The sudden opening of the corpse's mouth made everyone freeze for a second. Bolters and lasguns were immediately aimed at the rotting body that was speaking. One of the Helldivers muttered under his breath.
"The corpse... is speaking?"
It was Freeman who reacted first. He sized up the corpse, half-suspicious and half-curious as he asked: "Buddy—you just takin' a nap here?"
"If by 'sleeping' you mean lying in a fixed place without moving," the corpse replied in a raspy voice, its eyeballs moving slightly as if still possessed by life, "then—yes, I have been sleeping for twenty years."
"For a corpse, you've got a decent sense of humor," Freeman quipped, though he didn't lower his lasgun. "So, you believe in Daddy Nurgle?"
He directly named one of the four Chaos Gods, for this intense rot and stench pointed unmistakably toward Grandfather Nurgle.
Hearing Freeman dare to utter Nurgle's name so casually, the corpse was clearly stunned for a moment. Its clouded eyes scanned the group of heavily armed Imperial Guardsmen, its tone carrying a hint of inexplicable mockery:
"Oh, I recognize you... Helldivers, right? What are you here for? To piss on my face?"
"Why on earth would you think we're here to piss on your face!" Freeman roared at the top of his lungs. "We're obviously here to burn you to a crisp!"
"Hmph, hard to say—" The corpse let out a strange, wheezing laugh. "It's not like I mind you burning me, but not right now. Just wait a little while."
Hearing this, Freeman glanced at the Star Claws squad leader beside him: "What do you think?"
The Star Claws squad leader spoke with the inherent arrogance of an Astartes and a deep loathing for heresy: "Fine. We wait. If you intend to summon your kin, you'd better call everyone you can. It'll save us the time of hunting them down later."
He clearly believed the corpse was stalling for time to summon reinforcements.
"Then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed," the corpse said. "The one coming for me isn't just 'reinforcements'."
Doubt grew in everyone's hearts. If not reinforcements, then what? They looked around warily, but in the filthy environment, there seemed to be nothing but mountains of trash and Hive-bottom residents hiding in the shadows.
Time passed in an eerie silence, broken only by the characteristic hum of the Underhive and occasional distant screams. The Helldivers and Astartes remained on guard, waiting patiently.
After a few minutes, a scrawny little boy stepped out cautiously from behind a pile of discarded metal plates. His clothes were in tatters, and his face was smeared with filth. He looked warily at the tall, robust Helldivers in their strange armor and the Star Claws who stood like iron giants.
"Come here, little Berry," the corpse spoke, its raspy voice carrying a strange hint of gentleness. The boy called Berry trembled at the sound, but ultimately gathered his courage and approached step by step.
Once Berry was close, a chunk of meat that looked relatively "intact" suddenly fell off the corpse's rotting body with a sickening, wet sound.
"This piece isn't diseased. Take it and go quickly," the corpse said in its raspy voice, its tone carrying a peculiar care that was completely at odds with its putrid appearance. "Also, don't come back anymore."
"Okay," the boy answered softly. His voice carried the crispness unique to children, forming a sharp contrast with the surrounding stench and decay. He quickly bent down, picked up the meat with trembling small hands, and then, like a frightened rabbit, vanished into the shadows of the Underhive without looking back.
"Is that meat really disease-free?" Freeman asked curiously once the boy had completely disappeared. He turned his gaze back to the corpse, eyes filled with suspicion.
"Only for him and his mother," the corpse replied, its cloudy eyes seemingly staring in the direction the boy had left. "I quite like him, but he doesn't want to die yet, so I won't force him—anyway, his soul is already reserved by us."
"Oh, I see." Freeman realized the truth. After all, the temptations of Chaos always come with pain and despair. "You let us see this scene because you wanted us to be the villains—to physically eliminate that boy so his soul gets sent to you early?"
Freeman looked at the Star Claws. At that moment, the Astartes spoke in an unquestionable tone: "The boy and his mother must die."
"Actually, I didn't have that thought," the corpse shook its head, its rotting skin twitching. "He'll die sooner or later anyway. Besides, there are plenty of people here surviving because of the Dark Gods."
It seemed utterly indifferent to its own fate and the boy's, or perhaps it had already seen the end: "Turn left for five hundred meters and you'll find a cult run by a blue-feathered bird-man . It's huge because you get black bread if you join—though that bread is just an illusion; those who join actually get nothing."
"Turn right for eight hundred meters and you'll see a group having an outdoor party, injecting hallucinogens while discharging their bodily fluids; it's quite disgusting."
"There are also followers of the Fire-Thief (Promethian/Imperial Cult), but not many. Since they don't lie, they can't conjure bread, nor do they provide hallucinogens. They only demand sacrifice, morality, and loyalty from their believers, so not many people believe in them."
"Are you finished?" The Star Claws squad leader stepped forward. Without further words, he let go of an incendiary grenade, which fell straight onto the pile of corpses. The metal casing shattered upon contact with the rotting flesh, and an orange-red gel-like substance immediately spread and ignited.
"Goodbye then," the squad leader said coldly. The flames quickly consumed the pile of corpses, and the foul stench warped under the high heat, turning into a different kind of charred, even more nauseating smell.
Watching the burning pile, Freeman asked with some dissatisfaction: "You really aren't going to fight back? You're a demon, after all."
"One demon against a hundred Helldivers and ten Astartes?" The corpse was engulfed by the fire, but before turning completely to ash, it let out a final mocking laugh. Its voice distorted in the air as if a thousand rotting throats were speaking at once: "My brain might have turned to pus, but I don't use a brain to think!"
Watching the pile of corpses quickly burn to ash in the intense flames, leaving only a scorched patch of ground and a lingering stench, Freeman stood up with a trace of regret. He adjusted his helmet and muttered: "What a shame. If we had actually fought, that would've been at least an Elite mob."
"Yeah...imagine the drops...the loot..."
"There's no drops noob, haven't you learned already!"
"Who brought this guy along?!"