The Human Imperium had existed for countless ages.
Over those countless ages, innumerable holy relics had gathered dust in history.
At the very top of the hive city.
That was the pinnacle of power across the entire hive world.
The hive city's uppermost levels connected to orbital space. Its straight spires were like lances thrust into the void. Around the pyramid-like hive stood automated defensive gun turrets, firmly securing power in the hands of the nobles at its summit.
At the top of the hive city.
The luxury within was beyond anything the lower hive districts and underhive dwellers could imagine.
The upper levels possessed complete transportation networks, spacecraft, medical systems, and relief systems.
Everything was so well-developed that it surpassed their imagination.
Among those at the very top.
In the most luxurious rooms of the upper levels, a single painting could cost enough to buy an entire continent on a planet.
The upper class maintained their rule.
Tarelia.
That was the name of this hive world.
It had five hive cities, each of whose lower levels might contain tens of billions of people.
Even though this hive world possessed extensive purification systems, tens of thousands of tons of garbage, radiation-tainted wastewater, plague-ridden sewage, and other waste were still dumped into the underhive processing systems every day.
Even when those purification systems operated beyond capacity, they still could not completely cleanse all that sewage and waste.
The people living at the bottom had extremely scarce resources. Compared to the lavish, extravagant lives of Tarelia's upper-class nobles, they had only two choices.
One was to complete the tasks assigned from above in exchange for ration bars. The other was to join a gang, fight for it, and earn the compensation it provided.
Yet neither choice was easy. If they worked, they