Noah, accompanied by his mechanical bodyguards, descended slowly into the Lower Hive.
The environment immediately appalled him. This city was profoundly anti-human, an absurdity that defied every tenet of the Federation.
Noah was already determined to destroy it; if he confirmed the local rulers were not human-led, he would personally unleash the Federation's wrath, ready to level the "garbage" with his civilian legion or even a lance strike from a battleship stored in his personal pocket dimension.
As he walked, he constantly used his soul detector. The consistent result was astonishing: every individual was unequivocally human.
This only deepened his confusion and revulsion. Why would humans endure such wretched conditions? He realized these conditions explained the bizarre genetic drift; it was a miracle they still maintained human form.
Noah wasn't in a hurry to reach the Mid-Hive. He spent four days in the Lower Hive, driven by the need to collect more resources to strengthen his Federation mechanical legion before the inevitable destruction of the city.
He knew resources were scarce outside the Federation, and he intended to gather as much as he could for any eventuality.
During these four days, a terrifying rumor swept through the Lower Hive: an extraordinary individual, a phantom, was systematically collecting all high-value junk. The scavengers knew a formidable new presence had arrived, but for the gangs, Noah's actions directly cut off their primary source of income.
Inside the Qatal Gang's hall, a structure built of rusted iron, Coleman Vilkon roared with irritation.
"No! This phantom is cutting off the livelihood of our Qatal Gang!" His subordinates, emaciated thugs covered in toxic tattoos, stared hungrily at a single, moldy "corpse starch biscuit", the only salvageable item collected in days.
They barely survived as it was, and with Noah continuously vacuuming up all valuable scrap, including the contents of the gangs' storage facilities, their collapse was imminent. Noah, for his part, did not care. He was not a naive rookie; he knew these gangs were simply criminals, dregs of society the Federation would immediately execute. He would not let them survive.
"Boss, that guy isn't human at all!" a one-eared henchman hissed. "Where he walks, even screws disappear. Yesterday, the 'Rusttooth Chargers' tried to ambush him, and everyone vanished. Not a single person came back alive."
Coleman's knuckles cracked. The rules of the Lower Hive were simple: plunder or starve. If he didn't fight back, the Qatal Gang would be consumed. He violently overturned the table, the crashing metal startling a nearby mutated rat swarm.
"Gather everyone!" He drew a salvaged boltgun. "We'll give this 'distinguished guest' a big present. Send someone to the Rusttooth Chargers and tell them to help lure some heretics over. That phantom doesn't know the depths of things, let the blasphemers deal with him."
The subordinates were stunned. Getting involved with heretics, even indirectly, was a terrifying proposition that could invite the wrath of the Adeptus Arbites or the Astra Militarum.
"Boss," a tattooed thug gulped, "the Rusttooth guys lost heads to those heretics last month... Will they cooperate?"
"Cooperate? Cooperation is impossible!" Coleman snapped, clarifying his grim strategy. He was a loyal follower of the God-Emperor, even in the Lower Hive's filth, and would never coordinate with heretics.
"We're just luring them over to fight him. Do you want to be burned alive by the Imperium as a heretic? We let the heretics fight, and we watch." He knew that tempting the Inquisition's attention with actual collusion would result in immediate death by white phosphorus.