Chapter 60: I Want to See the True Commander of the Fourteenth Legion!

Monge stared blankly at his reflection in the mirror,

a face utterly foreign to him—his horns had been reshaped, his skin turned a faint yellowish hue like a normal human’s, his facial contours softened, and the pus-filled sores and inflammations cleverly concealed,

making Monge appear merely a middle-aged man with horns and mild mutations.

Monge hesitantly touched his face,

just moments ago, Zhou Yun had suddenly pulled out a large jar of strange gray clay from nowhere,

pressed it onto Monge’s face, and in an instant transformed his appearance completely.

No wonder, no wonder he said Monge could come along too,

Monge could feel Zhou Yun still harbored considerable wariness toward them.

He looked toward Zhou Yun, standing in the corner of the shed, molding his own face with that peculiar clay.

“Higher on the cheeks?”

Zhou Yun asked the winged figure in the white light.

“Yes, yes, another two millimeters up—perfect.”

“Hairline higher—Khiriman’s hairline isn’t this low.”

“Eyes? Got the look yet?”

“Yes, that’s exactly the gaze Khiriman had ten thousand years ago.”

“Good, adjust the corners of the mouth like this.”

“No wonder Khiriman’s face made my brothers suspect him of rebellion ten thousand years ago.”

Leina, Marikit, and Monge stared at Zhou Yun in utter confusion as he muttered to himself.

“Is your dad schizophrenic?” Monge couldn’t help crouching down and asking Leina beside him.

Leina gave Monge a disgusted look and quickly pulled away from him,

leaving Monge frozen in place, his whole body seeming to gray out.

Zhou Yun studied the face reflected in the mirror and nodded in satisfaction.

He turned to face the others,

and Monge and Marikit’s expressions changed instantly,

a face styled after the Mediterranean coasts of Europa, every muscle seemingly carved by the most masterful sculptor,

his eyebrows sharp as if sliced by a blade, eyes deep in their sockets filled with reason and wisdom, yet upon closer inspection, a buried fury lurked beneath,

his lips thin and pressed into a straight line like a sheath holding a razor-sharp tongue, his chin thick and heavy, exuding the authority of a ruler.

This face was not as terrifying as Zhou Yun’s earlier lion visage, yet it instinctively inspired reverence, as if facing a ruler of hundreds of worlds,

and after a few seconds of staring, Monge and Marikit quickly sensed the terrifying fury hidden beneath this face’s cold rationality.

“The Thirteenth!!!”

“Child of Vengeance!!!”

“Cursed Offspring!”

A chorus of angelic wails echoed in Monge’s mind,

the fear this face evoked felt even more horrifying than the lion visage before.

Zhou Yun seemed to notice Monge’s stunned expression,

he turned to Monge, a faintly cold smile on his lips, deliberately lowering his voice:

“Tell Old Fourteen.”

“When the Warp stirs, you and I each lead a hundred thousand Astartes—see who returns victorious, who does the shit-swim.”

“Huh?” Monge looked bewildered.

Zhou Yun, as if not yet done, paced the shed still wearing the face the angels called “Child of Vengeance,”

“Tell your angels again—tell Old Fourteen: I want to see the true commander of the Fourteenth Legion. He can step down, this company commander.”

As he spoke, Zhou Yun waved his hand with feigned authority,

muttering under his breath: “No one understands Astartes better than I do.” “Second.” “Khiriman is en route to Terra.” “Send for the stretcher team!” “Dorn, help me!”

Monge and Marikit stared, utterly baffled,

all they heard were the angels’ continuous exclamations.

Leina’s face scrunched up, yet her lips twitched, barely holding back a laugh.

The winged figure in the white light curled its wings and burst into laughter,

“If you have complaints about our Primarchs, go tell Khiriman to his face.”

“Stop laughing—next is you,” Zhou Yun brushed his golden bangs aside. “Next time I’ll mold your face and sell hand-ground chicken balls on the street.”

“Sell them on Baal—my sons need ballistic rifle targets.”

Hearing the winged figure’s words, Zhou Yun smiled, then turned to Monge and Marikit.

“Monge, come with me—we’ll infiltrate the settlement controlled by the gene-thieves and listen to what their high bishop has to say.”

As he spoke, Zhou Yun’s gaze settled on Monge,

his reason for bringing Monge along wasn’t just distrust,

the greater reason was: why should he do the dirty, exhausting, dangerous work?

He wasn’t doing it. Whenever danger loomed, he’d kick Monge into it.

“They’re desperate to expand and recruit—they’ll slip up and let us slip into Zone One,” Zhou Yun said.

He had two goals now,

one: uncover what the gene-thieves were doing,

the other: extract the Warp engine hidden in the administrative building of Zone One,

either way, he needed a way to infiltrate Zone One.

“Indeed,” Monge nodded in agreement: “Laine’s clay, capable of reshaping body and appearance, makes infiltration easy.”

“Too bad you don’t have much clay—if we had more, we could flood Zone One directly and give the Four-Armed God Emperor’s brats a real shock.”

Launch a group assault on Zone One.

Zhou Yun rubbed his chin, glanced at the plague-infected mutants outside the shed, then at his fourth-dimensional pocket—a thought struck him.

A colossal statue of the Four-Armed God Emperor loomed over the building built along the pipes,

one of the largest settlements in the Underhive, under the control of the gene-thief cult,

yet most of its residents had not truly converted to the Four-Armed God Emperor cult, nor been corrupted by the gene-thieves,

and today, the high bishop of the Four-Armed God Emperor cult would arrive here to preach to the residents,

the people had lined the roads since dawn, simply because the cult distributed food and purified water,

both extremely precious in the Underhive.

Some had seized the opportunity to set up roadside stalls selling goods,

Zhou Yun’s own stall offered roasted giant rats, boiled mushrooms, and meat jelly made from subterranean worms.

He ordered one of each, traded a few LHO cigarettes for them, then returned to where Monge and Leina sat.

Leina and Monge kept a distance wide enough for two people, clearly repulsed.

Monge’s expression seemed to crack slightly,

“I didn’t choose to become a mutant,” he said to Leina with deep resentment.

A funny bit of trivia: Angron’s crash-landed planet, Nuceria, was one of the five hundred worlds of Ultramar—meaning Khiriman’s men drugged Angron and nailed him down.

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(End of Chapter)