Capital of the Second Imperium

The hemp rope had been pulled tight, gripping Zhou Yun's throat, constricting his arteries, pouring the sensation of suffocation into his windpipe like viscous asphalt.

The feeling of oxygen deprivation then rose from his windpipe and climbed into his brain. His brain cells wailed from the lack of oxygen, while the intense pain drove his brain to secrete endorphins, flooding Zhou Yun's will with a hazy, cloying euphoria.

That euphoria was like slick snakes winding around Zhou Yun's nerves, trying to drag him into that murky sensation and let the rope around his neck strangle him to death.

The euphoria seemed to possess some sort of power, a will of its own, whispering in Zhou Yun's ear that struggling would only bring pain, while calmly accepting death would allow him to enjoy the bliss brought by endorphins.

But Zhou Yun still struggled.

Compared to this little pain brought by struggling,

he feared the pain of returning to the Golden Throne after death even more.

Suffocation could make a person dizzy, cause their muscles to convulse, and make them lose control of their body in a short time. Under normal circumstances, a human being had no way to struggle effectively while hanging.

But perhaps the torment on the Golden Throne had tempered his will. The pain caused by suffocation had already been blocked out by his will, and Zhou Yun could still struggle while remaining conscious.

His fingers gripped the rope cutting into his throat, trying to snap it. But this body's constitution was not particularly good. Zhou Yun could feel it failing from oxygen deprivation, his internal organs faintly aching, and the weakness in his muscles. He pulled at the rope, but could not exert much strength.

Compared to the hunter Zhou Yun had inhabited in the forest the first time, this body was far worse.

That forest hunter's body could even have torn apart this kind of rope around Zhou Yun's neck with its bare hands...

Zhou Yun reached out again, trying to untie the knot binding the rope.

But the knot had been tied tight, like venomous snakes biting one another. Zhou Yun could only feel it by touch and had no way to undo it.

The dizziness grew stronger and stronger.

Zhou Yun's head throbbed as though it would split apart. The blood in his cheeks seemed to burn fiercely, his eyes began to bulge from their sockets, and the entire room seemed to spin and warp. The candle burning on the table beneath the window stretched long, burning and spiraling into a vortex of light.

Zhou Yun could almost feel the Golden Throne drawing his will back, dragging the will that had escaped its cage back onto the Golden Throne.

The candle flame spun into a whirlpool. The Golden Throne called from the Warp, and the Veil of reality grew thin.

Zhou Yun sensed psychic power surging from the Warp.

He quickly realized that, like the last one, this new body possessed a certain talent for psychic power.

Of course, it was also possible that the psychic talent of his previous body had carried over into this one.

Zhou Yun clenched his teeth and spat out fragmented words.

Psychic power from the Warp let out a low hum. The air around him suddenly turned cold, and the smell of ozone filled the room. The Veil of reality was briefly pierced open, and psychic power flowed into reality through Zhou Yun's body.

The candle suddenly crackled. Its flame spun upward and shot toward the rope hanging above Zhou Yun's head.

The rope burned through, and Zhou Yun crashed to the floor. The wine bottles scattered across the room's floor rattled with the impact.

The dizzying sensation still lingered in Zhou Yun's mind.

But Zhou Yun was still delighted, because the Golden Throne's call had become vague again, and the searing pain upon that throne had faded into a distant background.

If Zhou Yun did not concentrate and return his will to the Golden Throne, he could barely feel the pain anymore.

As the suffocating feeling in his mind receded, his thoughts became clear again. Fragmented memories belonging to this body began to surface as well.

Zhou Yun saw that this body's former owner had once been a spirited Scholar. He saw him teaching from the podium at a grammar school, and also saw him becoming addicted to gambling dens and lingering over the temptations of alcohol...

Zhou Yun rubbed his brow as he received those scattered memories.

From his experience, as time passed, he would gradually recall this body's memories and gain some of its former owner's skills...

The first thing he usually learned was language.

"Boundless darkness..." Zhou Yun cursed in the language from the Scholar's memories. It seemed to be a curse used by a group of barbarians on this planet.

He climbed up from the floor and walked toward the wooden table beneath the window.

The candle on the table had already gone out, leaving only faint dark-red moonlight shining across its surface.

Zhou Yun froze for a moment, then looked up. Beyond the narrow window, above the vast wilderness beneath the heavens, four moons hung in the sky.

The one that drew the eye most... its surface was covered in scarlet fissures, like an eye hanging in the sky, bloodshot with rage...

At the sight of that moon, the psychic power within Zhou Yun stirred slightly.

Zhou Yun took a deep breath and lowered his gaze back to the table.

"First, I ask Vulkan; second, I ask the Emperor to lend me a flame..."

He muttered as he brought his finger close to the candle.

A wisp of flame leaped from his fingertip and lit the candle before him.

It was a simple use of psychic power, but Zhou Yun frowned slightly.

It felt... different from when he had been in the Hive City.

Zhou Yun felt that when he drew upon psychic power through the Veil between reality and the Warp, it was far less smooth than it had been in the Hive City.

It seemed that the Veil around this planet was much thicker than the one around the Diviner's planet.

Under the candlelight, Zhou Yun pulled open the desk drawer and found what he was looking for inside.

It was a notebook with slightly wrinkled corners. In Zhou Yun's memories, the Scholar had usually used it to record trivial matters.

"February 18th. Played cards with Cicero. Lost fifty-four Denar."

"February 19th. Cicero urged me to play cards. Lost forty-two Denar."

"February 20th. Cicero asked me to play cards again. Lost sixty-six Denar. Had no money, borrowed sixty-six Denar."

"Aulus, Aulus, you cannot go play cards again. Your debts are far too great."

"February 21st. Played cards with Cicero. Lost three hundred and ninety-six Denar. Borrowed three hundred and ninety-six Denar..."

Zhou Yun paused slightly.

Almost at the same instant, a golden flame suddenly ignited on the notebook. The Scholar's name, "Aulus," was entirely swallowed by the fire.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the flame vanished. Everywhere Aulus had originally been written was replaced with "Zhou Yun."

Zhou Yun's gaze sharpened slightly. Was this also some kind of power of the Emperor?

He reached out and flipped through several more pages. The more he read, the clearer the memories became. This Scholar's life seemed to be gradually merging into Zhou Yun's body.

The grammar, education, literature, and historical knowledge in which the Scholar excelled also gradually emerged from Zhou Yun's mind.

He stopped turning the pages, his gaze resting on a word in the notebook.

That word was the name of this city, as well as the name of this planet.

"Macragge." Zhou Yun softly spoke the name.

The homeworld of the ambitious Roboute Guilliman, one of the lost twenty-one Primarchs and Primarch of the Thirteenth Legion.

The homeworld of the Ultramarines, the capital of Ultramar, the capital of the Second Imperium...

But that was not all.

More than the location, what drew Zhou Yun's attention was the time.

There was not a single mention of the Imperium, the Emperor, the Primarchs, or the Astartes anywhere in this notebook.

(New book—please keep reading, please keep reading, please keep reading!)