Flesh to the Holy Fire, Steel to the Silence

Li Wei pressed his hand onto the control console, which was still glowing with a red light. At that moment, he felt he was no longer human, but an antivirus plugin.

His brain connected to the Necron database, and those cold, high-dimensional alien codes constructed an image called logic before his eyes.

Within this image, the chaos waste code entrenched like a tumor at the core of the console looked so ugly, chaotic, and low-level.

It shrieked and proliferated, attempting to infect Li Wei's brain through the data interface. Come on... merge... rot...

Shut up. Li Wei chanted inwardly.

He did not use code to fight code.

He mobilized his instinct as a pariah—the "void" capable of suffocating souls and withering warp energy.

He channeled this void through his arm and forcefully shoved it into the console's circuit boards.

Sizzle—!!!

The console emitted a shrill electronic screech.

It was like throwing a red-hot branding iron into a barrel full of leeches.

Those waste code viruses parasitizing the circuitry were essentially miniature demonic entities.

When they came into contact with Li Wei's anti-psyker current, they instantly underwent a violent rejection reaction.

The red light began to flicker and recede.

The garbled characters on the screen dissolved like snow meeting a blazing sun.

Black smoke billowed out from the cooling vents, carrying the stench of scorched, rotting meat.

Click. A crisp chime rang out. The red light went out, and the green light turned on.

Neat, rigorous Adeptus Mechanicus binary code leaped back onto the console screen.

System Reboot Complete.

Logic Purification Rate: 100%.

Praise the Machine God.

Li Wei released his hand and staggered back two steps, almost falling over.

His nosebleed dripped onto the floor. This human-meat antivirus routine consumed a tremendous amount of his mental energy, and he felt as though his brains had been drained dry.

"Inconceivable..."

Archmagos Karrg glided over.

He did not steady Li Wei, instead impatiently extending a mechanical tentacle, plugging it into the console's interface, and checking the data.

That red electronic eye flickered wildly, displaying its master's extreme shock. "Clean... thoroughly clean." "No formatting, no rewriting of low-level protocols, even preserving the raw data..." "You merely... 'scared' the virus to death?"

Karrg turned around, that terrifying mechanical face drawing right up to Li Wei's.

This time, a trace of killing intent in his gaze was replaced by the fanaticism of seeing a rare treasure.

"Pass rate: Excellent." "Mortals, your value has been reassessed." "You are no longer expendable material. You are... a tool. A scalpel specifically used to excise digital cancer."

Li Wei wiped away his nosebleed, steadying himself against the table. "Since I have value..." He panted, looking toward Elena in the corner. "Can we discuss terms now?"

Karrg followed Li Wei's gaze and looked toward the trembling sister.

"Terms?" Karrg's voice returned to its cold, mechanical tone. "No need to discuss. Logic has already yielded the optimal solution."

"You must stay." "Because your ability can not only repair machines, but also suppress the virus within my body. You are a maintenance component urgently needed by the Iron Fist."

"As for her..." Karrg's massive mechanical claw pointed at Elena. "She is redundant data. An invalid payload." "She does not understand technology, lacks combat capability, and is fraught with annoying organic emotional fluctuations." "According to the Clan Raukaan resource management regulations, wasting resources is a grave crime."

Li Wei's heart tightened as he stepped in front of Elena. "Do you want to kill her?"

"No. That is also a waste (requiring corpse disposal)." Karrg operated the console a few times. A holographic star map projected outward.

"As it happens, a medicus patrol ship belonging to the Adepta Sororitas—the Hand of Mercy—is undergoing resupply in the orbit of Medusa." "They are searching for survivors in the Atalos Sector."

Karrg looked at Li Wei. "I will hand this female over to them. This is the most logical course of action." "It both clears out the useless population on our ship and buys a favor from the Ecclesiarchy."

Li Wei was stunned. He had originally thought he would have to fight for his life just to keep Elena alive.

He had not expected that these cold-blooded Iron Hands would actually offer... the best ending?

For Elena, returning to the Adepta Sororitas and the Emperor's protection was undoubtedly the finest destination.

Following Li Wei, she could only hide in the gutters and endure physical revulsion.

Yet back with the Adepta Sororitas, she would be a hero and a survivor, with clean clothes, hot food, and a group of like-minded sisters.

This was very reasonable. So reasonable that... it left one feeling a sense of emptiness.

"Li Wei..." Elena stood up from the corner, walked behind Li Wei, and gently tugged on his sleeve.

She had understood.

Li Wei turned around and looked at the woman who had accompanied him all the way here from the Necron tomb.

Her face still bore injuries, her sister's robes were tattered, but in those amber eyes, the confusion born of terror had vanished.

"Do you want to go?" Li Wei asked.

Elena fell silent for a moment.

She glanced around at those cold machines and terrifying cyborgs, then looked back at Li Wei.

Finally, she nodded.

"I am a sister." Her voice was soft, but firm. "My place is in the abbey, on the battlefield, by the side of the wounded. Not... in this blasphemous laboratory."

She raised her head and looked at Li Wei. "And... Li Wei, I do not belong to your world." "Your world is too dark. That void... I cannot endure it for long."

This was the truth.

Though she was grateful to Li Wei, as an ordinary person with a soul and faith, staying beside a pariah was in itself a chronic mental torture.

"Fine." Li Wei nodded, a familiar, indifferent smile appearing on his face. "Then go back to your heaven." "I'm sick of having to divide my attention to take care of dead weight anyway."

The handover proceeded swiftly and coldly. On the external landing pad of the Iron Fist, a Sororitas transport painted with white lily insignia had already landed.

Several battle sisters clad in silver power armor walked down.

They wielded bolters, their eyes vigilantly sizing up the half-mechanical Iron Hands warriors around them.

Though both belonged to the Imperial camp, relations between the Ecclesiarchy and Astartes (especially freaks like the Iron Hands) were far from cordial.

Elena had already been cleaned up.

She had changed into a simple grey robe, tightly clutching a medicus staff that had been broken in half.

Li Wei stood in the shadows, not stepping forward. He was a classified asset, and Karrg forbade him from exposing himself to the Adepta Sororitas (otherwise he would be seized as a heretic). He could only watch from afar.

Elena walked up to the boarding ramp. Those battle sisters immediately surrounded her, checking her body and confirming her identity. Everything went smoothly.

Just at the moment she was about to board. Elena suddenly stopped in her tracks. She pushed aside the guards beside her, turned around, and looked toward the massive, pitch-black entrance of the landing pad.

She could not see Li Wei. Because Li Wei hid in the shadows, and his soulless trait made him as devoid of presence as a ghost. But she knew he was there.

Elena made a motion. She did not trace the aquila (that was meant for the Emperor).

She placed her hand over her heart, then bowed deeply, almost with a trace of humility, toward that dark corner.

This broke protocol. Sisters only bowed in reverence to the Emperor and saints. Yet at this moment, she bowed to a mortal, a monster without a soul.

"May your void..." Her lips moved, her voice dissipating into the chaotic winds of Medusa. "...keep you from ever being swallowed in this man-eating universe."

With that, she turned around and stepped onto the white spacecraft without the slightest hesitation.

The cabin door closed. The engines roared. That single speck of white light representing humanity and tenderness pierced Medusa's grey sky and vanished among the stars.

Li Wei stepped out from the shadows. He watched the vanishing spacecraft, pulled half of an unfinished, rock-hard nutrient block from his pocket, and took a bite. Truly foul. Yet he felt his heart lighten somewhat.

At least, on this damned transmigratory journey, he had accomplished one good thing.

He had returned a stray sheep to the fold.

Even though he himself, a lone wolf, still had to keep wandering across the wasteland.

"Emotional interaction concluded." "Efficiency extremely low."

Archmagos Karrg's voice sounded behind him. That massive mechanical monster glided over, blocking Li Wei's line of sight to the sky.

"That female is gone." "Now, you belong to me." "You belong to the Iron Hands."

Karrg extended a mechanical claw, handing Li Wei something. It was not a collar, nor was it handcuffs. It was a data interface slot. It was a device meant to be implanted in the back of the head to directly connect to the chapter's data network.

"Put it on." "Starting today, you are no longer the refugee Li Wei." "You are the chief logic purifier of the Clan Raukaan." "Your job is simple: use your brain to cleanse the data garbage that has accumulated in this fortress for ten thousand years."

"In return, we will use the best technology to help you suppress the erosion of that Necron database." "This is a fair trade: your freedom for your life."

Li Wei accepted that cold metal slot. He glanced up at the sky. Elena was already gone. Aurelia was gone, too. All those who had ever intersected with his life had returned to the world of light.

Only he remained. Left behind in this hell reeking of engine oil, filled solely with cold logic and cruel augmentation.

"Fine." Li Wei pressed that slot into the back of his neck. A sharp pain lanced through him.

He grinned, a gambler's light flashing in his eyes. "Then let's get to work, boss." "But I must remind you, my wages are quite expensive."

"As long as you can repair those machines." Karrg turned, gliding away toward the depths of the dark factory. "In this mobile fortress, apart from the freedom to leave, you can have anything."

Li Wei followed. His figure vanished into the iron jungle. He never looked back.