Ultramar Will Become a New Human Imperium.jpg

A vessel I could enter... I had not sensed it on the Golden Throne, but seen it amid that Blue-and-Gold Storm...

Zhou Yun made the self seated upon the Golden Throne remember that planet's location, then swiftly withdrew the sliver of will he had infiltrated into the child's mind.

Reality became solid again. The mirror repaired itself, bricks and stones restacked themselves into a room, dust drifted through the flowing air, and the shadows cast by the setting sun slowly shifted, as though everything that had just happened had merely been Zhou Yun's illusion.

But Zhou Yun understood that if he had gone any deeper and pierced the outermost layer of the child's mind, the terrifying Warp power within the child would have followed Zhou Yun's will into reality and turned the brain tissue of this body into pulp.

Now, Zhou Yun was certain of his guess. The person beyond the mirror could not possibly be the fortieth illegitimate son of some Marcus Guilliman—unless Marcus was the Emperor walking among men, or the Emperor had been cuckolded.

With such a powerful Warp projection, there was no doubt that the one beyond the mirror was the Primarch Robert Guilliman.

But... something was wrong. That sensation... was somewhat terrifying. If an ordinary person caught even a glimpse of that cold, multithreaded mind, they would likely be frightened mad.

"What did you do?" A cold, detached voice, almost entirely devoid of emotion, sounded beside Zhou Yun's ear.

He had been discovered... No, Robert Guilliman had never received even the slightest psychic training, not now and not since childhood. Among all the Primarchs, he was practically the most illiterate when it came to the Warp.

Russ had his mysterious little runes, Jaghatai Khan had his Way of Heaven, Angron could sense the pain of others before the nails were driven into him, and even Mortarion, that staunch vanguard against psykers, knew Numerology.

As for Guilliman, his only psychic means of attack in the future would be the Emperor's flaming straight sword that could erase daemons from existence.

He had not noticed what Zhou Yun was doing on a psychic level.

Was it instinct? Had he observed Zhou Yun's expression? Or had subtle secondary psychic phenomena caught his attention?

Zhou Yun did not even know how much Guilliman had noticed. Guilliman had not told him either; he had merely told Zhou Yun that he knew, without saying what exactly he knew.

That sense of uncertainty was instead intensely oppressive, especially the threat that could be clearly felt even through the mirror—the threat a lion posed to a gazelle...

Had Zhou Yun's will not been tempered by the Golden Throne, he might well have fled in panic like Cicero.

"Want to learn?" Zhou Yun merely returned with a smile.

The air fell silent once more.

Lady Euten looked blankly at her child, then just as blankly at Zhou Yun.

Learn what...? She did not quite understand what the two were talking about.

But she had sensed that this teacher was extraordinary. He was not afraid of this child at all...

Zhou Yun cautiously considered whether he should lay everything bare and tell Guilliman all at once about the future and everything concerning the Emperor.

If—if it had been the future Robert Guilliman, the Primarch most like a human, Zhou Yun might truly have risked doing so.

But this child, he... he seemed like a machine.

Zhou Yun had just skimmed the surface of his mind and felt within it a bone-chilling indifference and coldness. He was not yet the Robert Guilliman of the future; a large part of his mind still belonged to the Thirteenth Primarch forged by the Emperor.

In a sense, he resembled the Emperor as he appeared in this thirtieth millennium: he loved all humanity, but not specific people—or perhaps he had simply not yet learned how to love.

As he was now, he might be a Primarch capable of making Macragge, Ultramar, and the galaxy better, but he would never be the one capable of making every individual better.

If Zhou Yun revealed everything, what choice would Guilliman make? How would he view Zhou Yun?

The moment Zhou Yun made even the slightest use of his gift of foresight, alarm bells rang wildly in his heart.

He had to remain calm and teach him little by little, influence him subtly, and warn him of future dangers without his noticing.

Of course, most importantly, he prayed that Lord Conor, a true great educator, would hurry up and straighten out this damned child.

"What do you think of Ultramar?" A calm, level voice sounded beside Zhou Yun's ear.

"The Five Hundred Worlds..." Zhou Yun blurted out, then his expression twisted.

Though no psychic power had been used, Guilliman seemed to have relied on pure questioning technique—the timing of his question, catching the instant Zhou Yun's thoughts were racing, the sudden query, and a carefully designed tone—to make Zhou Yun speak his true thoughts without thinking.

"...The Five Hundred Worlds." The child's voice rose slightly. He seemed immensely interested in Zhou Yun's words.

It was like a parent taking out the toy their child had been longing for...

"Your thoughts are the same as mine." Guilliman's voice carried a sincere fervor. "There must be Five Hundred Worlds. With Macragge as the core, five hundred worlds extending outward and linked as one whole, forming the heart of a new Ultramar... Since you know there must be five hundred worlds, you must have carefully studied the ancient star charts of the past Golden Age, yes? You understand the role each of those five hundred worlds will play? Then do you understand the role those Five Hundred Worlds will play in the galaxy?"

Hearing Guilliman's words, Zhou Yun immediately understood: at this point in time, Robert Guilliman had already conceived of the future Five Hundred Worlds. He had even decided which five hundred worlds they would be and the roles they would play.

And the role those Five Hundred Worlds would play in the galaxy...

"They will be a Lighthouse, an example." Zhou Yun spoke solemnly to Guilliman beyond the mirror. "Ultramar's Five Hundred Worlds will be a template, an example for all humanity. Everyone who looks upon Ultramar will know how they should live, how they should develop, and what heights they can reach."

"It will be a light in the dark age, hope in an age of suffering. People will gaze toward Ultramar and draw closer to it, both spiritually and materially. Ultramar will become a new human Imperium."

"Theoretically possible." Guilliman's voice rang out, carrying obvious approval.

Of course he approved. This ambitious rhetoric was Guilliman's own idea. Guided by it, he would later establish that disloyal and unrighteous Second Imperium, a thing all three Primarchs regarded as a dark chapter of their past.

Zhou Yun had merely used Telepathy School psychic power to forcibly dredge this passage out of his memories from his previous life and recite it to Guilliman.

"Then..." Zhou Yun hesitated. "Suppose, and I mean suppose, that humanity's regime became unified again in the future, but someone took advantage of a crisis in the human Imperium to establish a new separatist Imperium centered on Ultramar. How would you judge that?"

"Such an act would undoubtedly be a crime, a betrayal of humanity and Ultramar itself. It would be the act of a pure opportunist. Only the most ambitious person could commit such a shameless deed," Guilliman beyond the mirror declared decisively.

...What should I do? I really want to record this.