The Non-Existent Man

The Inquisitor's finger had already started to apply pressure, and that cold index finger pressed against the trigger, causing it to emit an extremely faint metallic friction sound.

Li Wei could even see the spiral rifling deep within the muzzle, and the taste of death had never been so clear.

"Stop... stop..."

A weak yet extremely painful voice, like a rusted needle, abruptly pierced this dead silence.

The Inquisitor's finger halted.

There was no exaggerated pause as imagined; he merely controlled his muscles with extreme precision, like a precision instrument cutting off the power supply.

He did not look back, but that mechanical prosthetic eye emitting a red light flickered slightly.

"Explain." The Inquisitor's voice remained entirely devoid of ripples, as if the person about to kill just now was not him.

That voice came from the corner of the room.

Li Wei stiffly rolled his eyeballs, seeing that behind those black-armored soldiers, something else was being dragged.

It was a person as emaciated as firewood, crawling on the ground on all fours.

His eyes were sewn shut with thick black thread, and black sticky fluid was still oozing from his eye sockets.

A heavy collar was fitted around his neck, with several thick cables connected to the collar and the other end held in the Gunnery Sergeant's hand.

At this moment, this blind freak was curled into a ball, his whole body trembling violently, as if he were situated in extreme bitter cold.

He did not even dare to face his face toward Li Wei's direction, merely pressing his head hard against the oil-stained floor.

"I cannot see him..." The blind freak's voice carried a crying tone and the impulse to vomit. "My Lord, there... there is nothing there."

"Nothing?" The Inquisitor slightly raised an eyebrow; this seemed to be the greatest expression he could make on his dead face.

"Yes... there is a void there. It is a black, cold abyss."

The freak retched as he spoke. "My Aether Sight penetrated through, and I saw nothing. There is no light of the soul, no reflection of the Warp... there is only silence."

"He is devouring the heat around him... he is devouring my perception... I beg you, make him stay away from me... I am going to vomit..."

The Inquisitor fell silent.

He slowly lowered the muzzle, and that pitch-black tunnel of death finally moved away.

Li Wei felt the blood throughout his body flowing in reverse, and he took heavy, ragged breaths. His clothes had already been soaked through by cold sweat, clinging tightly to his back and chilling him uncomfortably.

What was he talking about?

What Aether Sight? What void?

Were these people mental patients after all!

The Inquisitor turned around, and that mechanical prosthetic eye emitted a slight buzzing sound, as if re-scanning Li Wei.

This time, his gaze no longer resembled looking at garbage, but rather like scrutinizing a newly unearthed, dangerous ancient relic of unknown use.

"Interesting." The Inquisitor put away his gun, that action as smooth as magic.

He pulled a pristine handkerchief out of his trench coat pocket and gracefully wiped the non-existent dust on his hand.

"Let him down."

The soldier beside him hesitated and said in a muffled voice, "My Lord, according to Article 4 of the Heresy Inquisition Tactical Manual, targets that cannot be detected by psykers usually imply a deeper..."

"I said, let him down." The Inquisitor did not raise his volume, but that soldier immediately fell silent out of fear.

The chains were unlocked.

Li Wei collapsed onto the ground limply like a pool of mud.

His legs had long since gone numb and simply could not support the weight of his body.

He lay on the cold floor, heavily breathing in the air filled with machine oil, feeling that this was the sweetest taste in the world.

"If you were acting, then you are a genius." The Inquisitor looked down at him from above, that single eye revealing a cold light of scrutiny. "What is your name?"

"Li... Li Wei." His throat was terribly hoarse.

"Li Wei. Very well."

The Inquisitor turned around, his black leather trench coat sweeping a crisp arc in the air. "I am Inquisitor Gregor. From now on, you are no longer Heresy Suspect 734."

A trace of hope rose in Li Wei's heart. "Then can I leave..."

"You are now a temporary asset of the Inquisition." Gregor interrupted him, his tone cold and rigid. "Your designation is Void-1."

Before Li Wei could even react, a heavy object was thrown into his arms.

It was a gun.

Square in shape, heavy like a brick, with a battery pack resembling a magazine connected to the side.

"Hold it." A black-armored soldier said coldly.

Li Wei scrambled to hold the gun in a flurry, looking around in disbelief.

Just a moment ago he was going to be killed, and now they were actually issuing him a gun?

"Is this... for me to defend myself with?" Li Wei asked tentatively, trying to squeeze out a ingratiating smile.

However, no one returned his smile.

Even when he held the gun and tried to stand up to approach that soldier, that fully armed big man actually unconsciously took a step back.

That was not out of fear, but out of disgust.

That kind of gaze was like seeing a huge cockroach just crawling out of a sewer, or a lump of rotting meat.

It was a physiological, undisguised repulsion.

"Stay away from me, Void." The soldier's voice was filled with contempt and irritability. "Stand at the back of the line.

If you dare to raise your muzzle and aim it at any of us, I will turn you into a sieve."

Li Wei froze in place.

This undisguised malice made him feel baffled.

He clearly had not done anything; why did these people look at him with gazes even more sickening than when they looked at that cultist just now?

"Let's move." Inquisitor Gregor strode toward the door. "The gutters of the Underhive are still waiting for us. Since we have found an insulator, let's go see what that 'ghost thing' actually looks like."

The procession began to move.

Li Wei held that heavy las pistol, stumbling as he followed at the very back.

The moment he walked out the door, Li Wei was struck speechless by the sight before him.

He had thought this was just an ordinary underground factory.

But he was wrong.

Appearing before his eyes was a metal abyss so huge it defied physical common sense.

The sky could not be seen overhead, only countless crisscrossing huge pipes, each one thick enough to fit a train. Murky steam clouds rolled hundreds of meters above, faintly revealing the dark red industrial lighting.

In the distance were black spires towering like mountain peaks, connecting heaven and earth, their surfaces densely covered with countless windows and catwalks.

The air echoed with a dull roaring sound, which was the breathing sound of the entire Hive City—this gigantic honeycomb city with a population of tens of billions.

There was no sunlight here, no green trees, and not even a trace of a "natural" atmosphere.

Here there was only steel, rock, oil stains, and endless darkness.

Li Wei felt himself as tiny as a speck of dust.

"Don't fall behind." The soldier in front turned back and yelled, but still maintained a distance of five meters away from Li Wei, "Unless you want to be picked up by the Bottom Hive's Corpse Guild and made into fertilizer."

Li Wei hurried to keep up.

He lowered his head to glance at the somewhat ridiculous-looking "pistol" in his hand, then looked ahead at those huge black shadows looming indistinctly in the darkness.

He had survived.

The crisis of death left him unable to think, and he could only be pushed forward in a daze.