At the end of the Grey Zone was a structural skybridge.
Or rather, half of one.
The middle section of the bridge had collapsed, leaving a gap at least fifteen meters wide.
Below was a bottomless industrial wastewater pool, with plumes of green toxic steam rising up, making one’s eyes sting.
Across the gap was the abandoned industrial area of the bottom level; once they crossed, they would be safe.
Karen peered over the edge of the break and pulled back.
“I can’t jump across.
You can, but I can’t.” As he was racking his brain for a solution, a voice came from behind.
Very close.
“In the name of the Emperor.” Karen felt a cold sensation at the back of his head.
The muzzle of a Hellpistol was less than twenty centimeters from his skull.
“Xenos and their accomplices are to be executed on the spot.” An Inquisition agent.
He had snuck up behind them without them noticing.
Karen’s blood ran cold.
The instant before the gun fired— Horus moved.
He didn’t go for the agent.
His right fist smashed into the bridge’s load-bearing pillar.
The 1.2-meter diameter reinforced concrete pillar snapped in the middle, its upper half falling backward.
A chain reaction followed—three floors, drainage pipes, and ventilation ducts all came crashing down.
The sky was falling.
Literally.
An avalanche of rubble, rebar, and pipe fragments slammed down, creating a three-meter-thick wall of debris between them and the agent.
The gunshot was buried on the other side of the collapse, the bullet striking the pile of rubble.
Karen was knocked over by the shockwave.
He scrambled up, covered in dust, and watched the expanding collapse, his mouth twitching.
“You tore the place down!
You’re even more conspicuous than the Inquisition!” Horus brushed the concrete dust off his fist, his tone excessively calm: “I’m just not used to running away yet.” He bent down and hoisted Karen up by the back of his collar.
Before Karen could shout, “What are you doing?”, he was already tucked under the Primarch’s arm.
Horus took three steps back, did a short run-up, and leapt.
A fifteen-meter gap, toxic steam rushing at them.
When they landed, the ground on the other side of the bridge was smashed into a half-meter-deep crater.
Karen’s internal organs felt like they were about to fly out of his mouth from the impact.
“Put me down!!” Horus set him on the ground.
Karen leaned on his knees and gagged twice, then stood up and bolted.
“Don’t just stand there!
That agent isn’t dead; he’ll call for backup!” They ran for another fifteen minutes, passing through three abandoned blast doors, before finally entering a derelict Mechanicus Shrine.
The lead walls were half a meter thick, their surfaces engraved with the faded cog emblem of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
A scrapped forge sat in the corner, surrounded by rusted robotic arm parts and shriveled holy oil bottles.
Overhead was a single palm-sized vent, through which the low-frequency drone of a distant circulation system drifted.
The walls could block psionic scanning.
This was one of the few safe houses Karen had mapped out during his three months of scavenging.
Karen collapsed on the ground and pulled up his system panel.
Points: 91,900.
Psionic tracking signal status: Target lost.
He closed his eyes and let out a long breath.
Horus sat down against the scrapped forge.
The iron casing still held a trace of residual warmth against his bare back.
A period of silence followed.
“Your judgment far exceeds that of an ordinary mortal.” Horus spoke, his tone devoid of mere politeness.
“That jamming beacon—if you had thrown it three seconds later, we would have been surrounded.” “You survive by staying low, not by fighting.” Karen waved a hand.
“You’ll understand eventually.” Horus didn’t respond.
But his gaze shifted from Karen’s face to the melta pistol tucked into his waist.
Yesterday it was the repair fluid.
Then the projector.
The stealth cloak.
Today, there was the Psionic Jamming Beacon and the pistol.
All appeared out of thin air.
The Primarch’s mind was operating at high speed.
The timing of each item’s appearance, Karen’s hand movements at the time, the brief loss of focus in his eyes—all details were categorized, archived, and cross-referenced.
Some kind of external supply system.
Non-psionic in origin.
Trigger conditions related to Karen’s conscious activity.
Horus didn’t ask.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to.
The timing was wrong.
This mortal had saved his life and had even rushed to grab his arm and call him a coward when he wanted to commit suicide.
Trust takes time.
And vice versa.
The Wolf Shepherd God closed his eyes, pressing all his questions into the deepest filing cabinet of his memory palace.
Locked it.
But he didn’t throw away the key.
Karen leaned against the wall, staring blankly at the palm-sized vent in the ceiling.
The Inquisition agent wasn’t dead.
That guy would definitely report it—’Suspected post-human biological entity.’ Those few words would be enough for the Ordo Xenos to crank the search level to the maximum.
Next time, it wouldn’t just be a few vanguard agents.
It would be the Inquisitor himself.
Running alone wouldn’t last long.
He needed to get Horus an identity.
Or find a place where even the Inquisition wouldn’t dare reach out on a whim.
Was there such a place on this planet?
Yes.
The black market.
That lawless land where even the Planetary Governor turned a blind eye.
Karen rolled over and wrapped his cloak tighter.
“Going to the black market tomorrow,” he muttered.
“Black market?” “Yeah.
If we don’t solve your identity problem, we’re just meat on a chopping block.
We can’t spend every day being chased around.” Horus didn’t answer.
After a while, Karen heard a soft chuckle.
“The way of staying low.” The Wolf Shepherd God repeated the phrase.
“That’s a novel way of putting it.” “That’s because you used to lead an army of a hundred thousand and steamroll everything.
You’ve never experienced the ‘poor man’s’ playstyle.” “Are you questioning my credentials?” A rare hint of ease entered Horus’s deep voice.
“Before Father found me, I was just a street thug on my homeworld, Cthonia.”