Outsider

Chapter 36: 34. Outsider

Emperor's Dream, laboratory.

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"My lord, the test subject's body has been fully treated. His vital signs are currently stable."

"The data shows that his body is ready to undergo the augmentation surgery."

"Prepare the operation."

The Emperor set down the golden quill in his hand and rose from the workbench. He wore a simple standard laboratory coat, its tailored fit faintly revealing the golden threads beneath it.

He rose and walked over to the nutrient tank, which stood more than twice a man's height. The blue nutrient fluid glimmered faintly as countless bubbles gurgled up from the bottom. Dense, thick conduits extended from above the tank and plunged directly into the figure floating within the liquid.

Hades had his eyes tightly shut. Naked and unconscious, he floated inside the nutrient tank. After treatment and nutritional replenishment, his already imposing height of 1.9 meters had increased further. He now looked to be two meters tall, a genuinely hulking man.

Countless scars crisscrossed his limbs, dense and uneven. Yet strangely, there were not many scars on his torso.

For such a massive man, the most eye-catching feature was still his head.

His hair had been shaved clean. The left half of his brain was unmistakably a metallic artificial brain. Through the transparent cranial casing, dense yet orderly cables could be seen laid within, their fluorescent lights flickering.

A huge scar ran vertically down the left side of Hades's face, beginning at the top of his head. The scar formed a brutal inverted triangle, stretching from the mechanical brain atop his skull to the tip of his chin.

Hades's left eye had also been replaced with a prosthetic. The red mechanical orb glowed crimson, though it was only the simplest model.

At first, the Adeptus Mechanicus researchers had suggested using biotechnology to allow Hades's left brain to regenerate on its own.

But the Emperor had vetoed that proposal. He had chosen instead to install a mechanical left half-brain that was partially independent of the biological body.

The researchers were somewhat puzzled by this, but they silently followed the Emperor's decision.

The nutrient fluid in the tank was about to be drained. Mechanical beeps sounded, and the liquid began to churn violently, as though it were boiling.

Through the glass of the nutrient tank, the Emperor looked at Hades within.

Hades's eyelids trembled slightly, but he did not wake.

The Emperor placed one finger against the glass and casually traced a few lines across it.

A faint golden light flashed across Hades's head.

+Caution is a good thing, but sometimes it is unnecessary.+

+I hope you can fulfill the fate I have chosen for you, outsider.+

[Outsider]

The world where the Emperor resided consisted of the physical universe and the Warp.

And what lay beyond this world?

A lawless torrent of chaos.

Even the Warp, which appeared utterly bizarre to ordinary people, had its own rules.

The gods acted according to the world's original rules, but there were always deities who sought to meddle with what lay beyond the world.

The Warp needed to expand.

The gods' game should not be confined to a single world.

Tzeentch, named for change, was the first to begin trying. It attempted to expand the boundaries of the Warp, or perhaps to break the rules of this world.

Then, it succeeded in punching a tiny hole in the Warp, breaking a corner of this world.

A chaotic, disorderly torrent surged in, annihilating every law it encountered.

Fortunately, the damage to this world was not severe. Tzeentch relied on its own power to repair the breach.

But the barrier surrounding this world had already grown thinner because of that attempt.

Perhaps it was the world's rules punishing the Lord of Tzeentch, or perhaps it was merely coincidence.

Beside this world, on the other side of countless chaotic currents, existed a world composed entirely of physical laws.

There was an extremely small chance that creatures from that physical world would be randomly swept by the currents into this one.

These fortunate—or unfortunate—little beings were like walking rifts in the world. They absorbed all the Warp laws around them and cast those laws into the chaotic currents.

Because they themselves came from a physical world, they did not reject the laws of the physical universe. Within the physical world, they existed in their most primordial form.

If these beings were left unchecked, the rifts in the Warp would grow larger and larger, until it collapsed into the disorderly torrent.

But this was not good news for humanity either.

The humans of this world were not purely creatures of the physical universe. They possessed projections of their souls within the Warp.

If the Warp were destroyed, humanity would cease to exist as well.

Thus, the Emperor and the Four Gods had an unspoken agreement.

If an outsider appeared, destroy it.

If they encountered an outsider, they only needed to destroy its physical body. Once a body supported solely by physical laws was destroyed, those beings would cease to exist.

But now, after the Emperor encountered Hades, the agreement had been rewritten.

A single outsider would not pose much of a threat to this world. Besides, those original Warp entities had long been stirring again.

Even if the Emperor did not act, they would break the agreement.

.

Greed was good.

The Emperor thought.

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Few outsiders could pass through the chaotic currents. Fewer still could fall onto a planet suitable for human habitation and survive.

And outsiders who could land on Barbarus, a planet controlled by Nurgle, and thus avoid being controlled by Tzeentch at the very start—

Were rarer still.

Even more valuable was the fact that this outsider possessed admirable qualities of his own.

The Emperor saw the Hades in Mortarion's memories. He saw Hades, who had been willing to sacrifice his life to help Mortarion kill the alien.

This deal would not be a loss.

The Emperor thought.

.

But it would still depend on Hades's own performance.

—Hades was merely one seemingly insignificant option among the Emperor's countless contingency plans. At this stage, he would not waste too much attention on it, nor could he afford to spend too much energy on it.

.

+Good luck.+

The Emperor reached out and pressed his entire palm against the glass. Golden light erupted at once!

The Emperor's long hair scattered in the shockwave.

Within the Warp, the exterior of the pitch-black rift was instantly wrapped in a layer of golden light. The golden light violently compressed the Null Field, while the already weakened Null Field began to struggle!

At the same time, Hades, floating in the nutrient fluid, began to struggle as well! His limbs twitched and trembled unconsciously.

The Null Field crashed about within its confinement, trying to escape the encirclement of golden light.

But how could something so tiny possibly contend with such immense golden light?

The Null Field soon fell still, allowing the golden light to compress it.

When the Null Field had been compressed to a size slightly smaller than a human figure, the golden light stopped advancing.

The golden light retreated slightly, then gradually faded and dissipated, finally becoming an imperceptible transparency.

"The operation can begin."

The golden light in the laboratory had seemed like a fleeting instant in a dream, vanishing in the blink of an eye. The Emperor still stood there, his calm expression giving no hint of what he was thinking.

This was a cage.

But whether that cage kept out the malice beyond it or imprisoned the monster within, no one could say.

Happy reading ('ω')

Later on, I may add a great deal of original material for the sake of the novel's logic, or alter some settings based on the original material. I'm truly sorry. To those who prefer the original, unaltered version, I'm really sorry. The author's writing ability and brain simply cannot produce that kind of work.

I also hope everyone can recommend some organized 30k reference materials or something. There's just too much. It's making my eyes spin.