Alexander used his psychic power to move the two gang members, who had knocked themselves unconscious head-to-head, to a corner behind the pipe.
He hadn't expected to run into two patrolling gang members right after crawling down.
Thinking back on his luck since entering that abandoned urban area, it hadn't been good.
First, he ran into the Genestealer Cult, then he was forced to drink so much he had a splitting headache, then he rode a shaky train, then he encountered two hooded men suspected of being cultists, and now, having just entered the Old Eighth District, he had bumped into two gang members.
Alexander couldn't help but wonder if he was cursed.
Maybe he should find someone to do an Emperor's Tarot reading for him.
"Why don't you let me do the divination for you?" said the winged figure in the white light.
"No, thanks. I don't trust you," Alexander shook his head and replied.
However, the winged figure in the white light shook its feathers, and a burst of pure white light appeared before Alexander, materializing into a stack of thin cards.
These cards bore various different divine and exotic patterns, each seemingly possessing a unique symbolic meaning.
"Draw one."
"Isn't this still the Emperor's Tarot?" Alexander couldn't resist complaining.
The Emperor's Tarot was rumored to be a method of divination designed by the Emperor Himself, linked to the Emperor's thoughts.
Although he couldn't exactly explain why the Emperor would involve Himself in such street-level superstition, the Emperor's Tarot was indeed one of the few reliable and relatively low-risk divination methods in the Galaxy.
Space Marines, the Inquisition, and even the Ecclesiarchy used the Emperor's Tarot for divination, though their methods were far more sophisticated.
Unlike how most Hive City residents simply draw a few cards from a stack of crude paper cards.
"Draw one and try," said the winged figure in the white light.
But Alexander shook his head firmly. Even if it was the Emperor's Tarot, he didn't want this warp entity in front of him to divine his future.
"It doesn't matter, I can draw one myself," the winged figure in the white light was not annoyed.
It drew a card on its own and showed it to Alexander.
"Hmm?"
It was a Major Arcana card, numbered 14, depicting an angel holding two small crucibles. The angel was pouring the liquid from the crucible in its left hand into the one in its right hand.
But what made Alexander frown was that the angel on this Major Arcana card did not have pure white wings but a pair of rotting, scaled wings.
"The upright position of this card foretells patience, and the reversed position is communication... A cooperation requiring patience and communication will bring you success."
The winged figure in the white light whispered,
"And it secretly indicates that the object of your cooperation is guided by some higher-level entity."
"Fourteen, which is two sevens," Alexander mumbled.
Seven, the sacred number of Nurgle, plus the crucibles and scaled wings—this was no longer a metaphor; it was a clear sign.
Alexander felt his scalp tingle. He felt more and more certain that bad luck was coming for him.
Suddenly, footsteps echoed in Alexander's ears.
He instinctively turned his head to look in the direction the sound came from.
Around the corner of the pipe section, two figures draped in brown hooded cloaks emerged.
Mont was deeply frustrated.
To prevent the future displayed by the 'Angel' from coming true,
He and his brother risked danger to climb up from the Underhive and infiltrate this abandoned Old Eighth District, searching for the location of the relic that could open the gate.
However, the PDF outpost, which likely contained the relic's location, was buried under collapsed rubble.
This made Mont anxious.
Unlike Mont's anxiety, his elder brother, Marquite, still maintained the patience taught by the 'Angel.'
Perhaps that was why he was more blessed. Marquite decided to temporarily avoid the patrolling gang members.
He planned to use the corrosive digestive fluid granted by the 'Angel' to erode a passage into the PDF outpost from above.
But this might take several days to complete, and Mont could not accept it.
Even though the Governor barely managed the Lower Hive anymore, people like them were still unwelcome.
Dragging it out for too long would invite unnecessary trouble.
"Don't you understand? Our time is precious."
"We are unwelcome up here; someone might find us at the next corner and do something to us—hmm?"
Mont said to his brother, Marquite, as they walked past a corner of the pipe section.
However, before he could finish his sentence, Mont felt a gaze fixated upon them.
He quickly turned his head and saw a man standing next to the pipe, looking at them.
The man was wearing a ridiculous toy hat, but after seeing the man's face, Mont couldn't laugh.
The deep-set face beneath the hat, that face with lion-like golden hair and beard, cold as frost.
Mont instinctively felt fear.
The moment he was stared at by those eyes set in that deep-set face, the deformed heart in his chest almost stopped beating.
He seemed to see a most profound and darkest, cold forest in those eyes.
That forest was filled with shadows and corrupted beasts, where countless dark, forbidden, unspeakable things crawled.
And this man before him seemed to have lived in this pitch-black forest, separated from the human world, since the day he was born, hunting those blasphemous beasts.
The man frowned upon seeing Mont and his brother.
In an instant, Mont thought he saw a lion, dormant in the darkness, waiting to hunt the two brothers as its prey.
Mont vaguely heard the 'Angel's' panicked shriek.
Unlike his brother, he couldn't clearly hear the 'Angel's' guidance.
He could only hear fragmented, less clear voices,
But he could feel that the 'Angel's' exclamation was filled with fear and disbelief,
The 'Angel' was shrieking fragmented short phrases,
"The Lion!"
"The First!"
"Impossible—"
"The resemblance! It's so similar!"
"It's not him!! The physique is wrong!"
The 'Angel' was terrified by that face! Just a face was enough to throw the 'Angel' into a panic.
Mont glanced at his brother,
And found that he seemed to be frozen in place because of the 'Angel's' exclamation.
Mont realized the danger.
He quickly reached for his waist, drew the dagger covered with scarlet rust, and cut a wound on his wrist.
Corrosive and toxic blood stained the dagger.
Mont, holding the blood-stained dagger, lunged at the stern-faced man without hesitation.
"Mont! Stop!" his brother's cry came from behind.
But Mont's eyes were only on the lion-like man in the ridiculous hat.
The finger on that ridiculous hat suddenly pointed at him.