To Be Human, I Am Sorry

"Father, do you think this pressure is acceptable?"

"Hmm, not bad! A little higher, yes, right there, put a little more effort into it. Didn't you eat?"

Mordred, who was told he wasn't strong enough, chuckled, seemingly cursing under his breath, but ultimately he increased his strength and massaged the Yellow Skins's shoulders and legs.

They glanced at Corvus Corax, who was also beaten to a pulp beside them, and the two big guys sighed in unison.

Mordred lamented why he couldn't beat the Yellow Skins! Corvus Corax sighed because he was caught reading pornography during his first meeting with his father, and the beating was well-deserved.

Corvus Corax was unlucky, being the penultimate Primarch to return to the Empire. Neither Mordred nor Old Man Huang had the patience they had when they were searching for the Primarch.

Horus was the First Returned Son of the Emperor, serving him for 30 years. Vulkan even took him under his wing and personally mentored him. After that, every single one of them...

They all had long-term interactions with Emperor, to varying degrees.

Mordred, despite being a seasoned artist, still fell into the trap of poor quality control. He failed to explain the Yellow Skins's individual strengths to his younger brother, leading the latter to believe that the Emperor was just a weakling.

Raised by laborers, the Raven King was not lacking in rebellious spirit. Good Second Brother being beaten, he immediately rushed in, and then—"

"Father, please have some tea!"

"Well, from now on, stay away from that bastard Mordred and learn from Horus Mordred. Father, I don't ask you to be ambitious anymore, I just ask you to act like human beings, even if you're Russ? Just don't cause me any trouble."

Corvus Corax nodded in agreement, indicating that he would definitely behave well. At such a young age, he had already learned to smile obsequiously; indeed, Seven Wolves was the best teacher.

As a must-try dish for every Primarch upon their return, the Yellow Skins began his long and tedious speech again, which Mordred estimated would last at least eight hours.

Sure enough, perhaps he got carried away with the conversation, as the Emperor broke his personal record this time, speaking for a full 23 hours, leaving the two of them dizzy and lightheaded.

And that wasn't all. Feeling it wasn't quite enough, the Emperor summoned the 19th Legion, now renamed the Raven Guard, to hold a Primarch Return Ceremony on Laerius, which was also renamed the Salvation Star.

"The winds are rising and the clouds are flying. This Great Crusade must be fought no matter what. If we don't fight, the Xenos will kill your friends and family."

They'll be caught one by one and enslaved!

No one knows the Xenos better than me, no one, and we humans only have this one chance to be great again.

The Emperor, standing on the high platform, moved his hands rapidly. If he were given an accordion, he would surely play it very well, showing the style of the Old Terra Sages.

As Mordred listened to the Emperor's Voice while serving as a background character, his thoughts gradually drifted. To be honest, he sometimes wondered if this Yellow Skins was playing a trick on him.

You could say he's socially awkward, because he can talk nonstop on stage, but if you say he's a normal person, he starts playing dead at crucial moments, sometimes acting like a person, sometimes anthropomorphic, almost like he has a split personality.

Master Mordred tried to find some patterns in the Emperor, but no matter how hard he thought, he couldn't figure it out. In the end, he gave up thinking and his mind went blank, so he started babbling.

Compared to Mordred, a seasoned veteran, Corvus Corax was much simpler. He hadn't learned how to fool fools and actually believed the Emperor's lies, unaware that his Good Second Brother was already asleep standing up.

Meanwhile, as everyone was enjoying the Imperial Voice, in the Warp far to the side of the Veil, a dark and filthy figure was kneeling on the ground.

The power of the Dark Gods surged within him, causing the soul that should have been shattered and burned to ashes to be reborn once more.

Without anyone noticing, fragments of time were quietly stolen.

The wasteland of Colchis, the moment of death of the small town test-taker, the nighttime carnage outside the Nuclear Bomb Town, and the echo of a sharp blade piercing flesh and gushing blood.

Aribas, or rather, the villain who stole Aribas's name, Opened Eyes to listen to the dark secrets told by the gods, and he would once again become the Chaos's mouthpiece in a new identity.

Back to reality, the Emperor's speech finally ended, and the miners, who had been waiting for a long time, began to receive Atlas relief food. What the Golden Giant on the stage said was not important; what mattered was that they had dinner.

Perhaps it triggered some of the Yellow Skins's underlying logic, because seeing the local people's enthusiasm, the Emperor even wanted to work overtime, which frightened Mordred so much that he quickly pulled him down.

"Old Man Huang, don't push your luck! I've said a few words, are you still not done?"

"Yes, yes, Father, we can handle it, but ordinary people can't!"

The Emperor was slightly displeased, but didn't say much. After giving some instructions, he decisively started the process, coming and going in a hurry. No one knew what he was busy with.

However, before leaving, the Yellow Skins still acted somewhat human-like, not allowing the Raven Guard to join the Great Crusade directly, but instead giving them a three-year adaptation period.

It's called an adjustment period, but what it really means is that you all need to get out there and become interns with his great-son Horus.

Mordred rejected the suggestion outright, saying that letting Horus lead the way would only produce another father-loving gay, and that he had a better candidate.

Fortunately, due to preconceived notions, Corvus Corax did not become another Horus. On the contrary, he thought the Emperor was good in every way, except that what he said was a bit pretentious and empty.

Emperor's speech is not some kind of hypnotic potion; no matter how much you talk, it's not as practical as a steaming bowl of minced meat porridge.

Looking at the factories rising from the planetary construction ships, looking at his sister distributing relief food to the people among the Atlas, looking at the people who were no longer numb, Corvus Corax thought that this might be the meaning of his joining the Great Crusade.

Seeing that the time was right, Mordred also took the opportunity to propose that Corvus Corax join the Second Imperium. After all, the proper procedures still needed to be followed, even though the Second Imperium was no longer a secret.

It was the same Secret Room, the same gilded statue. Three thick, large sandalwood sticks were lit, and without a word, Corvus Corax immediately prostrated himself before the Emperor statue.

"Second Brother, why do we worship our father? According to our local custom, people are only worshipped after they die and become immortals."

"Silly child, don't ask too many questions. You'll understand later. Our Second Imperium is a legitimate organization, not some thugs."

Of course, you should worship those with high prestige.

Corvus Corax thought it made sense, but whether the Second Imperium was legitimate or not was another matter; in any case, this statue was definitely not legitimate.

You're obviously a country bumpkin who's never seen the world. If your figurines aren't made to look cool and polished, how are you going to sell them?

Do they really think glue vendors are inhuman? Stealing so much glue is one thing, but at least the designs should be aesthetically pleasing! Otherwise, how can they rip people off—no, how can they make customers feel comfortable buying from them?

Corvus Corax nodded repeatedly at these heartfelt words. No wonder his Second Brother was so wealthy; it turned out he had acquired it through swindling and deception.

Now that the process was complete, Mordred didn't show favoritism; Corvus Corax had to be given the same treatment as his other brothers.

The first is the specialized Space Marine modification service, which is a Space Marine modification program modified by Mordred using Biochemical Alchemy. Its main purpose is to provide customized services for VIP clients.

These so-called VIP clients refer to special groups like Lady Yuton, Luther, Kelefenny, who cannot be modified by Space Marine.

This brings us to a rather well-worn topic: the theory of lifespan!

In theory, the Primarch is immortal. After all, it is essentially Warp minor god fragment, which is desirable no matter where it is placed. One of the purposes of many races to become gods is for this immortality.

As the Primarch's accompanying army, the Space Marine were theoretically designed to be immortal, but it should be noted that this was only in a theoretical sense.

Don't be fooled by the large number of so-called veterans of the ancient battles in later generations; in reality, there's a huge exaggeration involved.

Ninety-nine percent of the time is spent grinding experience in the Warp, a place where there is no concept of time. In the blink of an eye, 3,000 years have passed, and in just a couple of days, you become a veteran of the Long War.

Only a very small minority of people are truly capable of playing the entire game.

No matter how you look at it, Space Marine is still a soldier. In any war, people will inevitably die. And the battlefields where Space Marine appear are always the toughest nuts to crack, the kind that Auxilia can't handle.

And don't be fooled by the fact that the Auxilia sound like a bunch of 100,000; those who can act alongside the legion are true king of soldiers, the cream of the crop among the world's soldiers.

These ordinary people, who die in droves, and the Imperial Navy, which is always late, loses, leaves early, or gets lost in battle for various reasons, form the cornerstone of the entire Empire and are the precursors to the future Astra Militarum.

Therefore, very few Space Marine actually die of old age, unless they are lazy like Atlas. Even Atlas often suffers casualties, and the ways they die are all sorts of bizarre.

Like accidentally finding a landmine while scavenging for trash and blowing yourself up, or being discovered and killed by Xenos while digging graves because of greed.

There was even an unlucky guy who went fishing in the wilderness, but because he came up empty-handed every time, he jumped into the water and drowned himself.

It's fair to say that a large portion of Atlas's Killed in Action were self-inflicted.

In conclusion, driven by various reasons, Mordred developed this knock-off technology that copied the Imperial Adeptus Custodes's techniques, but he banned it after its successful development, allowing only a select few to use it.

The reason for the ban is simple: the Emperor forbids Mordred from conducting any Blasphemous Experiment or making any abstract inventions. Even if he clones the giant yellow rat using the Yellow Skins's genes, the Emperor doesn't say anything. But this is the one thing that is absolutely off-limits.

This modification technology has a fatal flaw: the subjects can stably inherit their genes. If left unchecked, it will inevitably lead to the formation of a new human race.

Watching Aifreinia, whose surgery was successful, who had Corvus Corax gene sample without any rejection, Mordred couldn't help but think of another person —Luther.

Perturabo wasn't worried, Guilliman wasn't worried either, and although Corvus Corax hadn't known him for long, his younger brother had a high Morality standard.

Mordred was still reassured; his only worry was the Lion King.

"Zhuang Sen, you absolutely mustn't do anything unethical!"

But soon, a voice interrupted Mordred's reverie:

"Second Brother, I'm fucking here!"