Flames licked the sky, the earth trembled in a sea of fire.
Justice, evil, war, peace, knowledge, ignorance, all were incinerated to ash by the rolling inferno.
Towering spires collapsed like melting candles, the gold leaf of ornate palaces peeled in the heat waves, the majestic domes of sanctuaries shattered.
This world, which had carried a great civilization and its heritage, would see everything it had inherited turn to nothing.
No hope, no redemption, only blackened ash covering the ground.
Amon woke from the nightmare, his clothes soaked with cold sweat, his eyes still holding a trace of fear.
"I dreamed it again," Amon whispered.
Since childhood, he had often been plagued by the same nightmare.
In the dream, he witnessed Prospero being reduced to ashes in a raging inferno.
He dreamed of the library, into which he had poured his life's work, being destroyed; his beloved people and students screaming in the fire.
He dreamed that everything he cherished was taken and destroyed; everything he loved would be annihilated.
This nightmare had miraculously disappeared with Magnus's arrival.
The Primarch, like a brilliant meteor, had shattered the gloom that had always shrouded him.
He thought he had finally found Prospero's savior.
He never experienced the nightmare again, convincing himself it was an ancient memory from a bygone era.
In that distant age, their ancestors had suffered persecution.
Until last night, the nightmare found him again.
Because just yesterday, another uninvited guest had arrived on Prospero, setting foot on this land on the brink of destruction.
Who, then, would destroy Prospero?
The nightmare miraculously vanished with Magnus's arrival, then resurged with Caelan's arrival.
'Does this mean that Caelan will destroy Prospero, and Magnus will save us from him?'
Amon's face was pale.
Caelan knew about his nightmare.
'Even if he truly was the culprit, what could I do now?'
Magnus regarded him as his father, while Amon was just a passerby who had happened to raise the Primarch.
Would Magnus choose him over his own father?
Amon lacked that confidence.
Amon dared not discuss his nightmare with anyone else, afraid it would provoke an overreaction from the Tizcans.
What if they believed the prophecy and tried to kill Caelan to stop him? What would be the consequences for Tizca?
With Magnus's protection, they couldn't possibly succeed.
And even if they did?
As long as they took action, Magnus would frantically slaughter them in retaliation.
Perhaps this is one of the ways the prophecy validates itself.
They wouldn't stop the nightmare; they would only accelerate its arrival.
Amon didn't understand why it had to be him.
Why had the prophecy chosen him? Why had it made him raise Magnus?
If Caelan was destined to come for Magnus, if Magnus already considered Caelan his father.
What role did he play in all this?
With or without him, nothing seemed to change.
His existence wasn't unique.
Even without him, the Tizcans would have treated Magnus kindly, he was both a mutant and a witch.
The timing and location of his landing were so ingenious, as if he naturally belonged to this world.
Amon wandered out of his room, dazed, until the change in light made him stop involuntarily.
"Teacher, are you looking for my father?"
Magnus's voice snapped Amon out of his trance.
He realized with a start that he had inexplicably found himself outside Caelan's door.
Amon's voice was hoarse.
"I dreamed it again."
Magnus's eyes sharpened.
"The Burning of Prospero? You think it's related to my father?"
From the day he adopted Magnus, Amon knew this child was extraordinary, smarter than any Tizcan.
In the first few weeks, Amon had tried to care for him like an ordinary infant.
But Magnus's eyes gradually revealed a weariness beyond his years, as if he had experienced all of life's vicissitudes in his dreams.
Starting in the fifth week, Magnus actively requested to learn.
Amon held nothing back; he poured all his knowledge into Magnus.
But the Primarch's thirst for knowledge was an abyss.
His wisdom quickly surpassed all Tizcans.
Only the library, holding millennia of Prosperine culture, could barely satisfy his thirst for knowledge.
Amon fell silent.
Because Magnus had guessed his hidden worry from just a few words.
"This has nothing to do with my father. The tragedy of the Burning of Prospero stems from my mistakes."
"But I can promise you, teacher, I will never let such a future befall our home!"
"Your home?" Amon asked bitterly. "Do you truly consider Tizca your home?"
"My brothers all have their own home worlds. I am the same."
"I have only two fathers. But you raised me, educated me. I will remember this kindness."
"Prosperines are seen as outcasts on other worlds, but it was you and this world that accepted and treated me well."
"What reason do I have not to protect this world?"
Magnus's sincere words warmed Amon's heart, but worry still shrouded him like dark clouds.
"Why would such a future happen to us?"
Magnus answered, "Because we did wrong. We trusted the Gods of the Warp lightly and betrayed our race."
The Prosperines had a profound lack of understanding of the Warp, even of the concept itself.
Terms like Warp, Empyrean, Aether, Sea of Souls, Nine Heavens, Chaos, none existed in Prosperine culture.
Since these words are just abstract concepts, it didn't affect their daily lives.
But the development of civilization cannot be separated from abstract thought.
Lacking it, Prospero's civilizational development had stagnated.
They had psychic powers, considered themselves witches and warlocks, but knew nothing about the source of their power.
Yet, in their culture, they specifically emphasized 'Gods'.
They didn't know what the Warp was, but their texts recorded their ancestors' warning: beware the Gods in the void.
Amon was as ignorant as other Tizcans, living in the carefully woven ignorance of their ancestors.
He had naively believed that Gods existed in the universe above them.
Now he understood that the Gods are not in the material universe; they exist in the Aether.
But their ancestors' warning was right: they must beware of Gods – any Gods.
Amon asked, "Gods destroyed us?"
"Gods made us destroy ourselves."
"And you promise we won't repeat the mistake?"
"As long as we don't believe in Gods, don't place our hope in them."
Magnus was the enlightener of the Fifteenth Legion, but he also led them down the path to ruin.
Amon was the first to warn Magnus to beware of Gods.
Yet, when they traveled the Aether and realized it held infinite knowledge,
Even Amon became obsessed with exploring the Warp.
Neither of them exercised any restraint.
They could travel the Warp safely due to the protection of their Tutelaries, but in essence, it was Tzeentch's indulgence.
The Dark God wanted to catch them all in one net, so He naturally ensured as many as possible stayed inside.
Magnus will still be the enlightener of the Prosperines, but this time he has experience.
He won't let the tragedy repeat.
"Leave, teacher. Don't disturb my father."
Amon fell into deeper confusion.
Were Magnus's words from the heart, or just to temporarily appease him?
He and his father.
Their relationship was far closer than he had imagined.
They had only met yesterday, yet it seemed they had known each other for a long time.
Amon said nothing.
He left the corridor in silence.
Magnus watched Amon leave.
He hadn't deceived Amon, nor would he stoop to lies to fool others.
He did have his own selfish reasons, but he had been sincere enough.
If Amon still refused to trust him, Magnus could only regret it.
After Amon left, Magnus gently pushed open Caelan's door.
As he had guessed, Caelan was not inside.
If his father were awake, he would have come to find him.
Unless he was no longer on Prospero.
"Macragge. Roboute Guilliman."
Magnus murmured to himself.
His father had admitted it.
He was still teaching another brother and might leave for Macragge at any time.
But at the latest, he would return to Prospero the next day.
Magnus never doubted his father.
His father would make up the lost time to him.
So, he needn't fret over such trivialities.
Still, his brother's name was firmly etched in his memory.
In front of each of his brothers, his father would praise Guilliman to the skies.
As if he were the best among them.
Magnus was willing to accept his Primarch brothers, even a madman like Curze.
But he did not acknowledge Guilliman's special status.
He was the most special one!
The future in Father's prophecy was now void; it was a past tense that would not become reality.
The current him was terrifyingly confident!
…
"Amon!"
On his way to the canteen, Amon turned slowly and saw a colleague in a blue robe greeting him.
"Mephia," Amon replied, his expression unnatural.
Tizca had nine Masters.
Mephia and Amon were among them.
They were all powerful individuals deeply immersed in the psychic field, the mentors of all the city's psykers.
But they, like Amon before, knew nothing about the Aether.
"Amon, you look terrible. Something on your mind?"
Amon couldn't help but smile bitterly.
"Is it that obvious?"
Mephia stepped closer and nodded.
"You're not good at hiding things. Your emotions are written all over your face. Is it about the outsider?"
Tizca wasn't a large city, nor populous.
The nine Masters knew each other's personalities well.
Amon had been introverted since childhood, the quietest and most solitary of the nine.
He didn't like company, had no wife, no children.
That was partly why he was chosen to raise Magnus.
Besides being a Master of Warlocks, he was also a known poet; his works were collected in the library.
"It's somewhat related," Amon replied vaguely, not daring to tell him the truth.
Magnus's earlier conversation had been both a warning and an admonition.
If he still couldn't see the situation clearly, it would only create a rift between Magnus and Tizca.
"I guess it's about Magnus again? Some things you can't force. They're father and son after all. What room is there for an outsider?"
Amon shook his head.
"They're not biological."
Although he didn't know much, Magnus had admitted to having two fathers.
Caelan was not his birth father.
Mephia leaned in closer, lowering his voice.
"What did you learn from him?"
Amon said, "They came to help us. They won't harm Tizca."
Mephia sighed and pointed to the sky.
"It's not that I don't want to believe them, but those things are just outside the city, tens of thousands of them. How can they help us?"
"Do they have a space fleet to save our people from this misery?"
Mephia's face twisted in mockery, "Even if they take us away, where can we go? No one will truly accept us."
"Thousands of years have passed. Maybe the outside world has changed."
Mephia shook her head, "It hasn't. Otherwise, why would our ancestors have been exiled to this world?"
"As long as they fear our power, they won't stop persecuting us."
"There are only two possibilities for peace: either we all die, or they all die."
Amon didn't agree, but he wouldn't argue with his colleague.
"Amon, are you sure you have nothing to tell me?"
Amon was silent for a long time, choosing to keep his secret.
He couldn't take the risk.
His nightmare returning might just be a coincidence.
He couldn't arbitrarily judge that Caelan was harmful.
Starting a misunderstanding based on his suspicion would only embarrass everyone.
Amon asked, "Do you know about the Warp?"
"What's that?" Mephia was confused.
"The outsider told me. He said all our power comes from the Warp. Those Psychneuein outside do too."
"The Warp and our world are two sides of the same coin. Only psykers can bore a hole in the gap between worlds and connect to the Warp. The power we use flows out through that hole."
"And decades ago, perhaps a certain witch prayed to the Warp for knowledge, which ultimately triggered the Psychneuein invasion."
Mephia's voice deepened.
"No one predicted the disaster. Many people were killed by them in their sleep. Our civilization was destroyed almost overnight."
Without Tizca's ancient technology, their civilization would have perished.
But for decades, discussions about the Psychneuein never ceased.
No one understood why, after thousands of years, the Prosperines were suddenly attacked by these behemoths.
There was only one explanation: they appeared suddenly.
Before this, people's guesses centered on two theories.
One: they came from the void, invading Prospero on starships.
Because Prospero's history did record alien invasions.
Though the aliens in the records were green, it was understandable that outsiders belonged to different races.
The other: the behemoths were sealed underground, and someone unintentionally broke the seal, releasing them.
Now, a new theory was proposed.
The concept of the Warp didn't exist in Tizcan common knowledge, but they wouldn't ignore any possibility.
The outsider didn't belong to Prospero.
His hypothesis was highly valuable for reference.
Mephia shook his head.
"Knowing this now is meaningless. Even if they really come from the Warp, we have no way to deal with them. Did the outsider tell you how to fight the Psychneuein?"
"He claims he has a way, but I haven't witnessed it yet."
Mephia sighed, "I hope he can truly help us."
Amon suddenly asked, "Mephia, how much do you know about Gods?"
"Beware the Gods. That's the ancestral teaching. My knowledge of the Gods is limited to that. Do you think all this is related to Gods?"
Mephia was no fool.
With just a mention from Amon, he had synchronized his thoughts with Amon's.
"The Psychneuein invasion is too strange. I suspect it's the Gods' scheme."
"The Gods use schemes against us? Why?" Mephia looked uneasy.
He believed Gods existed; otherwise, his ancestors wouldn't have specifically warned them.
He also believed the Gods would do such things; the warning must have profound meaning, probably because the Gods are not good.
But would the Gods really need to use schemes?
If the Gods wanted to destroy Prospero, why go to such lengths?
The Psychneuein had brought Prospero's civilization to the brink of destruction, but Tizca had survived for decades.
The beasts lacked intelligence; otherwise, they would have invaded Tizca long ago.
All signs pointed to this being a natural disaster, not a carefully crafted scheme.
"Maybe this is just part of the plan. Maintaining the psychic arrays is getting harder. Without Magnus, Tizca might fall within a few years."
"But at this critical moment, Magnus arrived, bringing hope of salvation."
"So the Gods let him land on this broken world so he could save us?"
Amon added, "Not just that. We are not worth the Gods' scheming, but he is. Destroying us might not be the Gods' goal; destroying him is."
"You mean our world is bait set by the Gods, just to lure him in?"
"Yes."
"Why are you so sure?"
"The outsider told me Magnus is a Primarch. He bears the burden of revitalizing human civilization."
"Did you really believe that?"
Mephia thought he had gone mad.
"I have to. It's the only chance to save Prospero."
.....
30 Chapters [email protected]/DaoistJinzu