Waste Reclamation Yard No. 17.
This place was a literal graveyard of machinery. Several ancient hydraulic presses, thirty meters tall, stood rusted and silent, like the skeletal remains of dead giants.
The air was thick with the pungent stench of acid, the smell of stale engine oil, and that particular scent unique to the lower hives—the sweat of despair.
A dozen thugs were reveling.
They wore riveted leather armor, their exposed skin tattooed with sickening, blasphemous runes. Some had even sewn discarded pistons directly into their arm muscles.
They were the "Rust-Claw Gang," a pack of mad dogs in the Underhive who would kill for a few bars of synthetic starch. Recently, they had become tainted with the frenzied colors of the Warp.
Old Jack was covered in blood, hung upside down in mid-air by a thick, rusted iron chain. His only remaining good leg had been broken, twisted into a grotesque "V" shape; the jagged bone had pierced the skin, stark and pale.
"Please... I beg of you..." Old Jack groaned weakly, his single clouded eye full of supplication.
"Scream louder, old man!"
The Rust-Claw underboss—a brute whose half-face had been replaced by a low-grade Auspex implant—brandished a buzzing chainsword. He grinned, spit flying as he spoke: "The more melodious your screams, the more power the Great 'Lord of Blood' will grant us!"
He raised the chainsword high. Its monomolecular teeth spun at high speeds, spitting sparks as they bit the air, emitting a shriek that thirsted for blood.
"Which hand should I saw off first? The left one! You won't be needing it to haul bricks anymore anyway!"
With a piercing howl of wind, the chainsword swung down savagely toward Old Jack's shoulder!
Old Jack closed his eyes in despair, waiting for the agony to descend.
BOOM—!!!
A massive sound, like a thunderclap on dry land, instantly drowned out the roar of the chainsword.
The entire floor of the scrap yard shuddered violently. Dust was kicked up half a meter high, and countless stacked scrap canisters tumbled down with a deafening clatter.
The Rust-Claw thugs turned their heads in terror.
The ten-ton Adamantium blast door—the one leading to the deep subterranean levels, rumored to be impenetrable even to mining-grade laser drills—was now flying through the air like a sheet of paper caught in a gale.
It hadn't been pushed open; it had been blasted off its hinges.
The massive metal slab tumbled through the air for over twenty meters before crashing into a pile of ruins, kicking up a colossal cloud of smoke and grit.
As the dust swirled, a tall figure walked slowly out from within.
He wore the cheapest worker's vest found in the Underhive, stained with grease, barefoot, with a ridiculous red rag tied around his neck.
But with every step he took, the Adamantium floor beneath him emitted a dull, heavy groan. It wasn't just weight; it was the pure, concentrated pressure of a high-density biological mass.
As he emerged from the shadows, his broad shoulders—carved like Greek sculptures—his arm muscles knotted like steel cables, and his chiseled face with its iconic cleft chin became clear.
The air seemed to freeze.
A mountain-like pressure made these bloodthirsty thugs instinctively retreat two steps, their throats going dry.
"Is that... that big idiot porter?" One sharp-eyed thug recognized Clark, but he couldn't believe the usually submissive giant could possess such a gaze.
With the chainsword hanging in mid-air, the underboss froze. Then, a surge of offended rage rushed to his head: "Where did this moron come from?! Don't you see us making a sacrifice to the God? Get the hell out of here!"
Clark didn't speak.
He only tilted his head slightly.
Those azure eyes, hidden in the shadow of the red cloth, were devoid of any ripple. They locked coldly onto the underboss.
Hum.
In that instant, the underboss felt as though he were being stared down by a bloodthirsty Titan. A chill born of biological instinct shot straight to the top of his skull, and he nearly lost his grip on the chainsword.
"Playing tricks! Kill him! Offer his skull to the Lord!" To mask his fear, the underboss roared hysterically.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The three henchmen beside him immediately raised their Bolter pistols—crude, locally-made Underhive versions—and pulled the triggers.
Three thick Bolter shells shrieked through the air, trailing fire. Filled with high explosives, these rounds were enough to turn an unarmored civilian into a pile of shredded meat.
"No—run! Clark!" Old Jack, hanging in the air, shouted with all his remaining strength.
However, Clark did not run.
He didn't even blink.
In the world of his senses, time stretched infinitely. Everything around him moved in slow motion. He could clearly see the ripples in the air as the three spinning warps cut through it; he saw the crude rifling marks on the slugs; he could even see every grain of burning propellant spitting from the thrusters.
Too slow.
Like dust floating in the air.
He didn't dodge. He simply continued to walk forward calmly, allowing the lethal metal to collide with him.
Ding! Ding! Snap!
Three distinct sounds of impact rang out.
The first shell struck his pectoral muscle. Like a mud ball hitting a mountain of Adamantium, the hardened warhead instantly flattened, shattered, and slid helplessly to the ground. A faint, almost transparent ripple shimmered on the surface of his worn vest—his bio-electric field protecting his clothing.
The second shell hit his shoulder, ricocheted off, and embedded itself deep into a nearby hydraulic press.
The most terrifying was the third one.
It struck Clark's left eyeball with pinpoint accuracy.
But before the thugs' horror-stricken eyes, the shell—capable of piercing light armor—hit the man's cornea and reacted like an egg hitting a diamond.
CRACK!
The warhead disintegrated.
Sparks showered within Clark's eye socket, but he didn't even flinch! Those azure pupils didn't show so much as a single burst capillary.
"By... By the Emperor..."
The thug who fired the shot let his gun clatter to the ground. The crotch of his pants instantly soaked through, emitting the stench of urine.
"What kind of monster... What kind of monster is this?!"