Funeral for an Angel

Whoosh—!!!

Like two withered leaves swept up by a hurricane, Li Wei and Aurelia were violently blasted thousands of meters into the high altitude by that surge of biological airflow from deep within the earth's core.

The moment the weightlessness vanished, gravity took charge of everything once again.

The two of them crashed heavily onto a landing platform at the very top of Atalos Hive.

"Cough, cough, cough..." Li Wei rolled over a few times, stopping only when he slammed into a fractured pillar.

Every bone in his body ached, but he could not afford to care about that.

He raised his head and looked out at the world.

Even though he had mentally prepared himself, the scene before him still filled him with a sense of shock and insignificance born from the depths of his soul.

Atalos Prime was dying.

The hive below, that titanic tower of steel that had stood for millennia, was now twisting and collapsing like a melting candle. Massive fissures spread along the tower's body, and crimson magma spewed from the cracks like blood, devouring the bottom hive, submerging the mid hive, and spreading toward the upper levels.

And overhead.

The originally purple sky was torn apart.

The atmosphere burned, presenting a sickly dark red.

Countless massive orbital bombardment beams pierced the atmosphere from outer space, slicing the surface with the precision of scalpels and instantly detonating any alien vessels attempting to take off and escape.

That was the Imperial Navy's blockade line.

The Inquisition had not broken its word.

Since the vortex torpedoes had already struck the core, every single second now was to ensure that "not a single bug leaves alive."

"It... it's split..." Aurelia knelt on the ground, staring blankly at the distant horizon.

The earth there was buckled upward, resembling a snapped cracker.

Hundreds of millions of tons of seawater poured backward into the mantle, stirring up towering walls of steam clouds ten thousand meters high.

This was a true apocalypse.

Nothing was more despairing than watching a planet disintegrate on a physical level.

"Stop looking." Li Wei scrambled up and hauled Aurelia to her feet. "The torpedo already blew the core; this planet can hold out for half an hour at most. We need to find something to get out of here!"

"How?!" Aurelia pointed at the empty landing pad. "The Golden Eagle is down below! All the ships are destroyed!"

Li Wei gritted his teeth and looked around.

This was the highest point of the hive, originally the VIP zone of the starport.

Though most of the ships had flown away during the recent chaos, perhaps there was still...

Right at that moment.

Thunder rolled across the sky.

No, that was not natural thunder.

It was the sonic boom of some massive object tearing through the atmosphere at supersonic speed.

Li Wei looked up.

He saw that amid the burning clouds, a dozen black meteors dragging long tails of fire were plunging rapidly toward the platform where they stood.

"Meteorites?" Aurelia asked.

"No..." Li Wei narrowed his eyes, studying the silhouettes of those black dots.

Those rugged lines, that paint job carrying the aura of death.

Even if he were not a Warhammer fan, he would never mistake it.

"Drop pods." Li Wei's voice trembled. "They're here."

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A dozen drop pods slammed into the platform like iron hammers.

The massive shockwave instantly blew away the surrounding rubble and shattered walls.

Li Wei and Aurelia had to press themselves flat behind cover to avoid being swept away by the blast wave.

Accompanied by the hissing release of hydraulic valves, those drop pods, which had blossomed like lotus flowers, abruptly opened their hatch doors.

What walked out from within were no mortals.

They were giants.

Standing over two and a half meters tall, they wore thick, deep-blue power armor adorned with gold trim along the edges.

Painted on their shoulders was the white inverted "U" symbol—the Ultramarines.

They wielded massive bolters, their strides so heavy the ground trembled.

Astartes brothers.

The Emperor's angels of death.

In mortal propaganda, they were saviors, beacons of hope.

The moment Li Wei saw them with his own eyes, however, all he felt was terror.

An instinctive reaction known as transhuman dread.

These giants were too fast, too strong, too perfect.

They were not human at all, but bioweapons born for slaughter.

"For Macragge! For the Emperor!" The lead sergeant issued a thunderous battle cry.

They were not here for rescue.

They were here to purge.

Even with the planet bombed to ruins, they still feared stray survivors, and on the eve of the planet's total collapse, they were conducting a sweep for high-value targets.

At the other end of the platform, a group of Genestealer remnants crawling up from the sewers attempted to charge this way.

Bang! Bang! Bang! The bolters opened fire.

That was no mere shooting; it was a massacre.

Every single bolt accurately blasted the upper body of a monster into minced meat.

Those lethal hunters that Li Wei had to treat with utmost caution were like helpless chicks ready for slaughter before this group of blue giants.

Scarcely ten seconds.

The battle ended.

Only a pile of purple flesh scraps remained on the ground.

That squad of Ultramarines turned, the red optics on their helmets locking onto Li Wei and Aurelia hiding behind the stone pillar.

"Out! Citizens!" The sergeant's voice boomed through the vox-grill, cold, majestic, and unquestionable.

Aurelia stood up, trembling.

As she looked at these legendary angels, tears streamed down her face.

"We're saved... Li Wei, we're saved..." She tried to pull Li Wei out with her.

But Li Wei pulled his hand back.

He watched those giants, a fierce sense of unease welling up in his heart.

He was a Pariah.

Yet the surgical augmentation of Astartes brothers included extremely rigorous psychological and even psychic-level enhancements.

Their senses were a hundred times sharper than a mortal's.

If ordinary people felt Li Wei was merely "a bit sickening."

Then to these hyper-sensory superhumans, Li Wei's presence was like a massive, filthy dead pixel in their field of vision.

"You go by yourself," Li Wei said in a low voice.

But it was already too late.

The sergeant strode over, every step accompanied by the hum of servo-motors.

He arrived before the two of them, his massive shadow enveloping them.

The sergeant removed his helmet.

It was a resolute, scar-battered face, yet as perfectly sculpted as a statue.

His gaze fell first upon Aurelia.

A scanner swept over the medals and residual family crest on her chest.

"Identity confirmed." The sergeant's voice softened by a fraction. "Aurelia van Atalos. Daughter of the Planetary Governor. Inquisition data indicates you are currently the sole legal survivor and loyalist leader of this world."

"I am... I am..." Aurelia stammered incoherently, gesturing toward the ruins behind her. "My father... and everyone else..."

"No need for words. Your loyalty is recorded." The sergeant pointed toward a Thunderhawk gunship that had just landed behind him.

"Board the ship. The Inquisitor requires your testimony to determine whether House Atalos must be utterly erased."

As long as she boarded that ship, she would survive.

Moreover, as the sole survivor and guide, she would be repurposed by the Empire, possibly even noticed by some Sororitas or Inquisitor, gaining a new lease on life.

Aurelia nodded and stepped toward the gunship.

After two steps, she abruptly stopped and looked back at Li Wei.

"Wait! Him too!" Aurelia pointed at Li Wei cowering in the shadows. "He saved me! He's the one who planted the beacon! He contributed!"

The sergeant turned his head.

Those initially calm gray eyes contracted violently the instant they locked onto Li Wei.

"What... are you?"

The sergeant's hand instantly slapped down onto the bolt pistol at his waist.

The surrounding Ultramarines raised their weapons in unison, their movements synchronized as killing intent instantly locked onto Li Wei.

This reaction was instinctive.

In their eyes, Aurelia was an injured human female.

While Li Wei... in their superhuman vision, Li Wei resembled a humanoid void, a black hole swallowing the light and emotions around him.

This sensation filled them with extreme revulsion, even... hatred.

"Don't shoot!!" Aurelia rushed over to block in front of Li Wei, spreading her arms. "He's human! He's a Pariah! It was his ability that blocked the bugs' perception so we could survive!"

"A Pariah..." The sergeant's brow furrowed tightly, though he did not lower his gun.

"Sister of Silence physiology? Or some unregistered mutant?"

He did not afford him the respect he showed Aurelia.

In the Empire's rigid dogma, mutants and heretics were separated by a mere thread.

While Pariahs had their uses in certain contexts, in the overwhelming majority of cases, they were viewed as "monsters stripped of their souls."

"Let him board." Aurelia possessed a ruthless streak; she whipped out her bloodstained fire axe (though it looked like a toy before the Astartes). "If you don't take him, I'm not going. All you'll get is a corpse incapable of providing any intelligence."

The sergeant was silent for a moment.

He weighed the options. Mission priority: acquire intelligence > purge heresy.

Aurelia was a key witness.

"...Boarding permitted." The sergeant finally loosened his grip on the pistol butt, though his gaze toward Li Wei remained filled with icy disgust.

"However, you will be shackled. And confined in an isolation cell."

"Until we hand you over to a Black Ship or the Inquisition for screening."

"Li Wei..." Aurelia turned back, her expression complex.

She knew what this meant. Once on that ship, Li Wei would no longer be a free man.

He would become a prisoner, a test subject, or some disposable weapon.

Li Wei stepped out from the shadows.

He looked at the towering giant, then at the anxious-faced Aurelia.

He suddenly smiled.

A smile both relaxed and helpless.

"Is this what they call 'being saved'?" Li Wei raised his hands to indicate he posed no threat.

"Fine. Having a life beats turning to ash."

He walked toward the group of giants.

As he passed the sergeant, that battle-hardened Astartes even subconsciously stepped aside to avoid any physical contact with Li Wei—the aversion of touching something akin to excrement was that real.

Li Wei boarded the ship.

Yet he was roughly shoved by two warriors into a narrow metal cage located at the bottom, like a prisoner being escorted.

"Stay inside. Make no sound. Look at no one." A warrior coldly shut the heavy isolation door.

With the roar of the Thunderhawk's engines, the gunship soared into the air, piercing the burning atmosphere and rocketing toward outer space.

Through the cage's tiny observation window.

Li Wei took one final look at Atalos Prime below.

The planet was breaking apart.

The crust shattered, and magma swallowed all sin and prosperity.