Chapter Text
Chapter 1: A Life From Another World
Volume One: 30K
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For the Emperor
.
Our father. The great Emperor of Mankind, savior of humanity, the glory of the Golden Throne.
He has sat upon that Throne for far too long. It is no longer him, it has long since become a corpse, a torch, a symbol. Not our father.
Before he drags all of humanity down into ruin with him, we will crush everyone who stands in our way. The Astra Militarum. The Astartes. The Adeptus Mechanicus.
Or even our brothers...
We will go to Terra ourselves and put an end to our father. We will stop humanity's plunge into the abyss of death.
Humanity shall live under a new order. It should not be whittling away its days drowning in ignorance.
We are a great race. We once had technology that put miracles to shame, and a spirit as strong as steel.
We should be riding through the sea of stars, not mired in endless religion and infighting.
And so.
Let the stars burn once more.
......
Time: Unknown.
Location: Unknown.
Subject: The Cursed One.
The roar of a king rang out across the heavens. The long-dead swayed to their feet. Decayed war machines groaned back to life.
They repaid the enemies who had desecrated their sacred domain with the highest tribute they had left to give.
A flash of golden light swept through, and every enemy in its path was consumed by sacred flame.
A single casual swing, and Psychic Lightning like a crack of thunder shattered an ancient Battleship without effort.
A figure clad in golden armour, eyes blazing with golden light, cut through layer upon layer of enemies and arrived at the "boundary."
Behind him, countless furious undead surged forward like a tide. Battleships silent for countless ages began to rise from the dark.
And there at the horizon, dimly visible beneath the light of the stars, its magnificent silhouette just barely glimpsed: a super-warship that represented the final age. The Throne of Endings.
The man's eyes found that warship. A flicker of envy crossed his gaze. Then he let out one long, quiet sigh.
With that, he stepped off the cliff's edge and fell into the abyss below.
He passed through a rift and arrived somewhere else entirely.
Before him, the world shifted like a slideshow, a place where time and space had long since lost all meaning. One moment a terrifying planetary warship spanned half the sky; the next the ground tore itself apart, then heaved back up from the earth. Even the fundamental laws of the physical universe did not apply here. All that remained was the roaring, the agony, and the madness of billions upon billions of souls.
This place was called the Warp: the other side of the universe, the resting place of souls.
[Concept illustration of the Warp. This thing typically warps without end, stare at it with concentration and madness is inevitable.]
The man in golden armour seemed unwilling to linger any longer than necessary. He vanished from the place in the blink of an eye.
After a bout of turbulence, a fantastical swirl of every color imaginable flooded his vision. Then the familiar pull of gravity returned, and the man crashed hard onto a bed.
The unfortunate bed immediately buckled under the weight.
He stared up at the ceiling, his body covered in cracks, and let out a loud laugh.
"That damned feeling of gravity. Finally back from the Warp."
The door was kicked open the next instant. Two giants clad in golden armour charged in with Guardian Spears leveled.
They recognized the figure before them. The spears came down. Both dropped to one knee in unison.
"Your Majesty."
"Rise."
The Emperor of Mankind stood up from the bed he had reduced to splinters. He looked toward the clock. Several hours had already passed.
[Illustration of the Emperor. A thousand faces for a thousand people, he appears in the most perfect form held in each person's heart.]
"Carter, Daley — how long has it been?"
"You have been absent for three days, seven hours, and forty-two minutes. Marshal Valdor and Lord Malcador the Sigillite have been in a frenzy over your disappearance."
"Very well. Call them in."
But before they could go, a cold snort stopped them.
"There is no need. His Majesty naturally has his own affairs to attend to. How could we servants dare disturb His Majesty?"
Through the ruined doorway walked an old man with an unfriendly expression: white-haired, shuffling in his steps, yet with eyes that carried a shrewdness belonging to no one his age.
The Emperor's expression went awkward.
The one who had entered was his closest friend. A powerful Perpetual. The current chancellor of this small, fledgling Imperium.
The Sigillite, Malcador the Sigillite.
In short: the Emperor handled cutting down enemies at the front, while his old friend handled raising armies in the rear.
"Old friend, you and I are the closest of companions — why are you calling yourself a servant again?" The Emperor moved to take his old friend by the arm.
Malcador stepped back.
"This old man merely does his best to shoulder a few insignificant responsibilities in his lord's absence."
"The Warp is ever-shifting. The moment could not be waited on. This time I simply did not manage to inform you in time."
Malcador let out a quiet sigh.
"In the future, my lord, please send word when you have business to attend to. Do not make us worry like this."
"That goes without saying."
"But now — I would much rather tell you about the extraordinary place I visited."
The Emperor waved a hand. The Adeptus Custodes obediently filed out. One of them turned back on the way and pressed the door, kicked off its frame and warped out of shape, back into place.
Seeing that they were alone, Malcador dropped all pretense of formality. He settled himself comfortably nearby, picked up a stash of treasured tea leaves that had been set aside, and began to brew.
He had been eyeing those leaves for a very long time. The trouble was that the Emperor kept them hidden in his own chambers, and Malcador had no good excuse to come in and help himself.
"Where did you go this time?"
"Some time ago, while I was observing within the Warp, a dimensional rift suddenly appeared. I went through it."
"A dimensional rift?"
"Yes. And then I found myself in what appeared to be another universe entirely."
The Emperor narrowed his eyes, thinking back over everything he had witnessed.
"In that time and space, humanity seemed to have come extraordinarily far. The level of technological development far surpassed even the Dark Age of Technology — the old Aeldari Empire would likely fall short by comparison."
"Oh? That truly is a fine thing. What of the humans on that side?"
"That side... humanity had gone extinct."
Malcador's brow furrowed. He stroked the sparse hairs of his beard.
"Is that so. What a sorrowful thing."
"Even so, I fought my way into a sacred site guarded by those undead and took their Relic. That was quite the harrowing experience."
The Emperor said this as though still shaken by the memory, though he looked considerably more exhilarated than shaken.
"Their warships are extraordinary. You have no idea, a warship of that design actually functions, and I could not even begin to understand the core energy structure inside it."
"And that enormous Throne of Endings, it is only a pity I could not steal one away..."
Malcador, torn between laughter and exasperation, cut off his excited friend.
"Enough, my lord. Rather than concerning yourself with those peculiar technologies, let us have a look at the Relic you brought back."
"Ah. Right."
The Emperor carefully drew a bundle from within his armour.
Wah, Wah.
A startled infant's cry rang out. The two of them stared at the baby inside the bundle in complete astonishment.
Then the shock hit them both like a physical blow.
That immense Psychic Power, this was something that simply should not exist in this world.
If there were still gods in this world, this infant was a miracle that would put those gods to shame.
In less than a nanosecond, the two of them moved in perfect wordless understanding, using Psychic Power to suppress the entire mountain range around them. Not a single shred of information leaked out.
"My lord, this is... my God, how is this possible!"
The chancellor of the Imperium, unshakeably composed at all times, was now babbling incoherently, his face flushed red, waving his arms about like a child.
"This is humanity's hope! The hope of every last one of us! There is no greater treasure in all the world, we can return to the Dark Age of Technology, no! We can surpass the Dark Age of Technology!"
The Emperor naturally understood why his old friend was so overcome. He smiled, a rare thing.
Compared to the ancient human ancestors, present-day humanity was far more prone to disturbing the Sea of Souls. Genetic modification had strengthened the human body, but it had also changed the human soul, making it far more susceptible to the influence of the Warp. The Emperor refused to believe the Chaos Gods had no hand in that.
The Imperium's various genetic programs were now working tirelessly to transform humanity into "perfect beings," yet they failed again and again, because human genetics had been modified into something resembling a tangled mess of spaghetti code.
And now, an ancient genetic strand such as this had appeared.
"Ha. This calls for a celebration, my old friend."
The Emperor felt this whole adventure had been entirely worth it, even if he had nearly been blasted to death in another world. If that dimensional rift was still open, he would not mind leading the Legio Custodes through it for another raid. So long as the reward was great enough, it would be worth it even if the entire Legio Custodes were lost in the process.
"My lord, we must give him a name."
The Emperor looked down at the infant in his arms. The little one was smiling up at him.
He smiled back, quietly.
"Since he is the hope of humanity's new beginning, let him be called 'Bona Plena.'"
Malcador was quite taken aback. He looked toward the Emperor with an expression of disbelief.
"Oh, Goodness and Hope. That is a rare level of regard indeed. I fear the others..."
"Ahem — shall we discuss instead how to keep those four wretches from noticing him?"
The Emperor cut Malcador short, but the point he raised was one worth Malcador's full attention.
Within the surging tides of the Warp, in the madness of the Empyrean above, there dwelt four entities: the Chaos Gods.
[Tarot cards of the four Chaos Gods.]
They were:
The God of Courage and Justice, Khorne.
The God of Desire and Ambition, Slaanesh.
The God of Life and Benevolence, Nurgle.
The God of Wisdom and Hope, Tzeentch.
They were the mightiest presences in the Warp. Their very existence was...
Pong!
(The recorder of this historical passage has been corrected by XXX. Imperial citizens who have read this far are instructed to report immediately to their nearest Inquisition branch.)
To put it in less than rigorous terms, or rather, from the perspective of the Emperor of Mankind himself, they were, respectively:
A warmonger with nothing but slaughter on his mind, who did nothing all day but fan the flames of conflict, yet could not get out of his wheelchair.
A creature dedicated to the sustainable destruction of every carbon-based life form's dignity throughout the Galaxy, while making life equally unpleasant for silicon-based and energy-based life forms in the process.
A bloated corpse who brewed every manner of virus and bacterium, dedicated to turning the entire Galaxy into a cesspit of death and filth.
A bookworm who spent every day playing the game of "why did he, why didn't he think of it, why would I think about him, why didn't he, why not, why do things this way."
These four abstract beings were not only committed to tormenting the vast majority of life in the Galaxy, they also despised one another and bashed each other's brains in at every opportunity.
What could be said with certainty, however, was this: if the four of them ever discovered Bona Plena's existence, they would immediately suspend all disputes and come rushing over to snatch him first.
Malcador nodded.
"We must protect Bona Plena beginning now. At least until he has mastered his Psychic Power, we cannot allow him to leave this area. All of this is for the great cause of humanity."
"I will arrange for Adeptus Custodes and Sisters of Silence to guard him around the clock," the Emperor said, nodding.
Just then, the infant in his arms began to cry.
The Emperor hastily soothed the baby, humming a very ancient lullaby. The infant seemed to sense the Emperor's presence and opened his eyes.
Then the baby smiled, flailing both little arms up toward the air.
An unusual expression crossed Malcador's face, a rare sight.
"What are our odds of success now?"
"I don't know..."
The Emperor was quiet for a moment.
"But they are certainly higher than before."
➤ Next: I Want to Become Your Blade