The Book of Omniscience

Bona closed the book and gazed at the sunlight outside the window.

The Unification Wars were nearing their end. The Emperor had personally led his forces out to crush the last surviving power still resisting on Terra-the Ullsh Empire.

Ullsh had once been the most powerful faction on Terra, but as the Emperor crushed its allies one after another, it had been left isolated and without support.

Bona had been left far behind the front lines. He was no longer allowed to take even a single step outside the Himalazian Mountain Base.

But Bona did not mind. He knew very well that the force within him, called "Psyker Power," was far too destructive. Until he learned to control it, he himself did not dare stray too far from Grandpa Malcador.

But what worried Bona most was...

The Thunder Warriors.

By now, a considerable number of people in the Imperium, including the warriors themselves, knew what fate awaited them.

They would either die honorably on the battlefield, or the Emperor would personally dispose of them after the war.

But Bona did not want these noble warriors to vanish just like that. They had given so much to the Imperium, only to be forced to take their own lives because of their genetic defects.

It was not fair.

Every day, after finishing his lessons with Grandpa Malcador, he would rush into the library and frantically search through its materials, hoping to find even a sliver of hope in those ancient volumes.

But the more Bona searched, the more despair he felt. He was beginning to understand why Grandpa Malcador had not stopped him.

If the Thunder Warriors' genetic modification was a journey through a maze with no way back, then they had already reached its deepest dead end.

And before them stood a wall.

The train called the "Thunder Warriors" was hurtling toward that wall, destined to shatter on impact.

Perhaps humanity during the Dark Age of Technology would have had a solution, but human civilization had long since fallen into ruin.

Bona stood up and returned the book to its shelf.

Suddenly, he noticed a white-covered book beside it.

Hmm? This book... had it always been here?

Bona took it down.

The book was somewhat old, but still sturdy.

A white circle was drawn on its cover, with a simple six-pointed star inside.

At the center of the Hexagram was an Aquila.

This must be an Imperial book. Bona had seen the Emperor's "Thunder Eagle" emblem before, and he knew his father was fond of eagle designs like these.

Still, Bona thought the book would probably be of no use and intended to put it back.

Just then, a slightly yellowed sheet of paper slipped out of it.

Hmm?

Bona crouched down and picked up the sheet.

He gave it a casual glance, then froze.

There was very little text on it, since an illustration took up most of the space.

But Bona recognized what it described: genetic modification technology. After spending so long searching for it, he immediately began poring over the data scattered through the text. His instincts told him this might well be genuine.

Bona turned the sheet over, but the back was blank.

He checked the page number.

998

Bona glanced at the book bearing the six-pointed star and carried it back to his seat.

He set the book on the table and turned to page 999.

Sure enough, it contained detailed procedures for genetic modification, so detailed that Bona was astonished.

After all, the material he had found before had been fragmentary. Some of it had even resembled the incoherent chants of a witch doctor performing a ritual.

Then Bona noticed the annotation at the bottom.

"Ninety-Ninth Gene Science Research Institute"

He immediately understood. This was a precious legacy of humanity's Dark Age of Technology.

Delighted, Bona decided to take the book to Grandpa Malcador. Now the Thunder Warriors could be saved.

But for some reason, a sudden breeze sprang up. The pages fluttered rapidly, stopping at page 99.

What was written there made Bona freeze.

The Omniscient and Omnipotent God?

Bona's brow furrowed slightly.

What kind of supernatural nonsense was this? The Imperial Truth said nothing about such things existing.

How could such a being possibly exist?

Bona, who had trusted the book quite a lot just moments ago, suddenly found himself far less convinced.

Still, considering that it also contained genetic modification technology, Bona decided to take it with him and first find out whether those procedures were genuine.

The Warp-

"You damned brute! You brainless pig!"

For once, the Lord of Change was furious.

In the distance, Khorne gave a cold snort.

Fortunately, he knew Tzeentch liked playing these underhanded games and had come over specifically to take a look. He had almost let Tzeentch succeed.

There was only one way to describe the Warp of late.

A raging sea.

Khorne sent his followers out to smash, loot, burn, and kill. Slaanesh was no longer relentlessly chasing those bean sprouts, and even Nurgle had grown unusually stern, gathering his lively, rambunctious family together.

Of course, Tzeentch had not been idle either. He had woven more than a dozen additional threads into the Web of Fate, all leading toward Terra.

He tried to contact his surviving followers on Terra, but the Imperial Truth spread by the Emperor had largely purged the Chaos Cultists there.

Of course, people were free not to believe in the Imperial Truth. The price was merely a Bolter round through the head.

That damned fellow had left a portion of his power within Bona to guide Bona's Psyker Power, making it difficult to intrude into him.

Bona returned to his room. It was very simple.

A plain bed, a simple desk, and a chair.

That was all.

Bona, who usually went to bed early, switched on his desk lamp and opened the book.

He turned to page 99, only to find an introduction to agricultural production.

Had I remembered it wrong?

Bona scratched his head.

I read so much every day. It's only natural to misremember something.

Still, he had to admit that the book contained a wealth of information. Many of the weapons left over from the Dark Age of Technology that had appeared on the battlefield were documented within it.

It also recorded a considerable amount of other information. Its contents covered such a wide range of subjects that it could rightly be called an encyclopedia.

If the descriptions in the book were accurate, then the Thunder Warriors' problems would be easy to solve.

The Emperor's modifications of his gene-warriors were experimental. He was striving to find a balance in their combat capabilities.

The Thunder Warriors were indeed immensely powerful. Even the armor they wore had no power packs to assist it, relying entirely on their own strength to move.

Taking factors such as combat experience into account, it was no exaggeration to say that one Thunder Warrior could defeat several Astartes. Some of the stronger Thunder Warriors could even hold their own against the Adeptus Custodes.

But their genes were tangled together like a knotted mess, designed solely to unleash the greatest possible combat power, with no consideration for stability.

The Thunder Warriors often forgot all sorts of things. They might forget combat techniques, names, or objects. The premature breakdown of their brains' neural structures was likely the primary reason they lost control.

They clearly possessed superhuman bodies, yet their brains' neural structures were comparable to those of hundred-year-old men.