"This has to be Tzeentch's scheme."
"He's trying to tempt me into becoming a Chaos heretic."
Lu Sheng felt the formless cheek he had in the Warp—or what passed for a cheek on this constantly shifting mass of energy.
"Wait, no..."
"I've already fallen to the dark side."
Lu Sheng lowered his gaze to his newly born Chaos God body.
It looked like a spilled paint palette—or a nightmare an abstract artist might paint after taking drugs—tossed about in the Warp's ceaseless storms of energy.
"Good news: I've transmigrated."
"Bad news: it's the Warhammer World."
"Better news: I've become a Chaos God."
"Worse news: I'm still pathetically weak. A single fart from any old mushroom in Nurgle's Garden could blow me apart."
"What the hell did I do to deserve this?"
Lu Sheng tried to cover his face, but all he managed was to make the energy ripples across his body even more chaotic.
"I've never even touched a Warhammer. I've only watched a tiny bit of fan-made content. I know the Emperor has a Golden Toilet, each of the Four has their own brand of madness, and the Tyranids devour everything..."
In his previous life, he'd been an ordinary office worker, struggling to survive the grueling 996 work schedule. His only entertainment was scrolling through his phone before bed, reading novels and watching short videos.
That day, he'd been watching an explainer video titled "Warhammer 40k Explained in One Sitting: Two Hours of Pure Content—Monarchia, the Primarch Rebellion." The uploader cheerfully narrated everything that had happened.
He'd finally made it through both parts, which together ran nearly four hours.
Then everything went black.
When he opened his eyes again, he was already in this bizarre Warp.
And he was starving.
Not in the physical sense, but with some deep, essential hunger.
Lu Sheng could feel that he needed to feed—to absorb some kind of energy to sustain his existence and grow stronger.
He knew instinctively what it was: emotional energy.
Well... he seemed a little greedy. He wasn't picky and didn't mind what kind of emotions he consumed.
Joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hatred, greed... any intense emotion produced by an intelligent being left ripples in the Warp.
And Chaos Gods lived off them.
So the question was: how could he get his hands on emotional energy?
Lu Sheng cautiously sensed the Warp around him, and nearly got scared out of his wits.
Far to his left lay an endless garden of rot, steeped in a morbid fixation on life's cycle and a strange contentment with accepting all decay.
Nurgle's domain.
To the front right stretched countless shifting, reassembling labyrinths and towers that defied all logic, filled with endless schemes and a ravenous hunger for knowledge.
Tzeentch's domain.
Farther away, he sensed pure, unending bloodlust, and... well, some very lewd and violent primal urges.
No need to guess: Khorne and Slaanesh.
The emotional energy radiating from those four bigwigs was so dense and potent, it was like a banquet laid out before a beggar who hadn't eaten in three days.
But Lu Sheng didn't dare touch it.
He didn't dare go near even the tiniest bit.
"If I eat their stuff, I'll really become one of their lackeys."
Lu Sheng tried to shrink his mass of energy even smaller. "In this universe, nothing is more expensive than free stuff."
"Especially when one of the Four invites you to dinner. That's the mother of all Hongmen banquets."
But he was hungry.
So very hungry.
God-Emperor, I may be a Chaos God, but I bow my head to you and offer my loyalty. Could you spare me a bite?
Lu Sheng felt like some poor fool dumped outside a buffet.
There was food everywhere, but every dish was laced with slow-acting poison. One bite, and he'd be signing away his freedom.
Just as he was sure he would dissipate from hunger—
[Suitable host detected. Soul-wave compatibility: 99.7%. Binding in progress...]
A completely emotionless voice rang directly in his mind.
It wasn't one of the Warp's seductive whispers, nor the oppressive presence of the Four.
This voice... sounded mechanical. Like a system.
[Binding complete. Super Calamity System activated.]
[Welcome, host. This system is designed to help newly born Warp entities grow safely, steadily, and sustainably.]
Lu Sheng froze.
A system?
A cheat?
In the Warhammer World?
"Wait, you're not Tzeentch in disguise, are you?"
Lu Sheng asked warily. "You give me a little sweetness, wait until I let my guard down, and then swallow me whole?"
"I'm telling you, that trick's been done to death in novels!"
[This system was created by the Alliance of High-Dimensional Entities of the Outer Races and is bound by the New Transmigrator Protection Act. Its operational logs are available for review at any time and contain no records of tampering.]
"That's pretty official..."
Lu Sheng remained dubious. "So what can you do?"
"Just so we're clear, if you want me to sacrifice my soul or sign some contract, I'd rather starve to death."
[Core function one: Fourth Calamity summoning module. Connects to a low-dimensional universe—the host's native universe—and recruits player consciousnesses to project into physical bodies in this universe.]
[Players will receive enhanced bodies generated by the system. Their consciousnesses will remain safely isolated from their original bodies.]
[Core function two: Safe emotional-energy harvesting. Any emotional fluctuations produced by players during their activities—including, but not limited to, anger, greed, excitement, nervousness, a sense of achievement, and frustration—will be filtered and purified by the system before being transmitted to the host.]
[The harvesting process uses multiple layers of encryption and disguise to prevent detection by existing Warp entities in this universe.]
[Core function three: Conversion of realspace matter into energy. The system requires the consumption of matter and energy from Realspace to operate. The host must guide players to gather material resources, which the system will convert into the basic energy required to maintain operations. Initial energy: 10,000 units.]
Lu Sheng took in the information.
Players...
The Fourth Calamity...
A safe way to absorb emotions...
"So I don't have to touch the tainted emotions of the Four. I can get clean emotions from the players instead?"
"I can feed on their happiness and anger while they play games—even their resentment when they curse the game developers—and the Four won't notice?"
[Correct. The system uses low-volume harvesting and emotional-signature camouflage. The emotional fluctuations produced by a single player are negligible to the Warp in this universe, and the system disguises them as naturally dissipating background noise. Concealment upgrades will only be needed once the player population reaches the tens of millions.]
"What about realspace matter and energy? What exactly do you need, and how do you convert it?"
[Any matter containing mass and energy is suitable. High-density materials, energy-bearing minerals, and technological artifacts are recommended.]
[The conversion ratio depends on the usable energy contained in the material. For example: 1 kg of pure Promethium ≈ 10 energy units; 1 intact Leman Russ Tank ≈ 110,000 energy units; 1 standard Void Shield Generator ≈ 3,000,000 energy units.]
Lu Sheng looked at his formless hand.
Then he thought about what the real world of Warhammer was like.
"So you want a newborn Chaos God like me to go into Realspace and steal—uh, I mean, collect tanks and Void Shields?"
He grumbled, "I'm a mass of Warp energy. If I go to Realspace, won't I trigger a Warp Storm and have the Emperor, every Primarch, the Legiones Astartes, the Adeptus Custodes, and the Sisters of Silence all come looking for a little chat?"
[The host does not need to go in person. Players can assist with gathering resources while operating in Realspace. The system provides a basic material-recovery protocol, and players will receive in-game rewards as an incentive.]
Got it.
Make the players work.
Make the players haul bricks.
Make the players... pick up trash.
"Great. Love the enthusiasm."
Lu Sheng suddenly felt that this system was tailor-made for him. "What can I do with the initial 10,000 energy units? How many players can I recruit?"
[Recommended start-up plan: Spend 3,000 energy units to establish a stable connection to the target planet in this universe, Aurelian IV.]
[Spend 5,000 energy units to generate the first 5,000 player-consciousness reception anchors—that is, game character slots.]
[Use the remaining 2,000 units to maintain the system's basic operations. Estimated duration: 60 standard days.]
"Aurelian IV..."
Lu Sheng pulled up the planetary data provided by the system and quickly skimmed it. "Rediscovered by the Imperium near the end of the Great Crusade. It nominally submitted, but the Imperium's control is weak, and local factions hold power... Perfect!"
"A lawless frontier like that is the best place for beginners to develop!"
He noticed the date: around 976.M30.
"Thirty years before Horus was wounded..."
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