IMPERIUM OF MAN
HOLY TERRA
SANCTUM IMPERIALIS
The Throne was empty.
Vast and silent, the Sanctum loomed like the tomb of a fallen god. Marble pillars rose like petrified titans into the gloom, etched with a thousand forgotten litanies. Veiled by incense and shadow, the golden throne sat still—its ancient life-support mechanisms cold and dormant. The Emperor's broken form was gone.
And yet, the Custodians did not move.
Sentinels of flesh and oath, they stood eternal, unmoved by absence or miracle. Their auramite armor caught the half-light like sunken relics of myth. Though the Throne was void of its occupant, they stood as if He still reigned within it.
Then, space groaned.
A rift tore through the air without warning, a gash in reality that bled golden fire and abyssal mist. The chamber trembled as if Terra itself remembered its place beneath Him.
From the rift stepped a titan wreathed in luminous gold. The Emperor—returned not in fanfare, but in silence. He bore no retinue, no clarion call, no triumph. Just the faint hum of infinite power, cloaked in the hush of consequence.
For hours He had walked the Palace of His design, invisible to all. He had traced the bones of forgotten vaults, descended into labyrinthine laboratories lost beneath the Throneworld's bedrock. In shadow, He passed through the Hive—among the blind, starving millions—watching them prostrate to idols carved in His image, hearing His name muttered between prayers and executions alike.
He had not looked through visions or augury this time. No. He had seen it all with open eyes.
And what He saw was rot.
This empire—His dream—had calcified into a grotesque monument of ignorance and zeal. But such decay, He knew, had been necessary. A sacrifice. One of countless made in the name of mankind.
During the Great Crusade, His light had burned too brightly, too fast. The Imperium had ballooned across the stars, but governance was flawed. He had sought to shape destiny through logic and dominion. A galaxy freed from superstition, ruled by truth, shielded from the warp-born horror. But even He—He who crushed gods and molded reality—could not be everywhere at once.
And in those gaps, Chaos festered.
So He vanished.
Deliberately.
The illusion of His death was the first step. With His seeming demise, the machine of conquest slowed. The High Lords turned inward, the endless crusade tempered by caution. Mankind was forced to adapt, consolidate, survive. They would suffer, yes, but survival would breed strength.
It was also... an experiment.
He had lived for tens of thousands of years. He had watched empires rise, splinter, and turn to dust. He had intervened only when humanity teetered too close to extinction. The Age of Strife demanded His visible hand—but even then, it was a gamble.
What could humanity become without Him?
The answer had come—loud, bloody, and clear.
Without Him, they built temples to a corpse. Slaughtered billions in His name. The Ecclesiarchy now ruled where scholars once walked. The fires of faith replaced the light of understanding.
Still, He had allowed it.
Because the truth was damning.
Humanity needed Him as myth. They required hope more than logic. Meaning more than knowledge. The Imperial Truth had failed not because it was wrong, but because it was insufficient.
Mankind did not crave enlightenment—they craved purpose.
And in His absence, they gave themselves to illusion.
A god.
He had never been one.
But after millennia of belief, even He began to change.
He felt it constantly—whispers in the Warp, trillions of voices pressing against His mind. Their suffering, their longing, their blind, furious devotion. He felt their pain as if it were His own. Not because He chose to, but because they willed it so.
And yet, He did not break.
His will held fast.
He had battled the Ruinous Powers for eons—unyielding, unconsumed. But He had become... something else. No longer man. Not quite god. A being unto Himself. A paradox forged in sacrifice.
Perhaps it was the destiny the ancient shamans had intended. Or perhaps He had simply paid too high a price.
And now, mankind screamed His name as they burned their own worlds.
He stepped toward the Throne.
The vast hall seemed to shudder beneath His footfalls. With a wearied breath, He seated Himself upon the golden seat of eternity. The armor creaked. The chamber fell utterly still.
He leaned back and exhaled.
A moment of fragile stillness passed.
Why hadn't He stopped it? The faith? The worship? The bloodshed?
Even He did not know.
Or perhaps He did—but refused to accept the answer.
He could have crushed the Ecclesiarchy before it took root. Could have eradicated every priest and prophet. But to do so would have broken mankind's last thread of meaning. Hope, however delusional, was the only thing keeping them alive in the abyss.
His corpse, entombed on the Throne, had become the light in the dark. A beacon of survival. To extinguish that would be to extinguish humanity's will to exist.
And so He allowed it.
Even knowing it twisted Him into something He no longer recognized.
Voices still screamed in His mind—prayers, rage, agony—unceasing.
But they did not weaken Him.
They sharpened Him.
He had stood against the Chaos Gods longer than any being. And in that defiance, He had become a force akin to them. Perhaps that was the price of victory. Perhaps that was His punishment.
Perhaps it was all by design.
And then—He opened His eyes.
Twin golden pupils, burning like twin suns, pierced the emptiness ahead.
There was nothing.
But He knew.
His lips curled in disdain. His voice thundered through the sanctum like a solar storm.
"What is the meaning of your presence here? Begone!"
But the Custodians did not move. They heard nothing. Their gaze remained locked on eternity.
Then—soft as smoke, a voice answered.
Feminine. Ancient. Mocking.
"Now, now… is that how you greet a lady? And the mother of our precious boy, no less?"
The Emperor did not blink.
And yet, in the throne room's psychic veil, She appeared.
A dark-skinned woman, cloaked in flowing robes of earth and dusk. Around her neck hung a necklace of fangs—beasts long extinct. Her presence rippled like heat above a flame—real, yet unreal.
UNKNOWN LOCATION
UNKNOWN TIME
The sun was dying.
It bled orange across the horizon, staining the sky with hues of fire and sorrow. The desert stretched endlessly, cold despite the final light, the wind dry as ancient bone.
Within a hidden copse, trees whispered in the chill. An oasis lay still beneath the deepening dark. Its waters shimmered like polished obsidian, silent and sacred.
By its edge sat a golden giant.
His armor was dulled with sand, ornate yet worn. His helm rested beside him. He stared into the water—not at his reflection, but deep in thought
Behind him, a fire crackled.
Upon it, a massive lizard-creature slowly turned, skin charred, juices hissing. The scent of flesh and smoke drifted into the night.
Near the flames, a woman lay asleep.
Her skin glowed bronze in the firelight, soft breath rising with serene rhythm. She was at peace—fragile in the presence of something so vast.
Then—her eyes opened.
Slowly. Carefully.
And they found the giant by the water, unmoving, watching the darkness within the oasis.