
Then the second planet began to break apart... then the third... then the eighth...
The entire planetary system, caught in this endless, terrifying cataclysm, saw its gravitational field thrown into utter disarray—its structure collapsing entirely.
At last, the central star of this nameless planetary system—its sun—finally reached the end of its life under Selene's relentless bombardment and stimulation.
Its lifespan of billions of years was instantly accelerated, triggering rapid expansion, malignant decay, and then...
BOOOOOOOOM————!!!!
There is no air in space, no medium for sound to travel, yet within the minds of all who witnessed it, an extinction knell tolled—a thunderous roar shaking space.
In this moment, it became the most radiant star in the universe, unleashing its final, most dazzling light upon creation, a brilliance as resplendent as the very first light of creation itself.
"Gulp~"
Beyond the obliterated planetary system, aboard the Imperial Navy fleet accompanying Selene, everyone, including the Astartes, felt their throats run dry.
"Is this... the power of a god?"
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