"Hey," a gaunt miner muttered in the half-dark of the tunnel, his face lit only by the flicker of a work lamp. "You know what 'clang-clang-clang' means?"
His dirt-streaked companion frowned. "What 'clang-clang-clang'?"
The miner's lips, Swain's, curled into a sly grin. "This…"
He drove his power pickaxe into a freshly exposed vein of iron.
With a switch and a shudder, the tool came alive.CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! The blows rang out like a war drum in the confined space, metal screaming against metal, dust exploding into the air.
The noise rattled teeth, battered eardrums, and sent pebbles skittering along the tunnel floor.
The others didn't even flinch. They just gave their foreman, famous for terrible jokes, a look that said not again, then bent back to their endless work in the dim, airless dark.
The power pickaxe kept howling, its mechanical heartbeat echoing through the mine like it had no intention of stopping.
That's right, the reason Swain, who loved telling bad jokes, seemed so out of place among the miners was because he was a transmigrator, a soul from ancient Terra's 3rd Millennium era.
He only remembered having a nap and dreaming that a ROB was asking him, "Young hero, do I look like a human or a god?" He, with a mischievous streak, replied, "I think you'll do fine for my entertainment!" He then lifted his arm and bitch slapped Swain in another reality.
Then, he awoke.
Upon waking, he found that his world had turned upside down: he had mysteriously found himself inhabiting the body of a local native named Swain. When he understood that his new location was called Lycaeus, he once wept openly in front of everyone. But when he realized the timeline he was in, he immediately started beaming with joy, a reaction that made his companions question if the overseers' terrifying workload had finally driven him mad.
"Patience, patience is key" Swain murmured, looking at the miners, most of whom appeared lifeless and without vitality. "Your hard days will soon be over, and soon you will become the masters of Lycaeus, because he is coming soon!" He then began to concentrate on wrestling with the iron ore beneath his feet. Flying dust and iron ore fragments splattered everywhere in the dim mine tunnel, interspersed with fleeting sparks.
Lycaeus was a famous mining world in the Warhammer universe, the homeworld of Corax, the Primarch of the 19th Legion. The mineral-rich world was the moon to the industrial planet of Kiavahr. Its miners were primarily ordinary citizens, politicians, and thinkers who had resisted Kiavahr's tyrannical Tech-Guild.
Exiled for "resource utilization," their only fate was to toil until death. On this planet, there were only two classes: slaves and overseers. Miners had to complete the daily mining quotas set by Kiavahr to exchange for pitifully meager supplies and drinking water. The only fortunate thing was that on this cruel mining world, the miners of Lycaeus did not succumb to the pervasive evil and gang violence that plagued most planets in the galaxy.
Instead, most of them organized themselves, aided by the exiled elites, fostering a spirit of mutual support. It was through the efforts of these miners that Primarch Corax grew from an infant, raised by the community, into the qualified leader who would eventually lead them to overthrow Kiavahr's tyrannical Tech-Guild.
"Corax, an idealist in a dark and cruel universe, yet he ultimately became that inhuman, ghost-like figure," Swain mused, acknowledging the grim nature of the Warhammer universe. He laboriously used the power pickaxe in his hand to break the large piece of iron ore beneath his feet, then shifted his attention to a more promising piece of ore. As a transmigrator, Swain was unusually relaxed because he knew the future of this world. He knew that Corax would soon descend upon this world and ultimately lead the people of this planet in rebellion.
But too much knowledge could be a dangerous thing, for this was a universe where thought itself held power. The Warhammer universe is composed of the physical world and the Warp. Human bodies exist in the material universe, while their souls cast projections into the Warp—a flickering, flame-like essence whose size varied. Among humans, there is a special variant called Psykers. They have a very close connection with the Warp and can even use Warp energy. Powerful Alpha-level Psykers can destroy planets with a mere thought.
However, everything comes at a price. Becoming a Psyker, especially a powerful one, was not a good thing. Powerful Psykers have a very close connection with the Warp, and their Warp projections intensify, becoming irresistible beacons—like delicious cakes—to the ravenous Warp entities.
These malicious Warp entities would constantly whisper in the Psykers' ears, twisting their thoughts, enslaving them, and using Psykers as conduits to enter the material universe and harvest souls for their dark deities.
"Can't think about that anymore! Or I'll go insane! Literally!" Swain quickly reined in his thoughts. Even though the veil between the material universe and the Warp was still very strong, Swain still didn't directly call out the names of those four entities. But for the sake of his own life, Swain was still very cautious and remained vigilant, curbing any association with such entities.
Despite the arduous quotas imposed on Lycaeus's miners, Swain's cheerfulness stemmed from his knowledge that Corax, one of the Emperor's twenty immensely powerful gene-Primarchs, was notably benevolent towards commoners. If Swain had landed on the homeworlds of those few deranged Primarchs, he would have immediately cried as miserably as a someone who stepped on Lego bricks.
"Short-term goal: wait for Corax to arrive, then join the Raven Guard, traverse the galaxy, and perhaps even forge a friendship with the Primarch himself, heh heh…" Swain fantasized, battling the iron ore beneath his feet as he meticulously planned his future.
Primarch Corax grew up fostered by the community, and the exiled elites on Kiavahr also placed all their hopes on Corax, this extraordinary child. So Corax had many friends and teachers. As for being a teacher, he didn't dare to think about it; what could he, a former corporate slave, possibly teach?
As an amateur historian of the Warhammer world, Swain had a clear grasp of its early trajectory. Human civilization in the Warhammer world was originally very technologically advanced, even colonizing many planets in the galaxy.
However, due to many unknown reasons, possibly chaos or eldar interference, during the Golden Age of technological peak, the artificial intelligences (AIs) designed to serve humanity suddenly rebelled. After suffering immense losses, the Human Federation finally quelled the Iron Men Rebellion. Just as they began to recuperate, a galaxy-spanning Warp storm isolated all human colonies. Humanity's nightmare began.
Countless xenos races seized the opportunity, and hordes of Warp daemons manifested on countless planets. Under the combined threat of Chaos and xenos, humanity teetered on the brink of extinction.