Torgaddon was the highest-ranking member of the former Council of Four Kings.
He had a tall and straight physique, with the divine charm of Horus in his appearance.
Strong and powerful muscles were covered by a white hospital gown.
Ordinary medical staff looked like children in front of him. Torgaddon was toddling like a newborn baby, learning to control his body.
When he saw Loken, his eyes widened, and after involuntarily calling out his name, he excitedly stumbled towards Loken.
Two men touching skin always felt a bit strange.
But they were brothers, and their embrace was sincere and warm.
"My brother," Torgaddon said, "Have you also returned? I truly, truly..."
Torgaddon's face flushed with excitement.
However, his body, which had not yet adapted, couldn't keep up with his thoughts, causing his words to get stuck in his throat, unable to be spoken.
"Don't rush," Loken said, "Your body hasn't fully adapted yet."
"I really want to tell you the story of that bear," Torgaddon finished his sentence.
Loken's smile froze on his face, and his eyes showed astonishment. That surprised expression seemed to say, 'Are you kidding me?'
"Once upon a time, there was a bear, unbelievably huge, and a hunter. He went up the mountain to hunt the big bear, but couldn't defeat it, so the bear..."
Loken pushed Torgaddon away.
"Sorry, my friend, we might have mistaken you for someone else."
Torgaddon was momentarily stunned by Loken's action, then burst into hearty laughter.
"You haven't changed a bit, Loken."
"Don't tell me that terrible joke again. Even after ten thousand years, I can still repeat every word you say. Good heavens, you used to say it dozens of times a day on the 'Spirit of Vengeance', I knew it by heart."
"Hahaha," Torgaddon laughed heartily.
But soon, both fell silent.
Speaking of the Spirit of Vengeance brought up some unpleasant memories for them. Trist quietly walked away, not disturbing the two men's reunion.
"Let's find a place, we should talk about what happened after Cantic City," Torgaddon said.
Loken nodded. The two walked along the hospital corridor and eventually reached an empty balcony. The hospital providing services for the returnees was located not far from the Imperial Palace of Terra.
When they reached the balcony, they saw the magnificent Tower of Hegemon and the inner court where the Throne Room was located.
Terra at night was still bathed in radiance. The light beam of the Astronomican was particularly striking, piercing straight into the sky and projecting into the Warp.
Several colossal structures floated in the sky. They were directly above the city. The magnificent void structures were clearly visible, and one could even see the enormous golden double-headed eagle.
"What a magnificent sight," Torgaddon gazed at the prosperous city, veiled in light and appearing hazy. The night air grew cool, stirred by a gentle breeze.
Most of Terra's colossal buildings had designated areas for greenery.
In the distant past, people had abandoned many things for survival, wantonly poisoning the world they lived in. Those hive cities were not much different from prisons, even the air was toxic, and discharged waste turned vast tracts of land into deserts.
Humans could only hide in hive cities, surviving by using filtration devices.
Breathing air recycled thousands of times by machines, drinking filtered water mixed with urine and sweat.
Of course, that filtered water wasn't clean either.
Much of the water contained slight toxins. The changes in the Imperium also reflected the harmony between humanity and nature. Thriving nature could also provide humanity with a more comfortable life.
Plants would absorb or filter out those toxins.
"It is indeed magnificent," Loken said, "Everything we once dreamed of has now become reality."
"Yes, we fought for it," Torgaddon said, "Tell me, what happened after Cantic City?"
"That's a very long story," Loken's thoughts drifted back to the distant past.
In the duel at Cantic City, he was buried under fallen ruins, and Torgaddon was beheaded.
Afterward, Horus launched an orbital bombardment on Cantic City, completely burying everything. Taveez died in that bombardment. The loyal Death Guard, Luna Wolves, World Eaters, and Emperor's Children were all obliterated in the orbital bombardment.
"It's alright, we have plenty of time," Torgaddon said.
"On that day, after you fell..."
Loken began recounting the events of the past ten thousand years. The purge of the Legions on Istvaan III was just the beginning of the Horus Heresy. The loyalist warriors within the four Legions had been completely purged.
With the help of the Chaos Gods, the entire galaxy was raging with terrifying Warp storms.
Astropathic communication and Warp travel became exceptionally difficult.
Many loyalist Legions were unaware of Horus' rebellion. They had been dispersed throughout the galaxy by Horus under various orders.
The White Scars Legion, led by Jaghatai, could not be contacted by the Imperium due to their independent movements.
Sanguinius and his Blood Angels were deployed by Horus to the Cyguns system. There, daemons had set a trap, waiting for Sanguinius and his sons. The Space Wolves Legion had suffered considerable casualties from their previous engagement with the Thousand Sons Legion on Prospero.
They had withdrawn to their homeworld of Fenris for recuperation. The Dark Angels Legion had been deployed by Horus to a remote region of the galaxy to combat orks.
On Istvaan V, Horus meticulously designed another trap.
Seven Legions were ordered to suppress Horus.
Among them, only the Raven Guard, Salamanders, and Iron Hands were loyalists. The Word Bearers, Iron warriors, Alpha Legion, and Night Lords were all traitors.
When the three loyalist Legions landed on the planet's surface, these four traitor Legions revealed their true colors. They opened fire on the Imperial loyalists, turning the original seven-on-four into an eight-on-three, and a brutal massacre erupted.
Ferrus Manus, Primarch of the Iron Hands, was killed; Vulkan, Primarch of the Salamanders, was besieged, captured by Curze, and subjected to prolonged torture; Corax was eventually picked up by forces that had remained in low orbit. The Drop Site Massacre annihilated the three loyalist Legions.
Horus greatly weakened the loyalist forces, leveling the playing field between the traitors and loyalists, and tearing apart the nascent Imperium.
A look of sorrow appeared on Torgaddon's face. Three Legions annihilated in the Drop Site Massacre.
What a tragic battle that must have been.
He recalled a common saying in the Legions.
Astartes are invincible.
Because only Astartes can kill Astartes.
And such a thing would never happen. They were eternal blood brothers, warriors fighting for humanity.
Events proved how naive they truly were at the time. The Chaos Gods treated all living beings as their playthings.
Brotherhood, glorious achievements, everything was buried.
Loken continued his narrative, from Istvaan to the Battle of Sara, to the Ruinstorm, to the Alpha Legion's infiltration.
The Great Crusade had ended, humanity was being slaughtered by the very warriors who were supposed to save them, and the hard-won science and reason teetered on the brink in the face of violence.
Torgaddon listened to the destruction the Horus Heresy brought upon the nascent Imperium. The sorrow on his face grew even deeper. The brutality of the Siege of Terra, the forced disbandment of the Legions after the war, humanity's brief period of glory, and then its decline.
Various terrifying xenos returned with a vengeance.
Constantly launching offensives against the Imperium. The long-dormant traitors also accumulated strength over time, launching new Black Crusades against the Imperium.
The more Torgaddon learned about the Imperium's past, the more he marveled at the prosperity he saw before his eyes. The difficulty of rebuilding a civilization plunged into darkness and despair was no less than establishing an entirely new empire.
Loken spoke until late into the night, until their medical staff requested they return to the recuperation ward.
But they did not stop there; at Torgaddon's strong insistence, the medical staff moved his bed into Loken's room. The two long-separated men seemed to have endless things to talk about. The next day, they were still in high spirits, conversing about various aspects of the Imperium's past.
Loken told Torgaddon about the fate of the traitor Primarchs, how they were now all displayed like monkeys at the Astronomican for people to see. They had utterly lost face, so to speak.
"They deserve it," Torgaddon said, "Those traitors don't deserve any sympathy."
"I think so too," Loken said, "Their crimes are unforgivable."
"Our return foretells the failure of those fools; the glory of humanity shall shine once more."
Togadon declared.
"Yes, exactly," Loken agreed. "Before that, we must recover. This body, unable to exert its full power, cannot secure our victory."
"Speaking of this body, have you noticed its peculiar nature?" Loken whispered. "There's a strange voice in my mind, making me feel like a sophisticated combat robot."
Togadon nodded.
"There's something calling itself a 'system,' and 'templates.' Forgive my poor scientific vocabulary, I can't think of any professional terms to describe it."
"I truly wonder how Guilliman accomplished this!" Loken murmured. "No, he shouldn't be called Guilliman anymore; that's a title of the past. Now, he should be addressed as the Holt Emperor."
"I'm also curious, but that's not my forte, so I can't give you an answer," Togadon shrugged. "If you want to discuss the Emperor, I share your astonishment. I vaguely recall my first meeting with him, alongside Horus, who hadn't rebelled yet. I only remember the Lord of Ultramar being incredibly tall, strong, with a noble, perfect face."
"He was just one of the Emperor's eighteen sons; no one would have imagined he would one day succeed his father as the new Emperor."
"Even Horus probably wouldn't have thought that, despite gaining the title of Warmaster, the Lord of Ultramar would become the future Emperor."
Both men's voices were filled with a sense of regret.
Such a turn of events was beyond anyone's imagination.
Horus, chosen as Warmaster after the Ullanor Crusade and hailed as the foremost among the Primarchs, became a traitor and was ultimately slain by the Emperor.
The Lord of Ultramar, revered as the paragon, became the second Human Emperor of the Imperium through his unparalleled achievements.
Fate is always full of such dramatic twists.
No one can truly predict what will happen in the future.
Loken and Togadon continued their conversation. They reminisced about the past, envisioned the future, and even considered applying for an honor duel once their strength returned. Two against Erebus and Abaddon respectively.
Break their spines, then set them, then swap opponents, and break their spines again. To humiliate them with the cruelest methods, to avenge their past betrayal.
On the Phalanx. The Laughing God, Cegorach, stood on a magnificent elevated platform. The vast, circular hall was embedded with glowing ecological containment pods.
The pods were like a mother's womb, nurturing living beings. They were enveloped in nutrient fluid, their genetic sequences replicated using data read from the cosmic background. The Imperium's exploration teams had spread throughout the entire cosmos.
Apart from the universes currently being conquered, countless civilizations had been encountered.
Among them were many powerful psyker civilizations. The individual powerhouses of those psyker civilizations, in the eyes of mortals, were extraordinarily terrifying.
Undying and indestructible; even if killed, they could return as long as someone uttered their name. They were not much different from the Chaos Gods, able to enter the real world through people's thoughts.
They could incinerate the rules of the real universe, what was known as Laws. They could also use their transcendent abilities to alter the past, present, and future. Those civilizations even gave impressive names to these individual realms.
The Imperium had not engaged in direct conflict with these psyker civilizations, but it had studied these powerful psyker individuals.
Once a complete cosmic structural system was established and sufficiently deep knowledge was mastered, it became clear that these so-called psyker individuals were not unfathomable beings. The path of truth is endless, and the universe itself is evolving, also storing data to ensure it can grow stronger and more prosperous.
Just like the inheritance of life, the next generation of humans often carries the genes of the previous generation, leaving a legacy of knowledge for the next. The universe itself also stores data.
The Imperium refers to this as cosmic background data. This data is the genetic information of the universe, which will relate to the birth of the next universe. The Imperium's sages discovered that psyker individuals could, through special training, modify cosmic background information to some extent.
Those psyker individuals were like viral subroutines, embedded within the genetic information of the universe. They could be activated if the conditions were met. Then they would replicate madly, reappearing in the real universe.
Of course, they would not consider their actions as a virus, but would refer to them as a 'brand,' or their 'Laws'. The brand is immortal, the true spirit is immortal, and with the thoughts of all beings, one can return.
To resurrect the Imperium's heroes, Guilliman utilized the lingering souls of heroes from the Emperor's domain, extracting cosmic background data to shape their bodies, allowing them to freely operate in reality.
Servo-skulls, plated in gold and silver, hovered in the air. The double-headed eagle emblem was embedded in their foreheads. The servo-skulls were equipped with industrial hydraulic mechanisms.
These hydraulic mechanisms, with their raw industrial aesthetic, could firmly grasp an entire pod and transport it to a designated area.
High-speed servo-skulls swept through the air.
From their empty eye sockets, red scanning beams emanated.
Whenever a pod's indicator light turned green, they would fly over, disconnect various cables, then lift the pod and transport it through the spaceport to the ground, using the facilities there to bring the returnees back to reality.
Eldrad walked up from behind. The eldar farseer, having removed his helmet, surveyed the hall with its industrialized production standards.
"Daemons are reborn through the Warp, and the Imperium's military personnel return through technology and arcane means. Honestly, I can't tell which side is the daemon anymore."
"There was never a difference, so why categorize?" Cegorach said with a laugh. "Even if Guilliman denies it a thousand, ten thousand times, he cannot deny that he is a god. As long as countless citizens of the Imperium believe in him, he is a god; his denial is meaningless."
"Guilliman is a god, just like the prince of Pleasure, the Grandfather of Plagues, the Changer of Ways, the Blood God.
Imagine, how many universes has the Imperium reached? How many worlds have they colonized? How many people do the population factories produce every day?
When the faith and hope of these people converge, even if Guilliman isn't a god, the citizens of the Imperium will make him one."
"Think about it, how similar Guilliman is to the Chaos Gods.
Khorne desires war and blood, Nurgle seeks to spread plagues, the Changer of Ways plays games, and the prince of Pleasure wants all living beings to indulge until the end of the universe.
Guilliman, on the other hand, desires humanity to transcend all heavens, to become the multiverse. They possess the same ambition and arrogance, the same greed, stopping at nothing to achieve their goals."
"Abandoning our original stance and viewing it from the perspective of the entire cosmos, there is no difference between them; they are all equally fanatical. Anyone who tries to hinder them will be crushed.
Trying to persuade Guilliman to abandon his great endeavor is like trying to persuade Khorne to drink some tea and talk things over calmly instead of always resorting to violence."
"Khorne will not listen to any nonsense; he will simply cleave the babbling fool in half with an axe, offering more blood to himself. Guilliman will also directly eliminate any living being who dares to prevent him from completing this great work of the Imperium, letting them know the wrath of Guilliman.
What difference is there between the Imperial warriors fighting in his name and those daemons? To those enemies who dare to stand against him, the xenos different from humans, do daemons and the Imperium really have a difference in their hearts?"
Eldrad whispered, "In that case, Guilliman is a true god. He just refuses to admit it."
Cegorach didn't say anything more to Eldrad's self-answering question.
His clown-masked face turned to the side.
His eyes, brimming with infinite wisdom, shone brightly.
He looked into the distance.
In the bowl-shaped hall, a gigantic metallic cylinder stood tall.
Aside from the various intricate runes, it was connected to all sorts of generators and machinery. The machinery hummed, resonating with a special pulsation, like a perfect symphony that only a musician with extraordinary artistic talent could play.
The obscure runes on the surface of the giant metal pillar flickered continuously, vibrating with the resonant rhythm.
Each flash marked the return of a human hero.
Even from his perspective, such a thing was incredible. The original rules of the universe had been broken. The barriers of time had been crumpled into fragments.
Space and time had become objects for him to trample upon.
Now, not even life and death could stop him.
Human military power, under his will, was rapidly advancing.
What else could possibly stop him?
Under such circumstances, if Guilliman wasn't considered a god, then who could be?
Weren't the Imperial armies, fighting tirelessly in his name, a symbol of his destructive power?
What difference was there between these reincarnated heroes and the daemons resurrected with the blessings of the gods?
At most, one side leveraged the special mechanisms of the Warp, while the other forged a new path.
"When will the Emperor rescue the Goddess of Life?" Eldrad asked a question that many eldar seers were concerned about.
When Cegorach submitted to Guilliman and offered the Black Library, which contained the knowledge of the Old Ones, one of the conditions was that Guilliman would rescue the eldar's Goddess of Life and other deities who were taken away or shattered during the Great Fall.
Cegorach hadn't spoken yet.
Another voice came from behind him.
"The best time to rescue Isha, the Goddess of Life, will be when the Imperial army specifically combating Warp creatures is fully formed. At our current pace, we'll achieve this very soon. Give or take a few years."
Cegorach and Eldrad turned to look in the direction of the voice.
A noble face appeared before them.
It was none other than the Emperor of the Imperium, Guilliman. The Void Dragon was sprawled lazily on his broad shoulder, like a pet.
It was hard to imagine that a god who once proclaimed himself a deity of the real universe had now become a pet.
Behind him were his chief bodyguard, Sicarius, and the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, Valerian, who were responsible for his safety.
"Your Majesty."
"Your Majesty."
"No need for formalities." Guilliman waved his hand, signaling them to dispense with the elaborate greetings. He walked over to Cegorach's side, stood at the railing of the high platform, and looked at the densely packed, honeycomb-like stasis pods. The sheer number of heroes recalled by the Imperium was astonishing.
"Your Majesty, why do you suddenly have time to visit today?" Cegorach respectfully asked, "Could it be that new research breakthroughs have been made?"
Guilliman shook his head.
"No new breakthroughs, I'm simply continuing to perfect the Imperium's research into the domain of life and death. The Warp is mysterious and unfathomable; to truly master life and death, and to establish a system of reincarnation or slumber for the Imperium, is an extremely difficult task."
After death, souls return to the Warp.
If one has a god they believe in, they go to that god's domain.
If not, they drift in the Warp, hunted or torn apart by other daemons.
Many would consider the former far better than the latter.
At least one wouldn't have to face those cruel, bloodthirsty Warp creatures alone.
But the outcome is the same.
As long as a Chaos God is born, those so-called gods will be devoured, and along with them, the deceased in those gods' exclusive domains will become sustenance or slaves.
"Breaking the boundaries of life and death is not so easy; too many secrets are hidden in the vast universe, and even gods cannot fully comprehend them all." Cegorach said, "Your Majesty certainly does not need to worry so much. The Imperium possesses enough power to protect its countless citizens and allow them to survive in this dark universe."
"The Imperium will rise, and it will fall," Guilliman said, resting his hand on the railing and looking at the stasis pods. "The deeper I understand the Warp, the more anxious and uneasy I become. Chaos is the primordial force of the universe, and it may also be the key to the universe's cycle. Everything we are is meaningless on a long time scale. Chaos is always there; when we rise, they retreat to corners we cannot see."
"When we decline, they will erupt like a corruption from within, turning a prosperous and flourishing nation into tragic ruins, inflicting untold suffering on the wretched people. Only by establishing a self-sustaining system can the Imperium hope to avoid harm."
"Your Majesty will surely succeed," Cegorach said.
"I am trying," Guilliman's tone shifted. "Speaking of the eldar gods, perhaps we should do something else first. The Goddess of Life, Isha, is in the Plague Father's domain, reportedly even chained beside him. To rescue her, we would have to directly confront the Plague Father. Can you face a Chaos God?"
Cegorach shook his head.
"I cannot. The Plague Father's gaze alone carries a plague capable of killing gods; I would die."
"The difficulty of rescuing Isha is too great. Rash action would lead to heavy casualties, perhaps even an irreversible setback. Perhaps we should first summon back another eldar god."
"Which one?"
"The eldar God of Death."
Guilliman's words made Cegorach and Eldrad exchange glances.
Astonishment was visible in each other's eyes. The resurrection of the eldar God of Death was once the most important matter for the eldar.
To this end, the Ynnari were formed, uniting the Death God's followers from the dark eldar, Craftworld eldar, Harlequin eldar, and Exodite eldar.
It was a gathering of elites, the first eldar alliance since the disaster of the Great Fall. The as-yet-unborn God of Death, Ynnead, was seen as the last hope for the increasingly declining eldar race.
Followers of the God of Death believed that when the souls of the entire race were collected into the Infinity Circuit, all Craftworlds would unite into one massive Infinity Circuit, thereby merging all eldar souls to form a new power. This power was the God of Death. The God of Death would banish Slaanesh and achieve victory.
Originally, the eldar seers attempted a large-scale ritual to hasten the awakening of the God of Death.
However, to avoid the fate of the eldar's complete destruction, the seers placed part of the sacrificial target on humanity. This was ultimately thwarted by the warriors of the Deathwatch Space Marines.
The Imperium would not allow the lives of its citizens to be used to resurrect an alien god. Then the Ynnari were formed, and they proposed the Seventh Path. This was a path different from the Path of the Seer, the Path of the warrior, the Path of the Commander, the Path of the Artisan, the Path of the navigator, and the Path of the Outcast.
Through their efforts, by sacrificing all souls within the Infinity Circuit of Craftworld Biel-Tan, the avatar of the God of Death, Yncarne, was awakened.
Yncarne was the first step on the Seventh Path, a way to awaken the God of Death without sacrificing all eldar.
All that remained was to collect the five Croneswords to allow the God of Death to be fully born. They had already recovered four: the Twilight Spear wielded by prince Yriel, the Soul Sword of the Yncarne, the Silent Shroud of the farseer, and the Sword of Sorrows of Yvraine.
However, the last sword was stolen by Shalaxi Hellbane, the Keeper of Secrets and Champion of Slaanesh, a greater daemon. This daemon also placed the last sword in Slaanesh's palace. This trapped the Ynnari in a vicious cycle.
Why did they want to awaken the God of Death? Because they feared Slaanesh would consume them all.
But now, the last sword needed to awaken the God of Death was in Slaanesh's palace. They would have to defeat Slaanesh to get the last sword.
But defeating Slaanesh required the help of the God of Death.
But to get the help of the God of Death, they first had to defeat Slaanesh and get the last sword. This situation successfully turned the Ynnari into a joke. They would never obtain the last sword needed to awaken the God of Death.
"We have no way to get the last sword," Eldrad said. "Without the last sword, Ynnead cannot be resurrected."
"Do you intend to sacrifice all eldar to resurrect the God of Death?" Cegorach asked somewhat warily.
At this, Eldrad also grew tense.
It was truly too easy for the current Imperium to destroy the eldar. The strength of the two sides was no longer on the same level.
"Don't think that way," Guilliman said. "You are allies of the Imperium, and I would never gamble with your lives. But before that, we need to clarify what a god is.
The Imperium's exploration teams have been traversing the multiverse, bringing back incredible knowledge and insights that have allowed the Imperium to fully understand the subtle connection between the Warp and the cosmos."
"Our race's understanding of the Warp is far more ancient, Your Majesty. We are very clear about what a god is," said Cegorach.
"No, you are not," Guilliman said, reaching out his hand for the Void Dragon to perch on it. "The definition of gods is not that simple; it involves the cycle of the universe. Gods, to some extent, drive the cosmic cycle, allowing life and death, destruction and birth to repeat, to cycle, endlessly. The birth and destruction of a universe are predetermined; even the Imperium of Man, I don't believe it can be eternal."
"Let's return to the topic of gods. The gods' task is to sort the emotions of cosmic beings, transform them into fertile ground, and from them, new universes are born. Gods will vanish with the decline of their associated civilization, completing a cycle.
When the universe is reborn, civilizations will re-enact, and gods will reappear, drawing some power and knowledge from the destruction of the previous universe, undergoing some changes, becoming more adapted to the multiverse, making the multiverse more prosperous and flourishing."
"I call that immeasurable period the early stage of the multiverse. This is a conjecture I've made, combining the situations of various universes with the Dark Watcher, and even drawing from the knowledge left by the Old Ones.
That period has passed very long ago, so long that even time itself is no longer continuous. Everything was still being explored, the rules of various universes were full of flaws, and the Warp was not as corrupted."
"The rules of the early universe were rudimentary, like when life first emerged; they were merely small organic molecules such as amino acids and fatty acids. Life can evolve over billions of years to become complex, complete, and even give rise to sentient beings.
The evolution of the universe is even longer, impossible to calculate on a time scale. After all, the lifespan of a universe can be tens of billions, even hundreds of billions or trillions of years, such an immense time scale is beyond our imagination."
"Of course, early universes might not have had such long life cycles; their structures were not stable enough, their physical rules not perfect enough to form a veil between themselves and the Warp, and a single Warp storm could potentially destroy them.
Universes would die like organisms, their remains dissolving in the Warp, turning into pure energy, only to be re-conceived after an immeasurable period. The new universe inherits a string of data left by the old universe, much like biological evolution, adapting and surviving repeatedly, evolving increasingly complex and stable physical structures, and having increasingly longer lifespans."
"The instability of the Warp could destroy universes, bringing them to a swift end. Yet, an unstable Warp also brought some benefits: it allowed the emotions of living beings to mobilize more raw energy, granting them various extraordinary powers with ease.
The concept of 'god' was born at this time. Faith was like the adhesive emitted by those civilizations; gods formed in the Warp through faith, helping civilizations to persist through the occasional Warp storms, allowing the universe to endure longer."
"The Warp veil in the early universe was composed of gods and rudimentary real-space cosmic laws. This combination allowed the universe more time, accumulated more data, and evolved more completely. I speculate that during this period, many psyker civilizations must have emerged; pure technological civilizations did not yet exist.
This is because technological civilizations require complex social cooperation and a research-oriented mindset towards the universe. These early civilizations, due to the Warp being so easily manipulated, could achieve what a group would normally do through trained individuals, completely lacking the idea of cooperation, much like an overly abundant desolate land, where the lack of food scarcity prevented them from building more prosperous and advanced civilizations."
"As time progressed, the domestication of Warp energy by civilizations allowed the universe to exist for increasingly longer periods. The universe underwent more extensive evolution, accumulating more data and leaving a greater legacy for nascent universes.
Those universes, from the moment they emerged from the singularity, already knew the path they should take in the future! It's like when a baby is conceived, it already knows it will grow various organs and limbs; they don't start from single molecules and go through a series of trials and errors to achieve a complete body.
This is because they inherited the evolutionary achievements of their ancestors, and the evolution of the universe is similar. From their birth, they evolve along paths that have been explored countless times, allowing them to exist independently and stably."
"The birth of gods also became more refined; they attached themselves to those civilizations, growing stronger and wiser as the civilizations prospered. To ensure a more stable existence, the universe even evolved concepts like divine duties, divine positions, and divine personalities.
These were used to attract sufficiently powerful individuals or to create gods who lived for that divine duty, allowing them to absorb the faith of the entire cosmic civilization to stabilize the spacetime structure and prevent the universe from being destroyed by destructive storms."
"During this stage, the so-called omniscient and omnipotent beings also emerged. The problem is that everything has its limitations. Feudal monarchy stabilized the political structure, allowing slave civilizations to enter a period of accumulation and gain more productivity.
However, in the later stages, feudal monarchy became an obstacle to civilizational progress and needed to be eliminated. Capitalism promoted industrial development, but its monopolies also became an obstacle to new technologies."
"The power of the gods stabilized civilizations and cosmic structures, allowing them enough time to evolve sufficiently complex physical rules and form a barrier between reality and the Warp, enabling stable existence.
The presence of this physical barrier caused the role of gods to diminish, even becoming an impediment to civilizational progress.
For gods to survive, they need enough believers; if living beings forget them, they will vanish. Without worship, they will collapse into nothingness, becoming unconscious emotional vortices, and if they become unstable, they will die."
"Then they will do everything in their power to stir up trouble, encouraging their followers to perform various sacrifices or excessive acts of worship. They will try to break the physical barrier to avoid being forgotten. And there are also different divisions among civilizations.
Some civilizations that overly emphasized psyker abilities, lacked social division of labor and cooperation, and relied on individual supremacy, would absolutely not accept being eliminated by races they once looked down upon, races without psyker talent.
With the intensification of multiple conflicts, civilizational wars erupted. The imperiled psyker civilizations, out of fear, waged war against the flourishing, socially cooperative technological civilizations. The gods, unwilling to perish and be cast aside, were also filled with hatred."
"Such a theory is simply astounding." Cegorach could not hide the shock on his face. Humanity's research into the Warp and the gods had already surpassed that of the eldar themselves. They could no longer guide humanity.
Guilliman showed no pride.
Reverence for a god was no longer something to boast about for him.
As his horizons broadened, he no longer held the same reverence for such beings as he once did.
He even felt some pity for them.
As the auxiliary system said, they were just a bunch of pathetic creatures, futilely trying to defend a past that was destined to be abandoned.
"Does any of this help with resurrecting Yvraine?" Eldrad asked anxiously. To be honest, he hadn't understood.
What Guilliman said was too profound, touching upon the true essence of gods.
It was beyond his comprehension.
"Of course. This universe was not born for the first time, nor is it re-enacting for the first time. The essence of gods is merely faith and the needs of the universe. Once you grasp the principles of their creation, do you still worry about not being able to replicate them?"