The end of the 28th Millennium.
As most of the Eldar of the Eldar Empire indulged themselves to exhaustion in storms of pleasure, excess, and nonstop fucking, growing ever more deranged by the day,
all manner of vile and grotesque thoughts piled higher and higher within the Immaterium.
Some Eldar, unable to keep up with the Eldar Empire's incomprehensible and decadent latest trends, became thoroughly sick of their rotten homeland and took to the Webway.
These few Eldar, who would later be called the Exodites, abandoned the Empire and fled for uncharted worlds on the galactic frontier.
But in this world of Warhammer 40K, there was no paradise waiting at the end of an escape unless one paid the price.
"Waaaghhhh!!! Boyz! Show those pointy-eared bastards what a truly kickass fight looks like!!!"
"Waaaghhhhhhh!!!"
"Why the hell are Orks showing up here?!"
"Eliminate the Orks that have boarded the ships!"
For reasons unknown, an Ork horde suddenly appeared in the Webway and indiscriminately attacked the departing Eldar.
Only after paying a bloody price in casualties did the Eldar manage to escape the Orks' jaws.
In the midst of all that,
human civilization had fallen beyond mere disorder and into Chaos itself—into a complete dark age—thanks to the Eldar's insane, double-bastard trolling.
The already chaotic Warp churned even more violently, like pouring oil onto a burning house,
eventually making even short-range interstellar travel impossible.
Left isolated, each world across the galaxy endured every kind of catastrophe and rapidly regressed.
Earth, once humanity's center and the cradle of a supercivilization, had been brutally shattered until only its shape remained.
Upon the faded remnants of a glorious past, the surviving humans displayed nothing but ignorance and madness without restraint.
Across a wasteland swept by barren dust storms, countless modified vehicles and aircraft roared onward.
Techno-barbarian fanatics following bloodthirsty raider lords raced furiously toward fresh territories to trample and plunder.
"Screeeech!! Hahaha!"
"Did you see that?! Lord Taliban Joe saw me! He looked right at me!"
"You idiot! He just happened to glance over the wasteland as he passed!"
"No! Today, I will surely spill my blood and die honorably, then go to Valhalla!!!"
Unable to stand by and watch humanity sink into such a madhouse any longer, the self-proclaimed "Master of Mankind" finally raised an army and laid plans to conquer not only Earth, but the entire galaxy.
Centered around the Himalayas, the Emperor established a base that would become the Imperium's eternal cornerstone. Leading the first thirty Custodian Guard he had personally refined, he began small-scale conquests of nearby settlements.
More precisely, it was a "recruitment operation" to procure the warriors needed to conquer Earth.
At the Emperor's command, the golden bananas attacked techno-barbarian villages and small cities barely surviving in harsh environments,
and mercilessly crushed anyone who would not submit.
"Capture those with strong bodies! Isolate the children safely!"
It was a process of rounding up the countless techno-barbarians scattered across the surface as if thinning weeds, then subjecting them to a sort of rapid indoctrination course—brainwashing—to remake them into true, properly hardened warriors.
Of course, from my perspective as someone who had lived through the entire Dark Age of Technology, it was nothing more than appallingly primitive and dangerous biological surgery.
Yet the Emperor carried out major operations that forcibly altered and enhanced their bodies, remaking them into warriors with brief shelf lives and terrifying violence: Thunder Warriors.
Me? What was I doing here, you ask?
Well, first of all, I was diligently carrying out my contracted role as a "technical advisor."
"Mom... Dad..."
"P-please... spare our lives... Don't kill us..."
"Sob...sniff..."
As the young children of captured techno-barbarian leaders and lords trembled and wailed atop the cold operating tables,
the massive figure in golden armor who had brought them there and stood beside them answered in an emotionless voice.
"We will not kill you. You will become like us and serve the great one whom you are destined to follow. Consider it the highest honor."
But those icy words only made the frightened children shudder more intensely.
Nevertheless, the Custodian stared down at them with cold eyes devoid of all emotion.
It was the hyper-rational attitude that there was no need to concern himself with such weak reason and emotion; in the process of becoming superhumans like himself, they would be cleanly scrubbed away anyway.
But I walked up to the bastard and shouted as though I were about to crack his skull open.
"Hey, you rotten fuck. Picking on kids again, you stupid asshole? Look at you trying to act all imposing in front of children. What a goddamn sight."
"..."
"What the fuck are you staring at? Eyes down. You're a young little shit—how dare you glare at an elder old enough to be your ancestor? Hyper-rationality, my ass. You're heartless, sociopathic fucking lunatics."
"...Watch your tongue, Ghost."
"What? Say that again. Your speech sounds a little too informal, doesn't it? Want me to turn you into a pathetic fuck who can never speak again?"
"...No, sir."
"Seriously, these fucking bastards. Seeing you assholes pull this shit even on your own allies makes my blood boil. You lot looked best when you were floating inside those glass cylinders. Got that?"
"..."
"Look at him standing there with his mouth shut tight because his pride's hurt. Fuck off, you bastard. I'll look after the kids. And you son of a bitch, there's still a full day before the operation—why the fuck have you already tied them to the tables? Were you planning to have them piss and shit right there?"
"..."
"Get lost before I throw you out into space."
At those final words, the Custodian ultimately left without uttering a single rebuttal.
There was a good reason I treated them so harshly and roughly.
Those Custodians possessed perfect hyper-rationality, precisely as the Emperor had genetically designed them.
But the thing called a "heart" within them was limited solely to loyalty toward the Emperor.
They regarded every being other than the Emperor as vermin, so they often treated not only the researchers and technicians working alongside them, but even children like these, like soulless machines throwing mindless tantrums.
At first, I had tried to treat them politely and reasonably.
But when these motherfuckers dared try to utterly disregard even me,
I started trampling their pride and ignoring them right back.
What could they do to me, no matter how badly I behaved?
I loosened the restraints binding the children to the operating tables one by one.
"That was uncomfortable, wasn't it? This old man will get all of these off you, so bear with me just a little longer."
The children still seemed frightened by the unfamiliar laboratory, but at least they did not appear to feel the same terror from me as they had a moment ago.
I pulled sweet candies from inside my coat and placed one in each child's mouth.
Born in contaminated wastelands, the children widened their eyes at the wonderful sweetness they were tasting for the first time. The tense atmosphere in the operating room softened considerably.
These children, too, would eventually undergo the brutal genetic modification surgery personally overseen by the Emperor,
and lose their current selves, becoming like those Custodians...
But that was then. This was now.
Well, if these children grew up to become Custodians and started pulling the same bullshit, I would deal with them exactly as I had before—by cracking their skulls.
That would be then, and this was this.
While I was busy soothing and calming the children,
with a hiss, the heavy doors of the operating room slid open,
and researchers in white coats, dressed like me, began to enter.
"Ghost, preparations for the examination are complete."
Everyone here called me Ghost.
Of course, some called me Noah, but I supposed the nickname had stuck because I vanished like a ghost in an instant through spatial jumps.
It had a nice enough ring to it, so I simply let them call me Ghost.
"Yeah? Then let's wait until the kids finish their candy and start nice and slowly."
"But time—"
"Hey, you still need to give the kids time to settle down, don't you? And is rushing going to suddenly turn them into Custodes with a snap?"
"...Understood."
"Humanity is the most precious spiritual asset in an age like this, but kids these days are all lacking it. Lacking! Back in my day—!"
Sensing that my lecture was about to drag on, the researchers immediately bowed their heads and apologized.
"We're sorry!"
"Good. At least you know it, you brats."
After gently patting the final child's head and giving them a candy,
I stretched and rose from my seat.
"First, draw blood samples and analyze their genetic mapping data. They'll each need drug compatibility and stability tests."
"Understood, Ghost."
"And if you run into anything you don't understand while analyzing the bio-code, don't sit there agonizing over it alone. Ask me right away."
"Yes, don't worry!"
My official title was merely "technical advisor," yet before I knew it, I had become something of a professor to the researchers here.
Well, good was good. I was simply adapting to it.
Still, if nothing else, it was fucking irritating that every task had to pass through my hands one by one.
Normally, with Veronica and the AIs' perfect assistance, it would all be over in seconds.
Instead, because of these primitive methods, I had to sit here working on the same thing for hours on end. It was enough to drive me mad.
And why the hell did they insist on using those damn quills?
It wasn't as though they lacked the technology, yet I still could not understand the sight of them writing documents onto parchment with quills.
Still, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, or so they said.
Even as I grumbled inwardly, I willingly went along with the Emperor's old-fashioned, stubborn rhythm.
Ah, I'm jealous of the other me back on the Ark. So jealous.
I wanted to spend time sweetly fooling around with Veronica too, heal alongside the children, and rest comfortably.
At that very moment, the irritated voice of the other "me," handling work on the Ark through our mental network, jabbed into my mind.
[I can hear every thought you have, you little shit. What a joke. You think I'm playing around right now?]
[Compared to me getting worked like a dog on Earth, you've got it fucking easy, haven't you?]
[I'm having a hard time too, asshole! I'm overseeing bases being built on resource extraction planets, exterminating the xenos bastards hanging around the Ark, fighting Necron Tomb Worlds, analyzing alien technology, researching ultra-ancient relics—who are you calling someone who's taking it easy?!]
[Hah, now that I hear it, you're right. Sorry.]
[Anyway, I'm the one who's jealous of you. You're watching this setting's main event live from the scene.]
[You're seeing it all anyway through memories synchronized in real time over the mental network.]
[Still, watching it on-site while chewing popcorn feels different from seeing it on video.]
As I traded grumbling remarks with my Ark self, another voice, hazy and youthful, poked out from a corner of the mental network.
It was another me, who had entered a long slumber while receiving mental healing in a hibernation chamber deep within Dharma Temple.
[Hey... keep it down... Let me sleep...]
[There's the real unemployed bum taking it easy.]
[For real, fucking jobless bums. No idea how long you're planning to sleep.]
[I still have a thousand years left on the hibernation period I promised Veronica, you know? Even while we sleep, we're monitoring all the memories you send in real time.]
[I don't care. Anyway, you on the Ark, don't forget that you're taking over my Earth posting in a year.]
[Got it, asshole. We're all the same age, yet you have to be so fucking prickly.]
As I watched the surgery's progress and bickered with my other selves in the mental network,
the heavy doors of the genetic surgery room opened once again with a hiss,
and a familiar yet majestic golden figure appeared.
"Noah, he summons you."
He was Constantin Valdor, the Emperor's most perfect masterpiece and first Custodian, the man who would one day become Captain-General.
He was a truly astonishing specimen.
Though the genetic augmentations implanted in his body were far inferior to those of the Immortals,
his skill and physical capabilities were strangely above the Immortals' average.
Of course, he was weaker than Kalashif Yurick, the Immortals' commander-in-chief,
but I was very curious what he might become if Ark technology were inscribed into his body.
Unlike the other stuffy bastards, he possessed at least a minimum of dignity and courtesy, and did not needlessly mistreat mortals.
That was why I treated him somewhat more gently than the rest.
"What is it, Valdor? Can't you see I'm supervising the work of making bodyguards for your boss?"
"The researchers can keep that running smoothly even in your absence."
"Hey, that's a little hurtful. Thanks to me tuning their bio-codes, the modification success rate went up by at least twenty percent."
"Naturally, I respect your astonishing abilities and devotion. However, he has summoned you over a matter far more important than this work."
Constantin Valdor briefly turned his gaze toward the researchers standing around us,
subtly signaling that there were too many eyes present for this conversation.
"Fine, I get it, I get it. I just have to follow you, right? Stop giving me looks."
"Come."
Valdor turned first to lead the way, and I dusted off my gown before following him into the deep underground where the Emperor waited.
The place I reached behind Constantin Valdor was a vast laboratory, one I had no idea when they had built.
There waited the Emperor, now no longer bothering to conceal his power and little different from a god, along with Malcador and Erda.
A holy aura bright enough to blind, and psychic gravity that pressed down upon the very space around us.
But whether the Emperor looked like a god or an enormous sun, it stirred no particular feeling in someone like me, who had been through everything under the sun.
Adjusting my clothes, I casually walked up to the Emperor and asked,
"What is it? Why are you standing there flexing your power so hard?"
In the ominous silence that filled the chamber, the Emperor asked me in a low, majestic voice,
"Noah, what do I appear to be in your eyes right now?"
I understood what he was trying to say.
"...What else? A freeloader who ran off with their power without paying the price. But you did well on that one. A truly proper bit of theft."
"..."
At my answer, the Emperor fell silent for a moment and simply stared at me with eyes burning gold.
Even he, who had grasped the truths of the universe, seemed unable to readily find his next words.
After a while, the Emperor let out a quiet breath like a sigh and spoke.
"Noah, you are the most unfathomable being among humanity."
"You're too kind. But you didn't summon me just to praise unusual old me, so what's the real point?"
I had a rough idea, anyway.
The Emperor's gaze became deeper and more solemn.
Pointing to the center of the laboratory, where gigantic bio-incubators stood in rows, he finally revealed his central design.
"The [Primarch Project]. Can you guess what I intend to do?"
"...Oh?"
"I intend to create my genetic sons, beings for humanity who will lead the Great Crusade that shall reclaim the entire galaxy. To that end, I would like your support with the peerless ancient technology you possess."
After quietly finishing, the Emperor watched me for a moment, then added an unexpected question.
"Could you perhaps provide a sample of your genetic material as well?"
I refused flatly without a second's hesitation.
"Yeah, no."
"Then the most attractive woman on Terra—"
"No matter what, our Veronica is the best."
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