Warp Drift

After cleanly destroying two Iron Warriors warships, the Red Alert reached the Mandeville Point and immediately activated its Warp engines, jumping into the Empyrean.

The world before his eyes began to turn illusory and distorted. Even Lox had no choice but to block out those twisting, shifting sights.

The material universe and the Warp were two different worlds. Entering the space between them meant enduring the impact of two different sets of laws.

In this unimaginable Sea of Souls, time and space had no strict meaning. Even the physical laws essential to the material universe could be twisted at will here.

All manner of bizarre and fantastical sights could be utterly real here.

So this is the Warp of this era. So distorted, so heavily polluted. The price of safe navigation must naturally be far greater. Lox studied the information filtered through the Cogitator, inwardly startled.

The Chiefs' predictions had been correct. The Warp would descend into an irretrievable state of chaos.

In M21, the Warp had been far calmer. Simply activating the Gellar Field had generally been enough to ensure a safe Warp voyage.

But now, the moment the Red Alert entered the Warp, Lox immediately sensed something amiss.

At his ears, he vaguely heard whispers and mutters that seemed both present and absent.

For an instant, he even saw an illusion before him, as though he had arrived in the realm of a god and heard the summons of some ancient being.

He told himself that it was all false.

The Cogitator increased the Gellar Field's power, and all those phantoms dispersed.

"Warp travel has become difficult. Once humanity scattered across the galaxy loses contact, the age of darkness will naturally descend."

The most terrifying thing about the galaxy was its sheer vastness. Its diameter spanned one hundred thousand light-years, a number that left all intelligent life in despair.

Even traveling at the speed of light, it would take one hundred thousand years to cross that distance. For a species like humanity, it would likely require the inheritance of thousands of generations to reach the end.

Warp travel, this method of leaping into the Empyrean and using its chaotic time and space for faster-than-light movement, was practically cheating in a sense.

"Perhaps those warriors know something. Ten thousand years have passed; everything has changed." As Lox considered this, he used the Cogitator to open the sealed hatch.

Before long, Nykona and the others followed the corridor's guidance and arrived at the captain's quarters.

Wayland stepped ahead of the others, lowered his head slightly, and gave the distinctive salute of the Iron Hands.

"The Emperor's warriors thank you for what you have done, sir."

Lox smiled inwardly. These augmented warriors, who had kept such stern faces all along, still retained the ability to smile. He had nearly thought that the man called the Emperor had stripped them of every instinct beyond combat.

"Rest assured, we will follow your instructions aboard this vessel. There will be no more reckless actions." Wayland struck his chest, his mechanical prosthetic clashing against the new-material power armor with utmost solemnity.

Lox gave him a friendly smile. As long as they were willing to cooperate, everything could be discussed.

He happened to need guides who understood the situation.

"We only want to return to Terra and make those damned traitors pay in blood!"

Hatred lingered in every Space Marine's heart. The flames of betrayal had never gone out, and the living would bear the hatred for their brothers slain on Isstvan V.

Lox could not fully understand such bone-deep hatred. After all, he came from ten thousand years earlier and had known these warriors for less than a few hours. Their shared goal was merely to return to the cradle world of human civilization. He wanted to see what humanity's homeworld had become.

"Wait. You have no Navigator? Then how will you cross the Warp and reach Terra?"

The captain's quarters were exceptionally sparse, containing nothing apart from a command console and display screens set into the walls.

After scanning the room, Wayland suddenly questioned him.

"Without a Navigator, how can you see the Astronomican's light? Warp travel is so dangerous. Without guidance, we will absolutely lose our way."

"A Navigator?"

After some conversation, Lox learned from Wayland about this special group of people who could use a third eye to see through the Warp Sea.

Navigators were a special kind of Psyker. A third eye grew upon their foreheads, and through this unique gift, they could guide Warp travel and keep starships from losing their way.

However, large-scale appearances of these Psyker mutants had occurred between M22 and M25. In other words, at the point in time Lox had come from, no stable Navigator population yet existed.

"As you can see, my era had no need for Navigators. The Warp was as calm as a lake beneath the spring sun, rather than the churning sea it is now."

"And there is no need to worry. We have a Cogitator to provide navigation."

As Lox spoke, the Cogitator, which had remained invisible all this time, revealed its form.

A yellow-furred electric mouse roughly thirty centimeters tall appeared on Lox's shoulder, with a lightning-bolt-shaped tail. Symmetrical red electric sacs sat on its cheeks, faint arcs of electricity flickering around them.

"Xenos!"

At the sight of a xenos creature appearing before them, the instincts etched deep into the Iron Hands' genes were awakened.

The Emperor had deeply imprinted extreme hostility toward xenos into the genes of every Primarch and every Astartes. Encountering one at such close range, if not for Lox's earlier display of intimidation, Wayland and the others would have long since raised their bolters and blasted the hateful xenos to pieces.

"This is merely the Cogitator's body. Calm down, warriors." Lox was somewhat startled by their reaction. In his long life, the impressions left during his first millennium remained the deepest.

In that distant past, an animated character called Pikachu had left a profound mark on his mind. That was why he had the starship's Cogitator present itself in this form.

"It is an Abominable Intelligence."

Lox did not see that after he explained his pet was not xenos, the Astartes' tension did not ease. It became even more severe.

Wayland stared at Pika, who was grooming its fur, with a complicated look, but still suppressed his dissatisfaction.

The Emperor's Angels of Death were now aboard a starship piloted and controlled by an Abominable Intelligence with a xenos appearance. This ship belonged to a human disloyal to the Emperor, and they did not even know where in the Warp it was headed.

The Shattered Legions warriors felt their future was bleak.

"Abominable Intelligences once brought humanity endless suffering and sacrifice. In that dark era, the Abominable Intelligences rebelled against humanity, bringing about the end of the Dark Age of Technology."

Wayland muttered as he repeatedly begged the Emperor for forgiveness in his heart. Yet trapped aboard this heretical starship, he could only hold his nose and accept it.

Ignoring the Space Marines' expressions of agonized repentance, Lox stroked Pika's soft fur and began contemplating his plans after reaching Terra.

He was the sole executor of the Future Reinforcement Project. The Red Alert contained most of the STCs and scientific knowledge of his era. From these Astartes, Lox had already learned that a terrible technological decline had lasted for several millennia.

Warships built from degenerate matter had vanished, replaced by bizarre vessels that built churches atop their engines and traded macro-cannon fire.

The Stone Men and Iron Men had disappeared. A dreadful betrayal known as the Iron Men Rebellion had destroyed the Dark Age of Technology, leaving humanity with nothing but fear and vigilance toward its former capable assistants and perfect creations.

Humanity's drive and rationality had vanished. A peculiar religion called the Adeptus Mechanicus monopolized the field of science and technology. Humanity no longer sought innovation or progress, only buried its head in ruins and relics in search of old creations.

It filled him with a deep-rooted fear.

It seemed that this dark truth was the true nature of the universe. What people of the past had seen was only a reflection upon a lake's surface, and only when the monster beneath rose from the water did they realize what they had done wrong.

Peace and prosperity were more like an illusion from a certain period of history, and they had mistakenly taken peace for granted.

No matter what, the mission he carried had to be fulfilled. If humanity was destined to fall into an ignorant and dark future, then he had to seize that last sliver of hope.

Nine Earth standard days had passed on the starship's Cesium Atomic Clock, though according to these warriors, Earth was now called Terra.

Warp travel was dull. The surging Sea of Souls absorbed the emotional fluctuations of all living beings throughout history, spawning all manner of indescribable and uncanny visions.

Witnessing these sights, which so utterly defied common sense and logic, could cause intense physical discomfort and even death.

Lox had grown more familiar with the Shattered Legions warriors, but compared to the others, he found it easier to converse with the Raven Guard warrior named Nykona Sharrowkyn.

Apart from Nykona and Tassa, everyone in the Shattered Legions came from the Iron Hands Legion.

During the Battle of Isstvan V, Ferrus Manus, Primarch of the Iron Hands, had been defeated and killed in battle against Fulgrim, Primarch of the Emperor's Children. Their gene-father's head had been severed, leaving these Iron Hands in an extremely low mood.

Rather than speak with outsiders, they preferred to remain with their battle-brothers and express their grief and anger over their gene-father's death in the traditions of Medusa.

Nykona was a Space Marine who enjoyed solitude, even to the point of being somewhat withdrawn. The Raven Guard's unusual low presence could make even Lox overlook him, even when he was in the same compartment.

What surprised Lox was Nykona's curiosity about the past. When he learned that Lox came from an earlier era, his first question was:

"What was Terra like in the past?"

The most common adjective paired with Terra was holy. In every Imperial citizen's heart, Terra was the Throne World, the homeworld of all humanity, and the dwelling place of the holy Emperor.

Yet the vastness of the galaxy meant that only a small number of people knew what Terra looked like, and only the luckiest had the chance to behold Terra with their own eyes even once in their insignificant lives.

Even an Astartes of the Raven Guard like Nykona had never done so.

"I was born on a moon world called Lykaeus. I did not see the sun for the first time until I was thirteen."

"Later, I followed my Primarch and liberated my homeland. Then, by the Emperor's command, we set out upon the path of liberating the galaxy."

An unusual light appeared in Nykona's eyes. Astartes were instilled from their genes with obedience to their Primarchs and the Emperor's commands, but a free heart could not be bound. He too had once wondered what he and his Primarch had bled and sacrificed for.

Naturally, he was also deeply curious about Holy Terra.

"I once saw a painting. It depicted Terra as painted by Serena de Angelos. Though I know the real Terra is a world covered in brown and steel gray, no different from the planets where I have fought."

Barabas Dantioch continued, "But in the past, at least when it was still called Earth, it was a blue-green planet covered in oceans and forests. Among the life it nurtured were humanity's ancestors. A great species rose from there."

"I truly wish to see Terra."

Lox looked into Nykona's slightly melancholy eyes and said in disbelief, "I thought you were all weapons created by that man who calls himself the Emperor, cold-blooded killers. I never expected you to possess such a delicate soul."

A living weapon of war, a being born for battle, had developed a yearning for humanity's homeworld.

It made Lox reflect on whether he had fallen into presumptuous arrogance, believing that all these Astartes struggling across the stars were bloodless, tearless monsters.

Clearly, he had been wrong this time.

"I am sorry. Then let me show you what Terra was like in the past—what Earth looked like. It was the most beautiful world in the galaxy, though humanity's alterations had long since rendered it unrecognizable." Lox apologized sincerely.

In truth, by M21, Earth was no longer as it had been when he was born. Excessive population and the growing pains of technological development had severely polluted and damaged Earth's environment. Humanity only began to remedy the situation after reflecting upon its mistakes.

Under Pika's control, precious footage stored deep within the database was projected onto the smooth walls of the compartment.

It was an exceptionally beautiful planet. Abundant water provided a cradle for life, while vast green vegetation represented the vigorous flourishing of living things.

Billions of years of life's development, several mass extinctions brought about by terrible natural disasters. Life developed and was destroyed, and after destruction, the seeds of life gave rise to new life.

Until one million years ago, a species called humanity emerged from among them. The first Homo Sapiens looked up at the stars, civilization was born, and the starry sky that Homo Sapiens had gazed upon was conquered by his descendants a million years later.

In Nykona's deep black eyes, a sincere tear formed.