The battle ended faster than anyone had expected.
There was no earth-shattering duel of spells, nor was there a battle that lasted hundreds of exchanges.
The Genestealer psyker floating in midair, so arrogantly superior, became like a holographic projector that had been unplugged the moment Li Wei charged before it.
The psychic shield it had been so proud of collapsed the instant it came into contact with Li Wei.
It tried to scream, tried to pierce Li Wei's brain with psychic spikes, but all it faced was absolute Void.
Bzzzt—splat! The Chainsword cleaved through its enormous skull without resistance.
The head filled with evil intelligence burst like an overripe watermelon, purple brain matter splashing all over Li Wei.
The rebel soldiers under psychic control immediately fell twitching like puppets with their strings cut, only to be torn to pieces by the swarming Rampant Servitors.
"Is that all?" Li Wei flicked the blood from his sword and looked at the shriveled corpse on the ground.
"A mage caught at close range really isn't worth a dog."
Aurelia walked over, kicked the psyker's corpse aside, and looked at the tightly shut metal door ahead.
"Voice of Atalos"—the Hive City Broadcasting Center.
"Open it," Li Wei said. "Let's change the background music for this party."
Three minutes later.
Inside the broadcasting center's main control room, the original staff had already been cleared out.
Li Wei stood before the massive control console.
Through the enormous floor-to-ceiling window before him, he could overlook all of Atalos Hive City.
Beneath his feet lay clouds thousands of meters below.
Below those clouds stood the steel beast that housed twenty billion people.
Countless lights flickered in the darkness—the lights of countless homes in the Mid Hive and Bottom Hive.
They belonged to ordinary people working overtime, praying, and struggling for a mouthful of food.
They still did not know that the sky above their heads had already fallen.
"The signal is connected." Aurelia expertly worked the console and inserted the Data-slate bearing the Inquisition's insignia. "We can forcibly override every channel. The public loudspeakers in the Bottom Hive, holographic advertising screens in the Mid Hive, even the Adeptus Arbites' communications channels."
"We only have one chance." Aurelia looked at Li Wei. "What do you want to say? Read that list?"
Li Wei looked at the red ON AIR indicator.
He shook his head. "Reading names is too slow. No one will care whether a few nobles are monsters."
"To the people down there, nobles are vampires already. It makes no difference if they turn into aliens."
Li Wei pulled out the Auspex he had bought back from the black market—during the previous banquet, he had secretly activated its recording function.
"In this world, nothing spreads faster than 'fear' and 'hatred.'"
Li Wei took a deep breath and pressed play.
Then he switched on the all-band microphone.
Bzzzt—
At that moment.
Throughout Atalos Hive City, from the spires above to the shit pits of the Bottom Hive below, every loudspeaker emitted a piercing burst of static at once.
The Emperor's Hymn that had been playing came to an abrupt stop.
Twenty billion people stopped what they were doing.
They looked up in confusion at the screens that had suddenly gone black, then began to flicker with red ripples.
Then a voice of utter misery came through.
It was the recording from the banquet hall.
The sound of flesh and bone tearing apart.
The roars of nobles turning into monsters.
The desperate screams of humans.
"Help! My face! Don't eat my face!" That was the finance officer's scream as he mutated.
"For the Four-Armed Emperor! Sacrifice all their flesh to the Children of the Stars!"
"Father... save me... it's a monster... ahh!!"
The sounds were incomparably clear, incomparably real, without any embellishment.
They were the sounds of hell.
Just as everyone had been stunned stupid by those terrifying sounds.
Li Wei leaned close to the microphone.
His voice was no longer as timid and submissive as before. It carried a chilling, incendiary edge.
"Did you hear that, citizens of Atalos?"
"This is your ruler."
"These are the 'important people' who make you work eighteen hours a day, make you eat Corpsestarch, and make you live like rats."
Li Wei paused, looking out at the city that was still brilliantly lit.
"They are not human."
"They are bugs. Aliens. Monsters wearing human skin."
"Now they're hungry. They've finished the meat at the banquet, and next... it'll be your turn."
"Look around you! Look at the people with bones on their foreheads! Look at those who usually hide in the shadows!"
"They are the vanguard of the bugs."
"On this night of despair, the Inquisition cannot save you, and neither can the Planetary Defense Force."
"Do you want to live?"
"Then pick up your guns, pick up your wrenches, pick up anything you can find."
"Kill your way up."
"Burn these monsters who want to use you as feed... to ashes!"
Li Wei switched off the microphone.
Then he kicked the control console's display screen to pieces.
"That's it?" Aurelia looked at him, her expression complicated. "You just... started a riot."
"No." Li Wei walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked down at the vast city below. "I started a civil war."
The changes began.
At first, there was deathly silence.
Then Li Wei saw light.
Not electric light. Firelight.
Far below in the Mid Hive, the blaze of the first explosion rose.
Furious workers had stormed into the factories; hatred suppressed for countless years was ignited at that moment.
Then came the Bottom Hive.
Countless flares shot into the sky, and gang gunfire merged into one continuous blaze.
The Genestealer cult that had lurked for decades was completely exposed to the light at that moment.
What had once developed in secret instantly became the public enemy.
Enraged crowds began indiscriminately attacking anyone who looked like a monster.
Of course, such riots also meant that countless innocent people would be caught up in them.
Order collapsed.
In just those few minutes, Atalos Hive City transformed from a precisely functioning machine into a burning furnace.
"Look." Li Wei pointed at the sea of fire stretching endlessly below.
"Now this is exciting."
"Much more spectacular than us killing a few rats in the corridors, isn't it?"
Aurelia walked to the window and looked upon that apocalyptic scene.
She did not condemn Li Wei.
As someone abandoned by her family, she watched the burning spires, and a trace of satisfaction unexpectedly appeared in her eyes.
"What now?" Aurelia asked. "The entire Hive City is in chaos. How are we supposed to survive in this sea of fire?"
"Survive?" Li Wei turned around, his back to the flames that had dyed the sky red.
A mad smile appeared on his face.
"What we need to do isn't survive." "We need to fish in troubled waters."
"Right now, everyone is looking at the ground, at the riots."
"Valorian's guild will be busy suppressing them, and the Genestealers will be busy saving their own skins."
"No one will notice us."
Li Wei pointed overhead. Not at the ceiling, but at the higher sky beyond it—outer space.
"Aurelia, do you know what's on the top floor of this building?"
"It's the Starport's VIP landing platform," Aurelia replied. "The governor's Private Yacht is parked there, and..." She suddenly understood. "You want to steal a ship?!"
"The ticket is fake, but the ship is real." Li Wei brushed the dust from his clothes.
"Since this big ship called 'Atalos' is about to sink."
"Why shouldn't we steal a lifeboat?"
"Let's go, Your Majesty." Li Wei picked up the Chainsword once more.
Before you continue