The Fool's Mask

A headache. That was no longer enough to describe what Li Wei felt inside his skull. It was neither the dull ache of a hangover nor the sharp pain of an injury, but the swelling sensation of something foreign invading him.

It was as if someone had forcibly carved countless ravines into his cerebral cortex, then poured boiling mercury into them.

On that white desert, when the green portal opened before him, Li Wei's vision had already blurred. Yet he could still see the "Artificial Sun" falling from above—the Vortex Torpedo.

At that moment, time seemed to stretch out. He saw the torpedo's force field tear through the atmosphere like a sheet of charred paper. He saw the distant horizon curl and vaporize beneath the intense heat. In the final 0.1 seconds of life on that planet, a gigantic mechanical claw of brass and rotting flesh reached out from the green portal and seized both him and Elena.

There was none of the warmth of salvation. Only coldness, grease, and the nauseating stench of rust.

Then came darkness. And after it, the violent sensation of space being torn apart.

"Wah—!!!" Li Wei suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood in the darkness. His body tumbled through the turbulent currents of teleportation, but his consciousness still could not break free from that damned "data infusion."

It was not merely data. It was memory, history, the Necrons' obsession over countless millions of years. Endless grotesque geometric patterns flickered before his eyes. He saw stars encased in Dyson spheres and drained dry, their formulas as clear as if they had been carved into his eyeballs. He saw the detailed steps for using a mere three grams of antimatter to detonate a gas giant. He even saw the final images of those beings called the Old Ones struggling amid the tides of the Warp.

Get out... Get out of my head... Li Wei howled inwardly. This knowledge was too vast, vast enough to crush a mortal soul. If he did not seal it away, he would be brain-dead within three minutes.

Hide it. He had to hide it.

Using the Void nature of a Pariah, Li Wei constructed a "Wall of Oblivion" deep within his mind. He desperately stuffed those horrific blueprints spilling forth, those weapons specifications capable of destroying star systems, into the black box of his subconscious, then locked it tight.

"I don't know anything." "I'm just a passerby." "I'm an idiot. I'm illiterate."

He frantically repeated those words in his mind, as though hypnotizing himself.

In a universe filled with madmen coveting knowledge, ignorance was the hardest armor.

When sensation returned to his body, Li Wei did not immediately open his eyes. This was the first survival rule he had learned in the Bottom Hive: until he was sure the surroundings were safe, playing dead was always the first choice.

The surface beneath him was cold and slick.

Like a metal slab covered in a layer of congealed grease.

His ears were filled with deafening noise.

It was not the rhythmic operation of machinery, but something... like pained groaning.

As if the machine were alive, every meshing of gears and every piston stroke grinding bones and flesh to pulp.

The air was thick with sulfur, machine oil, and a faint stench like burnt hair.

Li Wei carefully controlled his breathing, reducing the rise and fall of his chest as much as possible. He cracked open one eye and surveyed his surroundings through his lashes.

This was a vast, dim chamber.

Rather than the interior of a ship, it looked more like a slaughterhouse fused with a factory.

The walls were not smooth metal, but covered in dark-red, vein-like pipes that throbbed beneath metal armor plates.

In some places, tooth-like bony growths had even sprouted. Countless chains hung from the ceiling, and dangling from their ends were not cargo, but Servitors with only their upper bodies remaining.

They had no legs, thick cables extending beneath their spines. They busily used welding torches and cutting tools on the things moving along the conveyor belt.

And what that conveyor belt carried... were corpses. Or rather, raw materials for some kind of Demon Engine.

Li Wei's heart suddenly clenched. From the "Necron Library" he had just sealed away, a piece of information involuntarily surfaced: (Warning: Chaos contamination detected. Identifying characteristic: Flesh-Metal Virus. Affiliation: Dark Mechanicum. Threat level: Extremely high.)

Shut up. Li Wei cursed fiercely in his mind, forcibly suppressing the thought that had surfaced on its own. He could not show any sign that he knew what he was looking at.

He rolled his eyes, searching for Elena. The poor Sister had been tossed onto a dissecting table beside him. She was still unconscious, her robes torn to shreds, her face still smeared with Li Wei's dried, blackened blood. Several Servo-skulls circled her, emitting harsh scanning noises.

"Interesting... specimen..."

A voice drifted over. It sounded like a rusted saw cutting through bone—hoarse, grating, and filled with an unpleasant metallic echo.

Li Wei immediately shut his eyes and relaxed every muscle, pretending to remain deeply unconscious.

Heavy footsteps approached. Metal prosthetics striking the floor. One step, two steps, then they stopped beside Li Wei's operating table.

Li Wei felt a cold mechanical claw with sharp tips lightly scrape across his cheek.

Then the claw brutally pried open his eyelid.

Li Wei was forced to "wake up." What filled his vision was a face capable of giving any normal person nightmares.

It belonged to a heretek Magos clad in a dark-red, oil-stained robe.

More than half his skull had been cut away, replaced with a transparent glass dome. Inside was not a brain, but a writhing mass of green biological gel with several electrodes embedded in it.

His jaw was made of iron. Only one eye remained organic; the other was a set of multi-layered lenses glowing red.

Behind him, seven or eight Mechanical Tentacles protruded like spider legs, each holding a different tool: a chainsaw, a drill, a syringe, and a pair of pliers still dripping with blood.

"A soulless... empty shell." The Magos leaned close to Li Wei. His red electronic eye spun and telescoped frantically, seemingly trying to peer through Li Wei's skull. "I can feel it... your very existence is a black hole. You make my sensors feel sick... such wonderful sickness."

Li Wei's heart pounded wildly, but he forced himself to display the reaction of an ordinary person.

Fear. Extreme, ignorant fear.

"Ah!!" Li Wei screamed in terror, flailing wildly as he tried to shrink back. "You... who are you?! Where is this?! Don't kill me! I don't have anything!"

His performance was flawless.

His pupils dilated, his entire body trembled, and even the Pariah's naturally "nauseating" aura became more chaotic from fear.

The Magos was not angered by Li Wei's screams. On the contrary, he seemed to enjoy this mortal terror. He extended a Mechanical Tentacle and easily pressed it against Li Wei's chest, pinning him firmly to the operating table.

"Do not be afraid, little mouse." The Magos laughed like a leaking bellows.

"This is the Forge of Vashtorr. I am its master, Archmagos Axis. I saved you. From that planet burned into a glass marble."

Axis's organic eye stared fixedly at Li Wei, greed gleaming within it. "Tell me, how did you get inside? That Necron tomb." "My detectors show that you were teleported out of the deepest core zone. It is filled with Stasis Fields powerful enough to turn an Astartes into ash.

"How did you survive?"

This was the first and most lethal test.

Li Wei knew that if he uttered even a single word about "Necron technological principles" or a "C'tan Shard," the drill would bore into his skull the next second and read his memory directly.

Because to the Dark Mechanicum, testimony from the living was unreliable. Only dissected slices of brain tissue could be trusted.

Li Wei had to play dumb.

Not merely dumb—he had to act like a complete wreck, a terrified fool with absurdly good luck.

"I... I don't know!" Li Wei cried, tears and snot streaming down his face. This was not entirely an act; that fall had really hurt.

"I was just running for my life! There were bugs everywhere! And green light!"

"I fell into a hole... then I passed out! When I woke up again, I was in the desert!"

"I don't know anything! Please let me go! I have money! I have Throne Gelt!"

Axis's electronic eye flickered several times, seemingly analyzing the truth of Li Wei's words—and his heartbeat and hormone levels. "Passed out? What a... disappointing answer."

The Magos was clearly dissatisfied. One of his tentacles raised a high-speed bone saw, slowly bringing it toward Li Wei's head. "Perhaps if I open your skull, I will find a more honest answer." "Memories do not lie. Even if you have forgotten, your gray matter remembers."

Damn it! These technological lunatics really did not listen to reason! Warnings blared through Li Wei's mind. He knew he could no longer pretend to be a simple fool. He had to throw out bait—bait sufficient to stop the dissection, but not enough to expose his "omniscience."

"Wait! Don't! Don't cut me!" Li Wei struggled frantically and shouted, "But I felt it! That place... that place was so 'empty'!" "Just like I am now! There was no sound there! Those green lights... they seemed afraid of me!"

The bone saw stopped before Li Wei's forehead, its high-speed rotation sending wind through his hair.

Axis paused. "Afraid of you?" He withdrew the saw and looked at Li Wei thoughtfully. "Interesting. You are a Pariah. Necron technology is founded on anti-Warp principles, while you are a natural Warp black hole. Perhaps... your constitution interfered with their defense protocols?"

The Magos began filling in the gaps himself. For madmen obsessed with research, as long as there was a reasonable "academic explanation," they often ignored the complexity of human nature. In his eyes, Li Wei was merely a special experimental material, not an intelligent opponent.

"A living sample capable of disrupting the operation of a Necron tomb..." Axis's tentacles waved through the air as though calculating something. "If I turn you into an Interference Generator, or flay you and implant you into the core of a Demon Engine..." "I could create an ultimate weapon immune to psychic attacks."

Li Wei felt a chill crawl down his spine. This old pervert did not merely want to kill him; he wanted to turn him into a component. But Li Wei had survived. At least for now, the bone saw had moved away.

"Lock him up." Axis waved a hand, and two towering Skitarii covered in steel approached. They had no faces, their features replaced by gas masks and optical sensors, and they carried crackling shock spears.

"Throw him into Sector D-9. Keep him with the other 'special meat.'" Axis turned away from Li Wei and walked toward Elena. "As for this Sister... she reeks of faith in the False Emperor. Perhaps she can be used to test the new pain amplifier."

"No! Let her go!" Li Wei roared instinctively. This was not an act. He was truly panicking.

Though Elena was only a temporary teammate, she was the only "person" here. If she were tortured to death by these lunatics, Li Wei would truly be alone in this universe.

Bang! One Skitarius savagely slammed the butt of his weapon into Li Wei's stomach. Li Wei curled into a shrimp in agony, vomiting bile.

Axis ignored Li Wei's shouts. With interest, he used his mechanical claw to lift a strand of Elena's silver hair. "Such pure faith... when she prays to Chaos in despair, the sweetness of that fall will surely be exquisite."

The two Skitarii dragged Li Wei off the operating table like a dead dog. He stared fixedly at Axis's back as he frantically searched his mind.

There had to be something in that "Necron Library," something about the fatal weakness of this Dark Mechanicum vessel or its Demon Engines.

He found it.

[Waste Code]

It was a Chaos virus capable of infecting mechanical Logic, but it also possessed a "countermeasure protocol."

The Necrons had fought the Warp during the War in Heaven. Their data contained the knowledge of how to "physically sever the junction between daemon and machine."

Li Wei gritted his teeth and forced the knowledge deep into his heart. He could not say anything now. If he spoke now, he would die. He had to wait for an opportunity. A moment when Axis was distracted, or when the ship malfunctioned.

"Just wait, you old tin can." Li Wei was dragged out through the laboratory doors, his gaze falling on Elena one last time. "As long as I live... I'll tear your broken ship apart."

Li Wei was dragged through a long corridor filled with nightmarish sights. The walls were bleeding. The floor was covered with carpets that looked like human skin. Countless Servo-skulls with only brains and spinal columns flew through the air. They were no longer the Empire's pure gold, but painted black and carved with blasphemous runes.

He was taken to Sector D-9. It was a vast, dark prison cell. Or rather, a beast pen.

"Get in." A Skitarius opened the barred gate and threw Li Wei inside.

Li Wei landed on the ground amid straw and filth.

He climbed to his feet and cautiously surveyed the area. It held more than humans.

Dozens of bizarre creatures crouched in the massive cage. Some appeared to be Servitors so heavily modified that they had lost their minds. Others were mutants covered in scales and tentacles. In one corner even crouched a massive but extremely weak-looking Space Marine in battered Power Armor?

No. Judging by the style of his armor and the scarred insignia upon it... he seemed to be a captured loyalist Space Marine.

When Li Wei was thrown in, every eye turned toward him. Greed, madness, hunger.

But then those gazes changed.

They became disgusted. Like a pack of starving wolves expecting a meal, only to discover that what had been thrown in was a lump of moldy stone.

The Space Marine crouching in the corner raised his head.

He wore no helmet, revealing a scarred face as hard as granite.

But one of his eyes was blind, black blood trickling from its socket.

He looked at Li Wei with deeply furrowed brows, as though he had smelled something utterly revolting.

"Who are you?" the Space Marine asked in a deep, hoarse voice, like thunder rolling through his chest. "Why... is there no light of a soul upon you?"

Li Wei straightened up.

He brushed the dust from his clothes. Though his stomach still spasmed from the rifle butt, he knew that showing weakness in this cage of monsters meant death.

"I'm an unlucky bastard." Li Wei looked at the giant standing half again as tall as him and grinned. "An unlucky bastard who just crawled out of a pile of corpses and fell into a cesspit."

He walked to the corner opposite the Space Marine and sat down, keeping as far from the others as possible. "If you think I'm disgusting, then you're right." "Because I exist specifically to... make soul-bearing people like you uncomfortable."

The Space Marine narrowed his eyes, seemingly assessing the threat posed by this thin mortal. In the end, he did not attack. On this ship saturated with Chaos corruption, the "absolute Void" around Li Wei instead gave him a strange, long-forgotten sense of peace.

"I am Atticus." The Space Marine lowered his head again, fatigue in his voice. "Former... Sergeant of the Iron Hands." "Now, I am... spare parts aboard the Pain."

"Li Wei." Li Wei leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and began sorting through the chaotic Necron knowledge in his mind. "I'm this ship's future... shipbreaker."

The prison cell was filled with the snores and delirious mutterings of monsters.

Li Wei could not sleep. His head hurt terribly. The Necron data he had forcibly locked away was battering against the defenses of his sanity.

Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw endless streams of green code jumping before him.

He saw the ship's structural plans—though it had been modified with Chaos technology, from the Necrons' higher-dimensional physical perspective, the ship was like a crudely assembled toy riddled with flaws.

(Left-side energy conduit shield frequency: unstable.) (Demon Engine Core control runes: Logic backdoor detected.) (Axis's mechanical prosthetics: third-generation neural interface in use. Rejection-response vulnerability detected.)

The information flooded across his vision like a barrage of comments. This was the curse of knowledge. He did not want to see it, did not want to know it, but his brain was forcing him to analyze.

"Damn it..." Li Wei clutched his head, gritting his teeth to keep from crying out. He had to learn to control this. He had to learn to access information only when necessary, like browsing a library catalogue, rather than letting the entire library collapse on top of him.

"You're trembling." Atticus, the Iron Hands Sergeant, had not slept. His one eye watched Li Wei. "Is it the whispers of the Warp?"

"No." Li Wei forced out several words through clenched teeth. "It's... knowledge." "Too much... damned... knowledge."

Axis wanted his brain.

But Li Wei knew that if this knowledge truly fell into Axis's hands, the entire galaxy would suffer. If the Dark Mechanicum mastered Necron technologies such as the Dead Space of Exorcism or "time reversal," then the Imperium would truly be finished.

I need to stay alive, Li Wei told himself. I have knowledge. I'm a Pariah. I'm the least noticeable thing aboard this ship, but also its deadliest virus.

He looked toward the corridor outside the cell, where red light flickered. It led to the laboratory, to where Elena was being held.

"Just wait, Axis." Li Wei's eyes glinted coldly in the darkness. "You'll regret picking me up." "Because what you picked up wasn't a lab rat." "It was a... time bomb."