Do You Think I'm a Minor Character??44

Guilliman looked at the screaming Daemon and gained a vague impression of the Emperor's terror.

What it feared was not him, but the Emperor behind him.

Otherwise, it would not have called him the Anathema's son.

According to Eisenhorn's introduction, Cherubael was a Daemon Prince.

The Warp was vast. Even the Chaos Gods, hailed as the masters of Chaos, occupied only one corner of its domains.

Many regions still did not belong to the Chaos Gods and were inhabited by all manner of Daemons.

Religion had existed since humanity's birth, and the first Gods had emerged.

As time passed, those Gods became ever more numerous.

The simplest example was Greek mythology. From the first generation of creator Gods to the third generation, there were already thousands upon thousands of Gods.

And that was only one system.

Taken together, the Gods worshipped throughout human history numbered in the tens of thousands.

Thanks to the Warp's nature, when people excessively worshipped a certain concept, a projection of it formed within the Warp.

Those Gods were thus born naturally.

As humanity developed, beliefs constantly changed. Many Gods were forgotten and abandoned, and some naturally faded away.

Others became something else. These beings were ravenous, yearning every moment to harvest flesh and souls, and so they came to be called Daemons.

Yet in the Milky Way's long river of history, humanity's few million years of history were no more than an insignificant ripple.

Before humanity was even born, many races had already emerged. They possessed their own civilizations and their own beliefs.

Take the races still active today.

The T'au, harassing the Imperium on the Eastern Fringe, believed in the so-called Greater Good.

The Ork Boyz ruled by Ork Warlords believed in Gork and Mork.

The Aeldari believed in Asuryan, Khaine, Cegorach, and others.

The cultural differences between races were immense, and the Gods they created were completely different as well.

These Gods who lost their faith would slowly become twisted in the Warp, turning into loathsome Daemons.

When Slaanesh awakened, tore apart reality, and created the Eye of Terror, the Aeldari Gods also met a dreadful end.

Only Cegorach, the Laughing God, and Isha, the Goddess of Life, survived.

When the Aeldari were completely destroyed, Cegorach and Isha, bereft of faith and followers, would also become loathsome Daemons and grow ever more twisted.

Daemons had many different origins; it was not something that could be explained simply.

No one knew Cherubael's origins.

Even Eisenhorn knew little about the Daemon Prince's background.

When he was young, while investigating an incident involving a Chaos cult, he learned from a captured Daemon Grimoire the incantation and ritual needed to control the Daemon.

In ancient times, a Daemon clan came from Chaos into realspace, ruled seven worlds, and established a kingdom.

After that kingdom fell, the Daemon king was buried in a terrifying tomb, waiting to be awakened once more.

Eisenhorn pursued the matter for over a century. The Liber Mortis implicated several great families, and in the end, he slew the heretic who had remained hidden within the Daemon king's tomb, thwarting the other party's plot.

Even afterward, he never discovered Cherubael's true origins.

Of course, Guilliman had no intention of listening to the story behind it. Everything about Daemons carried corruption; even listening to their stories could result in being controlled and toyed with by them.

He only intended to use the Daemon Prince as a tool. There was no need to know where it had come from.

In truth, quite a few Daemons in the Warp had entered realspace through various means, then transformed into races within reality and created their own twisted civilizations.

That was why the Emperor had created the Primarchs. Without the Primarchs, the Imperium of Man could never have been established.

The Emperor could not possibly fight every war himself.

Of course, in the end, the Imperium of Man had nearly been destroyed because of the Primarchs as well.

Some people complained that the Emperor did not care enough about the Primarchs and treated them as mere tools, which led to the Imperium's disaster.

Such thoughts ignored reality. They were both foolish and naive.

The matters the Emperor had to consider every second were enough to burn out the Imperium's most advanced Logis Engine.

Conquering and ruling an Imperium of Man spanning tens of thousands of light-years, maintained only through Psyker communication and Warp travel while unable to use artificial intelligence, required more effort than anyone could imagine.

Many people did not even know everyone living in the same residential complex, nor did they know what happened in the town next door.

Much less what happened on a planet hundreds of light-years away.

The Emperor had to assess the value of every faction to himself, confront those terrifying Xenos, plan for the Webway, contend against the Gods, and preserve the lie of the Imperial Truth as much as possible.

His time had already been compressed to the limit.

Yet whenever he met a Primarch, he took what little time he had to speak with each of them, paint them a vision of humanity's future, and promise them glory and rewards.

He assessed every Primarch, then communicated with each using the approach most suited to them.

When he first met Lorgar, he spoke with him through the night, hoping Lorgar would abandon religion and embrace the Imperial Truth. Yet Lorgar never listened. Despite repeated prohibitions, he remained obsessed with preaching.

At the Council of Nikaea, the use of Psykers was banned after a vote by the Primarchs. Yet Magnus secretly violated that order, and in the end, in his arrogance, he shattered the Psychic Barrier the Emperor had established in the Dungeon with a single psychic blast, causing the Custodes, the Sisters of Silence, and the Adeptus Mechanicus armies to be dragged to their deaths in the Webway.

Angron hated him because he had been unable to die.

Curze believed the Emperor had brought him hope, only to make that hope forever unattainable.

The psychologically warped Perturabo believed he was merely a tool.

Mortarion always felt that the Emperor looked down on him.

Among all the Primarchs, the Emperor chose the safest path: appointing Horus, who had accompanied him the longest, as Warmaster.

Other than Alpharius, who hid in the shadows, Horus was the Primarch who had accompanied the Emperor the longest.

The Emperor personally taught him everything and brought him along on his campaigns.

Yet he had never expected that road to contain such a deep pitfall.

The Emperor's failure was not that he lacked humanity, but that he believed in humanity. That was his greatest tragedy, and the reason he sat upon the Golden Throne suffering endlessly.

He believed that Horus, who had accompanied him the longest, could take his place and complete the remaining Great Crusade, prevent the Chaos Gods from tempting the other Primarchs, and even if a Primarch betrayed him, rush there immediately to suppress them.

Yet after Horus was wounded, he directly chose betrayal.

That was why the Emperor had been so shocked. He had never imagined Horus would be the one to betray him.

He thought Horus truly regarded him as a father, but Horus simply saw him as a Tyrant.

Was it Chaos that corrupted Horus??

No. Horus chose Chaos.

He tried to lay claim to his father's throne, believing he had conquered this Milky Way, so naturally he should rule it as well.

Erebus promised him that if he sacrificed the Emperor of Mankind, Horus would gain inexhaustible power and become the new Master of Mankind, ruling the Milky Way.

Already dissatisfied with the Emperor weakening the War Council while favoring the Council of Terra, Horus accepted the bargain.

He decided to sacrifice his father and become the new Master of Mankind.

Compared to the Emperor, who still wanted to save Horus during their final battle,

It went without saying who possessed more humanity, and who valued those decades of companionship more.

Being wounded had merely given Chaos an opportunity to tempt Horus.

"Looks like you know who I am. That saves us a great deal of trouble." Guilliman gathered his wandering thoughts and secretly swore never to hand power capable of deciding the Imperium's fate entirely to one person, no matter how trustworthy that person might be.

"What do you want to do, Son of the Anathema?" Cherubael said.

"I need information about the Warp, so I came to ask you."

"Then are you going to make a deal with me?" At Guilliman's words, a trace of excitement suddenly appeared on Cherubael's face. A deal meant corruption, and corruption meant fall. How wonderful it would be for a son of the Anathema to fall.

"I am the Imperial Regent. I never make deals with others. Whatever I need, others offer it to me." Guilliman walked toward Cherubael. "So I hope you will know your place, swear loyalty to me, and provide me with intelligence."

Cherubael: →_→.

So what if you're the Imperial Regent? You show up and immediately demand that I swear loyalty and work myself to death for you??

Do you think a Daemon Prince is some minor character??

The recommendation votes have passed one hundred. I'll do my best to post five chapters tomorrow.