Chapter 18: Monster Enhancement—Surpassing the Elite Guard’s Physical Prowess

“Primarch? Ha! Haha! What a joke. A half-Primarch standing right before me,” the young Sister of Battle laughed heartily, clutching her stomach. “Ha! Great Primarch, where is your Astartes legion?”

To Elena, the Primarchs were relics from ten thousand years ago. The Emperor’s days walking among mortals, the Primarchs, the Great Crusade—they were tales from a mythic age.

Though the Emperor’s Death Angels still remained, and the sacred Terra stood unshaken, guided by the great Astronomican, she simply couldn’t believe that the figure before her was a Primarch. And to claim to be only half a Primarch? That was as absurd as someone claiming to be half-human. What would the other half be?

Just yesterday, she had run genetic tests on this young man—he was as purely human as anyone could be.

Rod smiled at her laughter. To this young Sister, his words must have sounded quite ridiculous. It was like someone claiming, “I am Qin Shi Huang,” or “I’m the real deal for fifty bucks”—no one would believe such nonsense.

Yet Rod intended to use this identity to deceive humanity. The ability to control monsters had to remain a secret—perhaps one day he could operate under an alias to manipulate them.

But until his power reached a certain level, the fact that a human could command monster armies must remain strictly confidential.

“I’m not lying. My current appearance is a disguise. If you don’t believe me, I can prove it,” Rod said, looking at the young Sister.

She covered her mouth, stifling a laugh. “Ha! Alright then, Great Half-Primarch, how do you plan to prove it to me?”

“Watch closely, little girl.”

It was time to strengthen the monster’s power. Rod eagerly anticipated the one-in-ten-thousand physical traits of the Red King.

With the Tyranid swarm ceasing its attack, Rod needed to enhance the Red King to its peak condition and begin his new plan.

Rod opened the system store and spent over ten thousand system coins to perform the Red King’s final enhancement: 3,000 points to increase height, 4,000 to increase tonnage, and another 4,000 to boost height again.

As for the last 5,000-point chance for height enhancement, Rod chose to save it, preserving a margin of error for the Red King’s perfect restoration.

The Red King, now running freely outside, radiated a golden glow as it evolved once more.

It stood 53 meters tall, weighed 32,000 tons.

“Roar! Roar!” The Tyranid swarm, fleeing from the Red King’s relentless pursuit, decisively widened the distance from the predator.

Until now, the Tyranids had no effective way to handle the Red King. Their priority was to prevent this behemoth from growing stronger.

Thus, under the hive mind’s command, countless swarms frantically fled.

At this point, apart from a two-meter height increase, the Red King had been strengthened to the limit.

Rod chose to accept the system’s gift of monster power enhancement, gaining the rare one-in-ten-thousand physical quality of the Red King.

An unimaginable force surged within Rod’s body. He could feel his bones, muscles, organs, every cell, being reinforced by an indescribable power.

The Red King’s wrist strength alone had reached a terrifying 200,000 tons—a monstrous force beyond comprehension.

This translated into 20 tons of wrist strength for Rod, a power whose intensity was unimaginable.

Moreover, Rod’s body and skin had become incredibly tough due to the physical enhancements.

His height had grown from 1.75 meters to 1.95 meters, his entire body covered in dense, solid muscles.

He had also acquired another ability of the Red King: a burst of monstrous strength. For a short time, without any side effects, he could double his power.

The young Sister of Battle stared in awe at Rod’s drastically transformed appearance, speechless.

“For some reasons, I chose to hide my power and disguised myself as an ordinary man. Now, this is my true form,” Rod said, clenching his fist, feeling the incomparable strength coursing through him.

His wrist strength now reached 20 tons; with a burst, he could lift at least 70 to 100 tons, and his punches would exceed the hundred-ton level.

This was his normal state, without using the strength burst. With it, Rod could easily lift 200 tons and deliver punches exceeding 200 tons.

In theory, even without armor or weapons, bare-handed, Rod could kill an Astartes Space Marine in powered armor.

Of course, that was assuming the Astartes did not use chainswords, kinetic weapons, or grenade launchers.

There might be some gap between him and a true Primarch, but in the future, he could perform second, third, even fourth rounds of monster enhancements.

Reaching the physical level of the Emperor himself would be no problem. As for psychic powers, he could compensate with other special ability monsters.

Currently, the only difference between him and a Primarch was the lack of a warp-space talent.

The origins of the Primarchs were shrouded in mystery.

The Emperor created only twenty Primarchs. Why were two erased and half of them defected?

Some speculated the Emperor made a deal with four Chaos Gods in the warp to obtain twenty sub-level warp deities without self-awareness.

Others believed the Emperor forcibly tricked twenty minor gods into inhabiting the human bodies he created.

Still others guessed that these twenty Primarchs were gods born within the warp’s human clusters, brought forth by the Emperor to become human genetic prototypes.

After all, the Titaniumians had their own Titanium Goddess, the Psykers had numerous deities, and the Orks had Gork and Mork; it was only natural humanity had theirs.

In any case, this all indicated that the birth of the Primarchs was inseparable from the minor warp gods.

That’s why Rod claimed to be half a Primarch—no one had ever witnessed a Primarch’s true strength.

As for the power of the Adeptus Custodes, Rod was confident his current physical condition surpassed theirs.

Only the Primarchs and the Emperor were stronger than him.

Granted, Rod’s combat experience was insufficient, but that could be trained.

As the saying goes, raw strength can overcome ten skilled techniques; if you’re strong enough, fighting styles are just embellishments.

Otherwise, the Adeptus Custodes would have been able to defeat Primarchs with technique alone.