After Heaven fell, mortal beings finally conceived the possibility of civilization.
The fate of the galaxy was decided long before everything began, in ages unimaginable to your younger races. A world-shattering catastrophe, forever impossible to replicate, had already determined everything for the next tens of millions of years.
Fear, greed, indifference, jealousy, anger, foolishness, weakness, submission, deceit, betrayal, cruelty, slaughter, extinction, revenge...
The most tyrannical monarch ignited nightmares and wars that swept across the galaxy. And once this war began, even the greatest sages could not determine its end or outcome. Only by devouring every weeping mother and child, only by burning every peaceful and harmonious town and field, could the endless avarice of those hateful twins, murder and slaughter, be slightly appeased.
And until all ambitious individuals had fallen or been satisfied, these twins would never truly cease.
And war would never truly cease.
First, the soldiers, those deluded by so-called honor and mission, trembled in trenches and wastelands, torn to shreds by merciless artillery fire.
Then came the populace, the cities, the entire worlds, an endless stream of souls wailing in the flames of war. The sin of the autocrat drove all pitiful lives, until it too fell into the net of guilt woven by folly and fear. The apparent victor indeed achieved victory, but at the cost of everything it possessed.
Its life, its responsibility, its kingdom, its people, its future.
It sacrificed, it paid, it offered all of this with its own hands, and all it received was an empty throne, an empty galaxy, the hollow, hate-filled, and bewildered eyes of its former followers, and the unquenchable rage in the breasts of the truly noble.
It feared, it felt guilty, it fled, and thus became the vilest butcher, the most despicable wretch, and the galaxy finally came into the hands of the truly noble.
Our era began.
True wisdom and grace henceforth became the masters of the galaxy. We ruled in splendor as if in a dream. In our thoughts lay technology and power beyond your imagination. Stars were mere playthings at our fingertips, and countless galaxies, in accordance with our moods, prospered or became desolate.
But even we could not overcome the greatest power.
Time.
Too long.
It was truly too long.
Do you know how long a period stretched from the moment that war, capable of bringing down Heaven, ended, until our illusory dream was torn into man-eating fragments? A period of corrosion, a period of degeneration.
In your younger races' method of counting time: that was sixty million years, a full sixty million years, during which we were the masters of everything we knew, witnessed, and were interested in.
Sixty million years. With your meager experience and past, you probably cannot imagine what a long journey that was.
Sixty million years, sixty thousand millennia.
For younger races like yourselves, from just learning to walk to glimpsing the infinite splendor of the Immaterium, countless so-called advancements, countless feuds among yourselves, countless ignorant wanderings to the brink of self-destruction and back—all of this was but thirty millennia.
After that, you spent twelve millennia from glimpsing the Immaterium to using it.
You used those crude Immaterium technologies to spread your footsteps to every corner of the galaxy, proclaiming your hegemony on those barren ruins, reveling in your self-proclaimed status as masters of the galaxy, then quickly falling, bleeding, and disintegrating...
All of the above, from your formal emergence from infancy to some of you shamefully retreating back: all this happened within ten millennia.
Finally, you trembled amidst the storms, embracing your ever-shrinking and regressing fragmented territories, allowing tyrants and religions to rise once more, making conflict the main theme of your race.
Until now, with a sudden reversal, under the leadership of that... visionary, you have once again raised your former banner, yearning to reclaim everything from the sea of stars, yearning to seize once more what never belonged to you.
This, too, has only occurred within a few millennia.
Do you hear?
Do you understand?
Using your so-called "Anno Domini (A.D.)" as a standard: around thirty thousand years B.C., your ancestors had just learned pottery and other crafts, gradually breaking away from the lowest beastly class, possessing something barely worthy of being called civilization.
Until now, in the thirtieth millennium A.D., you have experienced the peak and fall of your race, and are attempting one last struggle: do not be troubled by the glorious achievements before your eyes, pitiful juniors. Your leader is burning your fate, burning the fate that should have lingered on, making it release its last spark.
All your history, all your pride, all your glory, all your pain, all your joys and sorrows, loves and hatreds... absolutely everything.
It is but a fleeting moment that occurred within sixty thousand years.
It is merely the newest one-thousandth part of the long night from the end of that Heavenly war until now.
You are not special, you are not unique, you are not like our race, the truly chosen ones of the galaxy.
I have witnessed a thousand races like yours: from emergence, rise, exploration, and domination; to glory, degeneration, decay, and extinction.
You consider yourselves overlords of the galaxy?
The galaxy never lacks overlords, for ambitious and delusional individuals are like summer insects, never to be completely eradicated.
You are not special; the galaxy once had thousands of so-called overlords, whose alleged hegemonies were nothing more than a few tens of thousands of years of shabby child's play. The long river of time is enough to wash away all traces of them.
But even so, each of you has your own unique qualities: the rise of every overlord is the most brutal struggle, countless races and civilizations throw everything into interstellar wars, all for that illusory ten thousand years of kingship.
And every successful overlord shared similar core characteristics.
They all possessed talent.
They all possessed luck.
They all possessed... an Emperor.
------
Emperor.
That is your designation.
Of course, you may also call them Liege, Leader, Prophet, Priest, Chieftain, Sage, Genius, Mad King...
All designations and appearances are but false veneers, deliberately blurred and shifting deceptions, mere means to conceal their monstrous true nature.
The birth of an [Emperor] is not an accidental event; it is inevitable destiny, the result of supplication, the manifestation of ambition, and a harbinger of war and extinction.
You and I both know how chaotic and insane, how dangerous and terrifying the void realm called the Immaterium is. Yet, you and I must also admit that this chaotic, maddening, and awe-inspiring paradise of gods is also an inexhaustible treasure trove.
The void rejects nothing; the void mocks no delusion. As long as your supplication is grand enough, firm enough, long enough, the void will respond, fulfilling even your wildest ambitions.
And the [Emperor] is a product of this fairness and generosity.
When a race is lucky enough, strong enough, and ambitious enough, when they can wade through the traps of civilization, cross the passes of history, break free from the shackles of their homeworld, and begin their conquest and exploration among the endless stars, if at this time the fire of their ambition for dominance is strong enough, they will begin to fantasize, to hope, to pray, to yearn.
They will yearn for a great leader, a noble rider worthy of trust, loyalty, and death, one capable, willing, and likely to burn themselves for the hegemony of their race – the [Greatest One].
It can be a man, or a woman. It can be an individual, or an organization. It can be a sage, or a tyrant.
Anything is possible.
As long as it can be as majestic as a lion, capable of uniting and ruling a rising galactic empire, ensuring that internal strife and disputes do not hinder the race's ascent.
As long as it can be as cunning as a jackal, capable of confronting countless adversaries and mortal enemies, allowing its people to win the brutal wars in every galaxy.
As long as it can be as ruthless as a spider, undisturbed by anything in making correct and rational judgments, becoming the purest living beacon of hope and faith.
As long as it can achieve these things, it will become the [Emperor] that everyone expects, submits to, and demands.
Such an existence is, of course, a rare occurrence. The vast majority of races in this galaxy never received their own Emperor until the moment of their demise. Only those fated children, whose numbers were sufficiently vast, whose will was sufficiently firm,
and whose luck was sufficiently high, would have their subconscious fantasies and prayers successfully stir a ripple in the Immaterium, allowing countless faiths and the void's tacit consent to merge, eventually producing a unique divine infant, a great will that came to them.
Ultimately producing the [Emperor] of that race...
And once the Emperor appears, it will come among its people, it will step forward when most needed, becoming the absolute leader and soul. It will forge the grandest plans to conquer the stars, it will gather the most outstanding individuals to prepare for the future, and if it lacks enough followers, it will even rely on its own will to [create] a contingent.
Primarchs, or Custodian Guard, as you prefer.
But regardless, it will ultimately rise, conquer, and forge great deeds in the eyes of mortals, deeds that will never be defeated. Occasionally, it will also need to defeat Emperors from other races, competing for that sole trophy.
The galaxy itself.
And in the end, the Emperor will win, establish a magnificent legacy, become the sole master of countless universes and peoples, and have its name sung for ten thousand years in every corner.
But it will not be satisfied.
Never.
Every overlord race of the galaxy possesses deeply ingrained greed, and such greed will also manifest in the Emperor.
The greatest selfishness is selflessness.
It will crave more, pursue an immortal legacy, explore the endless sea of stars, and hope that its race becomes the special one that breaks the cycle of history, escaping the fate of decline and destruction, passing on hegemony and prosperity from generation to generation until the end of heat death.
Such a flame burns in the heart of every Emperor; it will never extinguish or diminish, forever urging these greatest figures to continue toiling, exhausting everything in the galaxy for the infinite love they hold for their race.
They firmly believe their race will be the special one, they firmly believe their attempts will end in success, they are convinced their companions are the most trustworthy friends...
They will not stop.
Even if they knew from the beginning that, deep within the Immaterium, there existed unconquerable gods of terrifying power.
Even if they gradually discover that countless forerunners existed before them, equally powerful, equally intelligent, equally resolute, yet leaving behind only similar skeletons.
Even if they witnessed with their own eyes: mountains of golden thrones, discarded like the most humble trash to form a priceless hill, a mockery from the gods, a declaration of fate, an end that no race, no Emperor, could escape.
But even so, they will not stop.
No Emperor will.
And their end.
Is thus evident.
Death by betrayal.
Death by conflict.
Death by despondency.
Death by corruption.
Death by decay.
Death by solitude.
...
The ways of death are myriad.
The meaning of death remains eternal.
When the last heir of an overlord breathes its last in endless despair and loneliness, perhaps the Emperor, to whom they once entrusted infinite trust and hope, is left with only a single sigh lingering in the eternal void.
Everything then reaches its end; ten thousand years of glory and suffering do not require a spectacular conclusion, a mere sigh is enough.
Until at last, only an ordinary abandoned throne will be added to that golden, barren mountain, serving as the final echo of a conquest, a hegemony, and a challenge.
No one can succeed.
Every challenge is but a struggle.
Ten millennia of rise, glory, and fall are merely a pastime for the gods to mock.
When an overlord falls, in just a few millennia, its achievements, once boasted as inheritable for ten thousand generations, will be completely washed away, leaving not a trace.
Until the galaxy is silent once more.
Until ambition swells again.
Until the next Emperor arrives before the piled golden thrones.
Beginning another cycle.
Without end.
------
Without end.
As Morgana watched the Warmaster sleeping peacefully in her arms, the Aeldari's final words echoed in her mind.
She thought, thinking with unusual calmness. The seemingly grand narrative and the seemingly desperate future did not disturb her thoughts or composure. The Spider Lady slowly stroked her pet; clearly, it had been well-fed by the mortal servants these past few months, even gaining some weight.
Emperor...
She whispered softly.
Morgana did not entirely believe the Aeldari's words, for not a single word from an alien was entirely trustworthy. Moreover, there were subtle omissions in its speech, though these might not have been lies, but rather its deeply ingrained, pathetic arrogance.
Morgana neither fully believed nor disbelbelieved. She merely pondered the implications with the most rational mindset, then recorded them in her memory as a possibility for the future.
However, one thing Morgana was certain the Aeldari had misspoken about.
Her creator, the Human Emperor, was not that kind of [Emperor].
She had even pointed it out to its face, and the Aeldari had generously admitted it: it conceded that even among Emperors, there could be unique individuals, and perhaps the one humanity possessed was truly one-of-a-kind among all [Emperors].
Of course, this changed nothing. He would still walk that path, attempting to snatch the future of his race from the hands of gods and destiny.
It would be the most pathetic struggle, devoid of hope or suspense.
At the very least, within the Aeldari's knowledge and imagination, it could conceive of no way, no possibility, for Morgana's creator to achieve victory.
But Morgana's concern was not that.
She was merely wondering: if most of this Aeldari's statements were credible, if Randan, this powerful alien civilization that had risen so rapidly in a short time, even capable of protracted struggle against the deeply entrenched human race, truly possessed an [Emperor].
If the [Emperor] of the Randan Empire truly existed, and was on the opposing side in this war.
Then its soul...
Would it be beneficial to her?
And would it allow her to glimpse certain rules and secrets within the Immaterium that could not be directly observed?
A different kind of yearning quietly took root and blossomed in Morgana's heart. For this utterly evil alien, the Spider Lady harbored not a shred of pity or apprehension. She was not even afraid if her hunt drew attention from others, nor if it might fail.
After all, she had a powerful blood brother, and his Legion, didn't she?
Thinking this, Morgana heard footsteps approaching her room. She recognized the approaching soul as Corswain.
The Lion's favored son knocked on the door, his tone as if addressing someone far nobler than himself.
"The Lord wishes to see you, Lady Morgana."
"What is it?"
"The Eighteenth Legion, and their Primarch, Lord Vulkan, have arrived."
"The Lord now... requires your composure and..."
"—eloquence."
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