Sitting on the throne, Robert Guilliman wore a look of melancholy and sorrow.
He sighed silently and closed his eyes, displaying unimaginable pain.
"Why the long face? Cheer up. You slept for ten thousand years and still managed to crawl back to your feet. What more could you be dissatisfied about?"
Duanmu Huai sat beside him, savoring Macragge's specialty pastries while grinning at Guilliman. The latter gave a bitter laugh and shook his head.
"Ten thousand years have passed. Look at what they've become, and what we've become as well—blind faith, ignorance, suffering, decadence. All of this has been carried out in the name of a god. The irony is that this 'god' himself has always loathed the title."
"Sometimes, what you think doesn't matter. What matters is how others see you. I don't think you've considered that, in the eyes of the Ultramarines, you're no different from a god now."
Guilliman silently rose and gazed at the battle standards and paintings on the walls, his face filled with pain.
"We failed, Father. He let his sons down, and we let him down as well. Our arrogance and vanity created the Empire we see today. We let humanity down—wasn't Horus the one who claimed he intended to become a god and used that as an excuse to launch his rebellion? Wouldn't the Empire's current state invite his mocking laughter?"
"I don't know whether Horus is laughing, but I do know Lorgar must be laughing his head off. After all, his Scriptures are now the Ecclesiarchy's officially designated reading material."
Duanmu Huai silently stabbed Guilliman in the back.
"Also, your Codex Astartes has been added to the required reading list for Space Marines. How do you feel about that?"
"Absurd."
At that moment, Guilliman finally broke down.
"Why am I still