One day, after praying, the deeply devout felt their bodies grow lighter.
Whenever they praised the Emperor, vitality welled up within them.
Among those of deep faith, labor productivity rose by as much as thirty percent, while defect rates fell below one in a million.
Whenever priests of the Imperial Creed delivered their sermons, the blind regained their sight and the crippled rose to their feet once more.
A small voice resounded within the priests' minds, and that voice steadily grew louder.
"God-Emperor... I thank You..."
Feeling the subjects who had heard his sermon become filled with faith and belief, the aged priest of the Imperial Creed wept.
The false religions and influence of Chaos that had been quietly spreading among the Imperial citizenry vanished before anyone realized it.
Once again, they were filled with fanatics of the Imperial Creed.
"There is but one Emperor... He is our shield... and our savior..."
The Imperial citizens had always been subjected to grueling labor after the Great Rift, but lately their bodies had grown lighter, and even a little sleep relieved their fatigue.
Though their assigned workloads increased, they finished faster than before and completed their work more perfectly, leaving them with something called leisure time.
During that leisure time, the subjects offered prayers to the Emperor and repaid with faith the Emperor who had blessed them.
"Let all tremble before His majesty. We shall all live forever beneath His shadow...!"
Faith strengthened the Emperor's power.
Though His power had weakened slightly for a moment by bestowing it upon His subjects, Radian's existence concealed His weakened true self from the entities of the Warp.
And the grace He had bestowed returned in the form of immense faith. Accepting that faith and those souls, the Emperor grew stronger still.
"Still... it is not enough."
I am... the Emperor.
Once, I denied all faith.
I believed humanity could walk its path alone, without the aid of superhumans.
But I was wrong.
When I was bound to the small yet powerful prison and instrument of torture called the Golden Throne—
Reason vanished.
Only fanaticism sustained the Imperium I had created.
Humanity already has nothing but ruin ahead of it.
Now, I must decide for them what they shall believe in.
"Ruin shall come."
If humans cannot stand on their own as humans—
Then they can no longer be called human.
The number of Neverborn created by the entities of the Warp must be as great as that of humanity.
Now.
I shall gather them myself.
I am—
the Emperor.
The Master of Mankind.
Offer up your faith.
Offer up your souls.
And in return, I—
shall save you.
Not from the ruin wrought by the entities of the Warp, but from the ruin that will come after eternal ages.
I shall remain with you forever.
My subjects and believers.
I am humanity.
A spiritual sense of fulfillment made every subject and soldier stronger.
The Primarch.
Guilliman cried out.
"For the GOD EMPEROR!"
With his burning sword, he cleaved apart a Greater Daemon, granting the daemons eternal death amid indescribable agony through holy light.
The Primarch praised Him.
At last, fanaticism—
had swept up even the Primarch.
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