In a ruined district of Fudiya City on Ashford, the capital of the Hades system.
Zhou Yun's head cautiously poked out from an arbitrary ring, his eyes scanning the desolate streets.
Fudiya City had a long history, its origins dating back to the Dark Age before the Emperor's Great Crusade. Over the centuries, many of its districts were abandoned, buried, and forgotten.
Mutants, psykers, and cultists who found no place in the Imperium would quietly slip into these hidden districts, lurking in the shadows.
Even so, scavengers like Zhou Yun still risked venturing into these dangerous zones.
After all, there might be valuable relics buried here—maybe even some ancient technological artifacts. If luck was on your side, you could strike it rich—provided you didn't lose your life in the process.
Looking around, Zhou Yun saw the twin crimson suns pouring their toxic, irradiated light through the cracked dome above, illuminating the collapsed buildings and rusted machines, revealing half-buried, thick pipes among the rubble.
Noticing the pipes, Zhou Yun raised an eyebrow slightly.
"Looks like a polonium conduit? Could this have been an old polonium plant?"
Confirming there was no immediate danger, he climbed out of the arbitrary ring, removed the golden ring from the wall, and stuffed it into the small white pouch on his stomach.
That ring, a full meter in diameter, disappeared into a pouch no bigger than his palm.
He stepped over the debris and approached a nearby section of abandoned pipe.
Half-buried in the wreckage, the steel surface was coated with a fine, scarlet rust, but the twin-headed eagle emblem and the crest of the Flax governor's family were still faintly visible.
Seeing the Imperial and governor's marks confirmed that the pipe dated to the post-Crusade era.
Judging by the corrosion, it had likely been buried for two or three centuries.
Zhou Yun gripped the pipe with both arms, pressed the white pouch to it, and the massive two-meter-high, six-meter-long conduit seemed to melt like liquid and disappeared into the pouch.
[Item Name: Polonium Transport Conduit]
[Origin: Hades Shield System – Ashford – Mechanicus Spire]
[Appraisal: Polonium is the lifeblood of the hive. This is the artery.]
[Manufactured: 705.M41]
[Condition: Heavily Damaged]
[Value: 500 credits]
"So it really is a polonium conduit. Too bad it's so damaged."
Zhou Yun shook his head. Just 500 credits—still far from enough to buy the dokodemo doa (anywhere door).
Thinking of the price of the dokodemo doa at the "Future Department Store," his stomach churned.
If he didn't scrape together the money to buy it soon, he'd end up being biomass for the Great Devourer along with Ashford.
In his previous life, Zhou Yun had been a newbie Warhammer fan from humanity's peaceful third millennium, who'd just bought the Leviathan boxed set but hadn't even opened it before waking up here.
The Imperium of Man, Hades Shield System, civilized world of Ashford.
The planet's governor, Augustus Flax, was practically the reincarnation of Wanli Emperor of Ming, practicing anarchism with remarkable dedication, letting the world descend into chaos with gangs and cults running rampant.
Yet even so, Zhou Yun was almost grateful.
Compared to a real hive world, death world, or forge world, Ashford—with its two poisonous suns—was still relatively habitable, with an average life expectancy nearing thirty years. Not bad by Macragge standards.
With enough luck, he might just eke out a short but peaceful life.
But knowing the timeline, Zhou Yun couldn't smile.
By the Four-Armed Emperor, it was already the late 990s of M41.
In the looming 999.M41, the Hive Fleet Leviathan would arrive.
Leviathan's true target was Baal, home of the Blood Angels, but the Hades system lay right in its path.
In the near future, Imperial Guard, Sisters of Battle, Blood Angels, Tyranids, even Necrons and their C'tan Pokémon would all clash here, burning the system to white ash.
If Zhou Yun didn't want to die like some unlucky grunt, he had only one choice:
The dimensional pouch on his stomach. Doraemon's dimensional pouch.
Good news: Zhou Yun crossed over with a cheat.
Bad news: this cheat wasn't free.
Just like in the anime, those miraculous, physics-breaking, even universe-creating gadgets had to be rented or bought from the Future Department Store.
He could convert recovered items into credits and use them to rent or purchase gadgets.
But the really miraculous ones—like the phone booth, time machine, tomorrow notebook, devil passport—were astronomically expensive.
So Zhou Yun set his sights on something cheaper, just enough to help him escape: the dokodemo doa (anywhere door).
[Item Name: Dokodemo Doa (Anywhere Door)]
[Origin: 22nd Century Earth – Future Department Store]
[Appraisal: The original and most famous secret gadget. Please don't use it to peek on girls bathing.]
[Manufactured: 231.M3]
[Function: While holding the handle and thinking of the destination, the door links the two locations. Opening it allows the user to cross instantly.]
[Value: 11,650,000 credits]
Eleven million six hundred fifty thousand. Zhou Yun would need to recover tens of thousands of polonium conduits to afford it.
Currently he had just over fifty thousand credits. Still a long way to go.
The road of scavenging was endless. Zhou Yun sighed silently.
Shaking his head, he kept sifting through the rubble for scrap machinery.
He converted only the large, valuable ones into pouch credits. The smaller ones he'd carry back to sell in the hive.
After all, the threats he faced weren't just Tyranids, mutants in the sewers, gangs in the city. There was also the ever-present hunger and poverty.
And, of course, the ever-looming Chaos.
In his previous life, Zhou Yun had been a Tyranid fanboy, his only armies being Tyranids and World Eaters.
Mainly because World Eaters were cheap to field—just one Christmas box and a patrol box and you were in. His wallet had voted for Chaos.
Because of that, Zhou Yun couldn't say he had much faith in the Emperor, nor much resistance to Chaos corruption.
Sometimes he even suspected he might already be corrupted.
"Friend, there is danger ahead."
A sublime, warm, divine voice sounded in his mind.
It was so moving that Zhou Yun couldn't help but feel trust.
A soft white light appeared before him, and in its depths was a vague figure with wings.
"Please believe me. I, in the name of Saint Gilles, Lord of Baal, promise you: there is danger ahead."
The wings behind the figure slowly spread, pure white feathers drifting down. That divine voice, full of grace, echoed from the soft white glow—complete with full warp special effects.
"…"
Seeing the obvious warp apparition appearing before him yet again, Zhou Yun took a deep breath.
"…"
The divine figure in the light also paused for a moment: "I really am Saint Gilles."
"Then I'm Roboute, Lord of Ultramar."
(End of Chapter)
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