Psyker

Map below. Countdown. Deployment successful. Map: Northern Trench.

Upon landing, Li Qinwu glanced at the sun. It was around four in the afternoon; the sun would set in a few hours.

He checked the map provided by the system. Huh, Water Supply Lake was actually thirty kilometers away! He had revived a little too far out.

What was more, he discovered that Reno's mission overlapped with Rudosen's. Both were inside the Water Pattern Monitoring Station, which meant the station might be the Chaos Wizard's lair.

Li Qinwu was at a loss. How was he supposed to handle a mission site guarded by a Chaos Wizard? Charge in with six sets of gear? The problem was, he did not have six sets.

"Ah! Forget it. I'll go take a look first. I'll figure it out when I get there."

Li Qinwu could only tell himself that there would be a way when he reached the mountain, then sprinted madly toward Water Supply Lake.

Thirty kilometers was nothing for Li Qinwu. Every time he exhausted a stamina bar after running three kilometers, he downed a bottle of High-Energy Drink to recover his stamina, then kept running.

And honestly, this High-Energy Drink was ridiculously effective. No matter how exhausted he had been, one bottle wiped away all fatigue. The burning in his lungs vanished, the soreness in his knees disappeared—it was as if his entire condition had been refreshed.

He thought this drink was fantastic. He wondered whether it worked this absurdly well for ordinary people without the system. He would have to buy more from Reno when he got back.

Li Qinwu traveled from daylight into the night and finished the thirty kilometers in roughly two and a half hours. That was an outrageously impressive pace.

He was lucky. He did not encounter any rebels or PDF troops along the way.

Neither side was fighting with any real organization. Neither could defeat the other, and the battle was not particularly intense.

If things kept going like this, Li Qinwu suspected the two sides would simply mind their own business. The planetary governor would hide in his Spire palace, living out the rest of his extravagant life, until a tax-collecting Inquisitor arrived and ended his wealthy existence with one loyal bolt round.

As for the rebels, although they controlled the entire planet outside the Hive City, they lacked heavy weapons and could not break into the Hive City.

In that case, as long as you PDF troops stopped coming out to interfere with us, we could just farm and live on our own.

Then, once the Inquisitor's tax fleet arrived, the Inquisitor would kill the planetary governor and demand taxes from the rebels. Their fake good days would be over.

After all, when dozens of kilometer-long, even ten-kilometer-long warships parked in the low orbit of Agricultural Planet 496b, all rebel resistance would amount to little more than a small animal acting cute.

By the time Li Qinwu reached Water Supply Lake, night had just fallen. He lay prone atop a large boulder by the shore, silently observing the surrounding environment.

Water Supply Lake was an enormous lake. From where Li Qinwu lay on this shore, he could not see the opposite side at all.

Fortunately, the Water Pattern Monitoring Station was not across the lake. It was on his side, more than five hundred meters ahead of the rock where he lay. Otherwise, he would not even know how to cross the lake.

The Water Pattern Monitoring Station was a Ceramite structure, around seven stories tall and fairly large.

Half of the building stood on shore, while the other half extended into the water. Numerous detection instruments on the waterward side plunged into the lake.

At that moment, the seventh floor was lit by dim yellow light. They were probably candles. There were people inside.

Li Qinwu took out a Holy Biscuit and ate it, applying the Divine status to himself so he could resist possible Chaos Corruption. It also added five points of energy and enhanced his perception.

He stared fixedly at the seventh-floor window lit by candlelight. There was a Chaos Wizard inside who had killed two PDF infantry companies. For some reason, his heartbeat sped up, and he felt extremely nervous.

He planned to lie here until late at night, then sneak inside after the lights on the seventh floor went out to see what was going on.

Having made up his mind, he controlled his breathing and relaxed. Listening to the night insects chirping around him, his thoughts began to wander as he considered something else.

At his age, could he still be transformed into an Astartes?

Astartes were the super-enhanced soldiers of Warhammer 40,000. They underwent twenty-one enhancement surgeries and received superhuman organs, turning them into three-meter-tall, muscle-bound superhumans with incredibly fast neural reflexes.

The younger one was, the higher the success rate of Astartes enhancement surgery. Li Qinwu was almost thirty. He was basically out of the running.

The Astartes Chapter would not let an old guy like Li Qinwu undergo enhancement surgery, either. Superhuman organs were precious, and every recruit had to pass an extremely strict review.

Li Qinwu sighed mournfully. He had finally come to the world of Warhammer 40,000, yet he had no chance to become an Astartes.

Those things had no upper limit on their lifespan. Astartes basically did not die of old age; they died in battle.

The oldest recorded Astartes veteran had lived for over ten thousand years. Combined with the immortality granted by the Search-Shoot-Extract System, Li Qinwu really could achieve absolute immortality.

"Ah, what a pity."

Li Qinwu sighed again, then shuddered. Why did it suddenly feel a little cold?

Huh? Why had the night insects stopped chirping?

Huh? Why was the ground freezing over?

Suddenly, Li Qinwu felt an icy gaze lock onto him. That gaze stirred his most primal instinct—the terror he had felt as a child after watching his first ghost movie, trembling beneath his blankets that night.

"Not good! I've been discovered!!"

Li Qinwu was shocked. He wanted to jump up and run, but when his brain sent the command to his body, his body did not move in the slightest!

"I'm done for! Psychic Power has pinned me down!!"

Li Qinwu's heart sank. He knew he had been bound by the Chaos Wizard's Psychic Power. He strained with all his strength, yet he could not even move a finger. It was as if hundreds of invisible hands were pressing him down.

Rustle, rustle.

The sound of grass brushing came from behind him. Someone radiating an icy aura approached from his rear.

Listening to the slowly approaching sound behind him, Li Qinwu became even more frightened. An enemy he could not see placed immense pressure on him.

The footsteps stopped three paces behind Li Qinwu. A somewhat unhinged male voice spoke.

"A little... such a cute little mouse. Did you know that I was... was so bored tonight, and come to keep me company on purpose? Hehehehehehe..."

A force dragged Li Qinwu up from the ground, then controlled him as he slowly turned around.

Li Qinwu's eyes widened. He saw a person—a terrifying person.

The top of the man's head was bloody, with large portions of his scalp missing. His face was rotten and covered in vertical scratch marks. Some of the scratches were so deep they had torn straight through his skin, and drool trickled out from those holes.

His ears and nose were gone, as if something had slowly dug away the flesh bit by bit.

He wore no shirt. Iron wires pierced the flesh of his upper body, and several wires had punctured hundreds of holes through the skin on his torso. It was horrifying beyond words!

"Hehehe... tonight... those voices... the voices in my head... they're especially intense tonight. Hehehehehehe..."

He muttered neurotically, stretched out a withered hand, grabbed a patch of hair on his bloody scalp, and yanked hard!

With a tearing sound, a bloody piece of scalp was ripped off.

Now Li Qinwu understood. This Psyker had made himself look like this. Considering what he had just said about the voices in his head, he was undoubtedly an out-of-control Psyker!

A Psyker's projection in the Warp was like a torch in the night. Daemons could easily notice them and wanted to harvest their souls.

One method was to whisper in their minds day and night, preventing them from sleeping, driving them insane, then corrupting them into Chaos Wizards.

This guy had now been driven mad by the Daemonic Whispers in his head. He had begun mutilating himself frantically. It would only take a few days before he completely fell.

Looking at the terrifying Psyker, Li Qinwu wanted to speak, but the other man's Psychic Suppression left him unable even to move his lips.

"Hehe... hehe, the voices in my head tell me to tear apart your body, listen to your screams, and eat your organs. Hehe... hehe!"

His eyelids twitched, and his body trembled strangely. He extended his bloody claws toward Li Qinwu's neck.

"Ugh!"

As the hand slowly drew closer, Li Qinwu felt the Psychic Suppression intensify. His bones creaked. He was about to be crushed apart, and the pain forced a muffled groan from him.

Damn, getting crushed to death by Psychic Suppression counted as collecting a unique way to die, Li Qinwu thought with remarkable humor.

At this point, he was already considering what equipment he should bring for his next deployment to kill this Psyker.

Should he get a backpack loaded with dozens of kilograms of explosives and blow himself up? Would that be enough to take down this Psyker?

"Kill him! Tear out his organs!!"

"Smash his skull! Dig out his brains!!"

"Snap his neck and rip his windpipe out through his throat!!"

The daemons' voices rang inside the Psyker's head, like hundreds of people shouting at once. The chaotic noise tormented him, erased his sanity, and drove his body to obey on instinct.

"I'm going to... kill... kill you... hehehehehehehehehehehehe!"

The Psyker let out a twisted, strange laugh, and his bloody hand closed around Li Qinwu's throat.

Just as he was about to rip open the tender throat before him and drink deeply of the blood, the maddening Daemonic Whispers in his mind... disappeared?