Primarch

World's bright eyes reflected the unclean things of the Warp, and a flicker of instinctive disgust and distrust crept across his face.

Out of duty, he nodded solemnly, gripped his spear, and turned to lead the way.

His peripheral vision swept the surroundings from time to time, vigilant against the entities of the Warp, ready at any moment to strike and utterly destroy them.

"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 longer.

Perpetuals possessed a unique constitution that allowed them to live forever or even be reborn from death, yet they struggled to withstand the immense power of the Warp.

She knew deeply from the long passage of time the dangerous nature of the Warp.

The group walked hurriedly and in silence, taking a stone elevator deep underground to a laboratory buried in the depths.

When the elevator came to a halt and the stone doors opened, the scene changed drastically.

The underground space had been hollowed out, with pipes crisscrossing the ceiling, delivering a constant flow of energy.

Messy cables hung from the walls, and various conduits intertwined like a spiderweb; the complexity was such that even the original designer would have covered their face in despair.

The floor was paved with gray stone slabs, and countless researchers in robes moved between them, calibrating various machines and equipment.

In the very center of the laboratory stood the incubation tanks.

The bases were connected to the gray stone floor, and through the hollowed-out slabs beneath, one could see all the energy conduits converging there.

Every machine and piece of equipment in the laboratory served them.

"My Lord, everything is as you commanded; all preparations are complete."

A woman of average height and build, with flaxen hair and an ordinary face, stepped forward and knelt on both knees.

She raised her hands to present a data pad to her master: Emperor.

Emperor said nothing, gently taking the data pad and instantly grasping all its contents:

Everything was correct; everything was ready.

A gentle wave of psychic power lifted the woman up; the Emperor remembered everything this biologist had sacrificed.

And her name, the Chief Genetor: Amar Astarte.

"You may leave," the Emperor did not speak aloud, yet his radiance illuminated every dark corner of the laboratory.

Emperor rarely spoke to his subjects; his will resided within World, and his servant acted as the proxy for his intent.

The Custodian Guard's deep, solemn voice manifested the Emperor's majesty, echoing through the underground laboratory:

"You need not participate in what follows. We thank you for your past contributions; the sweat you have shed is your immortal medal."

"Worship my Lord! Humanity shall be great once more!"

The crowd prostrated themselves, their eyes brimming with tears as they sobbed, yet they immediately bowed their heads, suppressing their inner excitement to cry out aloud.

Mortals were too fragile to look directly upon the light of the Emperor.

Even a slight gaze would cause the psychic energy to burn through their retinas, leaving them blind.

Emperor's followers did not fear blindness; to behold the light of the Master of Mankind was enough to dispel all darkness.

But they obeyed the Emperor's command to continue contributing to humanity in the future, and that was all.

Every staff member in the laboratory felt the same; they wept with joy, kneeling on both knees to worship the Master of Mankind.

"Please, everyone, leave quickly," Erda's eyes were slightly red, moved by the passion and emotion erupting from the staff.

These people had given too much for the future!

Her elegant voice was choked with emotion as she urged the staff to leave, firm yet gentle: "We have essential work to do, and we must force every second of time to stand on our side."

The staff gradually rose, wiped away their tears, and departed in an orderly fashion.

They dared not look up at the Master of Mankind, using all their strength to restrain the love and reverence from the depths of their souls, lest they fall to their knees again.

"Begin."

When only the four of them remained in the laboratory, the Emperor placed his hand on the back of Erda's.

The two of them, radiating a hazy glow, walked hand in hand toward the incubation tanks. Emperor had poured his heart and soul, exhausting manpower and resources, to create these amniotic incubation tanks for the Primarch.

Like a pair of lovers performing a ritual.

There were true gods in the universe, and one must pay heed to ritual.

Through special rites, the power of the Warp could be harnessed to its greatest effect in the physical realm.

To anchor the souls of demigods in reality, one needed not only a physical vessel but also the assistance of Warp rituals.

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

When the Emperor looked up at the starry sky, the most powerful psyker in humanity had never felt so powerless.

The stars in the universe were as numerous as the hairs on an ox, and humanity was scattered across the galaxy. The galaxy was too vast, and conquering it would take too long.

The window of time humanity possessed was too short, and ordinary human soldiers were too fragile to shoulder the burden of conquering the sea of stars.

The Custodian Guard, born of bio-alchemy, possessed the absolute strength to wage war across the galaxy, yet they had flaws that could not be overcome.

Every Custodian is an ultimate biological entity forged through gene-alchemy, a unique work of art impossible to replicate.

The sheer length of their manufacturing process and the resources consumed make mass-producing Custodians an impossibility.

Constantin Valdor once asked Malcador:

"As the Emperor's most loyal and powerful warriors, why do we not use the Custodians to conquer the stars?"

Malcador looked up, gazing at the stars in the firmament, and replied helplessly: "Then the empire the Emperor builds would consist of nothing but Custodians."

The cost of a Custodian is far too exorbitant; the ten-thousand-strong brotherhood envisioned by the Emperor would require the entire galaxy as a resource supply.

The armor they wear has already drained the Emperor's accumulated reserves.

The manufacturing cost of a single suit of armor is enough to bankrupt certain planets scattered across the galaxy.

Upon hearing this, Valdor froze for a millisecond—the equivalent of a long period of contemplation for an ordinary human.

The Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes finally sighed powerlessly, shaking his head to end the discussion.

The massive resources required to create a legion-level force of Custodians are more than Terra could bear, or even the future empire could sustain.

If all resources were forcibly diverted to produce Custodians, the entire empire would not even be able to scrape together a decent starship.

Mighty as the Custodians are, it is unlikely they could sit on rafts, hoisting sails and rowing oars to cross light-years of distance to conquer world after world.

Emperor's bargain with the Ruinous Powers of the Warp involved not only twenty minor god-fragments but also the profound, incomprehensible Warp-tech held by the Chaos Gods.

In ancient times, the Emperor once personally entered the Warp through a portal, gaining much forbidden knowledge from within.

For this second journey into the Warp, the Emperor sought the "raw materials" to realize that knowledge: the souls of minor Warp deities!

Utilizing Warp knowledge combined with the souls of minor gods, the Emperor created unique lifeforms in the material universe.

A fusion of the Warp and the material universe!

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

Then, by extracting the genetic factors of the minor deities, they manufactured gene-enhanced warriors capable of mass production, replicating the power of the minor gods.

Emperor raised his hand to place a minor god-fragment into a gestation tank, his eyes igniting with golden psychic light. He lifted his chin, and a low chant echoed through the laboratory.

Psychic runes flowed from his mouth like a musical score, the symbols flying toward the tank along with the light.

Mysterious scripts were etched onto the outer wall, anchoring the power of the Warp.

The minor Warp deity and reality merged; the might of gods and the strongest psyker in the material universe exerted boundless power together.

This was a miracle that could not be achieved unilaterally; the Emperor could not do it alone, nor could the Chaos Gods.

Combining reality and illusion, connecting two vastly different dimensions to shape dream-like beings.

Creating a vessel capable of bearing the soul of a powerful minor Warp deity requires extraordinary genetics, the biotechnology of the material universe, and the dark sorcery of the Warp—none of which can be dispensed with.

The psychic runes were branded onto the outer wall of the gestation tank, the etched ciphers glowing brilliantly.

The power of the Warp gradually boiled, distorting physical science at the subatomic level and transforming the interior of the mechanical construct.

Outwardly, there was no change, but the artificial amniotic fluid in the tank had become warm and teeming with vitality.

The interior of the machine was like a human womb, warm and moist, capable of sustaining the growth of life.

The souls of the minor gods rose and fell in the fluid, waiting for their carriers.

After completing all this, the Emperor raised his hands, lightning dancing at his fingertips.

His boundless psychic power surged forth, a golden psychic barrier slowly rising to protect this place from the prying eyes of the Four.

"My friend," the Emperor dispersed his psychic power and turned to speak softly to Erda.

His eyes, usually devoid of ripples for eons, now shimmered with an emotion he had not felt in a long time—"excitement": "It is time for us to contribute our genetic material."

"The preparations I have made for so long can finally be put to use today."

Erda lay into a sealed machine, eyes closed, ready to endure everything.

Light ignited within the chamber, and probes composed of light continuously extracted genetic material from Erda's body.

A thin layer of sweat seeped from Erda's smooth forehead; she instinctively arched her back to resist the spasms, her body trembling continuously.

Clearly, the pain of extracting genetic material was beyond what an ordinary person could endure.

Emperor himself raised his palm, and Valdor handed him a ritual dagger. He lightly sliced across his palm, and blood as bright and red as a gemstone flowed out.

Valdor turned his head away, unwilling to look directly.

He had sworn to protect his master, yet seeing him bleed for the birth of the Primarchs filled him with growing resentment, and he could not help but think: How absurd is this?

The filthiest, most corrupt thing in the Warp combined with the purest human in the material universe.

Crimson blood flowed from the Emperor's palm, and psychic power carried the blood into each gestation tank, merging it with Erda's genetic material and the souls of the minor Warp deities.

Psychic light flared in his eyes once more as he scanned the tanks one by one, accompanied by a low chant.

The flowing blood carried the powerful essence of the strongest psyker in the material universe, imbuing the pure souls of the minor gods with various great wisdoms and powers:

"Idealism, rationality, gentleness, responsibility, restraint, kindness, humility, justice, tolerance, courage, beauty, holiness, persistence, tenacity, patience..."

These noble qualities were the Emperor's expectations for the Primarchs.

Yet, as a "human," there existed discordant elements within the essence of Emperor, such as ambition, the desire for conquest, sorrow, stubbornness, and hatred...

Emperor did not excise these traits; war machines modeled after humanity required human emotions to understand humanity, and only by possessing humanity could they be considered complete.

Each Primarch is a being of warp-born demigod power fused with human nature, possessing immense strength while remaining profoundly human.

They fulfill the missions bestowed upon them by humanity while simultaneously coming to understand themselves.

Whether it is to heal wounds, to rule, to conquer, or to guard dark secrets.