Zhou Yun used telekinesis to move the two gang members who had knocked themselves out by smashing their heads together into a corner behind the pipes.
He had not expected to run into two gang members on patrol the moment he climbed down here.
Thinking back, his luck had been pretty terrible ever since entering that abandoned district.
First, he ran into the Genestealer Cult. Then he was forced to drink until his head felt like it was splitting. After that, he rode a rickety train and encountered two hooded men who seemed suspiciously like cultists halfway through the trip. Now, having only just entered Old Sector Eight, he had already run into two gang members.
Zhou Yun could not help wondering whether he had been cursed.
Maybe he ought to find someone to read his fortune with the Emperor Tarot.
"Why not let me divine it for you?" the winged figure in the white light said.
"No. I don't trust you," Zhou Yun said, shaking his head.
Yet the winged figure in the white light ruffled his feathers. A radiance of pure white light appeared before Zhou Yun's eyes, taking the form of a thin deck of cards.
The cards bore all manner of strange, divine-looking patterns, each seeming to possess its own unique symbolic meaning.
"Draw one."
"Isn't this still the Emperor Tarot?" Zhou Yun could not help complaining.
The Emperor Tarot was supposedly a method of divination designed by The Emperor himself, linked to The Emperor's thoughts.
Though Zhou Yun could not say why The Emperor had invented something with such a street-fortune-telling style, the Emperor Tarot truly was one of the few reliable forms of divination in the galaxy that did not carry such enormous risks.
Space Marines, the Ordo Hereticus, and even the Ecclesiarchy used the Emperor Tarot for divination. Their methods, however, were far more refined.
They were not like most hive residents, who merely drew a few cards from a crude deck.
"Try drawing one," the winged figure in the white light said.
But Zhou Yun firmly shook his head. Even if it was the Emperor Tarot, he did not want the Warp entity before him to divine his future.
"It's fine. I can draw one myself," the winged figure in the white light said without anger.
He drew a card on his own and showed it to Zhou Yun.
"Hm?"
It was a major arcana card, numbered fourteen. It depicted an angel holding two small crucibles, pouring the liquid from the crucible in his left hand into the one in his right.
But what made Zhou Yun furrow his brow was that the angel on the card did not possess pure white wings, but a pair of scaly wings covered in festering decay.
"Upright, this card foretells patience. Reversed, it means communication. A partnership requiring patience and communication will bring you success."
The winged figure in the white light spoke softly.
"And in secret, it indicates that the person you need to cooperate with is guided by something on a higher level."
"Fourteen. That's two sevens," Zhou Yun muttered.
Seven, Nurgle's sacred number. Combined with the crucibles and those scaly wings, this was no longer a metaphor. It was practically spelling it out.
Zhou Yun's scalp tingled. He felt more and more certain that he was about to have terrible luck.
Suddenly, footsteps sounded beside Zhou Yun's ear.
He instinctively turned his head toward the source of the sound.
At the corner of the pipe district, two figures draped in brown hoods emerged.
Monger was deeply frustrated.
To prevent the future shown by the "angel" from coming true,
he and his brother had risked danger to climb up from the hive bottom and infiltrate this abandoned Old Sector Eight, searching for the location of the relic that could open the gate.
Yet the PDF outpost that most likely contained records of the relic's location had been buried beneath collapsed rubble.
This left Monger restless.
Unlike Monger's agitation, his brother Malkit still maintained the patience taught by the "angel."
Perhaps that was why he was more blessed.
Malkit decided to avoid the patrolling gang members for now.
From above the PDF outpost, he would use the corrosive digestive fluid bestowed upon him by the "angel" to melt a passage leading into the PDF outpost.
But it might take several days to finish, and Monger could not accept that.
Although the governor now barely managed the lower hive, people like them were still unwelcome.
If they lingered too long, they would attract unnecessary trouble.
"Don't you understand? Our time is precious."
"We aren't welcome up here. Maybe someone will spot us around the next corner, and then we—hm?"
As they passed a corner in the pipe district, Monger spoke to his brother Malkit.
But before he could finish, Monger felt a gaze fall upon them.
He hurriedly turned his head and saw a man looking at him beside the pipes.
The man wore a ridiculous toy hat, but after seeing his face, Monger could not laugh.
Beneath that hat was a deep-set face, framed by lion-like golden hair and beard, cold as frost.
Monger instinctively felt fear.
The instant those eyes set within that deep-set face fixed upon him, the malformed heart in his chest nearly stopped beating.
It was as though he saw, within those eyes, the deepest and darkest of icy forests.
That forest was filled with shadows and corrupted beasts, with countless dark, forbidden, unspeakable things creeping through it.
And the man before him seemed to have lived in that black forest, isolated from the human world, since the day he was born, hunting those blasphemous beasts.
Upon seeing Monger and his companion, the man frowned.
For an instant, Monger thought he saw a lion lurking in the darkness, waiting to hunt him and his brother as prey.
Monger faintly heard the "angel" howl in terror.
Unlike his brother, he could not clearly hear the "angel's" guidance.
He could only catch scattered, indistinct sounds.
Yet he could still sense that the "angel's" cries were full of terror and disbelief.
The "angel" was crying out fragmented phrases.
"Lion!"
"The first!"
"Impossible!"
"So alike! So incredibly alike!"
"Not him! The build is wrong!"
The "angel" had been frightened by that face! A single face had thrown the "angel" into panic.
Monger glanced at his brother.
He found that Malkit seemed frozen in place by the "angel's" cries.
Monger realized the danger.
He hurriedly reached for his waist, pulled out the dagger covered in crimson rust, and sliced open his wrist.
Corrosive, poisonous blood coated the dagger.
Holding the bloodied dagger, Monger lunged at the stern-faced man without hesitation.
"Monger! Stop!" his brother shouted from behind him.
But Monger saw only the lion-like man in the ridiculous hat.
A finger atop that ridiculous hat suddenly pointed at him.
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