The Merciful "Law Enforcer"

Li Wei paid to rent a capsule room.

It was actually just an iron box embedded into an abandoned ventilation duct, just big enough for a single person to lie down.

Yet this was already a rare luxury—at least the iron door could be bolted from the inside, meaning he didn't need to worry about having his throat slit in his sleep.

He lay on the mold-smelling bunk, staring at the holographic star map drawn on paper by the light of a dim reading lamp.

Right now, I am on the Hive World of Atalos.

This is the edge of the Tempestus Segmentum, where Warp storms are frequent.

Li Wei drew a line across the paper with his fingernail.

If I want to live, I need to go here—Ultramar.

The legendary Ultramarines garrisoned that place; while they also collected heavy taxes and enforced military service, at least the people there lived like human beings rather than two-legged fuel.

Train tickets... fake identification... and I have to pass quarantine... Li Wei calculated the costs.

To leave this planet, he needed at least one hundred thousand thrones.

Yet he currently had less than fifty credits in his pocket.

That Inquisition data-slate was valuable, but it was also a death warrant.

Before finding that "big fish" capable of swallowing this cargo, he still had to wallow in this cesspool for a long time.

Woooo------!!!

Suddenly, an alarm so shrill it pierced the eardrums shattered the noise of the Bottom Hive.

Li Wei had never heard this sound before.

It was nothing like the previous fire alarms, nor the whistles of gang warfare.

This was a low, oppressive roar akin to an air-raid siren, accompanied by a emotionless, synthetic electronic voice blaring from the loudspeakers:

"Attention. Sector C-19 has been designated as an 'unstable zone'."

"In accordance with the Lex Imperialis, the 'Pacification Protocol' is being enacted."

"All citizens are to kneel in place immediately with hands behind their heads. Any standing, running, or armed behavior will be regarded as rebellion and summarily executed."

Li Wei sat up abruptly, smacking his head against the iron ceiling.

Pacification Protocol? This didn't sound like they were coming to hand out welfare.

He looked outside through the capsule room's round glass window, which was caked in greasy filth.

The market, bustling just moments before, instantly plunged into chaos.

Pedestrians abandoned their stalls entirely, scrambling desperately into the shadows like madmen.

The bald vendor who had been selling the auspex earlier was desperately trying to crawl beneath a rolling shutter, but got stuck because his belly was too big, wailing and crying out to the heavens.

Boom! The entrance gates to the settlement were blown open simultaneously.

There were no police as one might imagine.

Rushing in were a group of giants wearing deep-blue heavy carapace armor and fully enclosed black helmets.

They wielded riot shields and massive shock mauls, with large-bore shotguns slung at their waists.

Palatine Enforcers.

The "police" of the hive.

Yet unlike the police in Li Wei's understanding, their duty wasn't to "protect and serve," but to "suppress and control."

In their eyes, the residents of the Bottom Hive weren't citizens; they were "potential criminals."

"Down! On your knees, all of you!" An enforcer captain swung his shock maul, a metal rod crackling with electricity that could snap a spine with a single blow.

An old woman who ran slowly failed to drop to her knees immediately due to crippled legs.

That enforcer didn't hesitate at all, nor did he even slow down.

Bang!

He plowed straight into her, pressing his shotgun directly against the old woman's chest and firing.

The old woman flew backward, crashing to the ground like a broken ragdoll, and stopped moving.

"Target eliminated," the enforcer said coldly, as if he had merely squashed a cockroach. "Squad One, advance. Any flight due to fear will be treated as fleeing from justice."

Li Wei trembled all over as he watched from inside the iron box.

This was the law of the Empire? This was outright slaughter!

Damn it... They're going to search every room.

Li Wei glanced at his capsule room.

This kind of tin box was no different from paper in the face of an enforcer's breaching hammer.

If caught, an undocumented illegal like him, coupled with a las pistol and a data-slate, would absolutely be shot on the spot or dragged off as a slave miner.

He couldn't stay here.

Li Wei quickly shouldered his crude backpack, concealed the las pistol in his sleeve, pushed open the capsule room door, and wriggled into the intricate labyrinth of ventilation ducts.

Yet he had underestimated the scale of this "pacification."

Just as he crawled out of the duct opening and into a side alley, he froze.

The path ahead was blocked.

Two mechanical hounds with pipes jutting all over their bodies, lacking skin and consisting only of metal skeletons and muscle bundles, squatted at the intersection, their red electronic eyes scanning their surroundings.

Cyber-Mastiffs.

The olfactory sensors of these monsters could catch the scent of fear hormones from hundreds of meters away.

"Woof!!" One mastiff suddenly whipped its head around, its metal maw filled with sharp teeth roaring toward the direction where Li Wei was hiding.

He was discovered!

Li Wei spun around and sprinted.

Yet how could a man's two legs possibly outrun a mechanical hound?

The sound of metal claws scraping against the ground grew closer behind him, accompanied by the roar of hydraulic pistons.

Li Wei could even smell the scent of machine oil spewing from the mechanical hound's jaws.

I'm dead... Li Wei turned hopelessly into a dead end.

Ahead lay a high wall with no path of escape.

He spun around, pressed his back against the wall, and raised the las pistol, which only had 30% battery remaining.

That massive cyber-mastiff lunged forward, slamming on the brakes abruptly just two meters away from him.

Yet the anticipated tearing bite never came.

The mastiff halted.

Its electronic eye, flashing with red light, stared fixedly at Li Wei; its huge metal head tilted slightly, emitting a crackling static current.

It was confused.

Its logical core told it: there is a human target ahead.

Yet its biological sensors screamed: there is nothing ahead! That is a void! That is a black hole!

The pariah's constitution took effect once again.

To this half-organic, half-mechanical creation, Li Wei's presence resembled an unresolvable code error.

It perceived Li Wei, but its "soul radar" showed utter nothingness ahead.

This extremely intense cognitive conflict caused the vicious killing machine to crash.

Tucking its tail, it emitted a whimpering whine akin to a frightened puppy and actually began to back away step by step.

Li Wei froze.

He stared at the mechanical hound, larger than a tiger, looking at him as if it had seen a ghost.

At that exact moment, heavy footsteps echoed from the mouth of the alley.

"K-9 unit, report status! Why halt the pursuit?" An enforcer holding a riot shield strode over.

He spotted Li Wei in the corner at a glance.

"Ha, a rat." The enforcer raised the shock maul in his hand, a cruel smile woven into the voice behind his mask. "Though I don't know what you did to that dog, my eyes certainly aren't broken."

Li Wei gripped his gun tighter, his palms slick with sweat.

That dog feared him, but humans—though they loathed him—could see him and could kill him.

Moreover, the opponent wore heavy armor, and a las pistol shot would likely only leave a charred dot on it.

I really have no moves left now... Li Wei calculated rapidly in his mind.

Surrender? Useless, enforcers didn't accept surrenders. Resist? Pure suicide.

Suddenly, a violent tremor struck. It wasn't the enforcers' footsteps, but something originating from deep beneath the earth. The entire ground shook fiercely, and the pipes overhead emitted a shattering crack.

Rumble rumble rumble!!!

"An earthquake?" The enforcer lost his footing, forced to steady himself against the wall.

"No... Hive tremor!"

Because the architectural structure of the hive city was overwhelmingly massive and poorly maintained, the load-bearing structures on the lower levels frequently collapsed or settled.

In the eyes of the locals, this was far more terrifying than the enforcers.

The wall beside Li Wei suddenly split open with a massive fissure.

A thick, yellow fog reeking of sulfur billowed forth from the crack.

It was bottom-hive toxic gas.

"Warning! Gas leak! Lethal concentration!" Alarms blared inside the enforcer's helmet.

He no longer cared about Li Wei, immediately pressing the fully sealed button on his helmet and turning to run back. "All squads fall back! Damn it, this zone is collapsing!"

Li Wei lacked a gas mask.

The yellow toxic gas rushed toward his face instantly.

"Cough cough cough!!" Li Wei felt as though he had inhaled a ball of fire into his lungs.

Tears and mucus streamed down instantly, and the sensation of asphyxiation plunged his vision into darkness.

This was the disaster of ordinary people.

No demons required, no executions needed.

A crustal shift, a ruptured pipe, could wipe out tens of thousands of "rats" just like bug spray.

"Am I going to die here? Choked to death?" Li Wei collapsed onto the ground, desperately covering his nose and mouth, but the toxic gas permeated everywhere.

Right as his consciousness blurred, his hand groped amidst the chaos and touched the still-shivering cyber-mastiff.

Though this mechanical hound feared him, it hadn't managed to flee yet.

Li Wei spotted a spare breathing mask hanging around the mastiff's neck—an emergency device equipped for enforcer guard dogs.

The urge to survive conquered everything.

Not knowing where he found the strength, Li Wei lunged fiercely at the mechanical hound and yanked the mask off.

The mechanical hound let out a startled shriek from his touch (system overload) and slumped straight onto the ground, paralyzed.

Trembling, Li Wei strapped the mask—still tainted with dog saliva—onto his face.

With a hiss, a breath of clean air smelling faintly of rubber rushed into his lungs.

He had survived.

Li Wei took large, greedy breaths.

The world around him was collapsing.

The enforcers had retreated, and civilians died struggling in the toxic gas amidst corpses strewn everywhere.

Yet Li Wei, wearing a dog's mask, curled up in a corner of the ruins like a true cockroach, coldly watching this human purgatory.

He had survived.

Not because he was a hero, but because he was sufficiently humble, ruthless, and lucky enough.

"This is Warhammer 40K..." Li Wei looked through the blurred lenses of the mask at the sea of corpses and collapsed buildings.

"Want to go to Ultramar?"

"Before that, I need to learn how to scavenge for scraps in a garbage heap first."