God and Ghost

Silence.

After the deafening explosion, the world fell into an instant of absolute, ear-ringing silence.

Li Wei knelt before the collapsed black pedestal, his hands still held in a pressing posture.

Smoke still rose from his fingertips. That Void Collapse had not only burned out the machine's logic gates, but had nearly scorched his nerve endings as well.

Then sound returned.

But it was no longer the roar of the Demon Engine, nor the battle cries of the Skitarii.

It was the sound of matter being reassembled.

As if billions of invisible microscopic machine-insects were gnawing, stacking, and reshaping the arrangement of atoms in the air.

"Ah... how... crisp..."

That voice no longer existed solely inside Li Wei's mind.

It reverberated through the vast core chamber by vibrating the air, the floor, and even everyone's bones.

It was no longer that imprisoned, weakened shadow. It was real.

Li Wei laboriously raised his head.

He saw the enormous, mountain-like demon machine coming apart.

The pistons still running with tainted blood and the screaming demonic faces all ceased functioning the instant they touched the glow at its center.

The radiance faded.

A giant stood atop the ruins.

It had a humanoid outline, but stood a full ten meters tall.

Its body was no longer phantom starlight, but a shell of Living Metal instantly reassembled from the surrounding metallic wreckage.

It was perfect, flowing liquid silver metal, green lightning coursing across its surface.

It had no facial features, only a mask as deep as a black hole, with a halo of pure energy burning above its head.

The Shard of the Void Dragon—awakened form.

It lowered its head slightly and looked at Archmagos Axis, who had pinned it to the ground.

Axis was not dead yet.

His half-human, half-machine body had been crushed flat by gravity, but he still struggled. His red electronic eye flickered madly, filled with terror and disbelief.

"No... this is impossible... I am Vashtorr's chosen... I am..."

The C'tan Shard extended one finger.

With only a light tap.

[Format.]

There was no explosion, no flash of fire.

Axis's body suddenly came apart.

Every screw, every chip, every nerve in his body was instantly dismantled down to the molecular level.

Like a Lego creation kicked apart by a naughty child.

But he was not completely dead.

His consciousness was forcibly preserved by some power within that still-intact glass brain tank.

"You like... machines?" There was lofty mockery in the C'tan's voice.

"Then become... a foundation."

The glass tank holding Axis's brain flew up and embedded itself directly into the C'tan's new body's chest, becoming a battery.

"AAAAAAAH—!!!" Axis let out one final scream, but it was immediately transformed into pure electrical current to power the C'tan.

This was true technological supremacy.

The Dark Mechanicum's prized "demonic possession technology" was like primitive men playing with fire before the true "Machine God prototype."

Watching this, Li Wei felt his stomach churn.

But he had no time to be sick.

Because the entire hall began to deform.

The C'tan Shard was not satisfied with killing a single archmagos.

It spread its arms, and countless bolts of green lightning erupted from its body, piercing the walls, floor, and ceiling of the warship.

[Rewrite... protocol...]

[Remove... impurity...]

The writhing flesh walls and pus-filled pipes rapidly began to crystallize beneath the touch of the green lightning.

Chaotic flesh was forcibly transformed into cold Blackstone.

Demonic howls became mechanical hums.

The Chaos warship named Pain was being forcibly rewritten by the C'tan, transformed back into what it should have been—or rather, into a Necron-style flying tomb.

"This place is coming down!" Li Wei scrambled up and rushed toward Atticus, who lay in a pool of blood.

The Space Marine had already lost consciousness.

His breastplate was completely shattered, and the iron pipe he had used as a weapon was lodged in his abdomen.

But he was still alive.

The superhuman vitality of an Astartes kept a final breath in him.

"Wake up! Big guy!" Li Wei slapped Atticus's face, even using his Void to stimulate his nerves.

Atticus suddenly sucked in a breath. His single eye opened, its pupil unfocused. "Was the mission... completed?"

"Completed! We let the boss out! Now it's tearing the place apart!" Li Wei shouted as he tried to haul the several-hundred-kilogram giant upright.

But he could not move him at all.

"Elena!" Li Wei shouted over his shoulder.

The sister was huddled in a corner, clutching the Medicus Staff tightly as she trembled at the C'tan floating in the air.

"Quit spacing out! Come help! We need to get out of here!"

Elena snapped back to herself and stumbled over. "How am I supposed to help? He's too heavy!"

"You lift his feet! I'll take his upper body!" Gritting his teeth, Li Wei called upon the Necron knowledge in his mind concerning human biomechanics and Power Armor leverage principles.

"Remove the power pack on his back! It's dead weight! Hurry!"

Elena clumsily removed the heavy pack from Atticus's back.

Working together, the two of them finally propped up the half-dead giant.

"Where do we run?" Elena asked through tears. "Everything is changing! The paths are gone!"

That was true.

The scenery around them shifted like a nightmare.

The floor became flowing liquid metal, while black obelisks grew from the walls.

The Skitarii who had not yet fully died were swallowed by the floor and turned into reliefs on the walls.

Li Wei looked toward the C'tan in the air.

"Hey! Big lightbulb!" Li Wei shouted with all his strength.

"The deal! Don't forget the deal!"

"I let you out! Send us home!!"

The C'tan Shard turned its head.

That black hole mask without features looked toward Li Wei.

Its movement paused for a moment.

In its Logic, mortals were all insects.

But this insect... was different.

He was "empty."

He was the variable that had ended the time loop.

He was the key.

More importantly, this insect's mind contained knowledge from its own era.

[...Contract... valid...]

The C'tan raised a hand.

A green beam shot toward one corner of the hall.

The wall there instantly melted away, revealing a pitch-black opening.

Deep within it, a small shuttle wrapped in Necron energy could faintly be seen.

It had originally been Axis's personal escape pod. Now, it had been directly "formatted" and reassembled by the C'tan.

[...Begone...]

Only one word.

Simple and brutal.

"Thanks!" Li Wei wasted no words.

Supporting Atticus and pulling Elena along, he sprinted toward the opening.

But the ship did not want to let them leave.

Or rather, another will within the ship had awakened.

Pain was a Demon Engine.

Though its core had been suppressed by the C'tan, thousands upon thousands of daemon souls still dwelled within its hull.

Especially the ship's Machine Spirit—an enraged evil spirit thoroughly corrupted by Khorne.

It felt pain.

Its body was being turned to stone, and its energy was being stolen.

It struggled in its death throes.

"ROAR!!!" A muffled bellow came from deep beneath the floor at their feet.

Just as Li Wei and the others were only a dozen meters from the escape shuttle.

The floor suddenly split open.

It did not reveal the structure below.

Instead, it split into a gigantic mouth.

It was a mouth made of steel and teeth, spewing red flames.

Countless scarlet flesh tentacles shot from its maw, instantly wrapping around Atticus's legs and Elena's waist.

"Ah!!" Elena screamed as she was dragged toward the giant mouth.

Though Atticus struggled with all his strength, he was too badly wounded, and his body left a trail of blood across the ground.

"Damn it!" The ship was using the last of its life to try to digest these intruders.

"Stay... and be buried with us..." Agonized faces emerged from the walls, whispering like a curse.

"Bury your grandfather!"

He looked at the two people about to be dragged into the mouth.

Then he glanced at the distant C'tan, which was focused on reshaping the warship and could not be bothered with them.

"Can't count on that frosty bastard."

Li Wei took a deep breath.

He spun around sharply, but he did not go to pull them free.

He charged toward a still-pulsing bundle of biological nerves beside the split-open "floor mouth."

That was the ship's pain nerve.

"Atticus! Bear with it!" Li Wei shouted.

He wrapped both arms around the thick, slick nerve bundle.

Full-power release: Void Infusion.

This time, he was no longer merely suppressing it.

He treated his brain—that "anti-Logic database" filled with Necron knowledge and absolute denial of the Warp—as a virus and forcibly injected it into the demon ship's nervous system.

"Try this! Necron antivirus software!"

Bzzzz—!!!

When the trait of a Pariah mixed with Necron anti-Warp data and was injected into a daemon's body.

A strange chemical reaction occurred. It was not merely disgusting.

It was a collapse of Logic.

Daemons existed through emotion and chaos.

Necron data, meanwhile, was founded on absolute rationality and order.

When the two collided through Li Wei as their medium, it was like pouring ice water into boiling oil.

"No!!! What is this?! What is this?!!" The entire ship let out a shrill scream.

The giant mouth in the floor convulsed violently, as if it had tasted the bitterest poison in the world.

The tentacles thrashed wildly, releasing their prey and turning instead to tear at their own bodies.

"Run!!" Li Wei felt warm fluid stream from his nostrils—his brain was overloaded—but he had no time to wipe it away.

He rushed over, seized Elena, and kicked Atticus once, though he could not budge him.

"Get up! If you're not dead, run!"

Atticus let out a beast-like roar,

propped himself up with one arm, and followed the two of them toward the escape shuttle on pure survival instinct.

The three staggered into the reshaped shuttle.

The hatch slammed shut with a clang.

"Launch!!" Li Wei lunged at the control console. Its interface had become green Necron runes. But he could read them, because this knowledge had always been inside his mind.

He fiercely slammed the activation button flashing with green light.

Boom! The shuttle's engines spewed green ion flames.

Like a green bullet, it shattered the now-fragile hull and burst out of the mutating warship.

The shuttle plunged into the vastness of space.

Through the viewport, Li Wei saw the enormous Pain.

It was undergoing some unbelievable transformation.

Half of its hull had become a black pyramid, radiating green light.

The other half remained a bloated flesh-warped warship, burning with red flames. The two sides frantically devoured and tore at each other.

At the center of the warship, the giant of light was slowly rising.

It apparently had no intention of preserving the ship.

It merely treated the ship as a temporary stepping stone, or... a bomb.

The C'tan raised its hand and clenched its fist at the void.

[Compression.]

The entire colossal battleship, along with the tens of thousands of Skitarii, slaves, and daemons within it, collapsed inward in an instant.

Like a sheet of paper crumpled into a ball.

The steel behemoth, dozens of kilometers long, was compressed into a high-density sphere only a few hundred meters across.

BOOM!!! The sphere exploded.

It was not an explosion of flame.

It was an eruption of gravitational waves.

A visible ripple swept across the star system, pulverizing the surrounding asteroid belt.

"It's over..." Elena pressed herself against the viewport, watching the fading glow as her body continued to tremble.

"That god... where did it go?"

"It went home. Or went looking for its brothers." Li Wei slumped in the pilot's seat, feeling completely drained.

"Forget about it. A monster on that level isn't something we can worry about."

He turned to Atticus in the copilot's seat.

The Space Marine was in terrible condition.

A huge wound pierced through his abdomen, where a tentacle had impaled him.

The wound had already blackened from daemon venom.

Yet he still sat upright, his single eye fixed on Li Wei.

"Mortal." Atticus's voice was weak, but still imposing.

"You saved me. The Iron Hands owe you a debt."

"But you used... xenos technology. And profane power."

"So?" Li Wei looked at him calmly. "Are you going to execute me now? For the Emperor?"

Atticus was silent for a moment.

He glanced at his mutilated body, then at Li Wei operating the Necron vessel.

"No." Atticus shook his head.

"If the Emperor wanted you dead, you would have died long ago."

"Since you are alive, it means your existence... conforms to some kind of logic."

"And..." The giant pointed at Li Wei's head. "What is in your mind is more important than my life. I will take you back to the Chapter Monastery. The Iron Father will be interested in you."

"Ha, jumping from one laboratory to another?" Li Wei gave a bitter smile. "Fine, do as you wish. Just don't slice me up."

He turned to Elena.

"What about you, Sister? Still planning to purify me?"

Elena was holding a crude first-aid kit, bandaging Atticus's wounds.

Hearing Li Wei's words, she raised her head.

Her gaze was complicated.

There was less fear in it now, and more confusion.

After witnessing the Necrons' cold indifference, Chaos's madness, and the C'tan's divine power, her once-unshakable faith seemed to have developed a crack.

Or rather, it had become more... pragmatic.

"You saved me," Elena said softly.

"In this universe filled only with monsters, only you... have never changed."

"You are Soulless, but compared to those things with souls... you are more human."

She lowered her head and continued tending to the wound.

"I will pray for you. Whether the Emperor can hear me or not."

Li Wei smiled but said nothing.

He turned to the star map on the console.

The Necron navigation system was incredibly advanced.

It had automatically calculated the nearest safe route.

Destination: Medusa—the homeworld of the Iron Hands.

"Looks like we're taking a trip to a planet full of oil and gears." Li Wei set the course.

"Let's hope the food there is better than Corpsestarch."

The shuttle became a streak of green light and vanished into the Warp jump point.

Behind them lay the ruins of the star system, still burning.

Yet the Necron database in Li Wei's mind had not disappeared.

It still operated silently in a corner, like a dormant seed.

[Target star system detected: Medusa.]

[Retrieving relevant data...]

Li Wei suddenly smacked his own head.

"Shut up! Stop spoiling things!"

"Let me be an idiot who knows nothing for just one minute... even just one minute..."

He curled into a ball in his seat and, amid the hum of the ship's engines, finally fell into a deep sleep.