They Escaped Together

Cecilia's pupils widened slightly.

"Thank you." She dipped her head a little, as if she had received an unexpected yet precious gift.

The fire burned for a while longer.

The planet rotated into its dark side. The gray-white light gradually faded, and night descended upon the Hive City. Only this fire shone in the darkness, providing a little light and warmth.

Cecilia suddenly spoke, her voice somewhat gentler than before. "Actually, I saw a light earlier."

Lin En froze for a moment. "What?"

"A light. Before you came, I occasionally saw a little light from that direction in the distance. It was very faint, but very bright. It wasn't the red light of the cultists—it was white light." Cecilia looked at Lin En. "Was that you?"

"Oh, that." Lin En scratched his head, then smiled sheepishly.

He had thought he had hidden himself well, but he had forgotten that light was extremely conspicuous in the darkness.

He had been using Flashlight in the Hive City these past few days. Although he had been far away, Cecilia should have noticed him long ago.

Cecilia said, "Is that your ability? What abilities do you have?"

Lin En said, "My psychic power is very weak right now. I don't have much of an ability. I can only turn on a light."

As he spoke, Lin En summoned Flashlight and demonstrated how to turn it on for Cecilia.

Cecilia had already imagined that he was a very weak psyker, so she wasn't particularly surprised when Lin En said he was weak.

She had already prepared herself for Lin En to be completely useless, but the ability he summoned still gave her a pleasant surprise.

She looked at the steady, clean white light in Lin En's palm, free of impurities. "...Not bad. This ability is pretty good."

"What's so good about it? This is all I can do." Lin En turned his hand over, and the light moved with it. When he clenched his fist, the light became a narrow beam, like a lightsaber—but it was only good for bluffing. "It can't hurt anyone or block a blade. It has no offensive power at all. I'm just a human-shaped Flashlight."

He raised Flashlight beside his face and shone it upward from below, making a ghostly face. "Look, Sister. Horror-movie special effects."

Cecilia didn't laugh.

She gazed gently at the ball of light and extended a hand. The light fell across her fingers, making her skin look translucent. "It's very pure light. It doesn't have the scent of the Warp."

Lin En had no idea what kind of light could have a scent of the Warp, but it sounded like not having one was a good thing.

But...

"Good light is useless too. It can't fight. I've been chased all over the place by those cultists these past few days."

Cecilia said, "That's not true."

In fact, this ability was extremely useful in the underground cave world.

The cultists' camp was in the underground cave system, which was vast, with many places that had no light at all.

Light wasn't a weapon or something that could be used directly in battle, but it could illuminate the darkness.

On this planet, polluted by the Warp and crawling with cultists, the ability to illuminate the darkness was itself a luxury.

Humans couldn't survive in darkness. Only by seeing the paths, exits, or patrol routes could they survive while surrounded by the Chaos Cultists.

Lin En found that it did seem to make some sense.

Cecilia continued, "Besides, cultists are accustomed to the dark. Their eyes are very sensitive in darkness, so sudden exposure to bright light will temporarily blind them. Your light isn't particularly strong, but in complete darkness, suddenly turning it on is enough to make them freeze for a moment. A moment is enough to accomplish many things."

"That does make sense." Lin En perked up.

Flashlight was, in a way, an essential item.

If his first trait had really turned out to be a combat ability, his situation might not have been any better than it was now.

After talking it over, they realized that Lin En had no combat ability, while Cecilia had no light. Acting alone would be highly inconvenient for both of them.

Thus, they decided to form an alliance. Cecilia would serve as Lin En's bodyguard, while Lin En would serve as Cecilia's source of illumination. Working together, they would break through the Chaos Cultists' encirclement outside, escape, and find an exit.

As long as they could leave this wretched underground cave, they would try to find a spaceship and contact the outside world. There had to be a way to escape from Istvaan 3.

Lin En and Cecilia shook hands once more.

The way warriors clasped forearms—that meant it was settled.

********

Once they had made up their minds, they acted.

They sorted through the remaining supplies, carried everything with them, and once again stood at the entrance to the cave system.

Their primary task now wasn't to fight the Chaos Cultists, but to avoid them and steer clear of battle as much as possible. As long as they could find an exit in the end, that was enough.

Lin En glanced at the Battle Sister, who was about as tall as he was, and felt a little more at ease.

Sister was an experienced, capable teammate whose faith was harder than steel.

Battle Sisters were among the fiercest warriors in the Imperium of Man. They would definitely make it out!

Cecilia turned and asked Lin En, "Ready?"

Lin En said stoutly, "Not ready, but I can keep going."

Cecilia smiled.

What was she smiling at? Lin En thought he had been perfectly honest.

He was a little nervous, but he could still keep going.

Cecilia rolled her sleeves up to her elbows, revealing her sturdy forearms.

Her slit pupils glimmered faintly in the darkness, producing a weak night-vision effect in the low-light environment. Her golden irises looked like two polished bronze beans.

Cecilia's weapons and equipment had been confiscated before she came down. Now, she gripped a steel reinforcing bar scavenged from the abandoned Hive City in her right hand. One end had been sharpened. Standing there with it in hand, Cecilia made the steel bar look like a sacred sword.

Before setting out, Cecilia prayed in a low voice. "My Emperor, grant me the righteous fury and berserk strength of Your wrath. May I become a storm and purge Your enemies completely from before Your eyes."

It was a battle prayer of the Battle Sisters.

Reciting the prayer seemed to give her strength. She then strode forward resolutely and entered the darkness of the cave.

Lin En had still been watching the Battle Sister pray. When Cecilia suddenly moved, he snapped back to reality, hurried after her, and followed closely behind, turning on the light in time.

Flashlight remained steady, its white radiance spreading a small circular pool of light around them.

Beyond the pool of light, the darkness remained bottomless.

Still, he had to admit that having a Battle Sister beside him made Lin En feel much safer this time.

He really had just been an ordinary child. The most outrageous thing he had ever done was skip school to play games. He had never experienced true darkness, and he was afraid of the things anyone ought to fear.

For a child like him, raised beneath the red flag in a peaceful era, suddenly adapting perfectly to Warhammer would have been the truly abnormal thing.

The cave was still the same cave: dark and damp, with slimy moss growing across the stone walls and an air thick with the rancid stench that smelled like rotting, spoiled blood—the kind of smell Lin En never wanted to encounter a second time in his life.

Chaos Cultists, heh—ptui!

Cecilia walked ahead. Her footsteps were light, like those of a felid, so quiet they were almost inaudible.

She would occasionally stop while walking and tilt her head to listen to the sounds around them before continuing.

Lin En had no objections whatsoever.

When Cecilia walked, he followed. When Cecilia stopped, he stopped too.

A Battle Sister's ears had been trained. Supposedly, they could distinguish the sound of an enemy changing magazines amid the roar of gunfire. That claim might have been exaggerated, but Cecilia could indeed hear things he couldn't, such as the occasional Chaos Spawn emerging from the darkness.

Lin En also tried his best to identify the route.

He had been chased through these tunnels by the Chaos Cultists before, so he still roughly remembered the way.

They walked for a while.

Then, at the end of a passage, Cecilia stopped and noticed something.

"There's wind."

Lin En felt it too.

The air carried a faint chill and the scent of soil and grass leaves, flowing from a cave entrance ahead and gently brushing across his face.

Fresh air was flowing through. It was air from outside.

As everyone knew, the best way to find one's way out of an underground cave was to follow the wind.

Lin En's heart leaped. He raised Flashlight a little higher and shone it ahead.

This cave entrance was not large either, roughly two meters high and two meters wide. The passage inside slanted away, and its end could not be seen, but the wind was blowing from that direction.

An exit—that had to be the exit! At worst, it was an underground river channel or a cave ventilation shaft!