Curze only watched.
Crime was everywhere. It happened among the scavengers, fighting for food, for filters, for a sip of water that wasn't quite as filthy, simply to survive until "tomorrow."
Many had died along the way, men and women alike.
Curze hadn't saved a single one of them.
"They're numb already. You can't save them," Caelan had said.
Curze thought he was right. In the Underhive, everyone was both victim and criminal at the same time.
He could save them once, but not for a lifetime. He could save one person, maybe a hundred, but he couldn't save everyone.
Because the root of crime wasn't here.
Gurgle
Philly's stomach growled loudly, and so did Curze's.
They had walked too long, and they were starving. They needed food, and they needed rest.
Caelan scanned their surroundings, searching for a target.
"I'm a hypocrite," Caelan said. "Right now, I have to kill someone. But I don't want to kill just anyone. I'm looking for someone I can kill without feeling guilty."
Curze shook his head. "You don't need to. I can kill."
"It's the same thing," Caelan smirked. "There's this idea called cause and effect. I don't believe in it, but it's useful for explaining things. Even if you do the killing, it's still me killing."
Philly was too young to understand such logic. She only knew that Caelan was going to kill someone, for food.
That wasn't unusual. In the Underhive, people died every day.
She had killed too, once, the man who tried to strangle her mother, and another time, someone who tried to steal their food.
In the Underhive, if you didn't kill, you couldn't live.
"Run, faster!"
A man's desperate scream cut through the dark, but a gunshot rang out and slammed into his shoulder. He collapsed, shrieking in pain.
"Run! Why don't you keep running? Let's see how long you bastards can last!"
"Damn vermin, wasted one of my bullets."
"Grab that little bastard, don't let it get away!"
The gang members cursed as they caught up with the man and plunged a blade into his chest, ending his life.
"It's the Bloodclaw Gang," Philly whispered, shrinking back in fear.
"See? Just what I was waiting for."
Caelan chuckled, not rushing to strike. Instead, he watched the person the dying man had been protecting.
A boy. His hands were hidden deep inside oversized sleeves, trailing behind him as he ran, his posture strangely like a ninja.
Curze asked, "Want me to kill them?"
"Go on. Just don't get shot, it hurts." Caelan handed him a shard.
Curze nodded and melted into the shadows.
The men ran right past him, oblivious.
Curze didn't strike immediately. He waited for the man with the gun. As he passed, Curze leapt onto his back and slit his throat with the shard.
Curze was fast, as always. He picked up the gun and stuffed it into his clothes, then tore through the rest of the gang before they could react, cutting them down without hesitation.
The boy kept running. He didn't stop, not even at the sudden slaughter.
But when he passed Caelan, Caelan kicked him back.
"Go bury your dad."
The boy staggered, glanced fearfully at Caelan, then turned back to the corpses. His eyes widened, every gang enforcer lay in pools of blood, while another boy about his own age looted their bodies.
"He wasn't my father," the boy whispered. "He was my brother."
He knelt beside the corpse, placing his hands gently under him.
But where could he take it?
The dead were meant to be eaten. But he couldn't bring himself to eat his brother.
The boy collapsed on the body and shut his eyes.
"What are you waiting for?" Caelan asked.
"Death," the boy answered. "I won't eat my brother."
"No one asked you to. Get up."
Caelan kicked him aside and offered him a choice.
"Do you want to leave your brother's body whole, so rats and worms can feast on him? Or no body at all, so nothing can?"
The boy hesitated. "I don't want him eaten."
Caelan nodded; he respected the choice of the orphan.
He clenched his hand, psychic light surging into the corpse. Frost spread over the ground, and after a short delay, the man's body burst apart from within, crumbling to dust.
"Is this edible?" Curze held out a bundle of sticks to Caelan.
"Corpse starch. Edible." Caelan recognized it instantly, his diet for five years. It wasn't good, but it was better than Philly's thin gruel.
Curze nodded, tore off a piece, tossed one to Philly, and began chewing the rest.
Philly caught the starch bar, stunned. She had never eaten anything so luxurious.
Even the Bloodclaw Gang didn't get this every day. It was food for the nobles above.
"So sweet," Philly murmured, nibbling happily.
Caelan frowned, snatched her bar, and bit into the untouched end.
'Bland. The usual corpse starch taste.' He handed it back.
If corpse starch tasted sweet, it meant heavy metal contamination. Fortunately, it was only her ruined sense of taste.
Curze didn't matter. A primarch could eat heavy metals like vitamins.
"Let's move."
Caelan beckoned Curze and Philly onward.
The boy lingered, staring at the dust that had once been his brother.
Then, after a long hesitation, he followed.
Not long after they left, scavengers crept from the shadows and swarmed the bodies.
"Such a waste, didn't even keep the corpses. Gang meat is the best. Sweet and tender."
"Don't take that, I saw it first!"
"Mine! I'll kill you for it!"
"Hurry up and kill him, we're starving!"
…
"He's been following us the whole time," Curze said.
"That mutant brat?" Caelan replied. "Ignore him. If he wants to tag along, let him."
"Mutant?" Philly's voice trembled.
Curze explained: "He doesn't have hands. Under his sleeves, he's got tentacles. That's why they droop like that. It's obvious."
"Aren't mutants scary?" Philly asked nervously.
Curze didn't care. Caelan chuckled. "Scarier than human nature? Besides, do you think they chose to be mutants?"
Some Chaos cultists did, but most were just born from genetic corruption.
And the reason so many mutants plagued humanity… was thanks to the fallout of the Dark Age of Technology.