The Only Bug

The sight beyond the door lay beyond Li Wei's understanding of "technology."

It was an enormous spherical cavity, its inner walls embedded with countless needle-like stone steles.

At the center of the sphere floated a green cube that was spinning and folding madly.

It looked like some advanced Rubik's Cube going wild. With every turn, it released a ring of heart-pounding ripples into the surroundings.

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

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

As a Sister, she instinctively felt that it was something divine, yet steeped in evil.

"How the hell would I know?!" Li Wei roared. He was equally stunned by the sight. "But this has to be the engine of this damned place!"

The C'tan Shard Li Wei had released was now circling the cube like a starving beast driven mad by hunger.

It let out a silent roar, trying to rush inside and merge with the light within.

Just as the black shadow was about to crash into the cube—

"Buzz—" Space warped.

Li Wei rubbed his eyes. He thought he was seeing things.

The black shadow had clearly slammed into it, yet the next second, it returned to where it had been moments ago and resumed its charging posture.

Another impact.

Another return to the starting point.

Like a lagging videotape, or network latency in a game.

The black shadow was trapped in a dead loop lasting only a few seconds, forever charging, yet never reaching its destination.

"Mortal." That cold mechanical voice rang out again.

A massive holographic projection appeared in the air: a metallic monster with a single eye and countless jellyfish-like tentacles hanging from its body.

"Though your actions are foolish, they fall within the margin of computational error."

"I have locked the local timeline."

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

The surrounding walls opened, and dozens of towering Necron Warriors carrying massive shields and battle-axes marched out.

"Your life countdown has reached zero."

Elena raised her Medicus Staff in despair and stood in front of Li Wei.

"Li Wei... this is magic... time magic! We can't win!"

Li Wei watched the black shadow endlessly replaying its bizarre charge, then looked at the smug "giant jellyfish" projection.

He truly did not understand timelines or higher-dimensional technology.

But he understood computer failures.

Isn't this just lag? Li Wei cursed inwardly.

When a program fell into an infinite loop, the best solution was not to change the code, but to forcefully interfere with the hardware.

"Hey! Giant jellyfish!" Li Wei suddenly pointed at the projection and shouted. "You've got quite the plan there!"

The Tomb Technician's single eye rotated, seemingly confused as to why this inferior life-form had not yet wet itself in terror.

"But did you forget something?" Li Wei revealed a savage grin.

He did not pick up any weapon.

He suddenly turned around and, ignoring the approaching warriors, charged straight toward the time-loop zone that was constantly replaying!

"Li Wei! Have you gone insane?!" Elena screamed.

Li Wei had not gone insane.

He was gambling.

Gambling that, as a "soulless empty shell," he was an unrecognizable string of gibberish in the Necrons' precise calculations.

Necron technology was founded upon absolute mastery over the laws of the physical universe.

They calculated atoms, energy, and souls.

But they could not calculate the Void.

"Do not... interfere... with the calculation..." The Tomb Technician's holographic projection flickered rapidly.

It realized that physical interception would be too late, so it activated its final defensive mechanism—"mind formatting."

Since it could not destroy this entity's physical body, it would use a flood of data to overwhelm his consciousness and turn him into a hard drive that could only store information!

"Connecting... neural interface..."

"Activating... archives of billions of years of history... forced write..."

Buzz—!!!

The instant Li Wei rushed into the force field—

There was no explosion.

He felt as if an invisible axe had split his skull apart.

It was not pain.

It was information.

A massive torrent of information, like a mudslide, forcibly poured through his senses and into his cerebral cortex.

[Data stream connected...]

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

In an instant, the Blackstone tomb vanished from before Li Wei's eyes.

He saw the War in Heaven sixty million years ago.

He saw the fall of the Old Ones, the C'tan devouring stars, and the rise and fall of the Aeldari Empire.

He saw humanity's Golden Age of Technology.

He saw the Horus Heresy, the flames of the Siege of Terra, and the moment the Emperor took his seat upon the Golden Throne.

Countless xenos catalogues, the principles behind countless weapons, the coordinates of countless planets... all the knowledge the Necrons had gathered over billions of years was crammed into this mortal's mind in one indiscriminate flood.

"AAAAARGH!!!" Li Wei clutched his head and screamed in agony worse than death.

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

His brain was burning.

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

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

He could feel his sense of self being drowned beneath the immense data.

He was about to forget who he was.

But at the final moment—

The Necron system, overloaded by the sheer volume of data forced into it, crashed.

[System error: Target brain capacity overflow.]

[Logic gates... burned out.]

Boom! Reality returned.

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

He felt as if a library had been stuffed into his brain. Every stray thought brought forth tons of information called the Warhammer 40K Codex.

He raised his head and looked toward the Hypercube that was falling apart.

This time, his gaze had changed.

Gone was the bewilderment of what the hell is that?

What remained was clear, cold understanding.

He watched the black shadow shatter the cube.

A line of information automatically appeared in his mind:

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

[Threat level: Apocalypse-class.]

[Weakness: Incorporeal. Material vessel must be destroyed.]

He looked again at the collapsing Tomb Technician projection.

[Target identified: Canoptek Cryptek. Dynasty: Sautekh.]

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

He was no longer a transmigrator stumbling through the dark.

At that moment, he had been forced into becoming one of the most knowledgeable humans in the universe.

The earth shook and the mountains trembled.

The pyramid, having lost the support of its core, was disintegrating.

Massive chunks of Blackstone fell like rain.

"Get up! Run!" Li Wei scrambled to his feet and dragged Elena, who was still frozen in shock, along with him.

"That thing may be gone, but this place is about to collapse!"

The two ran wildly through the crumbling ruins.

The Necron Warriors around them had all turned into scrap metal after losing power, which saved them quite a bit of trouble.

They climbed upward hand over hand along the pile of rubble beneath the massive hole blasted out by that god.

Finally—

They climbed out of the underground.

They returned to that white desert.

By then, the desert had changed completely.

The green aurora that had once covered the sky had vanished.

The inverted pyramid was falling, crashing into the desert and throwing up waves of sand 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, another force had appeared besides the glittering C'tan.

It was a ship.

An unimaginably massive battleship, like a Gothic cathedral.

It had just emerged from a Warp jump, residual lightning still coiling around its hull.

Along the sides of the warship, countless gun emplacements were turning.

Their target was the C'tan.

"That is..." Elena stared at the ship as tears spilled from her eyes.

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

Li Wei's heart skipped a beat.

"Black Ship? Isn't that the one that came to capture me?" He took a closer look.

No.

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

The huge burning "I" insignia on its hull revealed its identity.

This was an Inquisition mainline warship.

It had come to carry out a "cleanup operation."

"Omega-class psychic entity detected. C'tan." A magnified broadcast descended from the sky like an oracle.

"Executing Exterminatus Protocol. Objective: Purge."

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!! The battleship opened fire.

Countless lance beams and macro-cannon shells poured down upon the newly freed C'tan like a torrential storm.

The C'tan let out an enraged roar.

Though powerful, it had only just awakened and was incomplete.

Faced with the Imperial Navy's saturation bombardment, it could only avoid the edge of the assault.

It transformed into a streak of light, tore through space, and vanished into the depths of the starry sea.

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

But immediately afterward, he realized that the warship had not ceased fire.

Its guns began to turn toward the ground.

Toward this collapsing Tomb World.

And... the survivors on the surface.

"Wait..." Li Wei's expression changed. "They aren't planning to come down and save anyone?"

Elena stared blankly at the sky.

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

"This is a Necron world. Everyone here has been contaminated. And... the C'tan escaped from here."

"To prevent heresy from spreading..."

"They will purify everything."

A massive Vortex Torpedo was launched from the sky.

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

He had just watched this fireworks display on the previous planet, yet he was about to see another one so soon.

And this time, he was both spectator and ash.

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

No ship, no shelter. Above them was Exterminatus.

"We... will return to the Emperor's embrace." Elena knelt in the sand, closed her eyes, and began to pray devoutly.

This time, she did not push Li Wei away.

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

In the face of death, she finally let go of her prejudice against the "Soulless."

Li Wei did not pray.

He merely stared fixedly at the sky.

He refused to accept it.

After struggling so hard to climb out of the Bottom Hive, after fighting so hard to escape the Necron Tomb.

Was he really going to be blown to death just like this?

At the very instant the torpedo was about to hit the ground.

Bzz—an odd vibration suddenly filled the air.

It was not an explosion, but a... teleportation-like hum.

A green portal suddenly opened before them.

It was not the ghostly green of the Necrons.

It was a murkier dark green, reeking of motor oil and rust.

A gigantic mechanical claw, fused from steel and flesh, reached out of the portal and seized Li Wei and Elena.

"Interesting data... detected..."

"Pariah... and... devout believer..."

"Retrieving... samples..."

A sinister, hoarse voice, carrying a manic thirst for knowledge, came from within the portal.

Before Li Wei could react.

That claw dragged them into the portal.

The next second.

Boom!! The Vortex Torpedo struck the ground.

The world behind them became a sea of flames.