He was born on a hive world in a reality that was unkind to everyone who didn't like death, torture and constant warfare. He wasn't born with a name, but that didn't bother anyone. Almost no one was. Names were for places or people that mattered. People with privilege who lived in opulence, higher than he did.
Hive Worlds were the Imperium's engines—vast urban agglomerations that had long ago devoured their own planets. There was no soil left. No wilderness. No natural ground. Every square kilometre was metal, ferrocrete, or something older buried beneath centuries of construction.
This world had thousands of hives, clustered together like man-made mountain ranges. Each hive rose kilometres into the poisoned sky, its spires reserved for the ruling classes, while billions lived crushed together below.
He was born far beneath even the lowest official census zones.
In the Underhive.
The Underhive was a world entirely different, where the sky did not exist.
Children grew up never knowing what "outside" meant. Concepts like wind, weather, or sunlight were abstract ideas from Ecclesiarchy sermons and half-corrupted data-slates. The Ecclesiarchy was the church of the Grim Dark Future. Above them were countless layers of habitation blocks, factories, transit tunnels, and forgotten infrastructure. Below them were collapsed levels, sealed-off regions, and ancient sections of trash that no one remembered building.
Somewhere in those dead zones lay archeotech hoards—lost relics of past ages. But no one went looking unless they wanted to disappear, or you were a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, those who worshipped the machine.
The air was thick and poisonous, recycled endlessly through failing filtration systems. It carried the stink of chemical runoff, machine oil, human waste, decaying corpses, trash and too many bodies breathing the same oxygen for too many centuries. When the systems failed, and they often did, people suffocated.
Light came from lumen strips that never shut off. A constant, buzzing glow painted everything in sickly yellow and corpse-white. Neon signs flickered in the dark: gang symbols, black-market vendors, illegal augmetics, counterfeit purity seals. Above them all, massive hololithic propaganda screens broadcast endlessly:
THE EMPEROR PROTECTS
WORK IS PRAYER
SUFFERING IS VIRTUE
He learned early that none of it was meant for him and that none of them mattered even slightly. What was this so-called Emperor protecting? Him? Among all the billions of walking corpses that fought against a failing and decaying society? He wanted to believe it, wanted to believe that his life would get better, that maybe he could eat more than once per week. Or at least have a glimpse at those angels that protected them.
Hive Worlds could not feed themselves. He didn't know the numbers, but he lived through the consequences. Billions of mouths depended on food shipments arriving through Warp routes. When those shipments were delayed, even briefly, the hive began to starve. And when a Hive World starved, it went mad.
Riots erupted in hours. Lawless Gangs swelled into armies. Entire hab-blocks collapsed into cannibalism and lunatic violence. The claustrophobia, the hunger, the endless confinement turned people into animals, more so than they already were. Anarchy wasn't an idea; it was the only way to survive in such instances.
Sometimes, when it grew too bad, the Imperium's integrity was threatened, and the Adeptus Arbites, the police force of the Grim Future, arrived. But only if the riots threatened to reach higher levels of the hive. If the ruling class took notice of the 'filth' asking for something as outrageous as food, only then did it warrant the use of overwhelming force.
The Arbites didn't restore order, not in the ideal sense. Not in the sense that would make a 21st-century soyboi happy. No. They culled. They aimed their weapons and unleashed all their firepower on the flesh mountains, killing as many as possible, to get them to shut up, back off and return to their work. What was there to do? Restoring order was simply impossible when the city you lived in was as large as a country.
Entire districts were sealed, flooded with toxins, or burned out to bring population levels back to something "manageable." The nameless man had seen it happen more than once. He learned not to watch too closely, not to join the rebellions and simply focus on survival.
He learned to steal before he learned to kill. And he learned to kill very early. Pickpocketing first. Then stronger things: weapons, power cells, identity papers torn from cooling corpses before the corpse-grinders came.
Fighting followed naturally and necessarily. Those who didn't fight would be killed, and if you didn't kill, you were killed instead. If you wanted food, you stole and killed for it. Violence wasn't glorified; it was just normal.
He learned where to strike to end a fight quickly, how to fall without breaking bones, how to move through crowds without being noticed and how to never give up. Never, no matter what happened. Hesitation killed people faster than hunger.
Almost everyone in the Underhive knew how to use a gun. Ammunition was currency almost as valuable as food and sometimes more so. Forget gold and gems. You can't eat a gem. A full magazine could buy food, protection, or a night's safety. He learned to shoot in the dark, to reload blindly, and to aim at centre mass because warning shots were not a thing.
.
When the Imperial tithe came, no one dared to resist. Hive Worlds existed to supply the Imperium with labour, materials, and human shields. This is the tax system of the Grim Future. He was dragged from the Underhive with millions of others. Lines stretched for kilometres through loading bays carved into the hive's lower levels.
Their heads were shaved, their names were erased, and numbers were assigned. They were told they were no longer people but objects, given the privilege of fighting and dying for the Emperor's glory. Oh, how he hated this Emperor at that point. He hated him with his entire being, with every fibre of his body; he hated him. He wanted to get his hands around the bastard's neck and strangle him. Ask him why he wanted this?
He and millions of others were packed into troop ships and shipped off-world—willingly or not—to wars that had already outlived their purpose. To fight against the dying of the light.
.
Training was... suboptimal, to say the least. The Imperium assumed Hive Worlders already knew how to kill, or they didn't care. They also lacked the resources to turn them into highly skilled fighters. And they didn't have to anyway. It was far more resourceful to send trillions of humans out and have them slowly overwhelm the enemy.
He was thrown into wars that he didn't know the names of. He wondered if they even gave special names to the campaigns' nameless meatshields like him were on anymore. Planets that didn't fall victim to the endless storm of bodies were reduced to rubble. Trenches filled with mud, blood and not-buried dead. Monstrous Hive Cities where every corridor was a potential ambush, and every shadow hid something worse. He couldn't trust anyone, couldn't believe anything, but still had to follow orders to a T. He had to throw himself into death with praise for the Emperor on his lips.
The darkness was constant and gnawing at every part of his being. He felt the corrupting aspects from all sides. The traitor, the heretic, the alien... but also from the sides of 'loyalist' humans and their allies. The so-called 'God Emperor', who apparently watched over them all, became what he never wanted. He possessed a power that none other could claim.
He had 'uncommon sense'.
Common sense had long been lost. So he had uncommon sense. And this made him more dangerous than any other of the traitors, heretics or xenos forces. That was why he hid his thoughts and kept his opinions to himself. He knew that only true and undeniable power could ever hope to change anything.
Night battles under year-long artillery fire, where the Death Korps of Krieg showed how utterly broken they truly were. Chemical poisonous fogs that were human-made, that ate flesh and killed more Imperial forces than they did enemies. Vox-screamed orders layered over screams of the dying. He fought because stopping meant dying, hesitation meant dying and dying meant endless torturous suffering at the hands of whatever corrupting force there was on the other side.
He became more efficient, more deadly, and more skilled. He never asked questions. That was how the Imperium preferred its soldiers.
Chaos.
He came across this word or title and what it truly meant during one campaign against the traitorous forces of the Death Guard. The Death Guard were one of the Traitor Legions of Chaos Space Marines. They worshipped and devoted themselves exclusively to the Chaos God Nurgle, and as a result of his mutational "gifts", they had become Plague Marines; Heretic Astartes who were eternally rotting away within their power armour and infected with every known form of disease and decay but who were immune to all pain or minor injury.
Chaos, he thought, was the only constant. Chaos, warfare, death and suffering. Those things seemed to be eternal. He realised that chaos could help him rise to power if he agreed to it. But he wouldn't do that, not by becoming a mindless puppet of one such entity that turned its followers into such abominations as the Plague Marines, no.
What he wanted was to use chaos and the corrupt and disgusting system that had established itself and rise to power.
Sadly, or rather, lucky for him, he didn't get that chance. On the battlefield, he met one such Death Guard Astartes. The abomination ripped him apart like a piece of paper, roaring and enjoying the spray of blood and gore as he did so.
He fell into the mud, face and the other pieces down, the ground cold and hard, drenched with his blood. No one stopped, no one cared. The battle moved on around him. It always did.
...
...
Suddenly, the nameless human opened his eyes again and gasped for breath. Something had just awoken inside him. A power that he hadn't realised was there, which needed something to activate — the Essence of the Mirror.
---
Essence of the Mirror
By taking this essence, you gain the ability to create reflections of anything. You gain the ability to duplicate any object you see, even if it's just an image. You can create an infinite number of absolutely loyal clones of yourself and others, and dismiss them at will. You can copy powers and abilities, as long as you see them being used. You may reflect or bounce any incoming attack in another direction. You may travel through any reflective surface.
---
This was his chance. He hated being here. And now, with these abilities, instead of remaining here, he would leave. Leave this reality and travel to another, far, far away from all of it.
His body had been healed after gaining the power of the Mirrors. Not even the residue of the chaos rot remained. He got up and looked around. The battlefield had turned cold, and he was surrounded by endless corpses and blubbering monstrosities of Nurglish brew. He was disgusted and almost panicked as realisation slowly settled in.
He was in a dangerous reality. Such a disgusting and brutal place, where not even death offered freedom or salvation.
His breathing accelerated, as did his heartbeat. He understood that he was panicking, but couldn't really stop himself. Thankfully, his new power, the power of Mirrors, helped him. He activated it unconsciously, as he felt the danger.
His thoughts, his emotions and what he projected through his soul could all be felt in the Warp. It wasn't called the Sea of Souls for nothing. As he was getting unwelcome attention, he used his power of mirrors to reflect everything. His thoughts were no longer projected outwards. Neither were his emotions and feelings.
And the danger from outside was reflected as well.
"Haaaaaahh... haaaahhhh...."
He took several deep breaths, forcefully calming himself and relying on his years of training. This was not the time to panic. Not the time to lose himself. He now had power; he had opportunities. He had to use them and get the fuck away from there.
So, with that single goal in mind, he started walking and made his way through the cold, muddy ground until he reached a large blood lake that hadn't been absorbed by the ground yet. The Plague Marines spread disease through their mere presence, and since it was a Chaos-spawned disease, it affected literally everything, even the very planet and technology... everything.
With a thought, he used the Essence of Mirrors and dived into the reflective, bloody surface, disappearing. He travelled through the blood's reflective surface. He travelled through the Mirror Dimension, a realm that seemed to lie between all conceivable realities and, therefore, connect them all in some hidden way, only he could use.
Paths separate from everything and connected to everything, everywhere, all at once.
As he shot through the mirror dimension, he got a glimpse of worlds so foreign to him. His actions were instinctive as he thought about the place he wanted to go.
Another galaxy, another reality. One that was very far away from this one. One that didn't have abominations like those of Chaos, nor those of the dead Necrons or Eldar with their unimaginable technology.
.
.
He barely registered the shift before being yanked through, plunging instantly into freezing water.
The dead weight of his ruined armour dragged him under, and years of drilled battlefield instinct immediately took over. He kicked out, his boot slamming into thick mud, and propelled himself upward. Breaking the surface, he gasped for air, half-swimming and half-stumbling until he finally dragged himself onto the muddy bank.
He stayed on his hands and knees, with his chest heaving, desperate for air. That's when the smell hit him.
It felt... wrong. Not bad, just entirely alien.
There was no chemical sting of burning promethium, no metallic tang of industrial dust, no rotting waste, no excrement of dying soldiers... nothing. Instead, the breeze carried the scent of wet earth, grass, and something faintly sweet.
Drawing breath didn't feel like a painful punishment anymore. The air lacked the heavy, suffocating weight of smoke and toxins he was so used to. In fact, it was too pure and made him dizzy.
The oxygen was far too concentrated here. His vision started to swim, and he fell to the ground again, falling unconscious.
...
After an unknown amount of time, he awoke groggily. Slowly, he lifted his head, and he stared. Those were trees. Actual, living trees stood before him.
He'd seen them in faded Ecclesiarchal propaganda and old picts of ancient Terra, when it had not yet been choked by industry and the wars that dried up the oceans. But seeing them in person was something else entirely.
The nearest one towered over him, its trunk rough and gnarled. Overhead, thousands of green leaves rustled softly in the wind. The sound made him twist his head in confusion. He'd spent his life listening to the hum of generators, the rattle of gunfire, and voices shouting orders or in pain and madness.
This gentle rustling was totally foreign and scared him more than the battlefield.
He pressed a palm flat against the ground, fascinated as his fingers sank into rich, dark soil. For his entire life, the ground had been ferrocrete, grating, or bloody, chaos-infested mud filled with artillery fire. This was just... earth. Grass sprouted wherever it pleased, independent of hydroponic trays or artificial lumens. Tiny insects darted between the blades. When he pulled his hand away, real dirt clung beneath his fingernails.
Sitting back on his heels, he looked up and immediately felt a spike of vertigo.
The sky was massive.
There were no gantries, no smog-choked ceilings, no towering hive spires swallowing the horizon. No Eye of Terror. It was just an endless stretch of blinding blue dotted with white clouds, lit by a sun so bright it made his eyes water. He knew worlds like this existed, with oceans and open skies, but they were fairy tales for basically all humans.
Now, he was standing in one. With that realisation came tears. Real tears. Tears he hadn't realised were flowing before it was too late. He had forgotten the concept of crying or appreciating something other than a functioning ammunition pack or lasgun.
His shoulders finally dropped, only for deeply ingrained training to instantly snap them taut. Quiet didn't mean safe.
He scrambled to his feet, quickly assessing himself. After all, he had just jumped through what felt like an ocean of endless possibilities and arrived on a new world.
He was intact. His battered armour was still shredded from where the Plague Marine had struck him, and jagged slabs of that ruined armour hung awkwardly from his chest. Dried blood was on his gear, though who knew how much of it was his. Out of pure muscle memory, he ran a rapid inventory check: weapons, ammo, water, anything salvageable.
There was nothing. But maybe that wasn't so bad.
Only then did he glance back at the pond from where he had appeared. The water had settled again and reflected the clouds above. The door was still open. He could probably go back.
...
"Fuck that. I've seen enough of this place to know I'm not going back there."
Now, it was time to familiarise himself with his new world and find out where he had arrived precisely.