Chapter 11: I Am! Lion!

Zhou Yun used his psychic force to move the two gang members, who had passed out from head-butting each other, to a corner behind the pipe.

He hadn’t expected that after climbing down, he’d immediately encounter two gang members on patrol.

Thinking back since entering that abandoned district, his luck had been terrible.

First he encountered the Gene Thief Cult, then got drunk until his head throbbed, boarded a rattling train, met two hooded men who seemed like cultists halfway, and now, just entering Old District Eight, he ran into two gang members.

Zhou Yun couldn’t help wondering if he’d been cursed.

Maybe he should find someone to cast a reading for him using the Emperor’s Tarot.

“Why not let me prophesy for you?” said the winged figure within the white light.

“No, I don’t trust you,” Zhou Yun shook his head.

Yet the winged figure within the white light fluffed its feathers, and a pure white glow appeared before Zhou Yun’s eyes, forming a stack of thin cards.

Each card bore strange, mystical patterns, each seemingly carrying unique symbolic meaning.

“Draw one.”

“Isn’t this still the Emperor’s Tarot?” Zhou Yun couldn’t help complaining.

The Emperor’s Tarot was said to be a divination method designed by the Emperor himself, linked to His thoughts.

Though we can’t explain why the Emperor would create such a street-superstition-style thing, the Emperor’s Tarot is indeed one of the few reliable and low-risk divination methods in the galaxy.

Space Marines, the Inquisition, and even the Ecclesiarchy all use the Emperor’s Tarot, though their methods are far more refined.

Unlike most hive-dwellers, who simply pull a few cards from a crude deck.

“Draw one and try,” said the winged figure within the white light.

But Zhou Yun firmly shook his head—even the Emperor’s Tarot, he didn’t want this entity from the Warp to read for him.

“It’s fine, I’ll draw one myself,” the winged figure within the white light wasn’t offended.

He drew a card on his own and showed it to Zhou Yun.

“Huh?”

It was a Major Arcana, numbered 14, depicting an angel holding two small crucibles, pouring liquid from the left crucible into the right.

But what made Zhou Yun frown was that the angel on this card bore not pure white wings, but a pair of rotting, scaled wings.

“The upright position signifies patience; the reversed position signifies communication. A cooperation requiring both patience and communication will bring you success.”

The winged figure within the white light whispered:

“And secretly, it indicates that your partner in cooperation is guided by some higher force.”

“Fourteen—that’s two sevens,” Zhou Yun muttered.

Seven, the sacred number of Nurgle, plus the crucibles and scaled wings—this wasn’t metaphor anymore, it was an outright sign.

Zhou Yun felt a chill crawl up his scalp; he became even more certain he was cursed.

Suddenly, footsteps echoed beside Zhou Yun’s ear.

He instinctively turned his head toward the source of the sound.

Around the corner of the pipe zone emerged two figures clad in brown hoods.

Mong was frustrated.

To prevent the future shown by the “Angel” from coming true,

he and his brother had risked their lives climbing up from the Underhive, sneaking into this abandoned Old District Eight to locate the relic that could open the gate.

Yet the PDF outpost, which likely recorded the relic’s location, had been buried under collapsed rubble.

This made Mong anxious.

Unlike Mong’s anxiety, his brother Malkit remained patient, as the “Angel” had taught him,

perhaps why he was more favored.

Malkit decided to temporarily avoid the patrolling gang members,

intending to use the corrosive digestive fluid granted by the “Angel” to eat through the ceiling above the PDF outpost and create a passage down to it.

But this might take several days to complete—Mong couldn’t accept that.

Even though the Viceroy now barely governed the Underhive, people like them were still unwelcome.

The longer they delayed, the more trouble they’d attract.

“Don’t you understand? Our time is precious.”

“We aren’t welcome up here—maybe at the next corner someone will spot us and—huh?”

As they passed a corner of the pipe zone, Mong said to his brother Malkit.

But before he finished speaking, Mong felt a gaze fixed upon them.

He quickly turned his head and saw a man staring at them from beside the pipe.

The man wore a ridiculous toy hat, but when Mong saw his face, he couldn’t laugh.

Beneath the hat was a deep, solemn face—with golden lion-like hair and beard, cold as frost.

Mong instinctively felt fear.

In the instant those eyes embedded in the deep face locked onto him, his malformed heart nearly stopped.

He seemed to see within those eyes a vast, deepest, darkest, icy forest.

Within that forest swarmed shadows and corrupted beasts, countless dark, forbidden, unspeakable things slithering in concealment.

And this man, it seemed, had lived since birth within this pitch-black forest, severed from the human world, hunting those blasphemous beasts.

Seeing Mong and his brother, the man frowned.

In that instant, Mong thought he saw a lion crouched in darkness, waiting to hunt them both as prey.

Mong faintly heard the “Angel” screaming in terror.

Unlike his brother, who could clearly hear the “Angel’s” guidance,

he only caught fragmented, unclear whispers.

But he still felt the “Angel’s” cry filled with fear and disbelief.

The “Angel” was shrieking fragmented phrases:

“Lion!”

“The First!”

“Impossible!”

“So similar!”

“Not him!! The build is wrong!”

The “Angel” was terrified by that face—just a face had thrown the “Angel” into panic.

Mong glanced at his brother.

He saw that his brother had frozen in place, stunned by the “Angel’s” cries.

Mong realized the danger.

He swiftly reached for his waist, drew his dagger, rusted crimson with corrosion, and slashed his wrist.

His blood, thick with corrosion and poison, coated the blade.

Holding the bloody dagger, Mong charged without hesitation toward the cold-faced man.

“Mong! Stop!” came his brother’s cry from behind.

But Mong saw only the man with the ridiculous hat, lion-like in appearance.

The fingers on the ridiculous hat suddenly pointed at him.

(End of Chapter)