The Monarch's new residence was a gilded cage of breathtaking proportions: the Spire of Unblinking Duty. Myriad priceless relics adorned the vast chambers, but he paid them no mind. His five Shadow-Knights stood sentinel at the spire's base, a more effective deterrent than any lock, while Shield-Captain Valerian and his cohort maintained a constant, vigilant perimeter.
For the first cycle, he did nothing but observe, feeling the rhythm of the Palace—the desperate prayers of pilgrims, the disciplined chants of warrior-nuns, and beneath it all, the unending, agonizing scream of the Emperor.
On the second cycle, he began his work. The Imperial libraries were useless, filled with dogma and redacted history. The truth was soaked into the very stone.
He left his spire, his knights falling into formation. Valerian and his Custodes immediately moved to intercept.
"Your movements are to be restricted, Monarch," Valerian stated.
"The Lord Commander ordered you to watch me," Jin-Woo corrected him. "He did not say I would make it easy. I am going for a walk. You are welcome to follow."
He walked forward, and the golden giants, after a moment of tense hesitation, parted before him. To physically restrain him would be to initiate a conflict they knew they could not win. They were relegated to the role of a very intimidating escort.
He led them to the 'Garden of Heroes,' a somber place filled with statues of fallen saints and Chapter Masters. He stopped before the statue of a beautiful, winged warrior. The plaque read: Sanguinius.
He reached out a hand, not to touch the statue, but to feel the air around it. He closed his eyes and focused his senses on the long-dead.
[Command: Unveil Memory]
The world dissolved. The garden vanished, replaced by a scene of apocalyptic fury. He was standing on the bridge of a battle-barge, the air thick with blood and ozone. Before him, the winged Primarch, Sanguinius, stood against a bloated, corrupted traitor. Jin-Woo felt the Angel's hope and his crushing certainty of doom. He witnessed the clash of their blades, saw the Angel fall, and heard his final, psychic death-cry, a wave of grief so profound it stained the soul of his legion for all eternity. Then, he saw another figure: the Emperor, not a corpse, but a god of war in his prime. He felt the star-system's worth of power and the heartbreak of a father witnessing the death of his most beloved son.
The vision shattered.
He was back in the garden. The air around him had dropped below freezing. Frost coated the grass.
The Custodes were in disarray. They were on one knee, hands gripping their heads. They had not seen the vision, but they had felt its psychic echo—a sudden, overwhelming wave of ten-thousand-year-old grief, betrayal, and pain. They were reliving the foundational trauma of their order.
Valerian pushed himself to his feet, his breathing ragged, his usual stoicism shattered by horrified awe. "What… what did you do?" he stammered.
The Monarch let his hand fall. "I was reading," he said calmly. "Your archives are full of myths. The very stones of this palace, however… they remember the truth."
He turned to leave. The gilded cage they had built for him had no walls. He was not their prisoner. He was their ghost. And he had ten thousand years of history to haunt.