The End

The two gangs fought for three hours, and thousands of corpses lay at the very center of the battlefield.

After the Chemical Pigs entered the fray, they tore the entire battlefield apart. To deal with those things, the Fertilizer Gang had paid heavily in manpower and detonators.

At present, the leaders of both sides had retreated to the rear with several hundred trusted men. Those confidants all carried homemade guns and were the gangs' last reserves.

The low-level thugs had all been wiped out. Only a few hundred gunmen remained, and both sides were considering whether to keep fighting.

If they stopped, it would be a draw, and the Reactor would remain undecided. But if they continued, they feared exhausting their last reserves. If that happened, they would not even be able to control their own gangs after returning.

Both bosses were caught in a dilemma. Only the cries of the wounded remained on the battlefield, and that was a windfall for Li Qinwu.

Li Qinwu worked with Little Knife to lure out and shoot three Chemical Pigs. After that, he stopped fighting and began harvesting the spoils.

He told the nearly exhausted Little Knife to rest while he loaded regular rounds into his semi-automatic combat rifle, preparing to search the battlefield for corpses.

He started with the three Chemical Pigs he had killed. Picking up a steel pipe lying nearby, he used it as a pry bar, jammed it into the Chemical Pig's Rage Spine, and violently pried the whole thing off along with the pig's helmet.

Li Qinwu then opened the medicine compartment on the Rage Spine and collected the Rage Drugs inside.

After working for a while, he had gained three Rage Spines for the mission and fourteen doses of Rage Drug.

He was very satisfied, but his backpack was not full yet, and so many corpses remained unsearched on the battlefield.

He cautiously crept toward the edge of the battlefield and reached a Chemical Dog corpse. After rummaging through its pockets, he found a Poison Needle.

Putting away the Poison Needle, he moved toward the next Chemical Dog corpse. Before he could even reach out this time, the corpse suddenly coughed up blood.

"I... I'm still alive?"

Li Qinwu pulled the dagger from his waist and drove it up through the man's jaw into his brain.

"No, you're not. It's an illusion."

The Chemical Dog's legs twitched, then went still.

Li Qinwu searched his pockets and found another Poison Needle and a few dollars before moving on to the next corpse.

After a round of searching, he had obtained more than fifty Poison Needles and over three hundred dollars. He had searched this area thoroughly enough, so he began moving toward the more central part of the battlefield.

There were even more corpses in the middle. Li Qinwu happily looted them, gaining another forty-some Poison Needles. He also got several dozen Rage Drugs from Chemical Pigs that Fertilizer Gang soldiers had fought to the death.

While he was happily looting, Li Qinwu suddenly heard groaning behind a pile of building debris. He immediately became alert, raised his gun, and approached with careful steps, quickly popping his head out and pulling it back to gather information.

It was a Fertilizer Gang core member. He was badly wounded, with a huge hole torn through his abdomen. His intestines were gone, blood pouring out in streams. He did not look like he would survive.

Li Qinwu spotted a large-caliber homemade gun beside the man. His eyes lit up as he stepped out from cover and picked it up to inspect its condition.

It was a fully automatic homemade shotgun chambered for 35mm rounds. It had a long barrel and an especially large drum magazine mounted underneath, loaded with thirty shells.

Li Qinwu whistled. A bulldozer! This gun would be incredibly useful in a confined place like the Lower Hive!

Seeing that the Fertilizer Gang core member also had a full drum magazine on him, he reached for it.

The core member spat out blood. "I think I'm going to die."

As Li Qinwu removed the drum magazine from him, he said, "Your guts have been ripped out. Bitten by a Chemical Pig, right? You're a goner. Come on, lift your ass."

The man had a strange drum-magazine harness that could hang two large drums at his left and right waist. Li Qinwu wanted that too.

The core member was tormented until he wanted to die, shouting, "Stop messing with me first! It hurts too much! Give me a quick death."

Li Qinwu nodded and pulled out his dagger, but the core member hurriedly stopped him.

"No! Don't use the knife. I saw you picking up Poison Needles on the battlefield. Give me three shots."

Li Qinwu thought for a moment, put away his dagger, took three Poison Needles from his bag, and jabbed them directly into the core member's neck.

The overdose of chemicals instantly severed his brain's perception of his body. He stopped groaning in pain, and his eyes slowly lost focus.

Watching Li Qinwu remove the magazine harness from his body, he muttered, "In my next life, I don't want to be human anymore..."

With that, his head tilted to one side, and he died.

Li Qinwu stuffed the magazine harness into his backpack, stood up, and left.

"You still want a next life? Go report to Chaos!"

Warhammer 40,000 had a place called the Warp, which could be roughly understood as hell. Demons lived there.

Demons belonged to different factions and had different personalities, but they could collectively be called Chaos.

After people died, if their souls were not taken by the God-Emperor, ruler of humanity, there was a very high chance they would fall into the Warp and become playthings of the demonic dark gods.

So this guy still wanted a next life? Was he making a wish or something? Go be a demon's flesh receptacle!

Several more hours passed, but the gang leaders on both sides still lacked the courage to go all in.

The gunmen were the gangs' elites. The others could all die, and their ranks could be replenished within a few months, but the gunmen could not.

Both bosses had cultivated these men with genuine care. Every one who died was one fewer, while every additional gunman meant the boss could control at least another hundred cannon fodder.

But if all the gunmen died, even if other gangs did not attack, the bosses would no longer be able to control their own gang territory. Someone would kill them and rebel!

So the bosses on both sides slowly withdrew from the battlefield, temporarily abandoning the fight over the Reactor. They would gather another batch of cannon fodder in a few months and fight again.

Li Qinwu found two more homemade automatic guns in decent condition, with rifled barrels, on the battlefield. His bag was also packed full of Poison Needles, triggering the yellow encumbrance status.

With his haul overflowing, he decided to leave.

He first returned to where Little Knife was crouching and resting. "Let's go. The battle's over. Your boss withdrew."

Little Knife was startled. He had been somewhat injured from running earlier, though mostly from fright. After Li Qinwu killed three Chemical Pigs, he had been told to rest.

Only now, hearing this, did he realize that the gunfire and shouts of battle had long since stopped.

Little Knife stood up, intending to chase after the Fertilizer Gang's main force, but Li Qinwu grabbed him and asked:

"How many did I kill? Do you remember?"

Little Knife thought for a moment. "Sixty-three Poison Insects Chemical Dogs and four Chemical Pigs."

Li Qinwu nodded. "Go tell your boss to prepare the money. I'll collect it in a few days."

Then he counted out three hundred dollars, stuffed it into Little Knife's pocket, waved, and vanished into the darkness.

Little Knife stood there holding the three hundred dollars, somewhat dazed.

"Huh? I got a hundred just for making the trip?"