The Awakened

"Wake up."

"Wake up."

"..."

The calling voice echoed incessantly in the ears of Qin Xia.

This was not the first time Qin Xia had heard the call and awakened; he had woken up the moment the battle on the command deck erupted.

His body was firmly secured by the restraints within the pod, so he could only fight using his psychic powers, unleashing lightning or causing the wounds of others to knit flesh.

But Qin Xia felt that his mind, much like his body, was bound by some sort of suppression device, preventing him from exerting much of his power.

Furthermore, the Grey Knight wielding the halberd had worn a ferocious expression upon seeing him use psychic powers, shouting something at him in a stern, angry voice.

The situation was too chaotic.

"Wake up."

"Wake up."

Amidst the melee, Qin Xia listened to this call, watching as a Greater Daemon slashed through the hull, watching as his own throat was gripped, and then falling into unconsciousness.

Now, hearing this call again, he regained consciousness.

The sound gave Qin Xia a headache. He snapped his eyes open, his intent spreading out like a shockwave, dispelling the voice that kept echoing in his ears and shattering the stasis pod that still encased him.

Qin Xia tumbled out, landing on the scorching sand, his head slamming hard against a rock.

Scrambling up from the debris of the shattered stone, Qin Xia touched his smooth scalp and examined his own body.

This was a powerful physique, roughly two point seven meters tall, possessing extremely robust muscles and containing a multitude of superhuman organs within.

Astartes, Space Marine, Angel of the God-Emperor... all these titles were used to describe the super-soldiers within this human military species.

Astartes were implanted with gene-seed and underwent numerous surgical modifications.

Gene-seed generally originated from the Primarchs, though the origins of the Grey Knights' gene-seed were subject to much speculation and difficult to confirm. Regardless, the Grey Knights gained enhancements in psychic usage and resistance to the corruption of evil forces in the Warp due to this unique gene-seed.

As for this height of two point seven meters...

This was not the common average height for the super-soldier group known as the Astartes; Qin Xia was significantly taller. This might be related to his physical condition before the modifications and various factors such as adaptability. After all, biotechnology was not a factory assembly line, and Astartes would not all appear as if they were cast from the same mold.

"I really am an Astartes now."

Qin Xia withdrew his gaze from his own body.

He had fantasized countless times about the occasion and the emotions with which he would say this sentence.

But he had never imagined he would say it in such a flat, sorrowful, and puzzled tone.

There was no excitement or pride, only confusion and bewilderment.

Why was I not killed by that daemon?

Where did the others go?

And...

What kind of hellish place is this, where nothing but sand meets the eye?

"Calm your mind. When you can quiet down, settle your emotions, and the environment permits you to do so, that is what you should do."

The teachings he received in his youth surfaced from a memory in Qin Xia's mind. He struggled to calm his emotions, cast aside his doubts, and sat cross-legged on the sand to organize his thoughts.

First, it was certain that he was not dead.

Second, looking at the stasis pod behind him and then at the surroundings, there was no ship wreckage, nor had any ecological disaster occurred on the planet. This indicated that the pod had detached from the warship rather than crashing along with it.

Additionally, judging by the environment of this planet, it was clearly not located in the Warp, which meant he had already exited the Warp.

Compared to the various questions that could not be answered for the time being, Qin Xia believed the most important thing now was to figure out where he was and what time it was.

The nine hundred and twenty-ninth year of the forty-first millennium, the fourth solar month.

This was the time in Qin Xia's memory when his stasis pod was moved onto the ship by others. He had heard this time mentioned because he could hear people talking when he was placed into the pod after his modifications were completed.

However, this did not mean that now, after exiting the Warp, it was a time period after 929.M42, due to the uncertainty of Warp travel.

The Warp was a place that humanity had to pass through for faster-than-light travel, and it was extremely dangerous and bizarre.

It was an alternate dimension outside of the material universe, composed of things related to pure spirit, emotion, or soul. This meant that nothing in the Warp was stable, and time as it existed in the material universe simply did not exist within the Warp.

After traveling through the Warp, it was possible to arrive at the destination and find that the time was before the journey began, or even before one was born, or perhaps hundreds of years later... no one could say for sure.

"I must figure out where I am and what time it is, then have the governor of this world arrange a ship to send me away."

Qin Xia muttered to himself, patted his face, and stood up from the ground, knowing what he should do now.

Those questions that were not urgently answerable, and those matters concerning things outside of this world, should all be temporarily cast aside and left for later.

After briefly identifying his orientation, Qin Xia embarked on the journey to leave this wasteland.

The scorching sun hung high.

There was nothing but endless sand in the desert.

If an ordinary person had been stranded here, that person would likely not have survived.

But for Qin Xia, who had already undergone modifications, walking across the sand and trekking under the scorching sun without even wearing a robe was not a difficult task.

Traversing the desert with this physical body was not hard in itself, let alone the fact that this body could maintain a non-stop long-distance run at a speed of thirty kilometers per hour, and could go even faster if necessary.

After traveling with ease for a while, Qin Xia suddenly stopped in his tracks.

He felt a gaze.

Within Qin Xia's own consciousness, his field of vision shifted rapidly toward the due south, bird's-eye viewing an area several kilometers away.

In that area, a convoy was speeding across the sand; in three minutes, they would enter a range where their observation equipment could detect Qin Xia, and then the convoy would stop, and a person who looked like the leader would get out with a tranquilizer gun to observe the glaringly obvious Qin Xia on the flat desert through a sniper scope.

This was why that gaze existed, only that gaze had not appeared yet, but would appear in three minutes.

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

This psionic ability belonged to precognition, but compared to the psionic precognition of other psionicists Qin Xia knew, it appeared less far-reaching, yet it was sufficiently detailed and clear.

The only drawbacks were its brevity and the fact that there was currently no way to control its appearance and disappearance.

"I don't see any of the common markings of the Empire on the vehicles or the personnel's accessories..." Qin Xia frowned in thought, beginning to doubt whether this world belonged to the human Empire.

At this moment, the convoy kicked up dust as it drew closer; with no time to ponder further, Qin Xia immediately ran behind a nearby sand dune and lay on the scorching sand to wait quietly.

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

Qin Xia thought they would get closer and closer, but in reality, the convoy stopped abruptly, and the nearly one hundred people in the entire convoy immediately got out of their vehicles holding weapons.

A tiny sphere floated up from among those people, hovering in the air.

They had clearly discovered someone lying on their inevitable path, whether through the thermal imaging of that sphere, through advanced equipment capable of scanning for living beings, or something else entirely.

These people were not technologically backward, and their tactical proficiency was quite good.

After the leader of the group made a few hand signals, ten people rushed to the very front and lined up; these ten people tapped their arms, and a shield immediately extended from each of their arms.

Everyone in the convoy approached slowly while remaining vigilant, holding their weapons.

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