The Stench of Corruption

"Bleurgh—"

Scarlet liquor, half-digested chunks of protein, and meat skewers spilled from Zhou Yun's throat, forming a foul-smelling heap on the muddy ground.

Only after the freight train behind him had rattled away along its crumbling tracks did some color return to his pale face.

Last night, Old One-Eye had treated him to a glass of liquor frothing with scarlet bubbles to thank him for taking the job.

Afterward, Old One-Eye had kept his promise and bought the hive workers in the bar a round. Zhou Yun himself had been plied with quite a bit as well.

Emperor knew how many fusel oils and other nasty things were in Old One-Eye's alcohol, fermented in some dark sewer or cellar.

Usually, just a couple of drinks gave him a headache. After several cups, Zhou Yun felt as though a naked Angron, Gao Mao Er Ge, and The Emperor were violently wrestling inside his skull. The pain had been so blinding that he could only make do with spending the night in the bar's back room.

The next morning, before he had fully sobered up, Old One-Eye arranged for him to board a swaying freight car.

This wreck of a train was used to transport goods between different areas of the hive. Its tracks were so dilapidated that they seemed barely maintained, and the violent rocking was terrifying.

Hive residents had built houses all around the tracks. For most of the journey, the train passed straight through residential buildings. Some people even hung laundry over the rails.

More than once, Zhou Yun felt that the train was about to take the residents near the tracks to meet The Emperor along with it.

"Bleurgh—"

After vomiting a few mouthfuls of sour fluid, all Zhou Yun could feel rising in his throat was a dry wave of nausea. He could not throw up anything else.

"Actually, I can offer you a more efficient means of transportation."

The winged figure in the white light spoke as he gently fluttered his wings.

"I can let you soar through the skies."

"The hive doesn't have skies—and you can do that?" Zhou Yun gave the figure in the white light an odd look.

"I need only inject a trace of my psychic power into your body, and you will grow wings—"

As he spoke, the figure in the white light lightly stirred the pure white wings behind him.

"Stop, stop, stop. That sounds like some blasphemous corruption from the Warp."

Zhou Yun hurriedly waved him off. He had no desire to become some winged bird-man.

If he suddenly sprouted wings, the chances of being mistaken for a saint or angel were slim. The odds of being treated as a mutant, however, were very high.

Even in the lower hive, a place that could be called the sewer where humanity lived, hive residents would still occasionally lament their own good fortune whenever they thought of the chaos and darkness of the underhive.

At least they had not been born in the underhive. At least they had pure human skulls instead of grotesquely malformed mutant ones.

At the very bottom of the hive, in the dark gutters beneath the lower hive, lay the underhive—a place belonging to mutants, cultists, monsters, and madmen.

Compared to that place, the lower hive was practically a paradise world.

"Must you stand in the middle of the road with your vomit?"

A deep voice interrupted Zhou Yun's thoughts.

Two people wearing heavy hoods stood before him.

Zhou Yun blinked and realized that he and his vomit were blocking this narrow path.

"Monger, have you forgotten the angel's teachings? Be patient, as patient as the god we devoutly serve."

The taller hooded man admonished the man who had just spoken.

Then he looked at Zhou Yun.

Zhou Yun stepped aside, making room for the two men.

The tall man gave Zhou Yun a slight nod of thanks, and the pair walked past him.

Perhaps it was only Zhou Yun's imagination, but as the two brushed by him, he caught a faintly sweet, fishy scent like rotten fruit coming from them.

He seemed to hear a low buzzing of insects, and tiny fruit flies, as dense as black grains of rice, flitted vaguely before his eyes.

The white light at the corner of his eye brightened faintly, and pure white wings fluttered twice.

Those seemingly hallucinatory sights vanished from Zhou Yun's vision.

"It was not an illusion," the winged figure in the white light said softly.

The discomfort in Zhou Yun's body immediately eased by more than half.

He glanced at where the two figures had disappeared, but merely shook his head.

Curiosity was not a good quality in this world. He had no interest in investigating anyone else's purity.

Besides, those two had shown no hostility toward Zhou Yun.

As far as he remembered, before the swarm descended upon Asford, there had been no large-scale cult incidents.

So long as they were not Genestealers, Zhou Yun had no interest in giving them even a second glance.

He passed through maze-like streets, following the map Rager had given him toward the location where the entrance to Old Sector Eight had been discovered.

Before long, Zhou Yun saw the so-called entrance to Old Sector Eight.

The main reason was that it was far too conspicuous.

It was the ruins of a collapsed building, which had smashed through the hive's artificial ground and slid all the way down into the deep void below.

According to the information Old One-Eye had provided, a scavenger had found a soda can wedged between some buildings while picking through trash.

He had pulled the can out, completely failing to notice the warning sign beside it that read: "All nearby houses are supported by this soda can. Do not touch."

The instant the can was pulled free, the nearby houses collapsed with a thunderous crash, smashing a hole through the hive's artificial ground and revealing the buried Old Sector Eight beneath.

Zhou Yun could only say: typical hive operations. He was used to it already.

Most hive buildings were like mountains of garbage code written by a bunch of vocational school programming graduates. They might be functioning only because they relied on some bug.

If a hive building had not collapsed, it was best not to touch it. Emperor knew whether the reason it was still standing was the soda can right in front of you.

After walking a few steps, Zhou Yun discovered that the area around the pit had already been cordoned off. They appeared to be members of a nearby gang.

He shook his head. He was not in a hurry to figure out how to get inside.

His head still ached faintly, and nausea kept rising in his throat. It would be best to find somewhere nearby to rest first.

Zhou Yun knocked on the door of a crude dwelling not far from the entrance to Old Sector Eight.

"Fuck, why is someone else coming? I don't let weird people stay the night here."

A grumbling voice sounded from inside the dwelling.

There came a clatter, and the face of a hive worker with fleshy cheeks poked out through the door crack, sizing Zhou Yun up and down.

Zhou Yun said nothing. He merely reached into his pocket.

"Listen here, kid, I don't let people stay in my house. Go find yourself a trash heap—"

Zhou Yun stuffed a pack of Lho-sticks through the crack in the door. The man's expression instantly froze, then he forced a brilliant smile that looked utterly hideous.

"Sir, please, come right in!"