"Bite down on this piece of wood. Unless you want to bite your tongue off."
The man known as the "Bone-Saw Doctor" tossed over a black wooden stick covered in bite marks.
This was an illegal clinic tucked into a corner of the settlement. Rusted bone saws hung from the walls alongside blood-dripping forceps and several mutated organs preserved in formaldehyde.
Li Wei did not pick up that stick, which God knew how many people had bitten.
He gripped the edge of the operating table tightly, cold sweat covering his head. "Just do it."
The doctor—a old man fitted with a huge mechanical compound eye and reeking of preservatives—let out an unpleasant snort.
He only wanted to get rid of Li Wei, this "disgusting bad-luck freak," as quickly as possible.
"As you wish."
There was no anesthetic.
Here, painkillers cost more than human lives.
The doctor took a pneumatic stapler-like suture gun and pulled the trigger directly over the bone-deep wound in Li Wei's thigh.
Click!
The sound of a metal staple piercing flesh.
"Ugh!!!" Li Wei's entire body jolted, and a muffled roar escaped his throat as his vision instantly went black.
Click! Click! Click!
Three times in succession.
The wound was brutally forced shut.
Then a bottle of disinfectant of unknown composition, burning like lava, was poured over it.
"Get out." The doctor tossed his bloodied gloves into a bucket without even wanting to look at Li Wei again. "That guard leader paid for you. Don't let me see you again. Even bacteria grow slower when you're in my clinic."
Ten minutes later.
Li Wei sat limping beside an abandoned ventilation shaft on the outskirts of the settlement.
It was relatively quiet here. No one wanted to get close to him.
That gave him his first real opportunity since arriving in this world to think calmly.
He pulled out the looted packet of "Corpsestarch," with half a piece still left, from his pocket and forced himself to take a small bite despite the nausea.
As his blood sugar rose, the fragments of memory that adrenaline had kept suppressed began to piece themselves back together in his mind.
He looked at the starch wrapper in his hand.
Printed on it was that iconic eagle emblem, with its two heads facing left and right—the Imperial Aquila.
He raised his head and looked at the ragged crowds in the distant market.
Workers with tubes implanted in their bodies.
Servo-skulls floating through the air—drones made from dead human skulls.
Skull decorations plastered across every wall, along with slogans constantly invoking "hatred," "purification," and "heresy."
And the terms the Inquisitor had used: Emperor, Machine Spirit, Hive City, Warp.
Li Wei's hands began to tremble.
This trembling was not caused by pain, but by a chilling realization that came from the depths of his soul.
Back when he was in college on Earth, his roommate had been obsessed with painting miniatures.
Li Wei remembered that fat guy always grinning stupidly at piles of gray plastic figurines, muttering things like "For the Emperor," "Waaagh!" and "Blood for the Blood God."
Back then, Li Wei had only thought it was embarrassing teenage nonsense.
He had occasionally listened in from the side.
"This universe is too dark, Li Wei. In the forty-first millennium, there is no peace, only endless war."
"Humanity? Humans are just consumables. To keep that old man sitting on a golden toilet from dying, a thousand Psykers have to be sacrificed every day."
The jokes from his memories had now become a noose around his throat.
"I remember now..." Li Wei leaned against the cold iron wall, shut his eyes in despair, and forced out a bitter smile uglier than tears.
"This is Warhammer 40,000."
"I fucking transmigrated into the shithole that was almost the worst, most hopeless, most inescapable setting in all of science fiction."
The gods here truly existed—and they wanted to eat your soul.
The Imperium here was the most brutal machine in the universe—they would blow up an entire planet because you glanced at a forbidden book one time too many.
"And I..." Li Wei lowered his head and looked at his hands.
"I'm an undocumented nobody with no connections whatsoever. And I'm a 'Pariah' that disgusts everyone."
Despair washed over him like a tide.
In this world, ordinary people died before thirty from overwork, toxic gas, or riots.
And an "aberration" like him would either be seized by the Inquisition and turned into a living battery, or chopped up by gangs and sold to the gladiatorial arenas.
Go home?
Dream on.
In this galaxy ravaged by Warp storms, Earth had long ceased to be that blue homeworld. It was now a gigantic tomb filled with religious fanatics.
Li Wei felt all strength drain from his body.
He began frantically recalling every scrap of Warhammer knowledge he possessed, opening memories that had been shoved into the corners of his mind.
Li Wei steadied himself, but the more he thought, the more hopeless he became.
Rather than struggling like this, wouldn't it have been better if he had died in that scrap pit earlier?
Just then, a piercing alarm interrupted his self-pity.
At the nearby market, several gang members were beating up a child who had stolen something.
Laughing as they did so, they used iron rods to break the child's legs. The surrounding crowd showed no sympathy; they watched coldly, and some even cheered.
Farther away, in the shadows, Li Wei saw several things with mutated tentacles spying on the scene, waiting for prey that had wandered off alone.
"Only the dead are truly innocent." Inquisitor Gregor's words suddenly echoed in his mind.
Li Wei's eyes snapped open.
The look in them changed.
The despair had not vanished, but another, crazier emotion crushed it down—anger.
Anger at this world that treated human lives as worthless grass.
Anger at this damned fate.
"Since this is hell..." Li Wei pulled the Data-slate engraved with a golden double-headed eagle from his clothes.
This little metal rod was his only bargaining chip now.
Li Wei was no Warhammer expert, but he remembered something his roommate had once said: "In 40K, knowledge is power. Sure, that power usually drives you insane, but it can also let you make deals with daemons."
Most importantly, he was a "Pariah."
He was the only line of "absolute materialism" in this world filled with psychic sorcery.
"So what if this is Warhammer 40K?"
Li Wei clenched the Data-slate, his knuckles turning white.
"I'm a 'Hollow.' Even the Warp doesn't want to eat me."
"Since even hell refuses to take me, I'll stay in this world and live for you all to see."
He hid the Data-slate away again and pushed himself upright against the wall.
His leg still hurt badly, but his spine was straight.
Learning that this was Warhammer 40K had not made him give up.
Now, he needed money.
He needed equipment.
He needed to exchange this "hot potato" in his hand for the means to stay alive.
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