Primarch

Disgust and distrust instinctively crept across Valdor's face as the unclean things of the Warp reflected in his bright eyes.

Out of duty, he solemnly nodded, tightened his grip on his halberd, and turned to lead the way.

His peripheral vision constantly swept over them, wary of the creatures of the Warp and ready to strike at any moment to destroy them completely.

"We cannot let your efforts go to waste." Erda caught a fleeting glimpse of the cold souls of those powerful demigods and turned her head away, not daring to look further.

Perpetuals possessed a special constitution that granted their bearers immortality and even resurrection from death, yet they could hardly withstand the great power of the Warp.

Over her long years, she had come to deeply understand the dangerous nature of the Warp.

The group hurried onward in silence, taking a stone elevator down to a laboratory buried deep underground.

When the elevator came to a stop and the stone doors opened, the scene around them changed utterly.

The underground space had been hollowed out. Pipes crisscrossed the ceiling, continuously transmitting energy.

Disordered cables hung from the walls, while all manner of conduits intertwined like spiderwebs. Their complexity was enough to make even their original designers clutch their foreheads and look away.

Gray stone slabs covered the floor. Countless researchers in hooded robes moved between them, adjusting various machines and devices.

Incubation chambers towered at the very center of the laboratory.

Their bases connected to the gray stone floor, and through the hollowed slabs beneath, one could see all the energy conduits converging here.

Every machine and device in the laboratory served them.

"My lord, everything has been prepared according to your instructions."

A plain-looking, medium-built woman with flaxen hair came forward and dropped to her knees. She raised a data slate in both hands and presented it to her master, the Emperor.

The Emperor said nothing as he gently accepted the data slate. In an instant, he knew everything it contained: everything was correct, and all preparations were complete.

A gentle psychic force lifted the woman to her feet. The Emperor remembered all that this biologist had given, along with her name: Amar Astarte, Chief Gene-Warlock.

"You may leave." The Emperor had not spoken, yet radiance illuminated every dark corner of the laboratory.

The Emperor rarely spoke directly to his subjects. His will inhabited Valdor, conveyed through his servant.

The deep, solemn voice of the Custodes commander carried the Emperor's majesty through the underground laboratory:

"You need not take part in what comes next. Thank you for all you have given. The sweat you shed shall be your immortal medal."

"Praise my lord! Humanity shall be great once more!"

Everyone prostrated themselves. When they raised their heads through sobs, their eyes brimmed with tears, but they immediately lowered them again, suppressing their excitement as they cried out loudly.

Mortals were too fragile to gaze directly upon the Emperor's light.

Even a brief look would allow psychic power to burn through their retinas and blind them.

The Emperor's followers did not fear blindness. Having beheld the glory of the Master of Mankind, all darkness could be driven away.

Yet they obeyed the Emperor's command. In the future, they would continue contributing to humanity. That was all.

Every staff member in the laboratory was the same. With tears in their eyes, they knelt and worshipped the Master of Mankind.

"Please leave quickly," Erda said, her eyes slightly red, moved by the passion and emotion bursting from the staff.

These people had given far too much for the future!

Her supremely elegant voice caught slightly as she firmly yet gently urged the staff to leave. "We still have something that must be done. We need to force every second to stand on our side."

The staff gradually rose, wiped away their tears, and left in an orderly manner.

They did not dare look up at the Master of Mankind. They used every ounce of strength to restrain the reverence and love welling up from the depths of their souls, lest they fall to their knees again.

"Begin."

Once only four people remained in the laboratory, the Emperor placed his hand over Erda's.

Radiating hazy light, the two walked hand in hand toward the incubation chambers. For this plan, the Emperor had exhausted his efforts and consumed immense manpower and resources to create the amniotic incubation chambers for cultivating the Primarchs.

Like a pair of lovers, they were carrying out a ritual.

There were true gods in the universe, and rituals had to be treated with due importance.

Through special rituals, the power of the Warp could be drawn forth to exert its greatest effect upon the universe.

To anchor demigod souls in reality required not only physical vessels, but also the aid of Warp rituals.

The Primarchs were an indispensable part of the Emperor's plan. Or rather, without the Primarchs, the plan could not continue.

When the Emperor raised his head to gaze upon the stars, the most powerful psyker humanity had ever known had never felt so powerless.

The universe's stars were countless, humanity was scattered throughout the galaxy, and the galaxy was too vast. Conquering it would take far too long.

Humanity's window of time was too short. Ordinary human soldiers were too fragile to bear the burden of conquering the sea of stars.

The Custodes born through Bio-alchemy truly possessed the absolute strength to wage war across the galaxy, but they also had flaws that could not be remedied.

Every Custodes was an ultimate life-form created through genetic alchemy, a unique work of art that was difficult to replicate.

Their lengthy creation process and the resources they consumed made mass production impossible.

Constantin Valdor had once asked Malcador, "As the Emperor's most loyal and powerful warriors, why not use the Custodes to conquer the stars?"

Malcador looked up at the stars and said helplessly, "Then the Emperor's empire would consist of nothing but Custodes."

The cost of the Custodes was simply too great. The Emperor's planned ten-thousand-strong Custodes force would require the entire galaxy to supply its resources.

The armor they wore had already drained the Emperor's accumulated reserves.

The cost of producing a single suit of armor could even bankrupt certain planets scattered throughout the galaxy.

After hearing this, Valdor stood frozen for one millisecond, the equivalent of an ordinary person thinking for a long time.

In the end, the commander of the Custodes could only sigh helplessly, shake his head, and cease discussing the matter.

The vast resources required to create legion-scale Custodes warriors were beyond what Terra could bear, or even what the future Imperium could bear.

If every resource were forcibly used to produce Custodes, the entire Imperium would not even be able to assemble a decent voidship.

As powerful as the Custodes were, they could hardly sit in dinghies, raise sails, row oars, and cross distances measured in light-years to conquer world after world.

The Emperor's bargain with the Warp's evil gods was not merely for twenty Lesser God divinities, but also for the profound Warp technologies in their possession, things difficult to comprehend.

Long ago, the Emperor had personally entered the Warp through a portal and acquired much forbidden knowledge there.

On his second journey into the Warp, the Emperor sought the "raw materials" needed to put that knowledge into practice: the souls of Warp Lesser Gods.

Using Warp knowledge and combining it with the souls of Lesser Gods, the Emperor created some unique life-forms within the material universe.

He combined the Warp and the material universe!

Using Warp Lesser Gods as souls, the Emperor and Erda contributed their own genetic material to create physical vessels for the Lesser Gods in the material universe.

Then, by extracting the Lesser Gods' genetic factors, they would create genetically enhanced warriors capable of mass production and replicating the power of the Lesser Gods.

The Emperor raised his hand and sent the Lesser God divinities into the incubation chambers. Golden psychic light ignited in his eyes as he lifted his chin and began chanting in a low voice that echoed through the laboratory.

Psychic runes flowed from his mouth like a musical score, their symbols flying with the light toward the incubation chambers.

They inscribed mysterious words upon the outer walls, anchoring the power of the Warp.

Warp Lesser Gods merged with reality. The might of the gods and the greatest psyker in the material universe jointly wielded boundless power.

This was a miracle impossible to achieve by one side alone. The Emperor could not do it, nor could the Warp's evil gods.

Reality and illusion merged, connecting two utterly different dimensions and shaping beings as dreamlike as fantasies.

Creating vessels capable of bearing the powerful souls of Warp Lesser Gods required extraordinary genetic material, the biotechnology of the material universe, and the evil sorcery of the Warp. Not one could be absent.

Psychic runes branded themselves upon the outer walls of the incubation chambers, and the inscribed cryptic text gleamed.

The power of the Warp gradually began to boil, twisting physical technology at the subatomic level and transforming the interiors of the mechanical constructs.

Outwardly, nothing seemed to change, but the artificial amniotic fluid within the incubation chambers had become warm and brimming with vitality.

The insides of the machines resembled human wombs, warm and moist, capable of sustaining growing life.

The souls of the Lesser Gods rose and fell within the amniotic fluid, waiting for their vessels.

After everything was complete, the Emperor raised both hands, lightning dancing over his fingertips.

His boundless psychic power surged forth, and a golden psychic barrier slowly expanded, protecting this place from the gaze of the Four Chaos Gods.

"My friend," the Emperor said softly, dispersing his psychic power and turning toward Erda.

Ripples stirred in eyes that had remained undisturbed for ages. He felt an emotion he had not experienced for a long time: excitement. "It is time for us to contribute our genetic material."

"My long preparations can finally be put to use today."

Erda lay down inside an enclosed machine, closed her eyes, and prepared herself to endure everything.

Light filled the chamber. Probes formed from light continuously extracted genetic material from Erda's body.

A fine sheen of sweat appeared on Erda's smooth forehead. She instinctively arched her back against the spasms, her body trembling without stop.

Clearly, the pain caused by extracting genetic material was not something ordinary people could endure.

The Emperor raised his own hand. Valdor offered him a small ritual knife, which he gently drew across his palm, drawing blood as bright and red as rubies.

Valdor turned his head away, unwilling to watch.

He had sworn to protect his lord from bleeding. His dissatisfaction with the birth of the Primarchs deepened, and he could not help thinking: How absurd was this?

The foulest, most corrupted things in the Warp were being joined with the purest being in the material universe.

Crimson blood flowed from the Emperor's palm. Psychic power carried it into every incubation chamber, where it blended with Erda's genetic material and merged with the souls of the Warp Lesser Gods.

Psychic light rose in his eyes once more. He swept his gaze over the incubation chambers one by one while chanting softly.

The blood he shed bore the mighty essence of the material universe's strongest psyker, granting the pure souls of the Lesser Gods all manner of great wisdom and power:

"Idealism, reason, gentleness, responsibility, restraint, kindness, humility, justice, tolerance, courage, beauty, holiness, persistence, resilience, endurance..."

These fine qualities were the Emperor's hopes for the Primarchs.

But as a person, the Emperor's essence also contained discordant things: ambition, the desire to conquer, sorrow, stubbornness, hatred...

The Emperor did not remove them. War machines modeled after humanity could only understand humanity if they possessed human emotions; only by possessing humanity could they be complete.

Every Primarch was a being born from the union of a Warp demigod and human nature. They possessed immense power, yet were filled with humanity.

They would understand themselves while carrying out the missions humanity had entrusted to them.

Whether healing wounds, ruling, conquering, or guarding dark secrets.