Terra.
Holy Terra.
The birthplace of humanity, the heart of the Imperium—a shrine world glittering with billions of lights, a tomb clutching tightly to the souls buried within it.
It was more dazzling than diamonds, filthier than a cancerous tumor. Humanity's fears and glory converged here, while the Imperium's long history had etched pollution and majesty into Terra's surface, congealing them and staining it a rotten gray.
All natural beauty had long since been erased from this planet's surface, replaced by layer upon layer of uniform, writhing hive cities. Their expansion had buried the once-vast oceans and forests that had long ago been felled.
Everything lay beneath suffocating mountains of rockcrete and plasteel, tangled together, decaying, renewing, then rebuilding, until the proliferating structures stretched unbroken from the abyss to the highest peaks.
Exquisite onyx tiles and carpets woven from petals.
Magnificent soaring domes, with refracted light shining across tier after tier of steps in dazzling splendor.
A circular staircase formed from gleaming crystals, with all light focused upon it, sacred beyond compare.
Above it stood an enormous Golden Throne.
Upon the towering Golden Throne sat a giant whose body was mostly withered, even partially decayed. His flesh had deteriorated to the very limit, as though he might turn to dust at any moment.
The giant's seated posture was weak and despondent. The stench of rot and death emanating from him was unbearable. His skull was hollow, his gaze as profound as a black hole in the cosmos. He remained utterly motionless, as if he had been dead for a long time.
This giant had once been the founder of the Imperium of Man, the symbol of humanity's hope and glory.
Yet now, only decay and darkness remained in his body, just like the Imperium's current decline and downfall. The two