The Bizarre Adventures of the Oil Man, but Starting with Warhammer 32K

Apart from the spiritualized brain worms and spiritual brain beasts that later used living psychic energy conduits and were directly connected to the will of the hive, what qualifications do other insects that don't even have souls have to use psychic energy?

But the fact was in front of Leon. The ordinary swarm of lictorts and knife worms used psychic power to return to the other side of the Predator's Eye.

The rift that Leon had suppressed finally closed after their return. The energy ring supporting it was extinguished, and the device that had once been transferred to the Phalanx because it was full of threats was now only a cold and dead silence.

It's completely closed.

This brief exchange of fire was too bizarre even for the Astartes. They checked again and again for a long time before confirming that the battle was completely over.

But the question still lingers on everyone's mind - what exactly are these bugs?

They looked at Li Ang inquiringly, but all Li Ang could do was shrug.

He had some understanding of ordinary insect swarms, but he was not so sure about these insects that possessed psychic powers.

Fortunately, Amidel dragged over a half-dead Licat that had been pierced by his soul spear.

These close followers of Li Ang responded more positively to Li Ang's request. With the help of this only living person, Li Ang would not be at a loss as to where to start.

"I'll have to perform an autopsy to find out. Transport this insect and the other corpses to the laboratory on the casting floor. I'll give you the results then."

The veterans of the Second Legion consciously began to collect the insect corpses, but they were interrupted by the Imperial Fist Fearless.

The huge Fearless picked up the insect from the ground and said in an unquestionable tone: "I will go with you."

Li Ang glanced at him and said nothing. However, Isaga on the side had some opinions: "Respected Venerable Fearless, this kind of mission is a bit..."

"There's no distinction between high and low tasks, and I can carry all the experimental materials by myself, which is more efficient."

This wasn't exactly a good reason to have a fearless person assist Leon, but Isaga, sensing an inexplicable majesty, didn't dare object. "So what should we do now?"

"Clean up the battlefield, make sure there are no missed enemies, and contact Kurland. You still have a lot to do."

He could only watch as Fearless carried all the bugs and followed Leon away alone. When Fearless was out of his sight, he sighed to Thorn beside him: "His aura is much stronger than yours."

Thorne's status as a captain of the Imperial Fists during the Heresy was already significant enough, but the aura of this Dreadnought was far superior to his.

"I imagine he was some archon or castellan from before the Great Crusade."

Thorne replied, "But since he doesn't want to reveal his identity, it's best for us not to delve into it."

-

Although Wu Wei had ulterior motives, Leon had to admit that he was indeed a qualified assistant.

"scalpel."

Li Ang reminded.

Wuwei stretched out his robotic arm, firmly grasped a scalpel, and handed it to Li Ang.

Li Ang took the scalpel and focused his gaze on the insect carcass. Using the calculations of the auxiliary equipment to find the right angle, he gently cut open the insect's chitinous shell, revealing the complex muscle tissue and nerve network within.

The fearless robotic arm assisted flexibly, sometimes handing over new tools, and sometimes using its own laser cutter to help Li Ang separate difficult-to-handle parts.

He is very familiar with the carving skills on this kind of eggs.

However, the research process was not smooth. Li Ang searched most of the corpses for a long time, and his doubts increased as the dissection progressed.

He still remembered the Tyranid swarms with Hydralisk features on the Azure Planet. Those things had frightened him back then, but now, after his first official encounter with the Tyranid swarm, he found that these bugs did not have those Zerg-like structures.

Compared to Leon's previous expectations, these bugs were surprisingly clean.

The most important thing is that Leon also did not find a structure similar to a living psychic energy conduit.

This puts the reason why low-level insects can use psychic powers into a terrifying perspective.

Leon gave up on the corpses and set his sights on the half-dead Licat.

On the experimental table, the half-dead Licat was firmly fixed by Fearless, its compound eyes still flickering with faint light, as if silently protesting its impending fate.

Leon glanced at the monitoring equipment, on which Licart's brain waves were fluctuating repeatedly in a weak and irregular rhythm.

Although the level of brain wave activity is no different from that of an idiot among humans, it is itself an abnormality in an insect.

The irregular signals, combined with the look in Licart's compound eyes, allowed Leon to guess its feelings.

It is angry, afraid, and hesitant.

The insects' heads are very small because, except for the synaptic node creatures that serve as new transfer stations in the hive, other insects do not need to think at all.

Their brains are nothing more than the simplest signal receivers and an instinctive database when the signal is disconnected. All remaining energy and biomass must serve more efficient harvesting.

Emotions should be inefficient and unnecessary for the Zerg.

But it does have it, so Leon has to consider why these insect swarms retain basic emotional functions in addition to simple thinking.

After much thought, Leon could only combine this point with the fact that the insects had psychic powers.

If every bug has simple emotional fluctuations, or in other words, if every bug has its own soul, then they have the foundation to generate psychic energy on an individual basis...

Leon imagined these bugs as greenskin-like creatures. Each greenskin was a natural psychic. Although their use of the power of thought was quite superficial, when they gathered together, they could form an unstoppable wave of Waaaagh.

The insects' unusual behavior also stems from their grouping together. If we compare them to orcs, each insect possesses a shallow level of psychic power. As their numbers increase, they will form a natural psychic stance and use psychic power according to their collective will.

This line of thought could explain why these insects could use psychic energy even though they lacked specialized psychic organs. Although Leon couldn't verify his hypothesis with a single Licat, he felt that this was most likely the case.

But why is the Zerg like this? Is this how the Tyranids used psychic powers before they officially entered the galaxy, or is this change, beyond Leon's understanding, closely related to the still-missing Second Primarch?

The most important thing is, what kind of changes will these insects with souls bring to the structure of the galaxy?

Chaos will destroy the country, and the greenskins will guard the border.

While the Zerg will be the Empire's primary threat in the future, the Empire isn't the only one fighting against the Great Devourer.

Chaos is very disgusted with these soulless creatures that will devour intelligent creatures with souls. Therefore, the Chaos coalition will also appear at the forefront of the battlefield to fight against these destroyers of the source of the power of the Four Gods. The insects will also send troops to deal with Chaos specifically for clean biomass.

But if bugs also have souls, will this war against the Great Devourer, which would have dragged the Four Gods into the war, become a war amusement park where they can sit back and relax?

Leon didn't dare to make any assertions based on the current situation, but he could feel that he was approaching a conspiracy that would last at least a thousand years.

Not only the four vendors in the Warp, but even the Emperor who created the Primarch and the Great Devourer who has not yet arrived in the galaxy are involved.

The secrets of the Second Legion did not make any progress after he opened the Predator's Eye, but were instead further deepened.

Li Ang sighed and asked Wu Wei beside him: "What do you think of these bugs?"

“I’m not a professional biologist.”

"I'm not asking you to analyze it from a professional perspective. I'm just asking for your opinion."

Li Ang turned around and stared at the Dreadnought, his eyes seeming to want to pierce through the Dreadnought's sarcophagus.

"Your opinion, Lord Rogal Dorn."

PS1: In a very early short story, a group of Imperial Fists encountered a creature called a dragon lizard while clearing out a swarm of Tyranids.

This creature is no longer mentioned, but at the time, it was a diplomat for the Hive Mind. He persuaded the Imperial Fists to join the Tyranids and claim that the only way to fight Chaos was to join the Tyranids. By submitting to the Hive Mind, they no longer had to fear Chaos' corruption.

The only way to join is to be eaten by them. They will extract human genes and let them be passed down forever, creating new humans under the will of the Zerg.

I feel like the early Tyranid Swarm wasn't simply positioned as a great devourer, but like the Dragon Lizard, it was later abandoned.

PS2: The Tyranid swarm did not arrive in the Milky Way until 40K. There were Tyranid creatures on Catachan that had degenerated and adapted to the local ecology before 40K.

Chapter 164 Rogal Dorn.

There was a brief silence in the laboratory.

An invisible pressure permeated the air, but Fearless showed no hostility. Leon's eyes were fixed on Fearless's sarcophagus, as if he wanted to see through the cold metal and directly into the soul hidden within.

After a moment of silence, a low sigh came from the Fearless loudspeaker.

The voice was no longer the cold tone that Wuwei sent through the sound array system, but carried a kind of majesty and vicissitudes of life that had been honed for a long time.

"I am Rogal Dorn."

Li Ang realized that he had made the right bet.

"When did you find out?"

Rogal Dorn asked.

"You didn't deliberately hide anything. Your understanding of the Phalanx, your communication with the Machine Spirit, your attitude towards the Soul Drinkers, and the fact that you didn't pursue my previous infiltration of the cold storage after seeing Armidale holding the Soul Spear."

Leon spread his hands and said, "It's already fifteen hundred years since the Great Heresy. Who else but the commander of the Imperial Fists could know so much about these past events?"

"None of this is tangible evidence."

"Of course, so the key is that you admit it yourself."

Rogal Dorn's whereabouts became a mystery after the Battle of the Iron Cage.

The traitor Primarch Perturabo nearly defeated the Imperial Fists in that battle, but Dorn and his Imperial Fists managed to hold on.

Everyone would have thought that the Imperial Fists, having gone through such great hardships, would continue to stand on Terra, but Dorn disappeared in a mediocre boarding battle afterwards, leaving only a broken arm for his descendants.

No one knew what the final outcome of this Primarch would be, but Leon's statement in his previous life that "Rogal Dorn was in a centurion in the Terran Palace" gave him inspiration.

The Centurion Armor was a technology rediscovered during the Age of Apostasy. If Dorn was to be buried in an armor before then, what was that armor?

The answer is obvious, it is the specially made dreadnought in front of you.

The voice from within the sarcophagus rang out again: "You are very perceptive, Leon. And you are different from other priests."

Dorn's voice was devoid of any attitude, as if simply assessing the facts. Leon, facing the Primarch for the first time, didn't feel the pressure he'd felt before him. Dorn's acknowledgement of his identity piqued his curiosity.

Why was he buried in a Dreadnought? Why did he hide his identity within the Imperial Fists? Why did he sit back and watch the Imperial Fists be destroyed? Why didn't he step forward when the Empire was in danger?

And why… had he found a reason to be alone with himself before?

The other questions were too sharp. Li Ang thought for a moment and decided to start with the last question: "So, Lord Dorne, why did you hide your identity and strength and approach me? Was it to monitor me, or to gain something from me?"

"This is your misunderstanding. I have never hidden my strength."

"?"

Leon looked at the Dreadnought from top to bottom again.

With rich combat experience and ultimate combat effectiveness, Wuwei's previous performance in combat was at its peak, but that was only Wuwei's peak.

Guilliman, who had just woken up ten thousand years later, could kill the invading Black Legion in an instant with a wave of his hand at a speed that no one could see. A Primarch with the essence of the Warp should have a performance far beyond Fearless.

But Dorn actually said that he had no hidden strength?

For a moment, Leon wondered if the Dreadnought was impersonating someone else, but he quickly dismissed the idea. If Dorn was right, then Leon could only think of the Iron Cage Battle that had decimated the Imperial Fists.

He didn't express his thoughts directly, but Dorn had already seen what Leon was thinking. He didn't actively answer, but emphasized:

"Don't expect anything from me. I'm just a Dreadnought now."

"It's just a Dreadnought..."

Li Ang chewed over these words.

He had thought that disappearing while racing on the Webway or being assassinated by the Assassin's Court was a rare outcome, and he had never imagined that a Primarch would fall into such a situation.

"Mind if I check on you, Lord Dorne?"

Leon asked tentatively.

Dorn didn't answer, but he took the initiative to display the interface of the Contemptor Dreadnought. Leon connected to the Dreadnought's sarcophagus self-diagnosis program through the interface and easily detected Dorn's current situation.

Under the sarcophagus was a shriveled body.

Compared to the average Primarch's height of four to five meters, Dorn was now only half that, his figure resembling a withered tree. His other organs were also decayed, barely maintaining signs of life with only the nourishment of nutrient solution.

If it weren't for the missing left arm, Leon wouldn't even be able to tell from the situation inside the sarcophagus that he was Dorn.

Putting aside their nature as lesser gods of the Warp, the Primarch's physical bodies as carriers are also products of genetic engineering that far exceed human understanding.

Even Lorgar, the Primarch of the Word Bearers Legion, who was ridiculed as the weakest Primarch, would not fall in the siege of the Astartes.

What happened after the Iron Cage Battle?

Leon was curious, but he couldn't ask directly. He could only express it tactfully: "Lord Dorne, your situation... is indeed a little beyond my understanding."

"I don't expect you to solve it, don't worry about it. I'm only here to talk to you about those Second Legion issues."

Mentioning the identity was just an accident. Li Ang understood that the topic was being directed to the real point.

"You don't need to worry about their identities, nor do you need to tamper with the gene pool. I chose to accept them a thousand years ago, and I will do the same now. Here, they are my true descendants. This is my promise to the Second Legion."

"You know them?"

"It's not difficult to identify bloodlines. I heard that before the Second Legion was liquidated, it exiled a group of warriors led by Terrans. I sent people to search for them at that time, but in the end, I found nothing. I didn't expect to see them here, and they have become very different from the original Second Legion."