Chapter 7: 30k Yang Xiu?

“Wait, you know about him?” Old One-eye looked at Zhou Yun in surprise.

That look seemed to say: I’ve been waiting all this time for my chance to show off, and you just stole it?

He shook his head and said, “The Emperor teaches us humility; it seems I haven’t learned enough.”

Zhou Yun’s lips twitched slightly.

He was puzzled—where had Old One-eye learned about this man?

Ignis Kalkas, a poet of the Great Crusade era ten thousand years ago,

was one of the chroniclers dispatched by Marshal Ma to record humanity’s crusade history, assigned to the 63rd Crusade Fleet.

To chronicle the conquests of the fleet and the Astartes was a honor most poets could only dream of,

and even greater was that the fleet’s core was the Space Marine Legion known as the Shadow Wolves, later renamed the Sons of Horus.

Most glorious of all was that its commander was the Emperor’s Answer, the pinnacle of the Primarchs, the beloved Horus Lupercal.

He had just recently been granted the title of Warmaster by the Emperor, becoming the leader of the entire Great Crusade.

For a poet, what more could one ask for?

Without Erebus, perhaps it truly would have been.

Before launching the Great Betrayal against Terra, Horus nearly slaughtered every chronicler aboard the 63rd Fleet,

and Ignis Kalkas was among the first to die.

If Zhou Yun were to judge Ignis Kalkas, he’d call him the 30k version of Yang Xiu.

Ignis Kalkas possessed extraordinary insight—but the problem was, he was too perceptive.

He had three famous quotes in his life:

“The empire we’ve built will collapse in an instant! Remember my words—it’s inevitable!”

“Even the supremely gifted actress Lady Hegge could not match Erebus’s masterful performance today.”

“First Captain Abaddon, what was the silver coin you gave Erebus when you met him?”

Just from these, Zhou Yun could sense the poet’s razor-sharp insight—and his near-suicidal recklessness.

You saw it? Fine. But you had to shout it out loud.

These three statements could offend both the Loyalists and the Traitors at once.

His final remark, he even made directly to Abaddon himself,

and Abaddon, First Captain of the Sons of Horus, nearly snapped his neck on the spot.

Later, he wrote a pamphlet titled “We Have Only Truth,” condemning the Sons of Horus for hypocrisy and contempt for mortals.

This successfully drew the Warmaster’s attention—and he was fortunately assassinated by the Warmaster’s killer.

“At that time, the voices of loyalty and truth still reached our ears, but we, in our pride, closed them.”

The winged figure within Zhou Yun’s white light sighed.

“If he’d been assigned to the Blood Angels’ fleet, he’d have written ‘We Have Only Bloodlust and Ghouls’ instead,” Zhou Yun said, shrugging quietly.

Ignis Kalkas was not loyal—he wrote and spoke these things only because he believed they were truth, and because he wanted to say them.

Put him in any Legion, he’d meet no good end.

A deathly silence filled the air.

“If you became a chronicler, you might not even live as long as he did,” the winged figure inside the white light said, shuddering.

Zhou Yun glanced at the white figure inside the light, straining to play Saint Guilliman.

He remembered that on the day of the Siege of Terra, when Saint Guilliman fell, the Blood Angels had witnessed his soul devoured by the Four Gods.

That meant unless the Four Gods vomited him back up, and the Emperor painstakingly reassembled every fragment of his soul,

Saint Guilliman could not possibly still exist intact and rational in the 41st Millennium, speaking coherently with him.

A whole, undamaged Saint Guilliman might exist in the 41st Millennium—but a whole, undamaged Saint Guilliman in the 41st Millennium was impossible.

Whether he was a trick of Tzeentch, a chaos hallucination, or a psychic entity born from human worship—Zhou Yun couldn’t say.

“Anyway, he doesn’t seem like the real Archangel,” Zhou Yun muttered, shaking his head.

“What?” Old One-eye blinked, hearing Zhou Yun’s mutter.

“Nothing—what about Ignis Kalkas?” Zhou Yun waved his hand and asked.

“One of Ignis Kalkas’s notebooks might be in Old Sector Eight. Someone’s offering a high price to buy it,” Old One-eye said in a low voice.

Zhou Yun nearly laughed out loud: “Fine, Lag made me find PDF gear, and now you want me to find a notebook?”

“You want me to search an entire collapsed sector for a tiny notebook? It’s probably been reduced to dust over the past hundred years.”

“Not entirely without leads—you should know this job came from the Upper Nest.”

“The lords up top love studying such things, so the intelligence is thorough.”

Old One-eye pointed upward.

“It’s a fifty-page quarto notebook, bound in black lamb skin. Supposedly manufactured on Terra ten thousand years ago, and last seen in excellent condition.”

“It was stored in a specialized device designed to preserve ancient texts: independently powered, internally stasis-sealed, with a ceramic-steel casing—capable of stable operation for centuries.”

“Up top says its last owner was from the Corpse Guild, likely still in their branch in Old Sector Eight.”

Zhou Yun raised an eyebrow and sized up Old One-eye.

The Upper Nest? Those middle-class elites couldn’t possibly know this much, nor afford a relic manufactured on Terra ten thousand years ago.

Zhou Yun guessed this job almost certainly came from the Upper Nest’s nobility—and not just any noble.

Could Old One-eye really be connected to the Upper Nest?

Zhou Yun couldn’t help but study the bar owner again.

Many rumors swirled about this bar owner in the surrounding sector:

Some said he was a former gang legend who once led an invasion of the Upper Nest; others claimed he was a fugitive traitor hiding in this bar; some even whispered he had once been part of the PDF.

In short, the wilder the rumor, the better.

“The pay is high. I know you need money, and I believe only you can pull this off.”

Old One-eye lowered his voice:

“I won’t take much—just ten percent. After all, if it succeeds, ten percent is enough to make a fortune.”

Zhou Yun considered it. He was going there anyway; might as well investigate on the side.

He gave Old One-eye a slight nod. “Alright, I’ll look for it in the Corpse Guild.”

“Thank you. I’ll arrange a vehicle for you tomorrow.” As he spoke, Old One-eye pulled another bottle from the bar and poured it into Zhou Yun’s cup.

“This one’s on me. May you retrieve that notebook—we’ll both get rich.”

Crimson liquid bubbled softly in the cup. Zhou Yun smiled, lifted it, and drank it down in one gulp.

My daily quota’s done—I’m going to paint the King Worm!

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(End of Chapter)