The Awakened

"Wake up."

"Wake up."

"..."

The calling echoed endlessly in Qin Xa's ears.

This was not the first time Qin Xa had heard the call and awakened. He had awakened the moment the battle broke out on the Command Deck.

His body had been tightly bound by restraints inside the pod, so he could only fight with psychic power, unleashing lightning or regenerating flesh for the wounded.

But Qin Xa felt that his mind, like his body, was restrained by some kind of suppression device, preventing him from using much of his power.

And when the Grey Knight wielding a halberd saw him use psychic power, his face had twisted into a snarl as he shouted something at him.

The situation had been too chaotic.

"Wake up."

"Wake up."

Amid the melee, Qin Xa heard that call as he watched the Greater Daemon cleave through the pod, watched himself get seized by the throat, and then lose consciousness.

Now, he heard the call again and regained consciousness once more.

The voice gave Qin Xa a headache. He abruptly opened his eyes, and his will spread outward like a shockwave, driving away the voice reverberating in his ears and shattering the incubation pod still enclosing him.

Qin Xa fell, landing on scorching sand and soil, his head striking a rock hard.

He climbed up from the shattered rubble of the rock, touched his smooth scalp, and looked over his body.

It was a powerful body roughly 2.7 meters tall, with immensely muscular physique and numerous Superhuman Warrior organs within it.

Astartes, Space Marines, the God-Emperor's Angels... all these names described the superhuman warriors among humanity's military forces.

Astartes were implanted with gene-seed and underwent many stages of modification surgery.

Gene-seed generally came from Primarchs. There was much speculation and no certainty about where the Grey Knights' gene-seed came from, but in any case, this unique gene-seed enhanced their psychic abilities and their resistance to the corrupting evil powers of the Immaterium.

As for that height of 2.7 meters...

That was not the common average height of Astartes, this group of Superhuman Warriors. Qin Xa was considerably taller, perhaps due to various factors such as his physical condition and adaptability before modification. After all, Biotechnology was not a factory assembly line. Astartes would not all look as though they had been stamped out from the same mold.

"I really am an Astartes now."

Qin Xa withdrew his gaze from his body.

He had imagined countless times what circumstances he would say those words in, and with what emotions.

But he had never imagined saying them in such a calm, sorrowful, bewildered tone.

There was no excitement, no pride—only confusion and puzzlement.

Why hadn't that daemon killed me?

Where had everyone else gone?

And...

What the hell was this place, where all he could see was sand and dirt?

"Calm your mind. When you can quiet yourself, steady your emotions, and the environment permits it, then you should do so."

A lesson from his childhood surfaced from a memory in Qin Xa's mind. He worked to calm himself, cast aside his doubts, and sat cross-legged on the sand to sort through his thoughts.

First, he could confirm that he was not dead.

Second, looking at the incubation pod behind him and then at the surroundings, there were no wrecked ship hulls, nor had the planet suffered an ecological catastrophe. That meant the incubation pod had detached from the warship rather than crashing down with it.

Furthermore, judging by this planet's environment, it was clearly not located within the Immaterium. This meant he had already escaped the Immaterium.

Compared with the many questions that could not yet be answered, Qin Xa believed the most important thing now was to determine where he was and what time it was.

The fourth solar month of 929, the 42nd Millennium.

That was when, according to Qin Xa's memories, someone had carried his incubation pod aboard the ship. He had heard the date because he could hear people talking when he was placed into the pod after his modifications were complete.

But that did not mean that after emerging from the Immaterium, the current time had to be sometime after 929.M42. The reason was the uncertainty of Immaterium travel.

The Immaterium was a place humanity had to pass through for faster-than-light travel. It was extremely dangerous and strange.

It was another dimension beyond the real universe, made up of pure spirit, emotions, souls, or things related to them. That meant nothing in the Immaterium was stable, and time from the real universe simply did not exist there.

After Immaterium travel, it was possible to emerge at the journey's destination and find that the time was before the journey had begun, or even before one had been born. It might also be decades or centuries later... no one could say for sure.

"I need to find out where I am and when I am, then have this world's governor arrange a ship to get me out of here."

Qin Xa muttered to himself, patted his face, and rose from the ground. He already knew what he should do now.

Those questions that did not urgently need answers, and matters beyond leaving this world, should all be set aside for now and answered later.

After roughly determining his direction, Qin Xa set off to leave the wasteland.

The blazing sun hung high overhead.

There was nothing in the wasteland but endless sand and dirt.

If an ordinary person had been stranded here, they would most likely not survive.

But for Qin Xa, who had already undergone modification, walking bare-bodied across the sand beneath the blazing sun was not difficult.

Walking out of the wasteland with this body was not difficult in itself, especially since it could run continuously at thirty kilometers per hour and, if necessary, even faster.

After traveling easily for some time, Qin Xa suddenly stopped.

He sensed a gaze.

Within Qin Xa's consciousness, his field of view rapidly shifted due south, overlooking an area several kilometers away.

In that area, a convoy was speeding over the sand. In three minutes, it would enter the range where its observation equipment could detect Qin Xa. Then the convoy would stop, and someone who appeared to be the leader would get out with a tranquilizer gun and use a sniper scope to observe Qin Xa, who could not have been more conspicuous on the flat wasteland.

That was why there was that gaze. Only, it had not appeared now—it would appear three minutes later.

When Qin Xa tried to perceive more, he was uncontrollably pulled out of that strange perspective.

This psychic ability was a Prophecy. Compared to the Psychic Premonitions of other Psykers Qin Xa knew of, it was not as far-reaching, but it was detailed and clear enough.

Its only flaws were its brevity and the fact that he currently had no way to control when it appeared or vanished.

"I didn't see the various common Imperium markings on their vehicles or personal gear..." Qin Xa frowned in thought, beginning to doubt whether this world belonged to the human Imperium.

By then, the vehicles were drawing closer through clouds of dust. There was no time to think further, so Qin Xa immediately ran behind a nearby mound of sand, lay flat on the scorching ground, and waited silently.

The convoy approached just as it had in the prophetic vision.

Qin Xa had thought they would keep coming closer, but the convoy rapidly stopped instead. Nearly a hundred people immediately disembarked, weapons in hand.

A tiny sphere floated up from among them and hovered in the air.

They had clearly already discovered someone lying on their unavoidable route, whether through that sphere's thermal imaging, advanced equipment capable of scanning for living beings, or something else.

Their technology was not backward, and their tactical proficiency was quite good.

After the leader made several gestures, ten people rushed to the front and formed a line. They patted their arms, and shields immediately extended from their forearms.

Everyone in the convoy slowly advanced with weapons in hand, remaining alert.

Qin Xa glanced at the sphere flying toward him in the sky and stopped hiding.