Dark, viscous sewage spread between the pipes, occasionally bubbling up and emitting a foul odor.
The boatman used a pole to propel his swaying ferry, heading towards the Bottom Nest.
He had recently heard that there had been a lot of trouble in the Bottom Nest.
It was said that mutants, along with a group of living corpses, had invaded the First District, which was occupied by the Four-Armed God-Emperor Cult.
In the end, both leaders of the mutants died there, and the leader of the Four-Armed God-Emperor Cult also died.
The entire Bottom Nest was thrown into chaos.
The mutants were leaderless and completely disorganized, like a pot of porridge; it was said that many of them had also died mysteriously.
However, the followers of the Four-Armed God-Emperor Cult quickly reassembled, and it was rumored that a new leader had emerged among them.
Of course, none of this concerned the boatman.
His duty was merely to ferry people between the Bottom Nest and the Lower Nest, transporting Lower Nest residents to the Bottom Nest and picking up those who wished to sneak from the Bottom Nest into the Lower Nest.
Few people knew the routes between the Lower Nest and the Bottom Nest well enough to navigate these complex paths safely.
Anyone who dared to kill the boatman would risk getting lost in the labyrinthine pipes.
Hidden within these pipes were all sorts of terrifying things accumulated over tens of thousands of years, making them extremely dangerous.
The boatman swayed his boat, slowly heading towards an entrance to the Bottom Nest.
According to the agreement, he would come once daily for the next few days, waiting to pick up two people.
This was a commission from One-Eye of the Lower Nest, to pick up the same two people he had dropped off last time.
This made the boatman feel a bit strange; how long had that man and woman been in the Bottom Nest before they wanted to leave?
Just as he was thinking, the boatman saw a hooded figure standing by the sewage riverbank not far away.
The figure was tall and thin, hidden in the shadows between the pipes, as if waiting for the boatman.
The boatman placed his hand on the automatic pistol under his robe.
The gun was a top-grade Upper hive product, which he had obtained through One-Eye's connections at great expense.
The tall, thin figure took a step forward, its body emerging from behind the pipes.
The boatman didn't hesitate, drawing the gun from his waist and firing a volley of shots.
However, the figure's speed was eerily fast, and it managed to dodge the bullets alive.
To the boatman's astonishment, the figure jumped directly onto the bow of the boat.
The small boat swayed silently on the sewage river.
The boatman clearly saw the face under the figure's hood.
Its face had some strange bony protrusions, and various bizarre mechanical implants were embedded where its eyes should be.
Its bony hands held no firearm; instead, it held a strange dagger.
The dagger was an eerie dark green, and it seemed to gently squirm as if alive.
The boatman raised the automatic rifle in his hand and pulled the trigger again.
However...
The man swung the dagger in his hand with unimaginable speed, precisely blocking every bullet.
To be precise, the squirming, living dagger bit every bullet.
Bullets dropped one by one from the dagger, clattering onto the boat's deck with a crisp sound, like radiation raindrops in the hive city suburbs.
"Tell me."
The man opened his mouth under the hood, and a deep, chilling voice emerged, sending shivers down the boatman's spine.
"Tell me, who has come here with you recently?"
"Who introduced them?"
The man's voice seemed to come from the deepest darkness of the Bottom Nest.
But the boatman keenly noticed that it was less like the man was speaking and more like someone was speaking through the man's mouth.
The boatman gave two dry laughs, his voice echoing through the empty pipes:
"If I exposed my passengers' identities, I wouldn't have been a boatman for this long."
"If you want revenge, you'll have to find another way."
The boatman subtly retreated to the side of the boat.
If the person opposite made any move, he would not hesitate to jump into the sewage and escape into the complex pipe system along the river.
The boatman was confident that, with his familiarity with the pipes, he could shake off this mysterious man in black—
"Ya-hoo..."
The boatman heard a low growl, like that of a beast.
He trembled, uncontrollably looking up.
A giant beast with four sharp claws, nearly six meters long, and a massive triangular head was perched on the pipe above, staring at the boatman.
"Hellworm..."
The boatman murmured.
Then, he only felt his head being forcibly pulled out, and all his memories were displayed before the eyes of this giant beast.
Alexander passed through the severed seven-layer railing, silently and stealthily entering the pipe filled with murky sewage.
He carried Joan, who was still asleep, with one hand.
Her body only had some burns, and Sanguinius had sworn that she was fine.
Even during the few times Joan had briefly woken up, she said she was fine, just needed sleep.
It seemed Joan didn't even need to eat while sleeping.
Alexander could only carry her while secretly hunting genestealer, arriving at this pipe.
However, there was no sign of the ferry inside the pipe.
"Not here yet?" Alexander thought, hiding in the dark of the pipe and looking around.
"..Look to the right of the sewage river, by the broken rocks," the voice of Sanguinius suddenly sounded.
Alexander calmly looked at the location indicated by Sanguinius.
His eyes moved slightly, and the Superpower Hat on his head pointed in that direction.
A body was dragged out of the sewage by him.
Alexander subtly drew a cold breath; it was the boatman's corpse.
He was swollen all over, having been in the sewage for an unknown amount of time.
But even so, his eyes were still wide open, filled with terror.
"His brain has residual psychic traces; someone psychically searched his brain's memories," Sanguinius said in a hushed voice.
Alexander couldn't help but frown.
This boatman didn't know his identity, but he had contact with One-Eye.
If it was the genestealer Cult... no, it must have been the genestealer Cult that searched the boatman's memories.
They must have already discovered One-Eye's existence and were following the trail.
Their target could obviously only be Alexander; they wanted to extract Alexander's identity from One-Eye's mouth.
Even if they couldn't get it out, they could simply search One-Eye's memories psychically.
No wonder... no wonder they hardly stationed anyone to stake out Alexander in the Bottom Nest and the pipes.
In these places, they might not be able to handle a prepared Alexander.
The genestealer patriarch had already witnessed Alexander's abilities.
It knew that small-scale attacks posed no threat to Alexander, and large-scale encirclements would allow Alexander to escape.
Unless it acted personally, the threat to Alexander was not significant, and it was extremely cautious, unwilling to take such risks.
They wanted to find Alexander's identity and deal with him through endless assassinations.
Alexander couldn't remain vigilant forever, nor did he have the energy to constantly deal with assassinations.
Alexander looked at the deep pipe in front of him.
He had to go back quickly to prevent the genestealer from capturing One-Eye.
But now, a very awkward problem lay before Alexander.
That was...
"How do I navigate this damn road?"
Alexander's eyes twitched as he looked at the complex sewage pipes.
These pipes were the result of the hive city's chaotic expansion over tens of thousands of years, making them complex and confusing.
Except for a few individuals—like the now-dead boatman—no one knew how to navigate these pipes.
If Joan were conscious now, Alexander could still use her precognitive abilities to find his way.
Alexander could only turn his gaze to the four-dimensional pocket on his stomach.
Indeed, he still had to rely on tools...
The Seeker's Staff? Although this item was cheap, it could only point in a general direction, and its accuracy was only 70%; with so many turns in the pipes, the success rate after using it twice in a row would drop to only 49%.
The Pathfinder Angel? This item could theoretically choose the "correct path," but it had its own ideas about what constituted a "correct path," and once worn, it couldn't be removed, and it would even hit the wearer.
Alexander continuously searched through the Future Department Store's extensive catalog.
Suddenly, Alexander saw an item.
"This is it!"
The lights of the Lower Nest had almost extinguished, signaling that night had fallen.
Now, the workers of the hive city were either resting or on night shift.
One-Eye's Spear Tavern had also become quiet.
He stood behind the counter, wiping the glasses that customers had used today.
Most taverns in the Lower Nest didn't wash glasses daily, as the workers there didn't particularly care about such things.
But One-Eye had come down from the governor's Palace in the Upper hive, and even after living in the Lower Nest for so long, some old habits remained.
Paying attention to hygiene was meaningful, at least it could prevent the spread of disease.
And when wiping glasses, One-Eye could momentarily forget the fears that constantly plagued his mind.
He enjoyed the tranquility of wiping glasses...
"Brother One-Eye, another round!"
If it weren't for this bastard sprawled on the counter...
One-Eye's eyes twitched as he looked at Lager, who was slumped on the counter.
"I heard Alexander say you were thrown to do hard labor by the Ark Gang leader?"
One-Eye picked up a bottle, poured Lager a drink, pushed it to him, and asked:
"Did you sneak out?"
"Sigh, you don't know how tiring that hard labor was."
Lager's face wrinkled into a bitter expression as he said:
"Moving all sorts of messy steel, no idea what they're building."
"Lager here can't handle it; I was afraid of dying in there, so I snuck out."
"Even if you don't die from exhaustion, you'll die from drinking sooner or later."
One-Eye glanced at the crimson liquor Lager was chugging and said:
"Learn from Alexander, drink less normally."
"He drinks less? He can't drink at all, my friend Alexander has no alcohol tolerance," Lager said, shaking his glass.
He grinned: "Don't worry, Brother One-Eye, I absolutely won't die before I drink amasec."
Listening to Lager's words, One-Eye shook his head.
Amasec was the Imperium's term for a large category of alcoholic beverages; amasec from different worlds had different recipes, but all were distilled and fermented from local grains, and it was quite popular among the Astra Militarum.
But for a planet like Ashford, which couldn't produce its own food, a bottle of amasec from an agricultural world was a luxury that Lower Nest dwellers dared not dream of; Lager would probably never even have a small cup in his lifetime.
Click—
Just then, the tavern's bonded wooden door was suddenly pushed open.
A cold wind from the night blew in from outside, sweeping through the entire tavern.
The glasses on the counter rattled as the cold wind passed.
One-Eye put down the rag and glass in his hand and looked at the person who had entered.
The person wore a black robe, with a slender body but unusually strong muscles.
The face appeared female, but there were various strange mechanical implants where the eyes should be.
Faintly, one could also see some peculiar bony protrusions on her forehead.
"We're closed," One-Eye said in a deep voice.
"Oh really? I see there's still a customer here," the woman said, her voice so deep it seemed to come from the most sinister darkness of the hive city.
"That's my grandson," One-Eye said calmly, pointing to Lager: "Eight years old this year."
"Huh?" Lager pointed at his own old, ugly face with a bewildered expression: "I'm eight?"
"Eight years old?" The woman seemed amused by One-Eye: "Uncle Lardben, you're still so fond of jokes."
One-Eye's body stiffened slightly.
Lardben was One-Eye's real name, a name that, apart from the governor and a few others, had long been unknown to anyone.
No, one other person knew.
"Lager, get out," One-Eye said, tapping the table.
"Huh? My drink isn't..." Lager raised his glass and turned to look at the person behind him.
Then Lager couldn't help but shiver, seemingly sensing that the person standing behind him was very dangerous.
Lager chugged the drink in his glass, quickly walked past the woman in black, and slipped out of the tavern.
As soon as he was out of the tavern, Lager looked around and ran in the direction of the Ark Gang's stronghold.
"Uncle Lardben."
The woman leisurely sat opposite One-Eye, one hand holding a bio-dagger, the other propping up her chin, observing the tavern with interest:
"Did my good brother Augustus give you this? As a reward for your betrayal of me and the murder of my parents?"
"The Tiberius I remember wasn't a woman."
One-Eye stared intently at the woman in front of him, his hand subtly moving beneath the counter:
"You should be an ugly, disgusting six-limbed insect, Hellworm!"
One-Eye had recognized the identity of the person before him.
governor Augustus Flax's brother, the Hellworm Tiberius Flax.
The genestealer patriarch. It was now controlling this woman's body.
Listening to One-Eye's words, the woman laughed instead of getting angry: "Is this still my timid Uncle Lardben?"
"I still recall our old friendship; if you hadn't been afraid back then, I might have died in the governor's Palace long ago."
"..Now, tell me, who was the person who went to the Bottom Nest with you? I'll let you continue running this tavern."
One-Eye sighed, looking at the woman's mechanical eyes, his gaze seemingly staring directly at the genestealer patriarch behind the woman.
"The Emperor taught us many things, but the two most precious are..."
"..The first is loyalty, loyalty to the Emperor, and loyalty to friends."
One-Eye's hand, hidden under the counter, suddenly rose, a Catachan-pattern M36 Lasgun held firmly in his grasp:
"The second is hatred! Hatred for xenos!!!"