The Bottom-Hold Prison

In the lower decks of the Abominable Worm.

When Fu Qinghai saw the dazzling white light surrounding him flare up and then immediately go out,

he knew something had gone wrong.

The communications signal was poor, and Fu Qinghai couldn't tell what the problem was.

Fu Qinghai stood where he was, thinking hard.

The only possibility he could think of was that the enemy had hidden other warships on the far side of the planet. The enemy ships had ambushed the Sotharan, which was parked in orbit, preventing the teleportation from continuing.

But besides the Sotharan, the White Scars also had the Short Sword in orbit.

Forget it. No point thinking about it.

Fu Qinghai put his thoughts aside, steadied himself, and continued forward.

Since he was already here, he might as well explore and see what exactly was stored in these lower decks.

Fu Qinghai walked up to the first iron-barred cell surrounded by a magnetic field. To his surprise, a woman was kneeling inside.

She was a red-haired woman in close-fitting white armor, tall and slender, with her hands bound behind her back. She knelt on the floor with her legs spread apart.

Her striking fiery red hair was tied into a ponytail at the back of her head.

The pale light overhead shone straight down. Her head was bowed, her face hidden in dark shadow. She knelt there without moving, her expression impossible to make out.

An Aeldari...

Fu Qinghai stared at the pointed ear peeking through the woman's fiery red hair.

Was she dead?

Fu Qinghai slid his Power Glaive, its Power Field deactivated, between the bars and lifted the Aeldari woman's chin with its tip.

A pair of icy eyes looked back at him.

"Like what you see, human?"

Fu Qinghai nodded. "You're quite beautiful."

The Aeldari woman's skin was moon-pale. She had strong brows, a pointed chin, and a straight, delicate nose. Two blood-red, tooth-shaped battle markings were painted on her cheeks, and a symbol—a triangle joined to an inverted Ψ—marked her forehead.

Fu Qinghai withdrew the Power Glaive and asked, somewhat surprised, "You speak Low Gothic?"

She looked no older than nineteen or twenty, but the Aeldari lived so much longer than humans that she might well have been hundreds of years old.

The Aeldari girl continued to stare at Fu Qinghai with the same icy expression, clearly unwilling to answer his question.

Fu Qinghai shrugged and asked again:

"Where are your weapons?"

The Aeldari girl froze, then blurted out in surprise:

"You're going to free me?"

Fu Qinghai said, "I ask, you answer. Don't answer a question with another question."

I'm not going to indulge your bad attitude... Fu Qinghai thought.

According to rumor, the Aeldari were extremely proud. They had once ruled the galaxy, and in their eyes, humans were merely upright apes from a blue planet tens of thousands of years ago. They looked down on the Imperium of Man.

Hearing Fu Qinghai's casual, infuriating tone, the Aeldari girl gritted her teeth and replied quietly:

"It's locked inside the bulkhead behind you."

Fu Qinghai turned around. The folded mechanical arms on his back unfolded and rose at a thought. A scorching stream from the welding torch swept across the bulkhead. A pair of pincers clamped down and pulled, opening a hidden compartment.

Three objects lay quietly inside.

A strangely shaped bone-white helmet, an odd-looking pistol, and a slender long knife with a curved tip.

So this Aeldari girl was a Howling Banshee.

Howling Banshees were a warrior caste unique to the Craftworld Aeldari, specializing in high-speed melee combat. They might not match Space Marines in raw strength or defense, but they surpassed them in skill and speed.

These warriors, who worshipped Khaine, the Aeldari god of war, were each highly efficient killing machines.

As for why the Word Bearers had locked the Aeldari girl up here, Fu Qinghai could figure it out without even thinking, having already witnessed the sacrificial altar in the slaughterhouse.

Unlike humans, among whom only one in several million was a Psyker, every Aeldari was a Psyker; they simply varied in talent.

Capturing Aeldari for sacrifices was much easier than sifting through the vast human population for Psykers. If you were capable of catching one, then you had a Psyker in your hands.

"Turn around," Fu Qinghai ordered.

Lured by the promise of freedom, the Aeldari girl obediently shifted her knees and turned her back to him.

Fu Qinghai slipped the Power Glaive between the iron bars. Its tip flicked upward, and a flash of blue light neatly severed the bindings around the Aeldari girl's wrists.

"Aren't you afraid I'll kill you once I get my gear?" the Aeldari girl asked coldly as she stood up, her hands free again.

She was so tall... Fu Qinghai looked at the Aeldari woman, who stood at least two meters tall. Accustomed to looking down at ordinary humans, he was experiencing the feeling of looking someone straight in the eye for the first time.

Her slender build seemed at odds with her height, but it was said that Aeldari muscle fibers were far superior to those of humans.

"Why would you kill me?" Fu Qinghai asked seriously.

"Good question." The Aeldari girl's voice was openly mocking. "I'd like to ask why you humans attack us for no reason."

The Imperium of Man's hostility and conservatism were clear from the word it used for aliens: "Xenos." The Imperium was hostile to every nonhuman species. Whether you were elegant and beautiful space elves like the Aeldari or some other bizarre humanoid creature, the Imperium lumped you all together as "Xenos."

Before Roboute Guilliman signed an alliance with the Aeldari Farseer, the Imperium's various territories had responded to the Craftworld Aeldari wandering through their regions with attacks and expulsions.

Fu Qinghai said, "You should ask the Council of Terra, or any sector lord, about that—not me."

With that, Fu Qinghai tossed a pistol, a long knife, and a helmet into the cell.

The Aeldari girl stared at the gear at her feet, unable to believe Fu Qinghai had actually returned it to her. She looked up at the Space Marine before her and asked, puzzled:

"You're very different from the other humans I've met... What exactly is your reason for saving me?"

Fu Qinghai took off his helmet and spread his arms.

"First, I'm not prejudiced against other alien species, beautiful Aeldari. Second, I just think that, for now, we have a common enemy, don't we?"

"The Word Bearers' Space Marines abducted you and brought you here. I know what they intend to do to you: use you as a sacrifice to summon a Warp Daemon."

"As it happens, those traitors are my enemies too. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. At least for the moment, our interests align."

Fu Qinghai made his case methodically and persuasively.

Fu Qinghai felt his argument was logical and reasonable. He had always considered himself a reasonable man.

His earlier refusal to indulge the Aeldari's pride had just been a negotiating tactic: first put someone off, then win them over. After all, everyone knew that acting like a doormat never got you anywhere.

To make himself more persuasive and approachable, he had even copied Talal's manner of speaking to ordinary humans and taken off his helmet.

Talal had once told Fu Qinghai that ordinary humans felt tense and anxious when an Astartes Monk spoke to them through the grille of a fearsome, icy helmet. Taking it off and showing his face helped ease their nerves.

Fu Qinghai's only concern was that the Aeldari woman was also a woman.

Everyone knew that women weren't particularly reasonable creatures, regardless of species.

In response to Fu Qinghai's sincere words, the Aeldari girl slowly nodded, then crouched down and began putting on her gear.

Fu Qinghai secretly breathed a small sigh of relief.

If she still bore a grudge over the past clashes between her Craftworld Fleet and the Imperium of Man, then Fu Qinghai's actions would have caused trouble for himself.

A Howling Banshee wasn't some grunt you could easily brush off. They might have ended up fighting another fierce battle.

Most importantly, he had never faced a Howling Banshee in actual combat, so he didn't know what kind of strange tricks she might have up her sleeve.

The Aeldari girl put on what Fu Qinghai had taken for a helmet but which was actually a mask.

It was a long, bone-white mask, with a tall crest rising from the forehead. A mane of reddish-brown hair, like a lion's, adorned the back. The faceplate had a fearsome visor and an enlarged, horizontally slatted breathing grille. Fu Qinghai had heard that the grille was a loudspeaker. Together with the psychic amplifier installed in the crest, it projected the Howling Banshee's Psychic Scream, shaking the enemy's spirit.

With the mask on and the pistol and long knife in hand, the Aeldari girl transformed from an ethereal, icy beauty into a fearsome warrior.

Blue arcs of Power Field crackled along her slender knife. With a light slash, she cut through the prison bars.

The masked Aeldari girl glanced at Fu Qinghai, then turned and walked away.

"Hey, where are you going?" Fu Qinghai couldn't help asking.

He wanted to remind the Aeldari woman, who had been imprisoned in this hold the whole time, that the transport ship was now parked on a desolate planet.

"None of your business." Filtered through the loudspeaker, the Aeldari girl's voice became hard and rough, impossible to gender.

With that, the Howling Banshee warrior lightly touched her toes to the floor and vanished into the shadowy corridor.

Well, he couldn't expect her to repay him with her hand in marriage... Fu Qinghai helplessly shrugged at the Aeldari girl's ungrateful response to being saved.

At least he'd given the Word Bearers something to deal with.

Then Fu Qinghai put his helmet back on and turned toward the next prison cell.

Let's see what's locked up in here.

For a moment, Fu Qinghai felt the same thrill as opening a blind box.

The next cell held a skeleton.

Oh... Was it already dead? Sorry to bother you.

Fu Qinghai moved on to the next cell.

Several cells in a row were completely empty.

It wasn't until he reached the last cell that Fu Qinghai saw an old woman in plain clothes, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Hearing Fu Qinghai's footsteps, the old woman lifted her head, revealing a kind smile as she looked at him.

Inside his helmet, Fu Qinghai's face tightened, and he frowned.

"Who are you?"

This was a transport ship belonging to a traitor Space Marine legion, and this was a lower-deck prison where a band of evil, cruel Chaos Space Marines kept special prisoners.

Yet here was an old woman.

Just imagining it felt eerie and terrifying.

"I'm Agu, Agu Ella Graham. You can also call me the Prophet Agu, young man," the old woman in plain clothes said with a kind smile.

Fu Qinghai thought, I'm wearing a helmet. How do you know I'm a young man...?

And "prophet"? This was getting more and more cultish.

Fu Qinghai studied the old woman carefully, making sure she wasn't some kind of alien creature disguised as a human.

"Um... ma'am, why have they locked you up here?"

The old woman smiled. "Who said I was locked up here?"

Huh? What did she mean?

Fu Qinghai paused, then reached out and gently pushed the iron bars.

With a soft creak, the cell door swung open.

The door wasn't locked. Did that mean the old woman was staying here of her own free will?

Fu Qinghai slowly took a step back. The Power Field on his Power Glaive hummed to life.

"Who are you, really?" Fu Qinghai asked in a low voice.

The old woman chuckled. "I told you. I'm the Prophet Agu. Guided by a Prophecy, I came here. The Prophecy told me that a new being, one capable of attracting the attention of the Four Gods of the Warp, was about to be born on this planet. So I came."

After this cryptic, nonsensical explanation, the old woman changed the subject.

"Hehe, young man, there's no need to be so nervous, and no need to waste your time on this old woman. I've already seen that your commander is locked in fierce combat. Hurry and go help him, hehe."

Frowning, Fu Qinghai slowly backed away, his expression serious. He couldn't tell what this mysterious, rambling old woman was, and it was always best to stay on guard.

Did she mean Vlahos was locked in fierce combat? Or was she talking about Ogedei in orbit?

Fu Qinghai decided to leave the mysterious old woman alone for now and go outside to take a look.