Separation and the Trials of the Gods

Everything before Lox's eyes was completely different from what he had imagined.

Just a second ago, they had followed the Emperor and activated the teleportation ritual, arriving inside the Vengeful Spirit.

Everyone had been prepared to heroically sacrifice themselves for the Emperor and fight to the death without respite.

Yet what awaited them was neither Horus's strongest and most wicked claw, nor the bizarre den of all demons within the Warp, but somewhere Lox knew very well.

Pan-Solar System Alliance University, the finest institution of higher learning in humanity's twenty-first millennium, was where countless great figures from every field had begun their lives.

Politicians, philosophers, scientists, and military strategists were too numerous to count.

Here, they absorbed humanity's most refined knowledge and wisdom, building their abilities before dedicating themselves to every field of the Human Alliance.

And now, Lox was walking along the streets of this massive supercity.

"This is..."

Bustling crowds operated all manner of strange technological creations, some of which looked like experimental products crudely assembled by hand in private laboratories.

Yet the humans here found none of it unusual. Everyone simply went about their own business.

It was a city that appeared extraordinarily young, not because most of those gathered here were exceptional students pursuing advanced studies at Pan-Solar System Alliance University, but because life-extension technology had become widespread, vastly increasing humanity's average lifespan.

The increasingly rampant use of genetic modification had pushed that theoretical lifespan to an unimaginable extent. Humanity could theoretically reach the far shore of immortality.

Tall, magnificent transparent buildings stretched as far as the eye could see, their spires even disappearing into the clouds and reaching Terra's low orbit.

Because of the technological explosion that followed humanity's entry into the interstellar age, materials science had undergone revolutionary development.

Every architectural style in human