Creak!
Creak!
Waldo woke up during the bumpy ride.
His head felt somewhat muddled, so he rubbed his forehead and tried to clear his mind.
Once he was a little more awake, he looked up and happened to see the Emperor pedaling the tricycle with great effort.
In that instant, he felt as though the sky had fallen.
Loyalty to the Emperor was an instinct engraved into the genes of the Adeptus Custodes.
Yet now the Emperor was pedaling a tricycle to carry him.
This was a disaster!!
How could he, as the commander of the Adeptus Custodes, have failed so utterly?
Raven turned around and happened to see the newly awakened Waldo wearing a completely bewildered, helpless expression.
He guessed what the other man was thinking and grinned wickedly.
"Big Corn Cob, don't worry too much. Big Guy already said that once this journey is over, he'll send you back to Terra to guard the pond."
Waldo: "."
His heart turned even colder.
"Don't listen to that dead raven's nonsense." Without looking back, the Emperor said, "This is your first journey through the myriad realms. Your body hasn't adapted to this universe's laws, so you merely fell into a brief sleep."
"Your Majesty." Waldo felt even more ashamed. "Please stop. Let me do it."
"No need. We're here."
The Emperor stepped on the brakes.
The rusty tricycle came to a stop with a piercing screech.
Not far from them stood a town.
It too was filled with blowing yellow sand, gray and hazy everywhere, looking utterly desolate.
"Come on. Let's take a look inside."
The Emperor and Waldo walked toward the town.
They found that all the shops along the streets were closed.
The few pedestrians they saw were all sallow and emaciated, clearly malnourished.
"Someone's dead."
Someone shouted those words.
The previously empty street was immediately flooded with more than a dozen people.
Like starving wolves, they pounced toward the source of the voice.
The Emperor walked over and found those people fighting over a corpse.
Some were so hungry their eyes had turned green, and they were even gnawing directly on the body.
"What is wrong with this world? It has clearly entered the industrial age, so why are people still eating people?"
The Emperor asked Raven.
Raven scratched his head with a wing.
"The humans of this world did indeed enter the industrial age, but they came under threat from an alien civilization."
"To address that alien threat, they shifted toward space-based military industry. They also considered environmental protection to be an act of treason, so they let all kinds of heavily polluting industries expand unchecked, turning the entire world into a desert."
"The greenhouse effect, abnormal climate, and many other factors caused massive crop failures and vegetation degradation. There isn't even wild grass left to eat, so cannibalism is naturally nothing surprising."
"Is this world's government so incompetent?" The Emperor shook his head. "The enemy is merely a threat and has yet to launch a formal attack, yet social order has already collapsed."
Raven shrugged. "They haven't even unified. They govern separately and remain wary of one another, so it isn't strange that things ended up this way."
"This town is relatively fortunate. At least people haven't started killing others on purpose yet. The situation in those major cities is even more terrifying."
The Emperor asked, "What should we do next?"
"What do you want to do?" Raven asked in return.
The Emperor surveyed the surroundings. "First, gather information about this world and see just how bad things have become."
He walked over to the clothes left behind by the dead man and picked up a phone.
Those fighting over the body had no interest in the clothing. They had merely dismembered the naked corpse.
The Emperor had lived through the industrial age and knew how to use a phone.
He browsed the news and found that the situation was far more severe than Raven had described.
There were many videos of refugees fleeing famine online.
The scale of those migrations was generally enormous.
Some reached several million, even tens of millions.
They trekked across vast plains where sand and dust blotted out the sky and heat waves rolled endlessly.
Whenever one of the starving refugees died, the others immediately dismembered the body.
Some people could no longer endure their hunger, so they killed others, stole food, and ate corpses.
All kinds of riots emerged one after another.
Social order had completely collapsed.
After watching for a while, the Emperor stopped and turned to look at Raven.
"If you have no objections, I want to unify this world and guide them onto the right path."
Raven nodded. "Then do it your way."
As long as he did not become too brutal or move too aggressively and get expelled by the universe's great will.
"The physical laws of this universe are extremely powerful. Domains such as the Warp and the void, which focus on the mind and possess mysterious powers, are severely suppressed."
"You can't use any supernatural power. Only the physique of an immortal is still functioning."
The Emperor said, "I noticed that the moment I woke up."
Raven flapped his wings, shaking the sand and dust from his body.
"With no psychic power and no foundation, how do you intend to unify the world? This is the industrial age. You can't shake a government armed with guns and food simply by sweet-talking refugees into rebellion."
The Emperor wore the expression of a professional.
"It's fine. I have plenty of experience with this sort of thing. As for primitive accumulation, that will be even easier."
"Social order has already collapsed. Even if we use some violent methods, no one will notice."
The Emperor's ability to act was astonishing.
Once he had settled on a target, he began drafting a plan and then putting it into action.
The first step was obtaining weapons.
Social order had collapsed, and food was scarce.
The army could not get enough to eat either, so it would sell weapons for food.
As long as they found the local black market and gang members, they could obtain weapons.
The Emperor had no money, but he had violence.
Even though his psychic power was suppressed by this universe's physical laws,
his physical body alone possessed terrifying combat power that could crush ordinary people.
Together with Waldo, commander of the Adeptus Custodes, he had enough strength to sweep through most gang factions.
The Emperor led Waldo and effortlessly wiped out every gang they encountered.
They took their food, guns, and money.
The surviving gang members were also forced to become their subordinates.
Once he had weapons and his first group of armed men, the Emperor turned his attention to acquiring factories.
The factories he set his sights on either obediently sold themselves to the Emperor,
or, after making every possible difficulty, were forced to sell at a low price.
The Emperor ordered production to be reorganized and provided Gene Editing Technology to improve the existing crops.
Nuclear Fusion Technology had already been developed in this world.
After spending some effort gathering the necessary materials and equipment, the Emperor built an energy reactor.
It was used to power the factories, grow food crops, and produce nutrient blocks.
Several months passed in the blink of an eye.
The Emperor's forces developed rapidly.
He had already become a local warlord with tens of thousands of armed members.
The factories operated day and night, using nuclear fusion power to produce mountains of nutrient blocks and clean water.
Hungry refugees came from every direction for food and water, joining the Emperor's ranks.
"We hope you can hand over control of your army and the relevant technology for nutrient blocks so that more people may be saved."
"In return, you will receive a seat in Parliament."
"We do not wish to become your enemy, nor do we wish for innocent people to die. Accepting our terms would be good for everyone."
Although social order had collapsed, the former government of this region—the United Federation—was still functioning.
The Federation's elites used the military and their wealth to control food and clean water, maintaining their extravagant lifestyles.
The suddenly rising Emperor made them wary, so they sent people to persuade him.
They hoped the Emperor would join their camp and surrender his factories and the technology related to nutrient blocks.
That way, not only could they solve the global famine, but the United Federation could once again become humanity's guiding beacon.
They could also use this opportunity to seize an unimaginable amount of social wealth.
"Those pitiful people are homeless and starving, yet you remain unmoved. Now, for the sake of your own rule, you do not hesitate to threaten me with war."
The Emperor looked at the Federation diplomat sent before him, his tone mocking.
The diplomat said, "The United Federation is a free nation. They have the right to choose what kind of lives they live."
"Do they truly have that right?"
The Emperor stared at him until the man showed a timid expression.
"You have blocked every path before them, leaving only the path you want them to choose, then hypocritically claim that this is freedom, that they have the right to choose."
"They never had the right to choose. They live within the lies you have drawn for them and die in despair."
"Go back and tell those people that they will get nothing from me. If they want war, that is fine. I will drag them from their comfortable mansions and drown them in cesspits."
The Federation diplomat was shocked and furious, but he did not dare refute him. He left in disgrace.
After driving the diplomat away, the Emperor walked out of the house.
By then, people had already filled the area outside.
They were all young men and women.
Their eyes held anticipation and anger.
Too many people had died in this famine, including their families.
They had had enough of this terrible world.
They longed for someone to raise a rallying cry.
The Emperor looked calmly at them.
His voice was loud and powerful, echoing by every person's ear.
"They wanted us to compromise, to accept their rule as before. I refused."
"Too many people have died, and all of this is due to their incompetence and greed. They are obsessed with power yet refuse to bear responsibility. They should have given you better lives, but in the name of freedom, they deceived you into walking toward the abyss."
"You did nothing wrong, yet you lost everything—your family, your friends. In the end, just to survive, you were forced to abandon your dignity, morality, and every virtue you once cherished."
"War is very likely to break out. Most people here will die, so I have decided to give you the right to make a real choice."
"You may choose to stay and fight at my side, or you may choose to flee and cling to a miserable existence."
"I will not promise you freedom, nor will I promise you happiness. The only thing I can promise you is that, as human beings, you will live with dignity."
"I have said enough. There is only one final question left. Will you leave?"
A woman was the first to step forward.
"No. I've had enough. I don't want to die like a stray dog. To hell with the alien civilization, and to hell with the United Federation."
"Me too."
Another person stepped forward.
"Me too."
"And me."
One person after another stepped forward.
Their voices, thunderous and loud, gave their answer.
The Emperor smiled.
The humanity he cherished had always been so captivating.
They were cowardly, yet brave.
They were vile, yet sincere.
They were selfish, yet capable of sacrificing themselves for others.
With only a little proper guidance, they would bloom with brilliant radiance.
Raven flapped his wings and shouted excitedly.
"A tiny planet has more than two hundred countries. Isn't that a betrayal of Big Guy? Raise the army! Let us conquer the world!"
PS: Daily heresy, praise the Four Gods.
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