The Name of Hell

"Bite on this piece of wood. Unless you want to bite your tongue off."

The guy known as the bone-saw doctor tossed over a black wooden stick covered in teeth marks.

This was a back-alley clinic located in a corner of the settlement. Rusty bone saws, dripping pliers, and a few mutant organs pickled in formalin hung on the walls.

Li Wei didn't bother to pick up that stick of unknown origin that had been bitten by who knows how many people.

He gripped the edge of the operating table tightly, sweat pouring down his face. "Just do it."

The doctor—an old man fitted with a huge mechanical compound eye, exuding the smell of preservative all over his body—let out an ugly, derisive snort.

He just wanted to hurry up and dispatch Li Wei, this "disgusting, bad-luck freak."

"As you wish."

There was no anesthetic.

Here, painkillers were more expensive than human lives.

Holding a pneumatic stapler that looked like a desktop stapler, the doctor pulled the trigger directly against the deep, bone-exposed wound on Li Wei's thigh.

Clack!

The sound of metal staples driving into flesh and blood.

"Ngh!!!" Li Wei's entire body jerked violently, a suppressed, muffled roar tearing from his throat as his vision went black instantly.

Clack! Clack! Clack!

Three times in a row.

The wound was brutally and forcibly closed.

Then, a bottle of disinfectant of unknown composition that burned like magma was splashed over it.

"Get lost." The doctor tossed his blood-stained gloves into a bucket, not even wanting to give Li Wei a second glance. "That guard captain already paid for you. Don't let me see you again. In my clinic, even bacteria grow slowly."

Ten minutes later.

Li Wei sat limping near an abandoned ventilation shaft on the outer edge of the settlement.

It was relatively quiet here; nobody wanted to get close to him.

This also gave him his first real moment to think calmly since his transmigration.

He pulled out the half-block of "corpsestarch" he had snatched earlier from his pocket and forced down a small bite, fighting back his nausea.

As his blood sugar rose, those fragments of memory that had been suppressed by adrenaline began to piece themselves back together in his brain.

He looked at the starch packaging in his hand.

Printed on it was that iconic, two-headed eagle emblem looking left and right respectively—the Imperial Aquila.

He raised his head, looking at the ragged crowds in the distant market.

Those workers with tubes plugged into their bodies.

Those servo-skulls floating in the air—drones made from dead men's skulls.

Those skull decorations plastered all over the walls, and the slogans brandishing words like "hatred," "purification," and "heresy."

And the vocabulary from the Inquisitor's mouth: Emperor, Machine Spirit, Hive City, Warp.

Li Wei's hands began to tremble.

This trembling wasn't caused by pain, but by a cold realization originating from the depths of his soul.

Back when he was in college on Earth, his roommate was a miniature-painting fanatic.

Li Wei remembered that fat guy always grinning stupidly at a pile of gray plastic little men, muttering things like "For the Emperor," "Waaagh!", or "Blood for the Blood God."

Back then, Li Wei just thought it was chūnibyō.

He would occasionally overhear a thing or two from the side.

This universe is too dark, Li Wei. In the 41st millennium, there is no peace, only endless war.

Humans? Humans are just consumable material. To keep that old man sitting on the golden toilet from dying, a thousand psykers must be sacrificed every day.

The joking words from his memory had now turned into a noose tightening around his throat.

"I remember..." Li Wei leaned against the cold iron wall, closing his eyes in despair as a bitter smile, uglier than crying, tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"This is Warhammer 40,000."

"I fucking transmigrated into almost the worst, most desperate, most hopeless cesspool in all of science fiction."

The gods here were real—and they wanted to eat your soul.

The Empire here was the most brutal machine in the entire universe—they would blow up an entire planet just because you took one extra look at a forbidden book.

"And I..." Li Wei lowered his head to look at his hands.

"I am an undocumented person with no background whatsoever. I'm also a 'pariah' that everyone finds disgusting."

A sense of despair washed over him like a tidal wave.

In this world, ordinary people died before the age of 30 from overwork, toxic gas, or riots.

As for a "freak" like him, he would either be snatched by the Inquisition to serve as a living battery or chopped up by gangsters and sold to the gladiatorial arenas.

Want to go home?

Keep dreaming.

In this galaxy ravaged by Warp storms, Earth was no longer that blue home, but a giant mausoleum filled with religious fanaticism.

Li Wei felt all the strength drain from his body.

He began to frantically recall all his knowledge regarding Warhammer, memories tucked away in a corner unlocking once more.

Li Wei composed his emotions a little; the more he thought about it, the more desperate he felt.

Instead of struggling like this, would it have been better to just die in that scrap pit earlier?

Right at that moment, a shrill alarm siren interrupted his self-abandonment.

In the market not far away, a few gangsters were beating up a child who had been stealing.

They laughed as they used iron rods to break the child's legs, while the surrounding crowd not only showed no sympathy but instead watched apathetically, some even cheering.

And further away in the shadows, Li Wei saw a few things with mutated tentacles peering at this place, waiting for a straggling prey.

Only the dead are truly innocent. Inquisitor Gregor's words suddenly echoed in his mind.

Li Wei opened his eyes abruptly.

His gaze changed.

That despair hadn't vanished, but it was suppressed by another, more frantic emotion—anger.

Anger at this world that treated human lives like blades of grass.

Anger at this damned fate.

"Since this is hell..." Li Wei pulled the data-slate engraved with the golden double-headed eagle from his chest.

This small metal rod was his only bargaining chip right now.

Although Li Wei wasn't a Warhammer expert, he remembered something his roommate had said: In 40K, knowledge is power. Though this power usually drives you mad, it can also let you make deals with demons.

Most importantly, he was a "pariah."

He was the sole "absolute materialist" defense line in this world filled with psychic sorcery.

"So what if it's Warhammer 40K?"

Li Wei gripped the data-slate tightly, his knuckles turning white.

"I am a 'void'. The Warp doesn't even want to eat me."

"Since even hell rejects me, I'm going to freeload in this mortal realm and survive to show you all."

He hid the data-slate away again and stood up, leaning against the wall.

His leg still hurt badly, but his spine straightened.

Realizing this was Warhammer 40K hadn't made him give up.

Now he needed money.

He needed equipment.

He needed to trade this "hot potato" in his hand into capital for saving his own life.