Having just subdued Grosseto Island, Nimrod received an urgent plea for aid from Szczesny.
Without hesitation, he boarded a flier, speeding toward Trinio.
When his eyes fell upon the colossal sea-beast named Fang-Ceph, even he could not suppress a marvel at the sheer enormity of the Gnaw-Octopus's form.
Marlena's gaze burned with hatred. "Fang-Ceph is the mightiest Gnaw-Octopus. It has devoured countless Sicilians."
Her words had scarcely left her lips when she beheld the giant vault into the air, plunging downward.
Szczesny, having severed one of the sea-beast's tentacles, drew its frenzied wrath. He dodged desperately, weaving through the onslaught, but unlike a common octopus with its eight arms, this Gnaw-Octopus wielded dozens of writhing appendages.
Repeatedly hurled airborne by its strikes, he survived only through his subordinates' timely volleys, which diverted the beast's fury, allowing him to endure thus far.
This respite came at a grievous cost. The Fourth Regiment suffered catastrophic losses: at least dozens of warriors with minimal steel augmentations and over a hundred recruits were consumed by the Gnaw-Octopus.
Trinio's natives, their morale shattered, scattered in panic, shouting in a local dialect of Low Gothic incomprehensible to Szczesny.
Only Jorginho remained steadfast by his commander's side, bellowing commands to rally thirteen recruits who had passed the trials.
As the Fourth Regiment teetered on the brink of collapse, a titanic figure plummeted from the heavens, crashing atop the Gnaw-Octopus's elongated head.
Szczesny's eyes gleamed with hope as he witnessed Nimrod drive his power halberd deep into one of the beast's compound eyes.
The steel-clad warriors watched as the Gnaw-Octopus reeled under an impact akin to a meteor's strike, sinking into the sea and unleashing waves towering a hundred meters high.
They gazed in reverence at the majestic silhouette standing resolute upon the waves, their voices erupting in thunderous cheers.
"Perun, God of Thunder!"
"Swietowit, God of War!"
"…"
Each warrior linked Nimrod to the deities of their ancient pantheon, charging into the sea like pilgrims, unleashing fervent assaults upon the beast's tentacles.
Nimrod withdrew his halberd, blood staining the sea crimson, as Fang-Ceph emitted a wail of agony.
The gene-primarch's keen senses discerned that his strike, though grievous, was not mortal. This gargantuan sea-beast possessed vitality commensurate with its size, and its eyes were not its vital weakness.
A whistling wind howled behind him. Nimrod somersaulted forward, his halberd carving a deep gash across the beast's runway-like cephalothorax.
He activated his spirit vision, employing the method he had used to perceive the Mother of the Sea, seeking weaknesses invisible to mortal senses.
A score of python-thick tentacles thrashed wildly. Fang-Ceph, unscarred for a millennium, raged to devour the insolent predator atop its head.
Aboard the flier, Marlena raised her staff high, its skull-topped crest aimed at the vile creature that had consumed countless kin.
Twin beams of radiant light lanced from the skull, striking a tentacle.
Cellular fires ignited, the gray appendage glowing red-hot, writhing in madness.
With a resounding crack, the tentacle shattered into a thousand fragments, splattering in all directions.
Her strike landed true, yet Marlena's delicate brows furrowed.
[Fang-Ceph's vitality is prodigious. My blow sundered but a single tentacle.]
Meanwhile, Maria and her two companions injected Kurnikova family combat stimms into their veins.
Tesvisna rapidly squeezed her trigger, emptying her energy cell in moments, a cascade of arcing light raining upon the sea-beast's head.
The other two assassins leapt from the flier. Dementieva, gripping her blast-shield, slammed it ferociously into the Gnaw-Octopus's skull.
Maria, wielding her curved blade, traced an arc through the air, severing a tentacle hurled by Fang-Ceph. Upon landing, she drove a Fra'ow glass-blade deep into the creature's slick cranium.
The sovereign of the Coral Sea bellowed a roar that rent the heavens, its remaining compound eyes bloodshot with fury, its head rearing upward.
Maria and Dementieva raised their weapons, intent on piercing the beast's skull, but as they swung, a tentacle whipped through the air, striking their arms.
The two women were flung skyward as Fang-Ceph's head reached its apex, still dozens of meters below the flier.
Tesvisna, having swapped her energy cell, fired into the beast's gaping maw.
Marlena, sensing peril, shouted in Vikanian Low Gothic, "Evacuate swiftly! It prepares to spew its venomous ink!"
The pilot, acting on instinct, yanked the control yoke, veering erratically.
A torrent of ink slapped the flier's underbelly, sending the sleek vessel spiraling out of control.
The pilot, drenched in sweat, wrestled to stabilize, narrowly sparing the cockpit from the deluge.
Amidst this turmoil, Nimrod seized his moment.
He slipped into that wondrous state once more, as if standing aloft, surveying the entire seascape, the battlefield encompassed within his "vision."
He perceived not the motions of individuals but their projections within the Immaterium—the ripples cast upon the Sea of Souls.
The terror of Trinio's natives and the pilot, the fervent faith of the steel warriors, Marlena's seething hatred…
Most crucially, Nimrod beheld Fang-Ceph's projection in the Immaterium.
Within its octopoid form, the ink-sac stood apart, radiating dual, opposing luminosities: a vibrant life-light encasing a blackened core of countless souls' anguished wails.
His spirit vision, simultaneously active, revealed glimmers of spiritual radiance emanating from it.
Nimrod's mind grasped the truth: [The Gnaw-Octopus's ink-sac is both its weakness and a Beyonder material.]
Fang-Ceph's contortions exposed this vulnerability. Seizing the opportunity, Nimrod let his body slide naturally downward.
In midair, he swung his halberd with ferocious precision, piercing the top edge of the ink-sac just beneath the beast's head.
Twisting his frame, he guided the halberd in an arc, slicing rightward and downward.
The gene-primarch's form seemed to defy gravity's pull, his halberd carving like a butcher's blade along the ink-sac's perimeter.
Fang-Ceph sensed its underside being rent open, struggling to reverse its upended posture, but it lacked Nimrod's superhuman control.
Its colossal bulk tilted slightly rightward, crashing heavily into the sea.
Nimrod strode forward in an arc through the roiling waves.
The entire ink-sac, intact with its encasing hide, was excised. The gene-primarch grasped the slick Gnaw-Octopus hide, yanking it free with a mighty pull.
Fang-Ceph's tentacles twitched feebly, its life ebbing swiftly as the ink-sac was torn away.
In Nimrod's perception, as he alighted upon the sea, Fang-Ceph's faint glimmer in the Sea of Souls extinguished.
The gene-primarch, having unlocked a facet of his potential, permitted himself a smile.
[I should name this ability. It differs from the aetheric sight of psykers and the spirit vision of Beyonders.
When I wield it, perceiving emotions is incidental; its true purpose is pinpointing an enemy's weakness.
This resembles the Sequence 5 'Weakness Detection' of the Red Priest pathway, yet it operates not through occult means but by gazing directly through the Immaterium. Let it be called 'Immaterium Insight.']
Nimrod's thoughts turned to the Eleventh Legion, soon to be entrusted to him by the Emperor.
[How many of my gene-sons will inherit and master this 'Immaterium Insight' ability?]
The people of Trinio gazed upon the giant dragging the ink-sac ashore, their eyes brimming with adoration. He had slain Fang-Ceph, the Coral Sea's scourge, ending a millennial nightmare for the Sicilians.
Marlena, descending from the flier, approached Nimrod and bowed deeply.
"Thanks to you for slaying Fang-Ceph. With its head, the Sicilians shall pledge their loyalty."