Ten seconds later, Zhang San stopped convulsing and slumped in the chair, his pupils unfocused.
The man in the lab coat stepped forward and checked his vital signs with a device.
"Subject 001: severe adverse reaction to Psyker Suppressant Type 7. Nervous system failure. Brain death."
"Record: suspected untrained psyker or individual with special genetic resistance."
He waved a hand. "Drag him away. Take him to the dissection room."
"His organs should still be usable."
Two soldiers dragged Zhang San's corpse away like a sack, leaving a pale yellow puddle on the floor. He had lost control of his bladder.
The entire underground holding facility fell deathly silent.
Some of the players who had witnessed the scene turned as pale as paper.
Wang Zhong felt his stomach churn.
Death in this game was way too realistic.
And he'd died without an ounce of dignity, dragged away like a rag, then dissected so his organs could be harvested.
"Next."
The man in the lab coat's icy voice rang out again.
A soldier headed toward another cage.
Meanwhile, deep in the Warp.
Lu Sheng's shifting mass of energy stretched out in delight.
"Ah... that smell..."
He felt the emotional energy flowing in from Realspace, its concentration and quality far surpassing what he'd gotten from mining.
Fear, despair, anger, breakdown, and a hint of madness...
"Yes, just like that," Lu Sheng murmured, absorbing it in ecstasy. "A little more. Make it more intense..."
"There's nothing he can do about the players getting captured. Who knew the forces around here would be so cautious?
"For now, all he can do is wait for them to die and revive. Next time, he'll have to pick somewhere farther away for them."
He watched what was happening in the underground holding facility in Arlu City through the system interface.
The players were imprisoned, interrogated, injected with drugs, and dissected...
Every step produced a vast amount of negative emotion.
Filtered and purified by the system, all of it became food for him.
"Most of the 5,000 units of energy from before went toward establishing a stable cross-universe passage and pulling their consciousnesses through.
"Now that the passage is stable, simply constructing bodies for them to revive in costs much less."
He checked his energy reserves.
The players' mining, hunting, and questing, combined with the fear they were producing now, had replenished his reserves from the original 2,000 units to over 53,600.
"Even if all five thousand of them die once now... there's still enough energy to revive them plenty of times."
"No big deal."
Lu Sheng was in high spirits.
The players could die, revive, and get right back to work, producing more emotional energy.
And the people from the Alru Group?
They were just NPCs. In a few decades, who knew how many waves of people from a faction like theirs would die?
"Let's watch and see," Lu Sheng thought. "See what kind of trouble these players can cause."
He happily made plans.
As for the players' fear and pain?
"Ke-ke-ke!"
"Huh? When did I get so evil?"
"But I'm afraid I can't help it. Evil gods have no humanity."
Lu Sheng simply found them... delicious.
At most, he'd add a pain-reduction feature the next time they revived. He'd set it to the minimum, thirty percent!
How merciful of him. Praise the Holy God!!
Underground holding facility.
The second player taken away had the ID [Just a Passing Loyalist].
He was a little calmer than Zhang San, but his legs were still shaking.
"Name."
"Li Si." (Alias.)
"Age."
"Twenty-five."
"Place of origin."
"I... I don't know. I've lost my memory!"
The man in the lab coat looked up. Behind his mask, his eyes seemed to flash with impatience.
He nodded to the soldiers again.
This time, instead of a syringe, they placed a helmet-like device on Li Si's head.
"This is a psyker potential detector. If you lie or try to hide something, it'll overload your brain and turn you into an idiot."
Li Si went even paler.
The detector activated with a low hum.
A few seconds later, the man in the lab coat frowned at the readings on his dataslate.
"Psyker potential... zero? That's impossible."
"Even an untrained ordinary person would show a faint potential fluctuation."
He looked at Li Si. "Have you undergone psyker-suppressant surgery?"
"I... I don't know!"
"Or perhaps you're not human at all?"
Li Si was on the verge of tears. "I am human! A real, bona fide human!"
The man in the lab coat fell silent for a few seconds.
"Take him to the genetic testing room."
"Draw blood, take a bone marrow sample, and scan his entire body."
"If he's confirmed to be human but has zero psyker potential... then his genes might be of some research value."
Li Si was dragged away.
In the regional channel, the players were already cursing up a storm.
[Soul of Cadia]: "Shit! Psyker potential tests! Genetic tests! What the hell are they trying to do?!"
[Mechanicus Oil-Lover on the Run]: "It's obvious. They're sorting us."
"Sorting for psykers and people with unusual genes. They can use the former for psyker experiments and the latter for genetic research."
"As for ordinary people... we're probably organ donors or laborers."
[Want Silent King's Crown but cannot afford]: "So they're picking through us to find the best of the bunch?! Like pork at a butcher's shop?!"
[Slaanesh Chosen Reserve]: "Being a lab rat is terrifying... even worse than getting thrown into Chaos..."
[Nurgle Loving Father Loves All]: "Face reality, brothers."
"In the world of Warhammer 40K, ordinary people like us, without connections, are expendable."
[Did White Scars speed today]: "Then what do we do? Just wait to die?"
[I'm not the Lord Regent, I'm just a passing Guilliman]: "I say the next time they take someone away... we try to fight back."
[Schrodinger's Loyalist]: "Fight back? With what? We're unarmed and locked in cages!"
[Even if the world ends, the Emperor's tax must be paid]:
"Bite them! Headbutt them! We're going to die either way, so we might as well go down fighting!"
[Loyal to the Emperor Forever]: "Everyone, calm down! Don't be afraid."
Wang Zhong spoke in the channel.
"Since we can't log out for now, we need information."
"We need to find out how many guards this facility has, where the exits are, and where the blind spots in the surveillance are."
"We need a plan. Even if we die, we should at least hurt them a little!"
"Until then... do your best to stay alive."
He paused, then added, "Also, remember who we are."
"We're players."
"We're the Fourth Calamity."
"Death isn't the end for us."
"It's... just loading a save and starting over."
"We've fought Chaos, Tyranids, and Orks in computer games. Just think of this as a different virtual Warhammer VR game. There's nothing to be afraid of."
The channel fell silent for a few seconds.
Then a string of messages appeared:
"For the Emperor!"
"For survival!"
"For... the day we come back in mechs and blast this shitty city to rubble!"
Wang Zhong watched as the players rallied.
These guys... really were a calamity.
Good. That made things more interesting.
He looked up at the dim lights outside the cage, his gaze gradually hardening.
"Alru Group... Simans Chamber of Commerce..."
"You captured us, locked us up, and used us for experiments."
"So don't blame us..."
"for turning your world upside down."
"In the name of the Emperor and the Fourth Calamity."
Before you continue