Chapter 169: The Golden Angel and the Dark Angel

Amid endless golden sands, the entrance to a conduit was barely visible.

The conduit's edge was cracked, jutting diagonally out of the desert, made of some black-tinged metal covered in ancient scratches, yet strangely untouched by rust—as if it had been cast only recently and then cast into the desert.

Zhou Yun, draped in a disguise of a cunning face, reached out from beneath his robe and touched the metal conduit.

Long before humans colonized Baer, this planet had been inhabited by an alien species.

Over time, these aliens vanished from history, their civilization scattered to the wind, leaving only the ruins of countless cities buried beneath the drifting sands.

The conduit before Zhou Yun was clearly a remnant of that extinct alien civilization, now occupied by Gene Thieves and serving as their headquarters.

According to those two cunning ones, the headquarters was sizable.

Zhou Yun adjusted the robe draped over himself, pulled the fire scorpion behind him, and entered the conduit.

The conduit was wide enough to accommodate the fire scorpion, which measured four to five meters across; following the two cunning ones' directions, Zhou Yun navigated the labyrinthine passages, and soon a heavy circular gate appeared before him.

Strangely, the gate was inverted within the conduit.

Intricate patterns were carved into the gate; Zhou Yun tilted his head to examine them.

The Gene Thieves had sprayed the gate with paint, but the carvings ran deep enough that the paint could not fully obscure them.

Zhou Yun could still faintly make out the image: two winged angels spiraling around each other.

One angel was golden, sacred and pure like the rising sun; the other was black, furious and mad like bloodied storm clouds.

The two angels seemed locked in eternal conflict, yet their wings subtly overlapped, suggesting an underlying unity between them.

Zhou Yun knew this was the belief of that extinct alien race.

The earliest aliens on Baer worshipped the Golden and Dark Angels, who waged endless struggle within the Sea of Souls.

After the alien race vanished from history, the human colonists who followed Baer still absorbed the influence of this faith.

What truly puzzled Zhou Yun was that the angels carved on the gate bore human faces.

Logically, when these carvings were made, humans had not yet arrived on Baer, and the aliens could not possibly have looked exactly like humans.

Zhou Yun's eyes narrowed slightly.

Some believed the Dark Angel in this faith represented the curse plaguing the Blood Angels—Black Rage and Blood Thirst.

Before Zhou Yun could ponder further, the gate trembled faintly and opened slightly.

"Password," a sharp voice echoed from behind the gate.

Zhou Yun's expression remained unchanged; he whispered to the other side: "The blood of Scutum Sanctus Gileas endures; his soul resides eternally within Scutum Sanctus Gileas."

It was the password he learned from the two cunning ones.

It concealed the faith of the Scutum Sanctus Gileas sect.

They believed their veins carried the blood of Scutum Sanctus Gileas, and that this blood carried not only his genetic sequence but also fragments of his soul.

That was why every descendant of Scutum Sanctus Gileas could hear his whispers.

Of course, Zhou Yun knew the voices they heard were merely those of the Tyranid Hive Mind.

The gate creaked open.

A massive mutant stood behind it, pushing the gate open for Zhou Yun.

This specialized Gene Thief had a larger body but lower intelligence.

Beside the giant mutant stood a regular Gene Thief draped in a robe.

"Logans?" the Gene Thief seemed to recognize the face Zhou Yun wore.

It scanned Zhou Yun and the fire scorpion behind him, asking: "Where is your brother Karl Jien?"

Zhou Yun's expression instantly showed perfectly calibrated sorrow; his body trembled at a fitting rhythm, as if suppressing inner pain.

"It's dead," Zhou Yun said, voice hoarse, unwilling to elaborate, his eyes flicking toward the fire scorpion.

The Gene Thief opened its mouth, assuming Karl Jien had died during a fire scorpion hunt.

But seeing Zhou Yun's sorrow and hearing the hoarseness in his voice, the question died in its throat.

Finally, the Gene Thief merely nodded, signaling Zhou Yun could lower the fire scorpion and enter the outpost.

Zhou Yun set down the fire scorpion and, following the information from the two cunning ones, walked toward the outpost entrance as if familiar with it.

It was a circular manhole cover lying on the ground; Zhou Yun lifted it and climbed in, landing on a rusted metal walkway beneath.

He looked up at the Gene Thief cult outpost, his eyes narrowing slightly.

Before Zhou Yun stretched an entire underground city, its buildings forged from black metal, shaped like black bubbles hanging from the ceiling, radiating a distinctly non-human aesthetic.

Most peculiarly, the entire city was inverted—as if flipped upside down; the conduit Zhou Yun had passed through was actually the city's sewer, and now the ceiling was the ancient alien civilization's roadways.

The rusted metal walkway beneath his feet was clearly added later by the Gene Thieves, suspended between the inverted structures.

The former bubble-shaped metal towers had become the pillars of this inverted city, propping up a vast underground space.

This was clearly the ancient city of the aliens, somehow flipped over yet preserved relatively intact.

Later, the Gene Thieves discovered an entrance to this city through the complex desert conduits and transformed it into their stronghold.

They called it Scutum Fortress, regarding it as their fortress-monastery.

No wonder the Blood Angels had never found the Gene Thieves' base.

This city had likely lain buried deep in the desert for countless ages.

Zhou Yun walked along the rusted metal walkway suspended in midair, surveying the ancient city.

At the city's center stood a statue, originally depicting the Golden Angel descending from heaven to crush the Dark Angel.

But since the entire city had inverted, the statue's scene now naturally showed the Dark Angel above and the Golden Angel below.

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"Leo Elazan above, Gileas below?" Zhou Yun couldn't help but smirk.

The winged figure in the white light seemed to shudder.

". You. Suspect. Owe. Lion. Fist."

Fragmented voices echoed from the Warp; Zhou Yun raised an eyebrow.

He noticed the winged figure in the white light had become slightly clearer—was the barrier between this place's Warp and the material universe weaker, or had he regained some of his power?

"Hey, hey, hey, can you still talk?" Zhou Yun said to the winged figure in the white light.

But the winged figure merely fluttered its wings slightly; fragmented, incoherent sounds flickered past Zhou Yun's ears.

Then Zhou Yun faintly saw a beam of white light pointing toward a nearby building.

He paused, curious where the winged figure in the white light intended to guide him.

Following the direction of the white light, he walked along the suspended metal walkway toward the building.

As he neared, Zhou Yun realized it was a restaurant converted from alien architecture.

The entrance was a circular hole once used as a window, above which hung a sign bearing the restaurant's name.

"Scutum and Claws," Zhou Yun read aloud, then glanced at the menu beside it.

"Salt-baked fire scorpion, oil-braised desert rat, fried root stems… Quite a varied menu."

Zhou Yun couldn't help but raise an eyebrow; it seemed the Gene Thieves had developed a nearly complete societal system underground.

When exactly had the Hive begun eyeing Baer?

He withdrew his gaze, pushed open the door, and entered the restaurant.

Then Zhou Yun froze slightly.

The restaurant was filled with people—Gene Thieves gathered in groups around tables, chatting animatedly.

Most of their talk centered on the Living Saint Gileali, soon to descend upon Baer.

But among these Gene Thieves, one figure stood out—so striking that Zhou Yun's mouth twitched involuntarily.

A man, over two meters tall, clad in brilliant red armor, with pale skin like a corpse, hair like silver threads, and a cold, somber expression, sat alone in a corner of the restaurant.

Most horrifying was his armor—it resembled exposed muscle, stripped of skin, with clear textures, deep red as blood, as if pulsing faintly.

Zhou Yun's eye twitched, for he realized the Gene Thieves in the restaurant all acted as if they saw nothing unusual about the man in the corner—as if he were merely an ordinary, solitary Gene Thief.

Master Archivist Mephiston of the Blood Angels?

How could he be here?

Zhou Yun frowned slightly, instantly deducing that Mephiston must have used psychic energy to warp the Gene Thieves' perceptions, making himself appear unremarkable to them.

But in Zhou Yun's memory, Mephiston should have received a prophecy from an Eldar and been preparing a ritual to deal with Kabanha.

After a moment's thought, he walked toward the table opposite Mephiston and smiled, speaking with utmost sincerity:

"By Scutum Sanctus Gileas, brother of our bloodline, would you mind if I joined you?"

"As a brother who also carries the blood of Scutum Sanctus Gileas, you surely won't refuse me, correct?"

(End of Chapter)