The gang members poised to answer stood bewildered, save for one man with a soot-streaked face who raised his cybernetic hands high.
"Boss, I know. In the underhive, there's a foundry once overseen by tech-priests serving Mars."
"Around the foundry's perimeter grows a deadly organic barbed wire. It's unbelievably resilient, impossible to cut even with a blade. Even tossing a grenade beside it, the thing regenerates after the blast."
"Its piercing thorns can puncture armor, inflicting deep, bone-exposing wounds, and it secretes an acidic sap that can corrode a trapped person into a skeleton within minutes."
He gripped his ladle and bowl nervously. "Boss, that's everything I know."
"Your information is valuable. You've earned two ladles of soup. Start serving yourself."
Hearing Nimrod's words, the soot-faced man hurried to the cauldron, scooped two ladles, and clutched his yellowish-green aluminum bowl tightly. As he stepped aside to savor it, he heard the boss's voice again.
"You seem well-acquainted with that foundry. Can you provide more details about it?"
"Boss, my name's Rorslev. I used to work at that foundry, numbered D-46, as a foreman for a smelting crew."
"Before the tech-priests abandoned the foundry and relocated to the upper hive, life was tough but manageable."
"Ever since 'Vulture' of the 'Scavenger Gang' took control, he's been true to his name, squeezing every soul to their breaking point…"
After questioning Rorslev about D-46's situation, Nimrod resolved to seize this weapons foundry.
In the underhive, Foundry D-46 blazed with light.
"Vulture" lounged in his chair, smirking at the foreman groveling before him.
"Lord Vulture, they're just kids. If they keep working like this, they'll die."
"I'll work three extra hours a day. I'm much faster than them."
"Is that so? Then you'll do four extra hours," Vulture sneered. "As for them, they keep working."
Vulture didn't notice a fleeting image on the vid-screen behind him—a figure charging at breakneck speed.
A two-meter-wide rubber tire slammed into a barbed wire mesh bristling with countless thorns.
Nimrod slipped through the hollowed-out tire's center, his right hand slashing with the silver-gray fragment, precisely severing the wire at the midpoint between two thorns.
"Intruder!"
Two "Scavenger Gang" members armed with lasguns, patrolling nearby, heard the noise and rushed over.
Nimrod tucked the fragment into his waistband. His gloved hands gripped both ends of a Wire Grass stalk, its acidic sap instantly corroding a hole in the glove.
The Primarch immediately sensed the small breach in his palm. He flexed his hand, angling it so the hollow grip aligned with the hole.
He charged forward swiftly, flinging the Wire Grass at the approaching duo.
The thorns pierced the backs of their gun-wielding hands. They screamed in agony as the sap corroded their flesh to bone within moments.
Nimrod retrieved a fallen lasgun and scavenged twelve energy cells from the corpses.
He fired a shot into the air—a signal to his men—then sprinted toward the control room.
Vulture watched screen after screen as his useless underlings were cut down by the boy.
"Useless! You're all useless!"
Vulture surged to his feet, seizing his chainsword. Its roar filled the air, and the chant of "kill, kill, kill" echoed in his ears once more.
Vulture strode out of the control room, vaulting over the railing to cleave at the boy.
His pupils blazed blood-red, as if reliving the day he slaughtered his gang's leader and seven guards, his eyes aglow with the same crimson.
After that, he'd grown taller, stronger.
He didn't understand what had happened, only that killing made him stronger.
Nimrod had just shot a gang member dead when he sensed an enemy descending from above.
Rolling backward, he squeezed the trigger, striking Vulture square in the chest.
A fist-sized bloodied crater opened in Vulture's chest, yet he felt nothing, driven forward by the voice in his mind.
Nimrod's expression remained calm. He fired rapidly, beams piercing Vulture's eyes, heart, hands, and ankles, blood blooming like scarlet flowers.
Vulture's corpse crashed heavily onto the metal walkway, blood soaking the humming chainsword.
Nimrod slung the lasgun across his body and picked up the chainsword, sensing something peculiar about the weapon.
Rorslev, newly appointed as a lieutenant, stormed into the foundry just in time to witness his boss fire multiple shots, felling Vulture, and stood in awe.
The "Scavenger Gang" wasn't a major player in the underhive, but Vulture was infamous for his ferocity and ruthlessness. To be killed without even closing the distance was staggering.
[The boss is just a kid, yet so formidable. He's destined to be a big shot in the hive. Following him's the way to go!]
Rorslev, seized by the thought, shouted to his men.
"What are you gawking at? Want to scrape the vat's dregs? Move it! Secure the workers, capture 'Scavenger Gang' prisoners. Kill any who resist."
Two hours later, Nimrod sat in the control room, the foundry back in operation. Besides the workers, he commanded five hundred and thirteen men.
Nimrod had changed into a clean worker's uniform, the oversized lasgun and chainsword slung diagonally across his back.
The foundry's cooks prepared a meal of rock-hard black bread and beet soup boiled with a few vegetable scraps—the best fare the foundry could muster.
Nimrod devoured ten slices of black bread, his superhuman body unfazed, and downed a large bowl of soup before feeling sated.
He glanced at the door, then heard a knock.
"Enter."
"Boss, Foundry D-46 is back to normal production."
Rorslev pushed the door open, his face tinged with worry, but he began with the good news.
"Boss, Foundry D-46 falls under the Khantemansi Dome, overseen by Arbites Dimitrov. He's summoned you."
Nimrod knew the underhive was composed of domes, structures built by the planet's first colonists.
As the hive grew, these domes were gradually abandoned.
To hive citizens, underhive dwellers were barely above the giant rats and other vermin infesting the region. They lived in domes, tunnels, and ruins, forming a honeycomb-like underground city of clustered structures.
"Arbites?"
Nimrod's first thought was of the "Arbiter" Sequence 9, adjacent to the "Lawyer" Pathway, but Vostonia's Arbites clearly held a different meaning.
After inquiring, Nimrod learned that the so-called Arbites were akin to enforcers under planetary governors in hive worlds, overseeing domes and adjudicating local affairs.
Someone who fled the foundry had reported Nimrod's rout of the "Scavenger Gang" and seizure of the facility to Dimitrov.
"Boss, Vulture's reputation was vile. I reckon Dimitrov's curious about you, especially since you're so young."
"Given the Arbites' style, he'll likely give you a warning. I hear he loves using his big dog to intimidate people."
"Chemical Dog?"
Nimrod's interest piqued instantly.
"Yes, Boss, you know that vicious mutt too?"