81: Chapter 81 Spitting on Your Grave

In the "Cheng Tianping" star system, the silence of the night was completely shattered by a sudden war.

The Hive Cities of the Corpse Emperor Empire stood like ugly giants on the desolate, dried-up seabed.

The planetary defense force's anti-aircraft platforms opened fire first, their macro-cannon arrays spewing destructive lances of light that stretched for kilometers, illuminating the pitch-black cosmic background as if it were broad daylight.

Any conventional fleet would have instantly turned into metal vapor under such firepower.

However, Cheng Yu's warbands were not a conventional fleet; they did not even deign to counterattack.

Responding to the Corpse Emperor Empire's artillery was a rainstorm of metal.

Hundreds of thousands of landing pods, like an enraged swarm of bees, poured out simultaneously from both realspace and rifts in Warp.

These landing pods lacked any elegant, streamlined design; they were living coffins crudely welded together from the remains of Warp creatures and discarded ship armor.

Their only mission was to carry the seeds of conquest, smash through the hard shells of the Hive City worlds, and bloom into flowers of slaughter within them.

The Hive City world's anti-aircraft fire net was intensely dense to the extreme; laser beams wove a tight web of death, and the barrage of autocannons was like lava splattering and scattering during a volcanic eruption.

Every second, thousands of landing pods were precisely detonated, blooming into brief and magnificent fireworks of death in mid-air.

Shattered metal and flesh frozen in the high altitude turned into new cosmic dust.

"By the decree of the Great Emperor, who follows the path of heaven, is protected by joy, is heroic and sacred, and is accomplished in both civil and military virtues: Surrender and you shall not be killed."

The first wave of landing soldiers that breached the defense line had already established forward fortifications inside and outside the Hive City; the fast-setting cement and spatial bubble grenades provided by the Dark Mechanicum allowed the Cheng Yus Clones to build a small bunker in seconds—they could even build it directly on top of the enemy.

The alleyways inside the Hive City turned into slaughterhouses for mutual killing.

Soldiers on both sides fired frantically from behind cover; the situation was so chaotic that there was no room for tactics, it was just a matter of whose morale would collapse first.

The anti-aircraft artillery of the Corpse Emperor's planetary defense force gradually failed, either due to overheating or exploding from the suicide attacks of the clones.

The metal rainstorm of landing pods completely covered the surface of the Hive City, turning it into a giant hedgehog covered in rusted "steel nails."

The will of the Great Cheng Yu, like a fanatical tide, submerged this Hive City world.

"The rebel city has fallen, peace reigns under heaven, may His Majesty live forever, and may the Empire last for eternity!"

The Great Cheng Yu no longer recognized the Corpse Emperor as an emperor equal to himself, but instead classified him alongside the bandit Abaddon as part of the rebel forces.

The Corpse Emperor's nation was no longer referred to as an empire in the official documents of the Cheng Yu Empire, but was instead replaced with the term "bandit gang."

The Cheng Yus Clones cheered for victory in unison toward the sky, while the nobles of the Hive City were dragged out one by one and beheaded.

Not all the nobles were guilty; some individuals were even quite talented.

However, the staff officer Cheng Yus found through statistical research that publicly beheading nobles in front of the Hive City residents could effectively accelerate the speed at which they submitted to the Empire, and even produce a "naturalized army" that was extremely loyal to the Empire and fought with a ferocity no less than the clones.

Clones or members of the naturalized army who performed exceptionally well in battle were given priority to enter the nobles' mansions to loot; anything they could carry away was theirs to take.

"Wild Dog Cheng Yu" was a prisoner on the planet "Zihao," and in order to strive for a sentence reduction, he had signed up for the "Atonement Army."

But he had been sentenced to permanent exile, and even with the maximum reduction, he would still have to serve at least twenty years.

So he didn't loot anything else—looting other things was useless—he rummaged through boxes and cabinets just to find a few packs of high-quality tobacco or alcohol.

The tobacco and alcohol in the exile colony were just too damn low-quality; Wild Dog Cheng Yu, who had previously been a triad boss, simply couldn't stand it.

Wild Dog Cheng Yu skillfully pried open cabinet after cabinet or drawer after drawer, ignoring the gold, silver, and valuables inside, casually tossing them to the floor, and only taking canned food or pulp novels...

The State Church priests in the exile colony were very sanctimonious; they wouldn't accept large sums of money, but they were quite fond of these moderately valued items.

"Damn it!"

Wild Dog Cheng Yu accidentally dropped a few of the cans in his arms, and while squatting on the ground to pick them up, he suddenly discovered someone hiding under the bed.

He hurriedly dropped the cans, wanting to swing the rifle slung across his back to the front...

Although the triad member was fierce, he wasn't a true battle-hardened elite after all; with this clumsy, flustered movement, if the person opposite had truly been an enemy in ambush, he would have already returned his soul to the Throne of Thorns by now.

"I surrender, can I surrender?"

Lying under the bed was a little boy with golden hair, wearing silk pajamas; he must have been the child of a Hive City noble.

"Damn it!"

Wild Dog Cheng Yu held his gun up for a long time, but couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. "Sigh, I'm really useless. No wonder others become officials, while I can only hang out on the streets."

"Kid, hide over here."

Wild Dog Cheng Yu pointed to a narrower corner behind the wardrobe. "You can't go out now; you're a noble of the bandit gang, and you'll be beheaded, you know that?"

"Mm..."

The little boy was small and thin, and could easily squeeze into the gap behind the wardrobe.

"Shh."

The footsteps outside were chaotic; more soldiers were approaching.

"Prisoner 24568, did you find anything in there?"

A sergeant Cheng Yu stood at the doorway of the room.

"Reporting, sir, there's nothing valuable, just a pile of canned food. I wanted to bring it back for the brothers to have a treat."

Wild Dog Cheng Yu's salute to his chest was very comical; anyone who didn't know better would have thought he was scratching an itch.

"Return to your unit within one minute!"

"Yes!"

Wild Dog Cheng Yu didn't have much time, so he could only quickly instruct the little boy, "If anyone else finds you, tell them you're a catamite kept by the Hive City nobles; that way, you won't be killed."

"What's a catamite?"

"It's a kind of toy."

Wild Dog Cheng Yu slung his rifle and gathered all the canned food into his arms. "Killing the nobles is just for show at the beginning; once you get through it, you'll be fine. Good luck, kid."

"Goodbye."

The little boy waved his hand.

"Don't say goodbye; if we meet again, it means you're in big trouble."

Wild Dog Cheng Yu hugged a big pile of cans and left the room at high speed.

...

An hour later, the Hive City residents began to be evacuated.

As prisoners, they would first be screened to determine their physical condition and level of education, and then they would be assigned work and new living quarters.

The heads of the nobles were piled into a sizable monument of heads, and every prisoner was required to perform a 'spitting ceremony' on this monument as they passed by.

Spit, stab it, or urinate on it—it's up to you—but you have to do it; otherwise, you will become a part of the monument. This was to express an attitude of completely severing ties with the Corpse Emperor bandit gang.

The vast majority of Hive City residents did it very smoothly; a few prisoners who hated the Hive City nobles to the extreme even wanted to set fire to the monument, but fortunately, they were stopped by the soldiers, the Cheng Yus Clones, standing nearby.