Only the Mad Are Sane

The black smoke rising from the mid hive suddenly extinguished.

The cascading gunfire from the bottom hive stopped dead in the exact same second.

Even the howling wind outside the windows seemed to vanish.

An indescribable, viscous silence sealed the entire Atalos Hive City like corpse wax.

What is going on? Li Wei furrowed his brow.

He received no answer.

Aurelia was kneeling before the console.

Her hands, which had just been wielding a fire axe and killing without blinking, were now clamped tightly around her own throat, her fingernails dug deep into the flesh to claw out trails of bloody marks.

Her eyes bulged to the limit, pupils dilated to the edges, and two lines of black blood tears streamed from the corners of her eyes.

Her mouth hung wide open as if screaming, yet not a single sound came out.

That expression was not one of pain.

It was the collapse of a soul witnessing ultimate terror.

Aurelia? A shock went through Li Wei's heart as he stepped over quickly, intending to help her up.

Yet the moment his hand touched Aurelia, she sprung back violently like an electrocuted fish and cowered into a corner of the wall.

She stared at Li Wei, her eyes filled with incomprehensible dread.

"Don't... don't come over..." Aurelia's voice was hoarse and distorted, as though she held a mouthful of sand in her throat. "Your face... your face is gone... You're an abyss... You're a black hole..."

Li Wei froze.

He touched his own face.

His face was fine.

Right then, a strange sound drifted from outside the broadcast center's doors.

Plop.

Plop.

Plop.

It was the sound of something wet slapping against the ground.

Li Wei raised his hellgun, walking vigilantly toward the door.

Through the observation window on the door, he saw the corridor outside.

There sat the several hundred rampant servitors he had brought.

Those iron monsters that knew only slaughter were performing an extremely eerie action at this moment.

They had all ceased functioning.

Every last servitor stood dumbly in place, heads raised, staring fixedly at the ceiling—or rather, at something residing above the ceiling.

Their electronic prosthetic eyes had all turned a desolate, bloody red.

Immediately following, an ogryn servitor slowly raised its huge power claw toward its own head— Boom! It blew its own head off.

Next came the second, the third.

Screeech— Those servitors equipped with chainsaw arms aimed the blades at their own abdomens, slowly cutting inward.

There were no screams, only the humming drone of machinery and the squelching sound of flesh being churned to mush.

Hundreds of servitors were standing in line within this silent corridor, executing a silent, collective suicide.

The scene was absurd to the extreme, yet horrifying to the extreme.

It resembled a pantomime sacrifice to the void.

What the hell is going on? Li Wei felt his scalp tingle.

He did not fear monster charges or hails of gunfire.

Yet this spectacle of "everyone is possessed, but only I am awake" brought a bone-chilling frost to his heart.

He suddenly realized that some sensation seemed to exist within his own head as well.

Tinnitus.

A very faint buzzing sound, akin to the snow static screen of an old television set.

It was merely slightly annoying, like a neighbor doing renovations.

Yet for all the sentient, soulful beings in this world, this sound was likely no mere "tinnitus."

It was a psychic broadcast originating from the Genestealer Patriarch or the Hive Mind.

It was a psychic pollutive force capable of directly shattering sanity and seizing control of the brain.

The Choir.

Under such high-intensity psychic pollution, ordinary people would instantly go mad, witnessing the phantasms they feared most or directly being controlled into committing suicide.

Even a strong-willed warrior like Aurelia had plunged into frenzy due to the psychic overload.

Except for Li Wei.

Because he was a "pariah."

His soul was empty, entirely incapable of receiving this "frequency."

Others heard an onslaught of demon-whispers powerful enough to shatter their brains.

Li Wei heard only: "Bzzzz..."

Damn it, this is more troublesome than a riot. Li Wei turned around, taking long strides toward Aurelia who was cowering in the corner.

He knew reasoning was useless now.

She was experiencing a nightmare right then.

Slap! Li Wei swung his arm round in a wide arc, delivering a vicious backhand across Aurelia's face.

The blow landed with immense force, knocking Aurelia's head sideways as half her face swelled up instantly.

Physical attacks frequently served to disrupt mental hallucinations.

"Wake up!" Li Wei grabbed her collar, thrusting his "revolting" face close to hers. "Look at me! I'm Li Wei! I'm that soulless wretch who disgusts you!"

Aurelia's pupils contracted violently.

Within her field of vision, the entire world consisted of blood-red, twisted tentacles, with only the man before her forming an absolute, icy black blank space.

Though this blank space aroused nausea, it blocked those reaching red tentacles.

"Li... Li Wei?" Aurelia panted heavily, her gaze finally regaining a shred of clarity.

Immediately after, she clutched Li Wei's arm like a drowning person seizing a driftwood log, her nails sinking into his flesh. "Don't leave me... The voice... That voice is drilling into my brain..."

"I know. That big bastard is getting desperate." Li Wei pulled her up. "We have to move. Outside is bound to be crawling with lunatics right now."

He kicked the door open.

The corridor was already a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

The bodies of hundreds of servitors piled atop one another, motor oil and fresh blood blending into a river.

The two stepped over the corpses, pressing onward toward the top-floor starport landing pad.

This journey proved to be a true voyage of terror.

They passed by a noble lounge.

The door stood open. The nobles inside had not transformed into monsters.

They sat clustered around a table, holding exquisite silver cutlery, carving chunks of flesh from one another's bodies.

As they cut, they maintained graceful smiles, as though conducting a sacred banquet.

"Darling, your liver is truly delicious."

"Oh, thank you, your eyeball has a delightful chewiness as well."

Aurelia took a single glance and vomited.

Li Wei walked past with a blank expression, casually pulling the door shut.

"Don't look. That's just the hallucination inverting their sense of pain."

They bypassed a passage guarded by royal guards.

Those guards still stood ramrod straight.

Yet upon closer inspection, one would discover they had already gouged out their own eyeballs, cradling them within their palms while mumbling under their breath: "I see clearly... I finally see clearly..."

As Li Wei passed, these blinded guards swiveled their heads in unison (though devoid of orbs), their hollow eye sockets staring fixedly in Li Wei's direction.

Within their perception, Li Wei constituted the single speck of foul blackness amidst this radiant world.

"Ah!!!" A guard suddenly shrieked, leveling his rifle at Li Wei.

"The void! That's the void! He's devouring the light!"

Bang! Li Wei raised a hand and fired a shot, scoring a precise headshot.

"I'm your dad." Li Wei coldly lowered his gun, stepping over the corpse.

No intense firefights ensued.

Only endless, eerie madmen.

Some danced before the walls, some gnawed on carpets, while others scooped out their internal organs to arrange them into sculptures.

In this world where everyone had lost their minds, Li Wei—the sole normal person—instead appeared like an anomaly.

He walked as though moving through a living oil painting of hell. Everyone else suffered inside the canvas, while he alone remained the tourist observing the art.

"We've arrived." Li Wei halted his steps.

Ahead lay the final blast door leading to the starport's private landing pad.

It was also Valorian's office—the very top of the "Gilded Rose."

Yet something blocked the doorway.

Or rather... someone.

It was Valerius, Aurelia's second older brother.

The man who had attempted to resist control during the banquet earlier.

At this moment, he knelt before the blast door.

He had not mutated.

Yet the skin upon his body... was gone.

He had peeled away every inch of his skin in one complete suit, hanging it upon a coat rack nearby like an overcoat.

Crimson muscle fibers lay exposed to the air, yet he seemingly felt no pain.

Using his own blood, he drew complex, blasphemous symbols upon the blast door.

Hearing footsteps, Valerius slowly turned his head.

Eyeballs lacking eyelids appeared exceptionally large and terrifying.

"Little sister..." Valerius parted his mouth (devoid of lips), revealing two rows of ivory-white teeth.

"You're late."

"The transport has already left."

"Father... has gone with 'the God.'"

Aurelia trembled all over, gripping the fire axe tightly in her hands yet finding herself utterly unable to swing it down.

This proved far more shattering than facing monsters.

"A god?" Li Wei stepped forward, planting himself before the blood-drenched gore-man.

He still exhibited no fear whatsoever, maintaining only a nearly numbed composure.

"You mean that big bug?" Li Wei gestured upward toward the ceiling.

"No... It is redemption..." Valerius watched Li Wei, the eyelidless orbs rotating slightly.

Amidst the psychic tidal wave, Li Wei alone appeared sharp and distinct within his vision.

Yet precisely because of that clarity, he terrified him all the more.

"You..." Valerius suddenly shrank back, his voice trembling.

"Why do you have no sound?"

"Why can't I perceive your soul?"

"Are you a dead man?"

Within this high-dimensional perspective saturated with psychic energy, Li Wei's existence resembled a bug.

A bug impossible to comprehend even after being stripped of one's skin and granted spiritual vision.

"I'm no dead man." Li Wei raised the hellgun, pressing the muzzle against the blood-vessel-exposed head of Valerius.

"I'm the one who came to wake you up."

Bang!

Valerius's head exploded.

Li Wei showed neither hesitation nor mercy.

Within a world gone mad, death remained the sole mercy.

He shoved open the blast door smeared thick with fresh blood.

A gale rushed inward.

Out upon the landing pad, absolute emptiness reigned.

The governor's private yacht was indeed gone.

Yet at the edge of the landing pad stood a figure.

It was a person draped in purple robes, standing with their back turned to them. Valorian.

He stood by the precipice, arms flung wide as though embracing the sky.

"Look." Valorian did not turn around, his voice drifting erratically on the wind.

"How beautiful."

Li Wei and Aurelia walked to the edge, following the direction of his gaze.

Up into the pitch-black night sky.

No starry firmament hung there.

Instead, a face rested upon the heavens.

A colossal phantom composed of purple nebulae, tentacles, and countless eyes that spanned half the dome of the sky.

It was looking down at the burning Hive City.

It was just like looking at a piece of cake on a dinner plate.

"It is coming." Valorian turned around.

His face had already changed.

His facial features had vanished, replaced by a huge, vertical, purple single eye.

"Now, even the ticket is useless, Mr. Li Wei." Valorian let out an overlapping, maddening laugh.

"Because this place is already its stomach."