Over 50 gene enhancents and every single one of them was a perfect success! This success rate completely blows the Space Marine transformation surgery out of the water!
Compared to this success rate, the Space Marine transformation surgery is just ridiculously absurd! New recruits constantly die from failed surgeries. The crippled servants on Space Marine ships with broken arms and legs? Most of them are failed recruits from the Space Marine transformation process.
It's obvious how low the success rate of the Imperium's Space Marine surgeries is. Even so, the Imperium still managed to create over a million Space Marines.
Rhodes thinks that during the Great Crusade, the Emperor's Space Marine transformation surgery must have had a very high success rate. Otherwise, there's no way they could have created over 2 million Space Marines with just Terra and Mars as resource bases.
It's just that, later on, the individual Chapters introduced all sorts of initiation rituals, various tests for recruits, and other processes to increase the elimination rate—all under the guise of tempering their will.
For instance, the Blood Angels' genetic modification requires recruits to drink Sanguinius' blood, then lie in a coffin without eating or drinking for six months, or even a year. The Space Wolves have all kinds of brutal trials as well, all of which increase the failure rate rather than improve the success rate.
The Emperor had it tough. He developed the Space Marine transformation process to mass-produce soldiers and greatly improve the success rate. And what do you guys do? You make it harder for no reason!
If I wanted to make it difficult, why wouldn't I just create Thunder Warriors instead? It was supposed to be a perfect, mass-production thod for creating super soldiers, and you turned it into this ss.
Rhodes believes the Emperor's original plan was probably to increase resource production massively after the Space Marines had conquered the galaxy. Then, Space Marines would beco the Imperium's standard soldiers, like the Astra Militarum. But the Imperium's Ecclesiarchy, High Lords, and the various Space Marine Chapters all pulled off their ridiculous stunts.
Still, this monster gene enhancent can't be used on humans because humanity places extre importance on bloodlines. Otherwise, they would've already used so Xenos technology to enhance combat effectiveness.
Using these monster gene enhancents, the Dark Eldar retains all their original traits but has added 50% monster genes. For humans, this would be outright xenos corruption—about as bad as Chaos corruption or heretical cults. Completely unsuitable.
It's better to let the Balt continue researching improvents to Space Marine surgeries instead.
That being said, Rhodes realized that the reason for the high success rate this ti boils down to two factors:
The Dark Eldar warriors already have incredibly strong wills and robust genes, being a species created by the Old Ones.
The frozen monster Guigass' genes aren't particularly invasive; it's a relatively mild-natured monster.
These two factors combined make Guigass' genes highly compatible with the Dark Eldar.
These crafty Dark Eldar deliberately chose the frozen monster. Not a single one of them wanted to try the ancient dragon monster, lba.
Hey, lba isn't bad, okay? Its sheer size alone is impressive, and it has beam attacks too! Its close combat ability can completely crush that white-furred gorilla. You lot just don't appreciate it.
"Lord Loki, what are you thinking about?"
Lelith approached Rhodes and asked.
This ti, the training ground was empty, with only her and Rhodes remaining. The Dark Eldar warriors who had completed their enhancents had already gone to familiarize themselves with their new powers.
"I just feel it's a pity. I brought two types of monster genes this ti, but no one is willing to try the other one. That monster is also extrely powerful and can use long-range beam attacks. Its flight capability is just a basic feature," Rhodes said.
"Oh, is that all? Lord Loki, that's an easy fix. I'll imdiately find so slaves and let you test the enhancent effects of the other monster's genes. What do you think?"
She thought it was sothing serious, but it turned out the Lord just wanted to test the power of another monster's genes. For her, this was an easy problem to solve—just grab so slaves and get it done.
To be honest, she was beyond satisfied with this round of monster gene enhancents. Completely satisfied.
The first attempt to find a monster gene compatible with the Dark Eldar was incredibly lucky. After enhancent, the only noticeable changes were white hair and white eyes, which didn't detract from the Dark Eldar's appearance—in fact, it gave them a unique aesthetic.
With such a reliable gene, no one would consider switching to another monster gene. After all, the warriors under her command weren't foolish. Why gamble on sothing else when they could safely gain great power and frost-elental attacks?
"I do want to test another monster gene, but let's use the slaves for that! If the enhancent succeeds, these warriors will be yours. If it fails, just throw them into your arena for practice," Rhodes said.
Lelith nodded and imdiately summoned a Wych Cult, whispered a few words to her, and soon after, a group of ten or so Dark Eldar slaves were brought over.
In Commorrag City, life was the cheapest commodity, whether it was mbers of other races captured by them or even the Dark Eldar themselves.
The slaves stood trembling to the side, clearly terrified.
"Slaves, I'm giving you an opportunity—a chance to beco my servants. I'm about to use a genetic serum on you. If it works, you'll be greatly enhanced and can join my warriors. If it fails, well, bad luck for you."
After her speech, Lelith nodded at Rhodes, signaling him to proceed. She was also curious about how this new monster gene would differ from the previous frost monster.
This ti, Rhodes didn't administer the injections personally. Instead, he handed the monster gene enhancent injectors to the arena Wych Cult and had her do it.
The arena Wych Cult nodded, picked up the lba monster gene serum, and injected it into the slaves, one by one, despite their terrified expressions.
"Don't be afraid. Embrace this power. If your will is weak, you'll turn into a monster. But if you hold on, your chances of success will increase," the arena Wych Cult said.
Having witnessed over 50 monster gene enhancents, she had so understanding of how the serum worked. A strong will significantly improve the chances of success.
One of the thin, frail slaves nodded. After being injected with the monster gene serum, his body began to tremble violently, and his eyes turned blood-red.
His entire body underwent a dramatic transformation. His limbs morphed into dragon claws, and two large lumps swelled on his back, emitting loud thuds.
"Ugh! Aargh! Aaaah!" The slave cried out in agony as the lumps on his back suddenly burst open, revealing a pair of massive, blood-red fleshy wings.
But it didn't stop there. His head began to shift as well, losing all traces of the Dark Eldar's features. His head completely transford into a dragon-like visage similar to lba's.
Within minutes, the frail slave had undergone a full transformation, becoming a red, small-sized dragon roughly 4.5 ters tall with a wingspan of over 6 ters.
"Roar! Roar!" The small red dragon's glowing red eyes flared as it took to the sky, releasing a crimson beam from its mouth.
The crimson beam struck the ground, causing a massive explosion.
The Dark Eldar warriors nearby imdiately sprang into action, using single-person flying weapons and an electronic net to capture the red dragon.
Once restrained and brought to the ground, the red dragon continued to howl, its eyes completely devoid of intellect, leaving only raw, animalistic ferocity.
"This one doesn't seem to have any intelligence. Did the enhancent fail?" Lelith frowned and asked.
So this was what a failed monster gene enhancent looked like? It was a complete transformation into another species! Who would have guessed this creature was once a mber of the Dark Eldar?
"Yes, this is the result of a failed enhancent. Let's move on to the next one. I want to see if anyone can perfectly fuse with this ancient dragon gene," Rhodes said.
As he had suspected, there was indeed a compatibility issue. It seed lba's genes weren't very compatible with the frail slaves.
Rhodes continued injecting the remaining slaves with lba's gene. Out of the group, 15 transford into red flying dragons like the first one and were promptly captured by the Dark Eldar warriors. Only three slaves managed to perfectly fuse with lba's genes.
Those three retained their intelligence and reverted to their Dark Eldar forms but with notable changes: sharp dragon horns grew on their foreheads, their hands developed draconic claws, and patches of red monster-like skin appeared on their bodies.
Although they retained their intellect and gained the ability to transform into small red dragons, their enhancents were nowhere near as good as the previous frost monster enhancents.
"It seems this dragon gene isn't suitable for our race. I still think the frost monster gene is a better fit," Lelith remarked.
It was lucky that they had chosen the frost monster gene for the first round of enhancents. Otherwise, more than half of her subordinates might have ended up as these red-flying dragon creatures.
"Yes, your warriors should stick to the frost monster gene," Rhodes agreed, nodding.
"Lord Loki, we've ended up with over a dozen of these small red flying dragons. I think besides sending them to the arena for entertainnt, we could sell so to the Haemonculi people. What do you think?" Lelith asked.
Selling so to the Haemonculi would bring in a decent profit. Besides, Lord Loki needed to purchase things from them, so it wouldn't hurt to establish good relations in advance.
Reviews
All reviews (0)