Chapter 19: Come Quick! There

Zhou Yun sized up the hazy figure who called itself “Saint Guilliman.”

It was a towering figure, at least four meters tall, glowing with subspatial power, sporting pigeon-like wings.

Severe height anomaly, scales, feathers, or animal fur on the skin, luminescence, two appendages, bestial traits, localized subspatial anomalies.

Noticing Zhou Yun’s gaze, the winged figure within the white light couldn’t help laughing.

“You’re judging me by this standard?”

Oh, and questioning the necessity of mutation severity: three moderate mutations, two severe mutations, two extreme mutations.

Total score: 129.

Purifiers, come quickly! Here’s a despicable mutant! Zhou Yun muttered inwardly.

“Why not use this standard to judge the one on the throne?”

The winged figure in the white light shook its head.

“According to this Department of Military Affairs standard, both me and my father qualify as extreme mutants, scoring at least fifty points.”

“Oh, apart from a handful like Guilliman, few of my Primarch brothers would escape it.”

Hearing the winged figure’s joke, Zhou Yun smiled and nodded in agreement.

“According to the Department of Military Affairs standard, the Emperor and many Primarchs would have to lean against the nearest wall, hands behind their backs, shouting: ‘I am a despicable mutant!’ ‘I am a despicable mutant!’ while waiting for Purifiers to efficiently burn them.”

Hearing Zhou Yun’s words, the winged figure in the white light let out a quiet laugh. “What do you think would happen if I told that to an Inquisitor or a Church priest?”

“I’d probably be burned with white phosphorus,” Zhou Yun shrugged.

He glanced toward the Corpse Guild.

After Mong and Malkit entered the Guild, a faint stench of decay seemed to rise within, cold and horrifying to behold.

“Are you going in?” the winged figure in the white light asked, its wings trembling slightly.

Zhou Yun shook his head and reached into the fourth-dimensional pocket on his abdomen.

Mong and Malkit walked down the corridor of the Corpse Guild.

The dark corridor was overgrown with thick moss and rotting fungal clusters; mushrooms sprouting from crevices wriggled like chunks of flesh.

Among the moss lay countless corpses, decayed yet unvanished, their pale eyes wide open, tracking the two men’s steps.

Mong and Malkit chanted a seven-syllable incantation.

Their aura and the incantation made the corpses believe they were companions.

Anyone else entering this corridor would be torn apart instantly, becoming nourishment for moss and fungi.

“Brother, ahead is the division director’s office of the Corpse Guild.”

Mong stopped before a heavy, ornately decorated door.

The door was carved with layers of skulls, symbolizing human purity.

Yet from within those skulls grew layers of rotting, writhing, multicolored fungi, as if hinting at the corruption of purity.

Malkit nodded slightly and pushed open the door.

Behind it was a spacious office.

The walls were covered in elaborate carvings depicting the Corpse Guild’s pale mission of corpse recovery.

One wall had been modified to embed a Tao steel safe, the size of a man, apparently fitted with a low-power stasis field.

Malkit guessed the ancient artifact they sought might be inside the safe.

But he quickly retracted that assumption.

Beneath the filthy window stood a large desk, where a woman in a pale, classified gown lay motionless, eyes closed, in a comfortable chair.

She wore a long dress as white as death itself, a corset engraved with corpse symbols, her face veiled by white gauze hanging from a golden crown.

Yet even through the gauze, Malkit could see her sickly visage.

Pale and bloodless, covered in blotches and pustules, her mouth dripped with nauseating saliva; dry, vein-like cords, devoid of blood, clung to her face like withered vines.

She seemed afflicted by every disease.

In her hand, she gripped a rusted, twisted, corroded triangular dagger; the decaying metal blade revealed living, fleshy tissue that writhed and decayed.

It was a weapon infused with plague, forged with corruption, born in a garden of only decay and rebirth.

This was what Mong and Malkit had come to find.

Malkit crept cautiously toward the pale woman with closed eyes and reached for the triangular blade in her hand.

SSSHHH!!!

The triangular blade slashed through the air, releasing a stench of rot; Malkit hastily stepped back, barely avoiding its decayed edge.

“No!!!” A shrill, piercing voice erupted from the woman’s rotting vocal cords.

The pale woman stiffly rose from her chair, opening her tightly shut eyes.

Those eyes were like those of the dead—pale, dim, yet faintly pulsing with madness.

Malkit immediately chanted the seven-syllable glyph.

“No!!!!!”

The only response was a frenzied roar.

A cheerful voice—“the Angel”—sounded beside Malkit.

It told him that the ritual, disrupted by the Viceroy’s bombardment, had failed.

The uncontrolled subspatial power hadn’t just flooded into the triangular blade; some had seeped into her body, driving her utterly mad and uncontrollable.

Malkit dodged the pale woman’s swinging dagger, the writhing flesh on its blade warning him of danger.

“Gah!!!” Malkit vomited a stream of rotting digestive fluid, splattering onto the pale woman.

Her gown instantly corroded into holes; her flesh emitted white smoke, revealing gleaming white bones beneath the decay.

Yet her movements were unaffected—she grew even more frenzied.

Malkit sensed terrifying malice from the blade in her hand.

Mong slit his wrist, spraying toxic, corrosive blood toward the pale woman.

But she leapt aside, thrusting her triangular dagger straight at Mong’s throat.

Her reaction speed surpassed nature itself; Mong saw only the rotting blade transform into a sharp, insect-like stinger hurtling toward his throat.

SSSHHHH!!!

A searing beam pierced the office window, melting the glass and striking the pale woman’s leg.

A brief, small explosion erupted where the beam hit; searing flames instantly melted half her lower leg.

“Laser rifle?” Malkit gasped.

Mong reacted faster—he dodged the dagger aimed at his throat and turned toward the window, exclaiming in delight: “Laine Russ?!”

But before his joy could fully form, more laser beams shot from afar, striking different parts of the Corpse Guild.

One grazed Mong’s cheek, detonating a small explosion behind him.

Mong stared blankly.

“What the hell are you shooting at me for?!”

(End of Chapter)