This is the bonus chapter for reaching 600 Powerstones.
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Terra, the Underhive of the Eternal City.
Sunlight was a luxury that would never touch this place. It was over three hundred kilometers beneath the surface.
Overhead loomed layer upon layer of metallic structures, abandoned transit pipes, and the architectural corpses left behind by countless generations of Imperial citizens. The only light came from bioluminescent fungi growing like moss on the walls, and the occasional sickly-green flare of ignited, polluted industrial smog seeping from the cracks above.
When the nobles of the upper spires raised their glasses of vintage Chemos wine on the top-tier balconies of golden spires, looking down at the landscape of clouds and smog, they would never imagine that in the deepest abysses of that very scenery, humans of their own species were rotting away in an entirely different manner.
The refugee shantytowns.
This was a chaotic sector unclaimed by any gang. It wasn't out of gang mercy, but because this area was simply too destitute—so poor that even muggers couldn't be bothered to visit.
The best loot you could hope to snatch was a handful of synthetic rations cut with bone dust and mold, or perhaps a woman starved down to a skeletal husk.
The block consisted of makeshift shacks and temporary shelters erected by drifters. Constructed from scrap steel plating and rusted piping, these shanties clustered together like malignant tumors, stretching from underfoot all the way to the horizon.
Rotting garbage piled high in the narrow alleys, swarmed by packs of rats darting through the filth. They were three times the size of normal rodents, their eyes glowing with a scarlet malice in the dark.
There was no such thing as order here. Gang shootouts, robberies, and murders were daily occurrences. In this place, surviving at all was a miracle—or perhaps, a curse.
Inside one of these makeshift shanties.
The plastic tarp serving as a roof had three massive holes torn into it, letting in cold drafts mixed with the signature mildewed stench of the Underhive, but no one paid it any mind.
Fifteen players were currently gathered inside this crude shelter. Their bodies weren't quite as normal as those of other players. A sickly grayish-yellow pallor covered their skin, making them look like corpses freshly dug from the grave.
Boils and pustules bulged on their flesh. Some had already ruptured, oozing a yellowish-green fluid, though the players seemed entirely oblivious. A slight swelling of their bodies made their movements appear clumsy, but this wasn't fat; it was the result of some unnatural overgrowth of subcutaneous tissue.
The most conspicuous feature was on their foreheads. Three pustules arranged in a triangle had permanently formed there, acting as a birthmark.
It was the Mark of Nurgle.
A birthmark gifted by Grandfather to his children.
A symbol of glory.
Creaaak!
The door to the shanty was pushed open as another player walked in. His physique matched the rest of the players inside: sickly, bloated, and radiating a faint, putrid stench.
He walked up to the player sitting at the head seat, looking at him with barely suppressed excitement in his voice. "Boss, there's another huge line of diseased Underhivers queuing up outside today!"
The player in the main seat slowly opened his eyes. They were a muddy grayish-green, like stagnant water deep in a swamp.
[Breaching the Imperial Palace is Easier Than Passing the Exam]
This was the ID he had chosen for himself when he entered the game. At the time, he just thought it was cynical and steeped in dark humor.
Even though he knew exactly what the Imperial Palace on Terra was. It was the residence of the Emperor of Mankind, a holy sanctuary guarded by the Adeptus Custodes, a forbidden zone that countless billions of Imperial citizens wouldn't even dare to gaze upon.
But as a veteran Warhammer lore nerd, the moment he saw the Door of Chaos, this name instantly popped into his head. Back then, he assumed Epoch 40K: Mecha was just a reskinned generic mecha game. He didn't actually believe the Imperium in the game was the Imperium of Man, or that a planet like Terra actually existed in it.
But that hadn't stopped him from using the moniker. Yet, after spawning in the Underhive of this hive city and experiencing every extreme of malice it had to offer, he immediately realized just how identical this setting was to the hive cities of Warhammer. Once those familiar elements began surfacing, he understood right away: he'd stumbled into an unlicensed, reskinned Warhammer MMO run by some sketchy developer.
And suddenly, he felt his ID was absolute perfection.
[Breaching the Imperial Palace is Easier Than Passing the Exam] looked around at the dozen or so players in the shack, a slow smile creeping onto his lips. The smile looked downright hideous on a face covered in boils, but his eyes held an indescribable sense of satisfaction.
"Brothers," he began, his voice rasping as if his vocal cords had been eaten away by acid. "From here on out, things are finally looking up. We really have our Chaos brothers over in the Emperor's Children to thank for this. If they hadn't pulled their weight and won that faction quest, how would we have scored a hundred thousand Imperial Coins and the Chaos Cultist Emotional Sacrifice Method? Without that ritual, we'd still be hiding in the Underhive like rats, dodging gangs and mutants."
A Chaos player sitting further down raised his head. His ID was [Can't Repay Grandfather's Love], and right now, his bloated face was full of deep emotion. "You're right, Boss. Those of us dumped into the Terran Underhive were practically on the verge of despair. Every single day was either running from mutants or getting mugged by gang trash. Whenever you finally survived a disaster, dizzy from starvation, you still had to worry if some mutant ratman was gonna bite your throat out the next day. This place... it's no place for the living. I died eight times in a row. Every miserable Imperial Coin I scraped together from scavenging went straight into my respawn fees. If I slacked off on garbage duty even a little, I'd have to take out one of those predatory loans just to revive."
[Breaching the Imperial Palace is Easier Than Passing the Exam] nodded slightly. He, too, remembered those desperate days of getting relentlessly slaughtered by the maniacs of the Underhive. If he hadn't discovered the bizarre depths of this game, he would have rage-quit long ago.
It wasn't like they hadn't brainstormed solutions as Chaos faction players.
Robbery? The Underhive locals were even poorer than they were.
Theft? There was literally nothing worth stealing.
Getting a job? Did the concept of employment even exist down here in the Eternal City's Underhive? Wage-slaving was completely off the table!
All they could do was pick through garbage every day, struggling to survive, waiting to get killed, and watching their Imperial Coin balance slowly tick down to zero.
That was, until the notification for the Laeran faction quest went live.
Chaos faction quest completion rate: 95%.
One hundred thousand Imperial Coins deposited.
Chaos Cultist Emotional Sacrifice Method unlocked.
Just then, another player chimed in, his tone dripping with relief. "Things are different now, though. We've all completed the first ritual sacrifice and received Grandfather's blessing."
He looked down at his own hands. They were swollen and jaundiced, tiny boils on his fingertips bursting open. Yet his eyes shone with pride. "Not only did our survivability, stamina, lifespan, and strength get a massive boost, but we even have a built-in aura of disease. Now, even if we run into one of those major Underhive warlords, we won't even flinch."
Another player cracked a wide grin, flashing a mouthful of yellowish-green teeth. "We've basically evolved from standard trash mobs that get one-shotted into elite elites! We might be ugly as sin, but the power is the real deal. And for some reason, I swear I can actually hear Grandfather whispering in my ear. The feeling disappears when I log off, but the second I boot the game up, my affection for Grandfather just skyrockets. Shit, the more I look at Grandfather now, the more he looks like a green-haired loli to me. You guys getting that vibe too?"
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