Curiosity is the Express Train to Hell

A splitting headache.

It felt as though someone had shoved a large piece of molten lead into his skull; heavy and searing.

When Li Wei woke up, his nasal passages were filled with a strange odor.

It was a mix of stale engine oil, cheap incense, and some indefinable, musty stench.

"Awake?" came a hoarse voice that sounded like two pieces of rusted iron rubbing together.

Li Wei opened his eyes with difficulty, finding himself in a dim, narrow space.

The surrounding walls were cast from heavy black iron, covered in writhing pipelines and valves that continuously spewed steam.

He tried to sit up, only to hear a clatter of metal.

Looking down, Li Wei's heart sank by half—his hands and feet were firmly secured to a metal tabletop by cold industrial chains.

Kidnapped? The thought flashed through Li Wei's mind instantly.

"Don't waste your energy, 'sacrificial specimen' number 734." Out of the shadows walked a figure wearing a dark-red hooded robe.

By the dim warning light on the wall, Li Wei got a clear look at this person.

The opponent was bald, and his skin presented a sickly pale-purple hue.

What made Li Wei the most uneasy was that this person's forehead was exceptionally prominent, his gaze dull yet fanatical, and he held a bizarre, buzzing instrument in his hand that resembled an industrial drill.

"Big guy... listen to me," Li Wei forced down the panic in his heart, trying to communicate with modern-society logic, "if you want money, I have it in my account, and I can tell you the password. If it's a business conflict, I'm just an employee, catching me is useless!"

The purple-skinned freak tilted his head, as if listening to a foreign language.

"Money? Business?" He let out a harsh, low chuckle. "This humble shell of yours is worthless. Only your spirit can serve as a beacon to guide the descent of the 'Star God'."

He raised the buzzing instrument in his hand, the tip of the device flashing with dangerous electric arcs.

"Don't be afraid, this is just to open your 'crown of the head', allowing the great will to gaze upon you."

A lunatic! This was a lunatic!

Li Wei looked at that steadily approaching drill, cold sweat instantly soaking his back.

"Help! Is anyone there! Help!!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Shout all you want; the soundproofing layer here can even block the roar of engines." The freak's gaze was fanatical. "For ascension! For..."

Boom!!!

A muffled, deafening explosion interrupted the freak's prayer.

It wasn't an ordinary explosion, more like a high-pressure valve instantly bursting open.

Li Wei only saw a flash of white light before his eyes, and a huge wave of air carrying dust instantly swept through the entire room.

The imagined excruciating pain did not arrive.

A few seconds later, the ringing in his ears gradually receded, and Li Wei coughed as he waved away the smog in front of him.

The purple-skinned freak who had been holding the drill just now had already been blown backward, slamming heavily into the opposite iron wall, life or death unknown.

That heavy metal door had been violently breached from the outside, already twisted and deformed, lying on the ground and smoking.

Accompanied by the heavy thud of military boots, a few tall, dark figures stepped through the dust.

A wave of ecstatic joy over surviving a disaster surged in Li Wei's heart. Special police! They must be special police!

"Here! Officer! I'm a victim!" Li Wei shouted excitedly, "That madman was going to kill me!"

However, when the smoke cleared and he saw the attire of the newcomers, Li Wei's cries for help stuck in his throat.

These were definitely not police officers.

This group wore fully sealed black carapace armor, wore skull helmets that looked like gas masks, and the firearms they carried were connected to heavy backpack batteries, the muzzles still retaining high-temperature distorted air ripples.

There were no police badges on them, only a metal skull emblem engraved with an "I" shape on their chest.

That cold, murderous aura, as if looking at lifeless objects, was a hundred times more terrifying than the cultist from just now.

The man right in the center was not wearing a helmet.

He wore a black hard-leather trench coat and a wide-brimmed hat.

Half of his face was the normal, resolute appearance of a middle-aged man, while the other half was covered in implanted metal cybernetics, a single red electronic eye glowing faintly in the dark.

He glanced around the room, his gaze sweeping over the freak collapsed in the corner, and finally resting on Li Wei, who was locked to the sacrificial table.

That electronic eye rotated slightly, emitting a faint zooming sound.

"Sir, one surviving target found," said a heavy-armored soldier beside him in a low voice, sounding completely emotionless after being processed through a loudspeaker. "Environmental scan shows faint Warp readings."

The trench-coated man pulled a pistol of startling caliber from his waist without expression.

He looked at Li Wei as if looking at nuclear waste that had to be disposed of.

"Coexisting with heretics in the same room is already being polluted." His voice was horrifyingly flat.

Li Wei's pupils shrank violently.

This was wrong!

This script was completely wrong!

"Wait! I'm innocent! I don't even know him!" Li Wei struggled desperately, the chains clanking loudly, "You can't do this! I want a lawyer! I have the right..."

The Inquisitor raised his gun, the pitch-black muzzle pointing straight at the center of Li Wei's brow.

There was no pity in his gaze, only absolute, mechanical rationality.

"Innocent?" The Inquisitor's finger rested on the trigger, his tone as cold as if reading out a verdict: "Ignorance is not innocence."

"Only the dead are truly clean."

Click.

The sound of the hammer being pulled back was clearly audible in the dead silence of the room.

Li Wei stared in despair.