Illegal Psyker!

It was not until noon the next day that Zhou Yun crawled out of bed.

He rubbed his dark-circled eyes, washed his face with recycled water from the pipe, and pulled himself together.

The gang battle from last night had continued well into the second half of the night, with curses, gunfire, and wails echoing without end.

But in the end, only the groans and cries of the dying remained.

Zhou Yun rubbed his temples, making himself a little more alert.

He stood behind the door and looked out onto the street through the finger-width window in it.

Corpses. The entire street was littered with corpses—some belonged to local gang members, some to the Ark Gang, and others to ordinary residents who had failed to make it home in time.

Zhou Yun blinked.

He noticed a group of people in flax-colored robes, their faces marked with ink drawings of ships trailing flames, carrying away the bodies of yesterday's dead.

They were like a swarm of industrious worker bees.

"The Ark Gang?"

Zhou Yun frowned.

These people should have been Ark Gang members. They were actually cleaning up corpses? Pretty civic-minded of them.

Had the Ark Gang won last night's battle?

He had just supplied the local gangs with three hundred PDF infantry automatic rifles, yet they had been utterly defeated overnight?

That was ridiculously pathetic.

He took the Psykana Cap from his Fourth-Dimensional Pocket and put it on his head.

Then he focused his attention on his eyes and looked at the Ark Gang members outside the door.

Their flax-colored robes, their skin, their flesh—all of it lay exposed before Zhou Yun's eyes.

"They're human."

After confirming that these low-ranking Ark Gang members outside were human, Zhou Yun relaxed slightly.

He took off the Psykana Cap, pushed open the door, and stepped onto the street.

The Ark Gang members clearing away corpses paid Zhou Yun no special attention, treating him as just another person in the packed crowd.

Even though a battle had broken out last night, the hive city's streets were still crowded.

Busy workers threaded through the narrow streets.

The corpses left on the ground were trampled over with near-numb indifference.

After a morning of being stepped on, quite a few bodies had already been half-embedded in the mud.

Deadly gang fights were nothing unusual, and the workers had long since stopped finding them surprising.

As long as they were alive, they had to report to the factory.

Sometimes, even dying did not mean the end of work.

Across the galaxy, only The Emperor and work were eternal.

Zhou Yun noticed a gang member's head lying in the mud some distance away, the back of its skull facing him.

There was a gruesome bullet hole in the neck. A bullet had clearly snapped it.

Its muscles had curled and turned gray, making it seem rather old. On the small patch of exposed cheek, he could vaguely make out the mark of a local gang.

Under the trampling feet of passersby, the head had sunk halfway into the mud, like a foul, hard stone jutting out of the ground.

"Come on, make some room for me."

Zhou Yun waved his arms and squeezed out a little space in the crowded throng.

He reached down and yanked the head out of the ground.

Half its face had been crushed to pulp, one eye hanging out of its socket, with stark white bone exposed amid the gore.

Looking at the ugly head, Zhou Yun shook his own with regret, though he had expected it.

"Sure enough, it wasn't that old fox Raga."

He glanced at the horrifying head in his hand.

"But it was better-looking than Raga."

Then he casually tossed the head into the bag of an Ark Gang member collecting bodies by the roadside, so it would not trip pedestrians.

The Ark Gang member looked at the head that had been tossed into his bag, then politely bowed to Zhou Yun in thanks.

Zhou Yun watched him, and the corner of his eye twitched.

The more innocent and harmless these Ark Gang members seemed, the more Zhou Yun suspected they were the Genestealer Cult.

He looked down the street before him and felt that the air was filled with a strange atmosphere.

It was as if some unreal mist drifted invisibly through the air.

"There are traces of psychic power on the street," the winged figure in the white light suddenly said softly.

"Psychic power."

Zhou Yun froze for a moment, his frown deepening.

No wonder. No wonder the local gangs had been crushed overnight.

There was actually a psyker in the Ark Gang. This was getting more and more suspicious.

Zhou Yun shook his head and headed west along the crowded street. After passing beneath an archway built from scrap metal, he saw the three-way intersection where a massive stone statue of Sanguinius stood.

Many passing residents were prostrated at the feet of Sanguinius's statue, praying devoutly.

Zhou Yun shook his head and looked in the direction pointed to by Sanguinius's sharp spear.

Old One-Eye's tavern was open for business.

Zhou Yun pushed open the door and immediately heard a burst of noisy clamor inside.

A half-drunk worker stood on a table, loudly recounting what had happened last night.

"The Ark Gang's cult leader led her people straight to the local gang's doorstep in just half a night."

"But nobody expected the gang boss around here to have three hundred infantry automatic rifles made in Agrippina!"

The worker noticed the disbelief on everyone's faces.

"Don't you dare doubt me. I saw it with my own eyes last night—three hundred Agrippina Type 3 Infantry Automatic Rifles. I was lucky enough to see the PDF use them when I was young."

"After just two or three volleys, the Ark Gang suffered countless casualties and couldn't take this final stronghold for a while."

He drew a deep breath and lowered his voice.

"But right then, the Ark Gang's cult leader walked out alone, without a single weapon."

"She recited the Scripture of the Word, and every gang member holding an infantry automatic rifle simply froze in place."

"The cult leader raised both hands, lifted her voice, and shouted, 'Drop your weapons!' Every one of those gang members promptly put down their infantry automatic rifles."

"The cult leader declared that this was the God-Emperor's punishment for unbelievers. She had received The Emperor's blessing, founded the Ark Gang, and would help all the people of Ashford find salvation from the demons between the stars."

Listening to the worker's boasting, Zhou Yun took a seat at the tavern bar and looked at Old One-Eye.

Old One-Eye wiped a glass and poured Zhou Yun a cup of bubbling, blood-red liquor.

"Did you find that notebook?" Old One-Eye asked as he handed the drink to Zhou Yun.

Zhou Yun took a sip and shook his head. "How could it be that easy? I didn't even get into the Corpse Guild."

That was the absolute truth. He really had not gotten in.

Old One-Eye sighed. "If you couldn't find it, then you couldn't find it. It really wasn't easy."

"If even you couldn't dig it out, then there's no hope for this job."

As he spoke, Old One-Eye waved a hand and glanced at the worker boasting from atop the table nearby.

"What do you think?" Old One-Eye asked Zhou Yun.

"What do gang matters have to do with us?" Zhou Yun said, taking a swig of liquor.

Old One-Eye grinned, cautiously glanced around, then leaned close to Zhou Yun's ear and spoke in a low voice.

"Don't be as ignorant as them."

"You heard it too, didn't you? Psychic power. That Ark Gang cult leader is actually an illegal psyker."