Turing walks among the Imperial Palace.
Imperial Palace Black Cells Adeptus Custodes led him through marble arches one after another.
Terra's Imperial Palace has not changed much from the last time he saw it a hundred years ago.
The corridor is still so tall that it makes Mortals feel small, and the dome is still carved with complicated reliefs, depicting the victory of Great Crusade and the majesty of Emperor.
The difference is the people in the hallway.
Every passage he passed was guarded more densely by forbidden Sergeant soldiers, and at intervals a Autogun tower poked out from a hidden compartment in the wall.
The smell of metal and engine oil floated in the air, stronger than in memory.
Turing walked among those golden figures, his large gray-brown robe covering his semi-mechanical body. The hem of the robe scraped against the ground, making a thin sound.
Imperial Palace Black Cells Adeptus Custodes took him through the last door and walked into Throne Room.
That door was taller than most of the doors in the Imperial Palace. The door leaf was forged from heavy metal, with no decoration on the surface and only traces of time.
The door slowly closed behind him, making a low sound, as if a whole world was isolated from the outside.
Throne Room is empty and tall.
The dome was hidden in the darkness in the distance, and a ray of light leaked from some gaps and fell on the low steps in the center of the Hall.
The stone on the ground has been polished for hundreds of years, reflecting the scattered light spots, like a dark water surface.
There are no unnecessary furnishings, no flags, and no statues in the hall.
The entire Hall exists only for one person.
Turing walks on the ground of Throne Room.
The footsteps echoed in the empty space, each sound as clear as the beating of a drum.
His memory is extending in another direction, going back a hundred years ago, back to the Imperial Palace's Garden of Nurgle.
That was one day a hundred years ago.
Turing can no longer remember the cause of that incident, but every detail of that memory is still clear.
At that time, his Legion was still there, and his body had not yet become what it is now.
At that time, Dark Age of Technology's Men of Iron controlled him.
Turing realized that he was doing something that was not his intention, and his subordinates took actions that threatened Imperial Palace's safety, but he could not explain it.
Those creatures from Dark Age of Technology disguised themselves as loyal servants, parasitized in the bodies of him and his Legion warriors in the form of data links, and used his power to create a crisis.
It was Lorgar who saved me.
Turing remembers that scene, Lorgar released a searing and irresistible energy from the other side of Garden of Nurgle.
The moment Psychic Flame touched Turing, it did not harm his flesh and blood. Instead, it burned all the way along the data interfaces hidden in the gaps between blood vessels and nerves, burning out every secret connection left by Dark Age of Technology.
That feeling has two different endpoints, one is the pain of old things being burned, and the other is the cleanliness deep in the body, like the smooth feeling after a river is dredged.
But the price is huge.
While those Psychic Flame burned the external instructions, they also burned a large amount of native tissue in Turing's body.
Half of the face was completely turned into a machine, the limbs were completely replaced by machines, and some of the internal organs under the skin were also implanted with technology from Imperial Palace Black Cells under the supervision of Emperor, turning it into a half-machine, half-flesh existence.
Since then, Turing has survived in this semi-mechanical body.
Imperial Palace Black Cells's technology provided him with new limbs and organs, but these creations also created a permanent gap between the boundaries of his original body.
Turing didn't stop.
He walked forward along the road in Throne Room that led directly to the high platform.
There was no one on both sides of the road, and only his own footsteps bounced over and over again in the empty space.
He saw the Golden Throne on the high platform at the end of the Throne Room, reflecting a low luster in the dark light.
Emperor's statue-like sitting posture did not change. A ray of light slipped from the edge of his armor. Master of Mankind's figure seemed indifferent, and everything was under his gaze.
Walking into Throne Room, I saw Emperor sitting high on Golden Throne.
Turing took a deep breath.
The Emperor he saw was the same as what he remembered, but different at the same time.
The person sitting on that Throne still exudes Golden Light, but that light is no longer as bright as it was during the Great Crusade period.
Emperor's body was bound to Throne. Pipes stretched out from both sides of Golden Throne and connected to the interface of his armor. There was a faint light flowing on the surface of those pipes, as if they were transporting some kind of energy from Throne to Emperor's body, and drawing another kind of energy away from Emperor's body.
His arm rested on the Throne armrest, his fingers were slightly closed, maintaining a posture that had not changed for a long time.
"Turing." Emperor said.
His voice was as low and steady as ever, penetrating through the empty Hall and falling in front of Turing.
Turing Take the steps step by step.
There are not many steps, from the Hall ground to the high platform where Throne is, there are less than a thousand steps in total.
But with every step he took, the feeling of oppression became more intense. When Turing reached the middle of the steps, he slowed down slightly. His eyes fell on the Golden Throne, on the connection between the sitting posture and the armor, and on the high platform made of pipelines and metal.
He didn't stop.
He continued walking, stepped onto the last step, and stood at a close enough distance.
He paused for a moment, and then spoke, with the characteristic hoarse quality of a semi-mechanical throat. "Father."
Turing looked at Emperor in front of him, and then at Golden Throne where Emperor was sitting.
His eyes moved back and forth between Throne and Emperor.
The chair was larger and more oppressive than he remembered.
Throne's armrests and backrests are engraved with dense patterns. Those patterns form some kind of complex structure, and Emperor's body is being firmly held by that whole set of structures.
He was wearing armor that symbolized power, but what Turing saw was not Emperor wearing Throne, but Throne catching Emperor with a pipe like Tentacles.
The half metal face of Turing glanced at Golden Throne. For a moment, he was shocked and speechless by this terrifying creation.
He has experienced too many things in his long years, and has even learned to deal with the laws of Dark Age of Technology, but he has never seen such a large and complex structure, so deeply integrated with a living being.
There are no metal gaps at the interfaces of those pipelines, as if they were growing out of Emperor's body.
"Such a terrifying instrument of torture actually exists in the universe..." Turing sighed.
After seeing what Emperor went through, he could no longer use any other words to describe Golden Throne.
"It's not important." Emperor responded.
His tone didn't fluctuate, didn't get aggravated, and didn't show the slightest reaction to the word "torture instrument."
From his perspective, it doesn't matter what form the Throne is, what matters is the intention of the person sitting on it and what is happening.
Turing looked at Emperor and said, "Tell me what happened, father."
There was a hint of urgency in Turing's voice, and he called Emperor his father.
His body leaned forward slightly, and the boundary between machinery and flesh formed a clear fold under the light.
"Horus led several of his brothers to stand on the opposite side of Imperium, and a rebellion swept Galaxy." Emperor spoke.
As Emperor's voice fell, a surprised expression appeared on Turing's face. That expression was more clearly visible on Turing's semi-mechanical face than Mortals's, because where the metal part meets the flesh and blood part, you can even see the slight displacement of the mechanical joints when the skin is tightened.
He looked at Emperor in front of him.
What he needs to know is the location of the other person.
"Where is Lorgar? Where is Lorgar on?" Turing asked the last question.
That was something that had been hanging in his heart since he fell asleep a hundred years ago.
In the past, he could only recall the face of Lorgar burning Psychic Flame in Garden of Nurgle, recalling the memory of being saved by the flames, but now he asked Emperor for the answer.
After hearing Turing's question, a smile appeared on Emperor's originally stiff face.
That smile was weak, but real.
It doesn't just belong to a Imperium's Emperor, it only belongs to a father who knows that his child is still on his side.
Emperor doesn't smile often, so this smile is particularly clear in Turing's eyes.
"Lorgar, stand with us." Emperor said.
As Emperor's voice fell, Turing's eyes became firm.
The uncertainty he had carried along the way before faded away in front of these words.
He looked at Emperor in front of him, straightened his body and stood still.
He said, "Tell me what I should do, father..."