Descending from Beyond the World

The technology powering the power station on Chemos was exceedingly ancient.

Tracing its origins, this Thinker—a relic from humanity's age of the Old Night—stood as a testament to the unimaginable heights past human civilization had once reached.

The Old Night referred to that era when humanity, relying on its own technology, freely sailed the starry sea.

But as the Warp Storm grew ever more violent, communication and transport between human sectors, star systems, and planets became severely disrupted, and vast amounts of technology and creations were lost.

Human civilization scattered among the stars, some even regressing to primitive times.

Chemos was one such civilization in steady decline.

Had the Primarch Fulgrim not descended upon this planet, it was likely that before long, the human civilization here—along with its ancient technology—would have been buried beneath cold, yellow sand.

Rescuing these scattered human civilizations from the stars was the duty of the God-Emperor of Mankind, the Primarchs, Kasgar, and every human being.

But, Kasgar.

Are you truly human?

Kasgar stared silently at the display screen, where red error messages exploded even more profusely than Ahriman's.

An unforeseen situation had arisen.

His genes could not be recognized by the Thinker.

What did this mean?

Either the machine itself was malfunctioning, or Kasgar's human content—like that of a Primarch—was laced with too much Warp-derived trickery.

But if that were true, why had he never felt any difference about himself in these twenty years?

Kasgar, a pure human with no mutations, began to doubt his own identity for the first time.

He might be human, but it also seemed unlikely that he was.

Gene identification successful!

The Thinker's breakdown did not last long.

Somehow, it suddenly snapped out of its frenzy of spewing garbled code and restored itself in an instant.

Green lights flashed brightly, operations ran smoothly.

As if nothing had ever happened.

"It's... fixed?"

Fulgrim, who had been about to strike it again for repairs, was momentarily at a loss.

"Was that... the machine having a seizure?"

Having not yet returned to the Imperium, Fulgrim's knowledge base lacked the concept of a Machine Spirit.

Faced with such an illogical error, followed by an even more illogical recovery, she could only explain it as best she could.

"Maybe. Perhaps this Thinker is so old that its recognition interface has some poor contact."

Kasgar chimed in.

"Right."

"The earlier failure to recognize my genes was probably the same issue."

"Exactly, we're both human after all!"

"Blame it on this ancient Thinker and its weird glitch—it had us second-guessing ourselves."

The two tactfully and unanimously shifted the blame onto the only silent party present.

Management authority acquired.

Attempting to retrieve management authority for the power generation chamber.

After activating administrator privileges, progress went smoothly.

"It's been a while since things were this convenient."

Fulgrim remarked.

"Back when I was repairing the fortress systems on Karax, the nobles were constantly wary of me gaining management authority over the fortress."

"Not only did they restrict me from restoring the fortress's various functions, but once I successfully repaired certain facilities inside, they'd frantically demand I hand over the authority for them to manage."

As she spoke, Fulgrim pursed her lips helplessly.

The old ruling clan system was tangled and complex, and she was forced to navigate and guide within it.

What had turned the supposedly noble aristocrats into what they were now?

"That feeling is like—"

"Like a miserly hoarder, clinging to petty gains even on his deathbed, unwilling to let go despite knowing he's unworthy of the position."

Kasgar answered, watching the rapidly scrolling fields on the Thinker.

"Indeed."

"That's a vivid description, Kasgar."

Fulgrim pressed the button for the last time.

"Alright, the power station's damage is severe, but a few generator units are still intact in dormant mode."

"Reactivating the dormant generators isn't hard—just need to add high-purity Promethium fuel, and they'll run again."

"Promethium fuel? And high-purity at that?"

Kasgar froze. "Where are we supposed to find that?"

In the Warhammer World, most ships and power systems ran on Promethium as fuel.

This abandoned power station was no different.

But after Chemos's long era of civilizational regression, the planet's already scarce high-purity Promethium had been exhausted thousands of years before they were born.

Even if vast veins of unrefined Promethium still lay untapped beneath the planet's surface, starting from scratch to build the necessary detection, extraction, separation, and refining technology was nothing short of a pipe dream for just the two of them.

Even if a Primarch could pull it off with innate abilities, they didn't have the time.

"Oh, I forgot to mention something."

Fulgrim calmly pointed into the distance.

There, under the focused beam of the searchlight, lay the wreckage of a pale purple pod.

"This area—it's where I first landed in this world."

Twenty years ago.

A purple comet came from the sky, falling among the mountains.

"Here again. Last time, a boy."

"Golden light. Fire."

With intermittent grumbling, footsteps of three people drew near, and a woman's voice cried out in surprise.

"A child, Colin."

"This time, it's a baby girl."

Silence lingered for a moment, followed by the sound of a knife being drawn from its sheath.

"What are you doing, Surax? Put the knife down!"

"She's an orphan. By the rules, we have to kill her."

"But she's clearly—"

"Move aside, Torelia. Unlike those noble lords, we don't have the resources to raise some bastard. She'll be a burden to us."

"No—give her to me!"

Scuffling, cursing.

Footsteps clamored, shouts grated.

Bang!

A gunshot rang out. Someone fell into a pool of blood.

Water trickled softly—whether blood or Primordial Water, it flowed quietly.

Everything fell silent again.

The recording fragment ended there.

It came from the recording function built into the purple pod where she had descended, all replayed as images on the Thinker.

Kasgar knew that this purple wreckage was a Primarch's gestation pod.

"The two workers you saw who decided to adopt me—they were my foster parents, Torelia and Colin."

"Not long after I was born, I hid this pod wreckage away."

"After that, I kept studying its structure, hoping to one day figure out my true identity."

"But the level of technology it contained was far beyond my understanding."

Fulgrim's voice carried a hint of frustration.

"Still, it wasn't a total loss."

With that, she pulled a half-full transparent fuel canister from the wreckage.

"Holy Promethium."

"An interesting name. But its purity truly deserves the title 'holy.'"

Fulgrim smiled calmly.

"Get ready, Kasgar."

"It's time to take back everything that belongs to us."