The Emperor's Dream!

After Alvin fell into the shadows, he felt a force pulling him downwards.

I don't know how much time has passed.

The next moment, the light finally returned.

With a loud thud, he crashed onto the hard ground, which further injured Alvin, who was already severely wounded.

This only compounded his injuries, causing a spurt of blood to gush from his mouth, and excruciating pain in his internal organs.

"Cough, cough-"

Alvin coughed up several mouthfuls of blood mixed with pieces of internal organs, and his vision blurred.

Immediately following, due to the intense pain, coupled with the backlash from overusing Psychic Power, he fell into a deep sleep.

A state of deep coma.

Before he lost consciousness, he vaguely saw a figure slowly walking towards him from the darkness.

The person seemed to be shouting something.

Unfortunately, Alvin was too badly injured to hear clearly and immediately fell unconscious.

After the power of Divine Protection faded, although most of his internal injuries had been repaired, the areas eroded by the Chaos Psychic Power of Lorca still needed time to slowly recover.

He seemed to have fallen into a dream again.

This time, however, he finally reached the summit of Snow Mountain Terra, arrived at the magnificent palace, and ventured deeper into the area along the trail.

The magnificent building was completely empty.

He didn't know why he had come here; it was just as if a voice inside him was telling him to do this.

This was his first time entering Imperial Palace of Terra.

For millennia, in order to maintain the fragile bond of the Imperium of Man, the Emperor of Mankind who sat on the Golden Throne is now nothing more than a decaying skeleton.

Alvin in the past only imagined what the Golden Throne and the Emperor were like based on written records.

But when he actually saw it with his own eyes, he found that it was completely different from what he had imagined.

The so-called Golden Throne is a mechanical "shrine" woven from gears, cables, and unknown technologies.

It was less a throne and more a torture device, just as a certain Dark Eldar Blood Puppeteer described it, he had never seen such an exquisite torture device!

On the surface of that Machine God, one can even see congealed holy oil flowing, as well as bloodstains that dried up thousands of years ago.

The "person" on the throne is the Emperor.

His body, confined to this shrine, with countless neural connectors, like the crown of thorns of the crucified Jesus, imbued him with both pain and sanctity.

His skin, muscles, and veins had long been eroded away by time, leaving only a withered skeleton, coexisting with the frame of the Adamantium throne.

The once-shining golden armor is now riddled with cracks. If you look closely, you can still find sword wounds and shrapnel wounds left from the battle between the Emperor and Horus, like a thick history book, silently recounting...

Its past glory and its decline.

This is why the Emperor was neither as majestic nor as great as Alvin had imagined; all he possessed was—pain!

Looking through the throne covered in thorns at the skeleton on it, Alvin could only sense the pain, sorrow, and remnants of humanity emanating from the empty eye sockets of the skeleton.

"What do you want me to do?!"

In his dream, Alvin gazed contentedly at the "Emperor," voicing a question that resonated deep within his heart.

Why is he special?

What exactly did the Emperor want from him?

Throughout his journey, Alvin clearly understood that even as a time traveler, he could not reverse the fate of the Imperium of Man!

He was just a cog, a tiny cog in the vast, rusty machine of the Imperium.

He might be able to change the fate of an individual, but—the fate of Imperium of Man, the galaxy, such a vast undertaking...

He was powerless to help.

But unfortunately...

The skeleton on the Golden Throne did not answer his question. Its empty eyes were fixed on the direction outside the palace gates, as if they were also watching the bewildered humans below the steps.

"Ha, I was actually hoping you'd respond to me—." Alvin chuckled wryly, his expectations dashed, and looked at the Emperor on the throne with disappointment. "Just as Guilliman said, how much humanity do you still possess now?"

After awakening, Guilliman personally went to Imperial Palace of Terra and had a secret meeting with the Emperor for a few minutes. However, when the Primarch walked out of the palace, he said the following.

He is no longer human, nor is he a father.

He is a monster forged by our collective despair—and yet we still pray to him.

"The saddest thing is that even if it's all a lie, we have to believe it—because we have nothing else."

The Emperor who once most hated humanity's deification of him is now forced to become a "god".

Only in this way can the Imperium of Man barely maintain its existence—what an irony!

His millennia of effort have come to naught.

Humanity can only struggle to death forever in this Purgatory galaxy!

Alvin was disappointed.

He had thought that by meeting the Emperor, he might be able to learn from this protector of humanity what he should do and have his inner doubts answered.

In reality, the Emperor he saw was just a skeleton that had been tormented for ten thousand years, a body hollowed out by the Warp, a prisoner trapped in an eternal Purgatory!

He couldn't give himself an answer.

Unable to point out the way, they could only sit there and watch as the Imperium of Man gradually slid into the abyss.

Suddenly.

A fragment of consciousness, both cold and fiery, filled with a calm, inhuman logic, yet utterly furious and contradictory, pierced Alvin's mind!

He saw it: a burning Milky Way!

On the palace of Holy Terra, listening to the tolling of the sacred bells, he saw squads of Space Marine and Astra Militarum marching out of the palace!

In the sky, there was a fleet arranged in neat rows!

From the Martian Mechanicus to the symbols of the various Chapter, and even rare warships such as the Macragge's Glory, the Unflinching Truth, and the Red Tear, renowned warships hovered above the palace!

And at that very moment, he turned around.

Wearing a floral crown and clad in the Armor of Fate, Robert Guilliman, shrouded in shadow, Kor'vash, the eagle-like Chagatai Khan, the Lion -like proud Ryan Johnson, and the Wolf King Leman Russ Leman Russ —these Primarch from the mythical era, all clad in armor and armed with weapons, stood on the left and right sides.

In this dreamlike, epic scene, Alvin followed the shifting perspective and stepped into the depths of the magnificent and grand palace.

It is still the Golden Throne, and the Emperor remains.

This time, however, the Emperor he saw stepped down from the Golden Throne. He seemed to be shrouded in golden light, an extremely handsome middle-aged man with a resolute face.

They slowly approached the person in front of that viewpoint.

Then, he handed the man a magnificent sword and patted him on the shoulder.

At this moment, the person Alvin possessed saw the dead Archangel Sanguinius, as well as the vanished Primarch such as Rogg Dorn, Ferrus Manus, and Vulkan.

They stared at the man, then looked at each other and smiled.

"Go, do what you're supposed to do, it's your turn."

That fragment of consciousness ended.

Alvin suddenly woke up from his dream, gasping for breath. Overwhelmed with fear and confusion, he found himself in a dilapidated house.

"Where the hell am I?!"

He was completely stunned; this wasn't a warship.

Could it be that I've time-traveled again?