As miraculous beings jointly created by the powers of the Warp and human technology, the Primarchs were imbued by the Emperor with traits of humanity.
The Primarchs, who possessed the Emperor's genetic factors, were his true children who inherited his bloodline. The Emperor bestowed upon each of his offspring noble virtues and fundamental humanity.
The Emperor lightly waved his hand and retrieved a vial of dark red blood from the genetic material beside him. The label stated that it contained a genetic sample from an ancient Terran canine.
Under psychic manipulation, the Emperor bestowed it upon one Primarch, hoping that the loyalty of dogs would be inherited in the Primarch's genes.
Having done all this, the Emperor's gaze fell upon the final red soul—the Primarch who should never have existed. He hesitated.
What exactly was that red soul?
The Emperor could not comprehend the gods' intentions, yet the light emanating from that soul was incomparably pure, utterly unlike a product of the Warp.
After pondering briefly, the Emperor stared at the incubation chamber for a long time.
At last, he revealed an expression of deep apology toward the soul within the incubation chamber. "I cannot give you anything."
With neither gifts nor restraints, the Emperor gave it only "freedom."
The moment those words fell, the ritual neared its end. Warp sorcery and the biological incubation chambers activated at the same time.
The Emperor's and Erda's genetic material fused within the incubation chambers. Pure Warp power poured through the Emperor's barrier and surged into the chambers.
Nourished by the amniotic fluid of the incubation chambers and gestated by Warp energy, twenty-one human embryos gradually took shape within them.
The souls of Lesser Gods and the Emperor's essence merged into the embryos, granting them extraordinary power and wisdom.
Erda crawled out of the incubation chamber. The agony of extracting her genetic factors was unbearable, as though she had been injected with a nanobot torture device. Unimaginable stabbing pain radiated from every cell, coursing through her nervous system.
She was extremely weak, yet she reached out and refused Malcador's support.
The Mother of Genes looked at the twenty-two human fetuses in the cultivation room, connected to artificial umbilical cords, soaked in amniotic fluid, and curled together. A faint smile appeared on her pale face.
As a Perpetual who had walked alone through tens of thousands of years of human history, she had never played the role of "mother." As a woman, that was undoubtedly a failure.
Now, things were different. Erda could clearly feel the tremor of blood ties. The faint heartbeats of the fetuses in the incubation chambers tugged at the Mother of Genes' own heartbeat. A bond of blood connected them, a certain intimate resonance between mother and children.
Maternal instinct, long suppressed within her immortal body, radiated outward. Erda's smile was weak yet strong, gentle and loving, while her eyes brimmed with affectionate light.
"My friend, do you feel any better?" The Emperor's voice was somewhat weak. The severing of his essence had left him temporarily weakened, and his complexion was slightly pale.
"I'm well. Better than I have ever been."
"Perhaps this new identity will bring you some different experiences." Malcador noticed the unprecedented radiance in Erda's eyes and smiled, a rare sight.
"For the time being, we need only wait quietly for them to mature. Then we will be able to create stable, mass-producible genetically modified soldiers."
The Emperor's gaze pierced through the incubation chambers. The twenty-two young Primarchs were developing at an astonishing rate. Before long, they could proceed to the next step: extracting the "Gene-seed."
Gene-seed was genetic material produced by Primarchs.
Gene-seed containing Warp-derived genetic material would be implanted into carefully selected ordinary human recipients.
The divine power originating from the Primarchs would reshape human bodies along with the Gene-seed, transforming mortals into superhuman soldiers.
"Let us go. They need time, and so do we. We must prepare."
The four of them silently departed, then shut the layers of heavy doors outside the laboratory. What had happened here was beyond the comprehension of ordinary human technicians and had to remain buried forever.
Erda stopped before the final door. A new mother, she could not stop thinking of the children bound to her by blood. Looking back, her gaze was cut off by the cold, emotionless layers of alloy doors. The distance between her and her children was short, yet endlessly long.
They were important figures in the fledgling Empire, and each of them had very limited time. When they emerged from underground, a vast number of people were already waiting for them.
The Custodes, internal affairs officials, and those soldiers who had first followed the Emperor and stood at his side as he reclaimed Terra.
The crowd was dense, solemn, and silent.
Beneath the radiance of psychic power, the Emperor appeared differently to every person. Some saw gentleness, some authority, some respect, some kindness.
He was the embodiment of perfection. Perfection itself was defined by his existence.
The Emperor did not deliberately weaken that influence. Instead, he even strengthened the psychic illusion.
Since the ancient age of Earth, humanity had called itself "civilized," yet it could never restrain the worship and fear of powerful beings embedded within its genes.
Psychic power formed a halo around the Emperor, making him appear to everyone as the most perfect person, the one they admired and revered most deeply.
"My lord!" Unlike the Custodes, ordinary humans could not gaze upon the Emperor's light for long. After a brief daze, Terra's nobles excitedly lowered their proud heads, dropped to one knee, and offered their loyalty and praise.
The crowd knelt before the four of them. Erda felt a wave of dizziness and softly said, "I need to rest for a while."
She then turned and left with the attendants who had been waiting for a long time. She was not asking for permission, but simply stating a fact. As the friend of the Master of Mankind, she possessed such privileges.
The Emperor nodded lightly and allowed Erda to leave. After having her genetic factors extracted, his friend was in poor condition and unable to handle the affairs of Lianshan Tianhai.
Erda left the underground laboratory and headed for her residence.
Once she moved away from the Emperor's side and lost the protection of his light, an imperceptible wisp of Chaos power squeezed out from the void. It drifted down onto Erda's shoulder and, in that barely noticeable instant, took advantage of the opening to enter her frail soul.
A wave of dizziness struck her. Fine sweat beaded across Erda's smooth forehead. Amid the vertigo, she felt a soul-chilling cold sweep over her and struggled to brace herself against the wall to keep from collapsing.
"My lady, what is wrong?"
An attendant stepped forward to support her. The instant their skin touched, a chill passed from her mistress's body. The attendant almost instinctively curled her fingers and recoiled from the cold.
"My lady, your body..."
The next moment, Erda returned to normal. She raised a hand to indicate that her personal attendants need not say more, then offered an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry for worrying you. I am merely a little weak."
"Please take care of yourself. The Empire cannot afford to lose you."
Having soothed the attendants' worries, Erda nodded gently and gracefully raised her arm, allowing them to support her back to her residence.
Erda's residence was not large. It was a small estate, yet extravagantly luxurious. A fountain stood in its courtyard, surrounded by flowerbeds filled with fragrant flowers. A cobblestone path connected the inner court to the porch.
Terra had been ravaged by humanity's long civil wars, and every drop of water was worth a fortune. Flowers had long vanished entirely from the radiation-scarred surface.
This small garden contained flowers and even an artificial fountain. Its extravagance was beyond anything scavengers and drifters in the wastelands could imagine.
After the attendants withdrew, Erda entered the study. Wooden bookshelves stood in the spacious room, lined with various ancient books.
Erda lay in a comfortable chair. Sunlight simulated by the miniature fusion device in the courtyard shone through the cross-shaped window and fell over her. Her silk robe traced her graceful curves, making her resemble the goddess of love from Terran mythology.
Her brows were faintly furrowed, and Erda kept her eyes tightly shut.
As she recalled the images in her mind, she remembered the vision that had appeared when her consciousness had wavered—a cruel future she dared neither speak of nor face.
The vision was vivid in her mind, displaying a series of brutal scenes.
The Emperor would enslave her children, treating them as nothing more than machines of war. He would cast them into endless wars, then cruelly erase their existence once they had served their purpose, leaving not the slightest trace behind.
Clearly, these were fragments of possible futures from the Warp, forcibly stuffed into her mind by some power. It was most likely a scheme of the Chaos Gods.
Erda knew very well that the great powers of the Warp had begun to stir, intervening in humanity's future.
She did not believe a single word of what the prophecy showed. It was nothing more than another of the Chaos Gods' ever-present traps and schemes.
Yet disbelief did not mean she felt no concern. When she thought of her twenty-one genetic children, Erda's maternal instinct overwhelmed her reason, and a trace of doubt and uncertainty arose deep within her heart:
How would the Emperor treat his children?
Before you continue