Laws of Physics

Heat.

It was not merely the temperature of the air, but a feverish heat that seeped straight from the marrow of his bones.

Li Wei pressed tightly against a massive energy conduit over five meters in diameter.

His hands were already bloody and mangled, but he dared not let up.

For this pipe was vibrating—a violent throbbing like a heartbeat, beating sixty times a minute.

With every throb, a layer of scalding oil-sweat seeped from the surface of the conduit, accompanied by a dull roar reminiscent of some abyssal leviathan.

"Hold on... don't let go..." Li Wei gritted his teeth, shouting to Atticus beneath him.

The Space Marine's sole remaining hand clamped like an iron vise onto a protrusion on the pipe wall, while his legs locked around the tube, all while distracting himself to protect Elena on his back.

"Mortal, what's inside this pipe... isn't energy." Atticus's voice sounded somewhat distorted amid the roaring noise, carrying a trace of thinly veiled disgust.

"I can hear something flowing in there. It's liquid. Is this blood?"

"Worse than blood." Li Wei closed his eyes.

He did not want to look, but his brain forced him to "see."

Deep within his cerebral cortex, the forcibly implanted Necron Library was throwing errors frantically.

Dense lines of green warning characters flickered across his retinas, dissecting the ugly pipe before him layer by layer:

[Structural Analysis: Composite polymer of high-purity adamantium and demonic flesh.]

[Internal Fluid: High-energy Plasma (contaminated).]

[Warning: Anti-physical constants detected. Second Law of Thermodynamics failing in this zone. Entropy reduction is occurring.]

[Conclusion: This is not merely a pipe. This is a nerve used to "convey agony."]

"Don't ask what's inside." Li Wei breathed heavily, sweat rolling down the tip of his nose to land on the pipe wall, instantly transforming into a wisp of thin smoke. "Think of it as a ladder. A ladder leading to the eighteenth layer of hell."

Climbing upward was a protracted torment.

The surrounding darkness was not empty. As they ascended, they passed through layers of scaffolding that resembled spiderwebs.

Those scaffolds were hung with shriveled corpses. They were not prisoners, but former maintenance servitors.

They appeared to have been starved to death or burned by radiation while at work, maintaining their repair postures even in death like a group of loyal grave-keepers.

"Do not touch those corpses." Li Wei warned.

The Necron data told him that the bodies were riddled with spores of the Waste Code Virus.

Once touched, that virus targeting mechanical logic would attempt to infect whoever made contact—though Li Wei was not afraid, the power armor systems on Atticus could instantly paralyze.

"It's too quiet here." Atticus spoke suddenly.

This was an abnormal keenness.

Around this roaring pipeline, aside from the din of the machinery, not a single sound of guards could be heard.

"Because the radiation here is too intense." Li Wei looked up toward the dark red fog overhead.

"This is an Aetheric Radiation Zone. Ordinary people would mutate into a pile of rotting mush within one minute of entering. The Skitarii dare not patrol here."

"Then why are we fine?" Elena asked weakly, having just regained consciousness.

She lay prone on Atticus's back, her complexion as pale as paper.

"Because of me." Li Wei's voice was cold as ice.

"I am a black hole. Radiation walks around me."

"And you clinging to me is like hiding in the eye of a typhoon."

This was a supremely ironic protection.

On this vessel teeming with Warp sorcery and demonic technology, the only thing capable of providing shelter was this mortal regarded as "soul-severed."

At last, the conduit reached its end.

Above lay a massive, circular valve interface.

Though the edges of the interface were somewhat rusted, the precision of the interlocking gears was still visible.

"The exit is here." Li Wei crawled to the edge of the interface, poking his head out.

The sight before him caused his breath to stall, even though he had steeled himself psychologically.

His brain was instantly flooded by the Necron database.

This time, there were no warnings.

Only rage.

A fury belonging to the Necron race from tens of millions of years ago regarding the "abuses of technology," pushed to its absolute limit.

[Blasphemy!]

[This is an insult to the laws of physics!]

[Unforgivable, low-class patchwork!]

Li Wei forcibly suppressed the rage within his brain, opening his eyes wide to stare at the so-called "core laboratory."

This was a massive, spherical interior space. Rather than a laboratory, it resembled an inverted cathedral.

The walls were covered in dense gothic spires and arches, all of them pointing toward the center.

Countless massive energy conduits, much like the one they had just climbed, converged from all directions like blood-sucking tentacles piercing a colossal monstrosity at the center.

And at that epicenter floated a machine.

This machine was as large as a mountain peak.

It was composed of countless rotating brass gears, pistons, coils, and black monoliths.

It operated. Yet the manner of its operation violated every mechanical principle Li Wei knew.

Gears passed through one another, pistons reciprocated without cylinders, and the coils spewed black lightning rather than electrical current.

Demon Engine Core.

Yet this was still not the most terrifying part.

The most horrifying thing was the "battery" of this machine.

At the very center of the machine, a luminous entity was imprisoned.

It was not flame, nor a nuclear fusion reactor.

It was a humanoid shadow of light.

It possessed a perfect physique, constituted of brilliant starlight.

Yet at present, this physique was pierced by countless chains engraved with blasphemous runes.

Those chains were not forged to restrain it, but to torture it.

With every rotation of the machine, the chains tightened, biting into the "flesh" of that luminous shadow and tearing away wisps of starlight from it.

The shadow roared.

It was a silent roar.

With every roar, fissures appeared in the surrounding space, only to be forcibly mended by the Warp force field generated by the machine.

[Identification: C'tan Shard.]

[Codename: Void Dragon Derivative.]

[Status: Extremely weak / Forcibly extracted.]

The Necron data within Li Wei's mind shrieked madly.

He understood at last.

What was this madman Axis doing?

The Necrons imprisoned C'tan shards as batteries based on physical laws (the Tesseract Labyrinth).

While the Dark Mechanicum... they actually utilized demonic sorcery to imprison the god of physics!

This was a cruel abuse of materialism by idealism.

Not only was that C'tan shard suffering physical torment, it was undergoing conceptual contamination to boot.

Warp energy was being forcibly pumped into its body, attempting to transform this god representing "absolute physical rules" into an obedient demon engine.

"Madness..." Li Wei muttered to himself.

"This is forcibly melting water and oil together... this is cooking soup with antimatter."

"That's... the power source?" Atticus climbed up, looking at the imprisoned luminous figure, terror manifesting in his single eye.

As an Astartes, he had witnessed countless heresies.

Yet he had never laid eyes upon such a "grand" heresy.

Elena awoke fully at this moment.

"That is the height of blasphemy." Elena made the Aquila Salute, her fingers trembling.

"That glowing thing... it looks in agony. Even more so than those who were sacrificed."

"Because it does not belong here." Li Wei stared at the luminous figure. "It is the foundation stone of the material universe. And these madmen are attempting to pollute that foundation stone with nightmares."

At that very instant.

The C'tan shard suspended at the center of the machine seemed to sense something.

Its featureless face slowly turned. Across a distance of hundreds of meters, piercing through countless running gears and flashes of lightning.

It "looked" at Li Wei.

Hum! Li Wei's brain felt struck by lightning. Yet this time, it was not the cold mathematical formulas of before.

Rather, it was a plea... for rescue.

No, it was a transaction.

[...Void...]

[...You can... sever...]

[...Shut them... down...]

That voice bypassed Li Wei's hearing entirely, echoing within the Necron database in his mind.

It recognized Li Wei.

Or rather, it recognized the knowledge residing within Li Wei's mind.

That was knowledge belonging to it, which had once enslaved it, but which also understood it best.

Amid this hellscape teeming with chaos contamination, Li Wei—a Pariah bearing Necron lore—was the sole "tool" it could comprehend and utilize.

"You want me to save you?" Li Wei asked inwardly.

[...No...]

[...I want you to... turn this ship... into my... body...]

Li Wei's pupils constricted.

Well, well.

This shard was even wilder than the one in the tomb.

Not only did it want out, it wanted to counterattack, transforming this warship forged from demonic flesh into its new vessel in the physical universe.

Should it succeed... a living warship possessing the power of a C'tan, fused with demonic technology?

That would spell doom for the entire sector.

"But I have no choice, do I?" Li Wei smiled bitterly.

If he did not help it, Axis would sooner or later stuff him into that machine as well.

"Someone is coming." Atticus shoved Li Wei downward, the three of them concealing themselves behind a stack of massive cooling pipes.

On the platform below, a squad of figures marched out.

Leading them was none other than Archmagos Axis.

He still levitated in midair, his mechanical tentacles waving, looking exceptionally excited.

Behind him followed a squad of Skitarii, escorting a fresh batch of "fuel."

These were dozens of captured psykers.

They were stripped of their clothing and shaved bald, their bodies daubed with Chaos runes.

"Great Vashtorr... witness this sacred fusion." Axis's voice reverberated through the massive chamber.

He waved his tentacles.

The Skitarii shoved those screaming psykers toward the edge of the machine.

There stood several feed-in ports resembling meat grinders.

"To shatter the boundary between reality and illusion!" "Feed them!"

Accompanied by screams of agony, those psykers were cast into the feed-in ports.

Crunch, crunch—flesh flew.

Yet the machine required not meat, but the panic-fueled psychic energy they erupted in the moments before death.

Those visible wisps of purple psychic vapor were drawn along conduits into the core, forcibly injected into the body of the C'tan shard.

"Roar!!!" The C'tan shard emitted a piteous howl.

Its radiance began to grow turbid, the pure starlight mingling with purple warp energy.

It thrashed, causing the entire core hall to vibrate violently.

"Not enough! Still not enough!" Axis roared fanatically.

"Its will still resists! It still clings to those laughable laws of physics!" "Increase the dosage! Hook up the backup 'screaming batteries' as well!"

Witnessing this spectacle, Li Wei felt a chill run through him.

No matter how many times one saw people being burned like firewood, one could never grow accustomed to it.

"We have to make our move." Li Wei turned his gaze to Atticus.

"Do you see that black pedestal at the very bottom of the machine?"

Atticus narrowed his single eye, adjusting his focus. "Seen. There are many guards there."

"That is the Suppression Field Generator." Li Wei's Necron vision provided a weak-point analysis.

"That is the critical component suppressing the C'tan's rebellious consciousness. It operates on warp sorcery."

"You want me to blow it up?" Atticus asked.

"No." Li Wei shook his head. "Can't blow it up. That thing is protected by void shields."

He drew the broken sword from his inner pocket.

This weapon brought out from the Necron Tomb was broken, but its material was living metal.

It was the only medium that could pierce a C'tan Shard's defenses and also channel a C'tan Shard's power.

"I'm going there," Li Wei pointed at the pedestal. "I'm going to jam this sword in."

"And then... I'm going to be the conductor."

"Are you trying to—" Elena seemed to guess something, covering her mouth in terror. "You want to use your body to connect to that god?"

"I'm an insulator," Li Wei looked at the broken sword in his hand. "But I'm also the only circuit breaker."

"If I jam this sword into the pedestal and simultaneously touch the energy stream released by that Star God..." "My 'Void' trait will trigger a logical collapse."

"Just like what we did in the tomb."

"But this time..." Li Wei glanced at that terrifying machine. "The energy level this time is ten thousand times higher. I might vaporize directly."

"Then why are you still doing it?" Atticus asked in a deep voice.

Li Wei glanced down at the psykers being used as fuel below.

Then he glanced at Elena, covered in wounds beside him, and the mutilated Atticus.

"Because this is the only way to flip this table over," Li Wei took a deep breath. "And... that big guy locked inside promised me that if I help it break out, it'll send us home."

"You believe the words of a xenos god?" Atticus let out a cold snort.

"No," Li Wei grinned. "But I believe that perverted old man who wants to slice me up even less."

"Ready, big guy?" Li Wei looked toward Atticus. "I need a path. A path that can let me rush in front of that pedestal."

Atticus fell silent for a second.

Then, he stood up.

His massive body appeared incomparably majestic in the shadows.

He lacked the protection of power armor, lacked a bolter, and had only one hand and an iron pipe he had picked up.

"I am the Iron Hands," the giant let out a low battle cry. "My flesh may rot, but the iron will endures."

"Path..." Atticus leaped out fiercely, smashing toward the platform below like a meteorite. "I'll carve one out for you!"

Boom! The giant landed, directly flattening a Skitarii. Combat erupted instantly.

"Let's go!" Li Wei pulled Elena up and jumped down right behind him. This was the final gamble. Win, and go home. Lose, and turn to dust.

Chaos.

Utter chaos.

Atticus was like a lion charging into a flock of sheep.

Even with only one hand, his strength still crushed those Skitarii.

He swung the iron pipe, every strike able to smash an enemy's head deep into their chest cavity. But after all, he had no armor.

Laser beams and bolts struck his body, blooming into clusters of bloody flowers.

Yet he did not stop. With his flesh and blood, he forcefully tore an opening through the dense defense line.

"Stop him! Don't let him get close to the core!" Axis screamed from above, as he too saw the intentions of this group.

Li Wei sprinted behind Atticus. Elena was by his side, desperately beating at the Servo-skulls attempting to get close with her not-so-sharp medicus staff.

"We're almost there!" Li Wei stared at the black pedestal. Only fifty meters left.

Right at that moment, however.

A giant mechanical tentacle descended from the sky, slamming viciously into Atticus's back.

Pfft! Atticus spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, his entire body knocked flying as he crashed heavily into the wall, life or death unknown.

Axis had made a move personally. The half-man, half-machine monstrosity hovered in the air, countless lethal weapons extending from his back.

"Want to destroy my masterpiece?" Axis's single red electronic eye stared fixedly at Li Wei.

"Pariah... I gave you the chance to be a specimen, yet you chose to be ash."

A scorching melta ray shot out from his tentacle, pointing straight at Li Wei.

"Li Wei!" Elena lunged over fiercely, pushing Li Wei away.

The melta ray brushed past her shoulder, scorching her flesh.

Li Wei rolled on the ground.

He was only ten meters away from that pedestal. Yet Axis blocked the middle.

"Despair?" Axis raised his chainsword. "Your friend has fallen. Your path is cut off."

Li Wei lay prone on the ground, gasping for breath.

He looked at that arrogant Dark Magos.

Then he looked at the C'tan Shard roaring angrily overhead.

Suddenly.

A piece of Necron data flashed through Li Wei's mind.

[Star God Trait: Absolute control over physical matter.]
[If you cannot touch the pedestal... then make the pedestal touch you.]

Li Wei did not attempt to stand up and charge.

Instead, he raised the broken sword in his hand.

He shouted toward the imprisoned Star God:

"Hey! Big lightbulb! This is your bone! Catch!"

He forcefully hurled the broken sword in his hand—that piece of living metal fragment—toward the C'tan Shard in the air!

This action completely exceeded Axis's expectations.

He thought Li Wei was going to blow up the pedestal, and as a result, this brat threw his weapon away?

The broken sword traced an arc through the air, passing through layers of lightning and shields.

To ordinary matter, these shields were fatal.

However, this sword was Necron metal.

The instant the broken sword flew into that body of light and shadow.

Buzz! The C'tan Shard caught it.

It was just like a drowning person grabbing a straw.

Although it was only a small fragment, it was physical substance.

It was the anchor point it could attach to within this physical universe.

[...Received...]

A split suddenly tore open across the Star God's featureless face.

That was a smile.

A ferocious smile.

Now that it had a physical medium.

It could wield its authority.

"Bow... down to me!" Although Li Wei did not speak, that god spoke for him.

Boom!!!

Gravity.

Terrifying gravity descended instantly. It was not aimed at everyone.

Instead, it targeted Axis, who was blocking Li Wei's path, with pinpoint precision.

That Dark Magos who had originally been hovering midair suddenly felt as though a great mountain pressed down upon his back.

Crack! Crack! The mechanical prosthetics on his body emitted unbearable cracking sounds.

His proud anti-gravity engine overloaded and exploded instantly.

"No!! This is impossible!!" Axis shrieked in misery, smacked straight down out of the air by that invisible force.

He slammed into the ground heavily like a flattened fly, his entire body pressed deep into the metal flooring, unable to move a single inch.

The path was open.

Li Wei scrambled up from the ground.

He didn't even glance at the magos pressed into a meat patty.

He rushed in front of the black pedestal.

He picked up the broken sword; the Star God no longer needed it.

"It's over." Li Wei placed both hands on the core rune of the pedestal.

Full power release: Void Collapse.

Zor--!!!

In that moment.

Black lightning swallowed the entire core hall.

The machine imprisoning the Star God exploded.