The Only Bug

The scene behind the door exceeded Li Wei's understanding of technology.

This was a massive spherical void with countless needle-like stelae embedded into the inner walls.

At the exact center, a green cube that spun and folded frantically was suspended.

It looked like a high-tech Rubik's cube played at hyper-speed, and every rotation released a wave of heart-palpitating ripples into the surroundings.

At the center of that cube, a blinding ball of light was imprisoned.

"What... is that?" Elena covered her eyes, not daring to look directly at that light.

As a battle sister, she instinctively sensed that it was something divine, yet filled with evil.

"How the hell should I know!" Li Wei roared. He was also shaken by the sight, "But this must be the engine of this ghost place!"

The C'tan Shard that Li Wei had just released was now circling the cube like a starving, crazed beast.

It emitted a silent roar, trying to charge in and merge with the ball of light inside.

Just as the dark shadow was about to collide with the cube—

"Hum—" Space distorted.

Li Wei rubbed his eyes. He thought his vision was playing tricks on him.

He saw that the dark shadow had clearly collided with it, but the next second, it returned to its position from a few seconds prior, assuming its charging posture all over again.

Another collision.

Another return to the origin point.

It was like a stuttering videotape or network lag in a video game.

The dark shadow was trapped in a death loop lasting only a few seconds, forever charging, yet forever unable to hit the endpoint.

"Mortal." That cold, mechanical voice sounded once more.

A giant holographic projection materialized in the air; it was a metal monster with a single eye and a body shaped like a jellyfish, its countless tentacles drooping downward.

"Although your actions are foolish, they are within the calculation deviation range."

"I have locked the local timeline."

"That beast can never touch the core. And you..."

The surrounding walls opened, and dozens of tall Necron Warriors holding giant shields and battle-axes walked out.

"Your life countdown is zero."

Elena desperately raised the Medicus Staff, blocking in front of Li Wei.

"Li Wei... This is magic... It's time magic! We can't win!"

Li Wei looked at the dark shadow stuck in its repetitive glitch loop, then looked back at the smug "giant jellyfish" projection.

He truly didn't understand timelines, nor did he understand high-dimensional technology.

But he understood computer glitches.

Isn't this just freezing up? Li Wei cursed inwardly.

When a program falls into an infinite loop, the best method isn't to modify the code, but to forcefully interfere with the hardware.

"Hey! Big jellyfish!" Li Wei suddenly pointed at the projection in the air and shouted, "You planned this out nicely, didn't you!"

The Tomb Technician's single eye rolled, seemingly confused as to why this lower lifeform hadn't peed his pants from fright yet.

"But did you forget one thing?" Li Wei revealed a ferocious smile.

He held no weapons whatsoever.

He suddenly turned and, completely ignoring those closing-in warriors, charged toward the time-loop zone that was continuously replaying!

"Li Wei! Are you crazy?!" Elena screamed.

Li Wei was not crazy.

He was gambling.

He was gambling that his "soulless empty shell" acted as an unidentifiable piece of corrupted code within the precise calculation formulas of the Necrons.

Necron technology was based on the ultimate mastery over the rules of the material universe.

They calculated atoms, calculated energy, and calculated souls.

However, they could not calculate "void".

"Do not... attempt to... interfere with... calculations..." The Tomb Technician's holographic projection flickered rapidly.

Realizing that physical interception was already too late, it activated its ultimate defense mechanism—"Mind Formatting".

Since the physical body of this entity could not be eliminated, it would flood his consciousness through a torrent of data, turning him into a hard drive that only stored data!

"Accessing... neural interface..."

"Initiating... billions of years of historical archives... forced write..."

Hum—!!!

The moment Li Wei rushed into that force field.

No explosion occurred.

He felt as though his head had been split open by an invisible axe.

It was not pain.

It was information.

Massive amounts of information, like a mudslide, poured forcefully along his senses straight into his cerebral cortex.

[Data stream accessing...]

[Warning: Insufficient storage space. Overwriting memory area.]

In an instant, the blackstone tomb was no longer before Li Wei's eyes.

He saw the War in Heaven from sixty million years ago.

He saw the fall of the Old Ones, witnessed the stars being devoured by the C'tan, and beheld the rise and fall of the Aeldari Empire.

He saw the Golden Age of Technology for humanity.

He saw the Horus Heresy, the flames of the Siege of Terra, and the moment the Emperor ascended the Golden Throne.

Countless alien compendiums, countless weapon principles, coordinates of countless planets... All this knowledge that the Necrons had collected over billions of years was stuffed, without distinction of size, directly into the mortal's brain.

"Ahhhhhhh!!!" Li Wei clutched his head, emitting a scream more agonizing than death itself.

Blood flowed from his nostrils, ears, and the corners of his eyes.

His brain was burning.

If not for his "void" constitution constantly destroying the data attempting to occupy his soul, he would have long since become a vegetable.

"Stop! It's... too much!!" Li Wei struggled in the ocean of consciousness.

He felt his ego and self-awareness being drowned by this overwhelming data.

He was on the verge of forgetting who he was.

Yet at the very last moment.

The Necron system, overloaded from having too much data shoved into it, crashed.

[System error: Target brain capacity overflow.]

[Logic gates... burned out.]

Boom! Reality returned.

Li Wei slammed heavily onto the ground, gasping for air as his entire body convulsed.

He felt as though a library had been crammed into his brain; any stray thought flashed would pull forth tons of information designated as the "Warhammer 40K Codex".

He raised his head, looking toward the disintegrating hypercube.

This time, his gaze had changed.

It was no longer that blank, "what the hell is this" expression.

Instead, it was a thorough, icy cognition.

He watched the dark shadow shatter the cube.

A line of information automatically popped up in his mind:

[Target identification: C'tan Shard - Nightbringer derivative.]

[Threat level: Apocalyptic.]

[Weakness: Incorporeal, requires destruction of material vessel.]

He then looked toward the collapsed projection of the Tomb Technician.

[Target identification: Canoptek Cryptek. Affiliated Dynasty: Sautekh.]

"So... that's how it is." Li Wei wiped away the blood flowing from his seven orifices, his gaze turning exceptionally profound.

He was no longer a transmigrator who was completely in the dark.

At this instant, he had been forced to become one of the humans who knew the most in this universe.

The earth shook and mountains quaked.

The pyramid, losing its core support, was disassembling.

Massive blocks of blackstone fell like raindrops.

"Get up! Run!" Li Wei climbed to his feet, pulling up the still-dazed Elena.

"Even though that thing left, this place is about to collapse!"

The two of them ran wildly amidst the collapsing ruins.

The surrounding Necron Warriors had all turned to scrap metal due to the power outage, which saved quite a bit of trouble.

They scrambled hand and foot up the rubble pile beneath the giant hole smashed by the god.

Finally.

They climbed out from the underground.

Returning once again to that white desert.

At this moment, the scene across the desert had completely changed.

The green auroras that originally shrouded the sky had vanished.

The inverted pyramid was falling, slamming into the desert and kicking up sand waves a thousand meters high.

And in the sky, the C'tan that had just been released was confronting something.

Li Wei looked up.

In the pitch-black night sky, apart from the glowing C'tan, another force had appeared.

It was a ship.

A battlecruiser so unimaginably huge that it resembled a Gothic cathedral.

It had just jumped out from the warp, residual lightning still crackling around its hull.

On the ship's broadside, countless gunports were shifting their angles.

The target pointed straight at the C'tan.

"That is..." Elena looked at that ship, tears streaming down her face.

"That's a Black Ship! The holy Inquisition Black Ship!"

Li Wei's heart skipped a beat.

"Black Ship? Isn't that the ship that came to capture me?" He looked closely.

No.

This one was larger and far more aggressive than the previous one.

The huge, burning "I" emblem on the ship's hull declared its identity.

This was the Inquisition's main capital ship.

It was here to execute the "Purge Protocol".

"Omega-level psychic entity (C'tan) detected." An amplified, oracle-like broadcast sounded from the sky.

"Executing Exterminatus Protocol. Target: Eradication."

Boom boom boom boom!! The battlecruiser opened fire.

Countless lance beams and macro-cannons poured down like a torrential rain onto the C'tan that had just broken out of prison.

The C'tan emitted an angry roar.

Although powerful, it had just awakened and was incomplete.

Faced with the Imperial Navy's saturation bombardment, it had no choice but to choose to temporarily avoid the brunt of the attack.

It transformed into a streak of light, tearing through space and disappearing into the deep starry sea.

"It ran." Li Wei let out a breath of relief.

Yet immediately after, he noticed that battlecruiser had not ceased fire.

Its gunports began turning toward the ground.

Toward this collapsing Tomb World.

And... the survivors on the ground.

"Wait..." Li Wei's expression changed, "Are they not coming down to rescue people?"

Elena stared blankly at the sky.

As a battle sister, she understood the Inquisition's methods far better than Li Wei did.

"This is the world of the Necrons. Everyone here has been tainted. And... the C'tan escaped from here."

"To prevent the spread of heresy..."

"They will cleanse everything."

In the sky, a massive Vortex Torpedo was dropped downward.

"This move again?!" Li Wei practically wanted to curse.

He had just finished watching this fireworks show on the previous planet, never expecting to watch a second one so soon.

And this time, he was both the audience and the ashes.

"There's nowhere to run." Li Wei looked at the boundless desert surrounding them.

No spaceship, no cover. Overhead was the Exterminatus.

"We... are about to return to the Emperor's embrace." Elena knelt on the sandy ground, closed her eyes, and began to pray piously.

This time, she did not push Li Wei away.

She even reached out and grabbed Li Wei's filthy hand.

Facing death, she finally set aside her prejudice against the Soulless.

Li Wei did not pray.

He just stared fixedly at the sky.

He was unwilling to accept this.

Having finally crawled out of the Bottom Hive, having finally fought his way out of a Necron tomb.

Just to be blown to pieces like this?

At the very instant before that torpedo was about to land.

Bzz-- A strange vibration suddenly came from the air.

It was not an explosion. Instead, it was a... teleportation hum.

A green portal suddenly opened in front of the two of them.

It was not the ghostly green of the Necrons.

Instead, it was a murkier dark green, filled with the smells of engine oil and rust.

A giant mechanical claw, mixed with steel and flesh, reached out from the portal and grabbed Li Wei and Elena.

"Discovery... interesting data..."
"Pariah... and... devout..."
"Recycle... sample..."

An eerie, hoarse voice filled with a certain mad thirst for knowledge came from inside the portal.

Before Li Wei could even react.

That claw dragged them into the portal.

The next second.

Boom!! The Vortex Torpedo landed.

The world behind them turned into a sea of fire.