novelnext Chapter 806 - 806: 805
Chapter 806 - 806: 805
"This... this is impossible..."Magnus swept his gaze over the surrounding scene, his face filled with disbelief.
This region of Warp illusion was strange to an extreme degree.
Judging from the environment, it was a low-grade industrial world, one that had only recently emerged from the feudal age and did not even possess the capability for spaceflight.
Moreover, the architectural style of the buildings, the forms of the vehicles and machinery, had nothing to do with the current Imperium. Everything carried an archaic air.
Even with the King of Sorcerers' vast learning, he did not know of any civilized world like this in the galaxy.
"But why is the Imperial Aquila here?"
On the wall before Magnus was a huge Imperial Aquila. It clearly marked the area as territory controlled by the Imperium.
Beneath the wall stood several simple little statues, shaped like the Imperium's Ultramarines and Rhino transports. They looked quite crude.
It could even be called shoddy work, without the slightest artistic merit.
That was only natural. This world clearly did not possess the technical ability to manufacture power armor, so of course it could not sculpt the statues properly.
At that moment, humans came and went along the street, and not one of them gave the King of Sorcerers a second look, as though he did not exist at all.
"Why are these humans so pure? From which interstellar colony's gene-stock were they descended?!"
Magnus stared at the humans passing in front of him, growing even more astonished.
Their clothing was something he had never seen before. It did not belong to any Imperial aesthetic.
More importantly, the skin of these humans was smooth, whole, and pure, without the slightest trace of machinery or mutation.
There was not even any sign of Warp influence.
That was simply impossible.
Under normal circumstances, even humans on the Imperium's most prosperous worlds would suffer some degree of contamination, and cybernetic modification was widespread.
Even without those, under the influence of the Warp and genetic mutation, changes would appear on human bodies, or they would grow mutated tissues like abhumans.
Horns, ears, tails, or physiques unlike ordinary humans.
Yet the humans of this world looked frail, but they bore no such traces. Their minds were full, and smiles shone across their faces.
Even the beggars on the street were like that.
Not even Imperial nobles, or even primarchs, possessed bodies and mental states so pure.
"Could this world be completely shielded from the Warp's corruption, untouched by the gods' influence?"
Magnus thought of that possibility. If it was true, this world could be called the most perfect paradise world in the galaxy.
It hid an immensely alluring secret, one great enough to affect the mysteries of the entire galaxy and the Warp.
Especially the building before him, the one inlaid with the Imperial Aquila.
To the King of Sorcerers, who devoted himself to the exploration of all knowledge, this was a temptation almost impossible to resist.
At that moment, Magnus had already cast his previous battle plan to the back of his mind. He no longer thought about finding Horus and the other fallen primarchs.
All he wanted now was to explore this world's secret. And faintly, he could feel that secret was vast enough to concern everyone, the galaxy, the Warp, and everything within them.
Magnus crossed through the flow of people and entered the building through the main doors.
The moment he stepped into the grounds, he abruptly stopped, as though he had seen something threatening.
"It is only a statue. Why should I be afraid?"
He found his own jumpiness laughable. It was only a statue of the False Emperor.
The statue was so crude that it was almost the simplest image of the False Emperor he had ever seen.
But that made sense. With this world's level of technology, it truly could not make a more exquisite holy icon.
Yet the statue gave off a strange feeling, as if the False Emperor should naturally look this way.
It also radiated an indescribable deterrent force, one that made people instinctively afraid.
Magnus probed the statue of the False Emperor and found nothing wrong with it. Maintaining his distance, he passed around the statue and continued forward.
But in the next instant, his eyes widened. He suddenly retreated and constructed several Chaos barriers at once, as though he had encountered some great terror.
He stood where he was, not daring to move.
GW!
On the building before the King of Sorcerers was a special symbol. It was some kind of ancient script.
He did not know what it meant, yet fear inexplicably rose within him. It seemed to contain a threat capable of destroying everyone.
It could unleash an unstoppable apocalypse.
"How is this possible? It is only an emblem. It contains no machinery or sorcerous energy whatsoever..."
Magnus trembled all over, feeling incomparable terror.
His intuition told him that this bizarre symbol hid the universe's final mystery.
A mystery even the Changer of Ways could not understand and had no right to touch. A mystery sufficient to overturn everything. It was the ultimate knowledge he yearned for.
Yet that secret was right before his eyes, and Magnus was afraid. Even thinking further became unbearably difficult.
He feared he could not bear such cruel knowledge.
The King of Sorcerers, the proudest and most self-important of the fallen primarchs, was frightened into immobility by a special symbol embedded in a wall.
More than that, he was deeply shaken.
"Savior... Is this the secret you have always wanted to hide? What, exactly, have you grasped?!"
Magnus had begun to realize that this illusion region had been created by the Warp from the Savior's memories.
And even the Warp itself was rejecting it, not daring to continue corrupting this illusion, or perhaps this memory.
That also meant the Savior might have grasped the ultimate mystery of the galaxy and the Warp.
"Who are you?"
Magnus's voice trembled faintly as a possibility came to him: the Savior very likely came from this world. From here.
He had investigated the Savior before.
The identity of the Grant Family heir, planetary governor of Urth, was only the Savior's disguise. The true heir should have been dealt with long ago.
The Savior had used the heir's identity to inherit the Grant Family's authority and wealth, giving himself the opportunity to intervene in the Imperium.
The place where that man had first appeared was the Pleasure Palace and Urth. Every trace of him could only be traced back nearly three hundred years at most.
Further back, there was only blankness. Not even the Warp held any record. The Savior was like a riddle, a figure who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
That being had rapidly grown powerful, and not even the Changer of Ways could control his fate.
Perhaps it was precisely the ultimate mystery held by the Savior that made the god of schemes unable to manipulate his destiny. Otherwise, none of this could be explained.
Even the trajectory of the False Emperor's fate could be influenced and designed by the Changer of Ways. Under such circumstances, there was no reason the Savior should be immune.
Yet now, perhaps Magnus could glimpse the Savior's deepest secret and grasp that ultimate mystery.
No matter how dangerous it was, he had to obtain that unique knowledge, knowledge in all the universe that even the Changer of Ways did not possess.
"I cannot stop on the road to knowledge. No sacrifice is too great for its pursuit."
After thinking it through, Magnus drew a deep breath and took a step forward, trembling like a frightened bird.
The ultimate mystery was right before him. He absolutely could not give up here.
Magnus controlled his fear and walked into the building. Inside were offices, one after another.
In those rooms, some people were talking. Some were striking machines that resembled typewriters. Others were painting little objects that looked like miniature statues of Space Marines and Chaos Daemons.
These mortals, untouched by the Warp, all knew of Space Marines and daemons?
Magnus looked at these mortals. He no longer viewed them with the contempt he had once held toward Imperial humans, nor would he ever again regard them as insects.
He even felt that perhaps he was not nobler than these mortals. They even possessed some form of authority.
Creation, perhaps.
Magnus could not enter those rooms, nor could he understand what they were saying. He could only continue down the corridor until he reached a hall.
On the hall's door was a sign:
Black Library.
"This is a library?" Magnus could not quite make out the words above, but from the hall's decoration, he could tell what it was used for.
The hall was not large. It had only a few bookcases, and many beautifully printed tomes sat upon them.
Those books were not made of parchment. They used only ordinary paper, and there were no force fields protecting them. They did not look particularly precious.
But he knew that anything appearing in this illusion would not be simple. All of it contained precious knowledge difficult to find anywhere in the galaxy.
"An Imperial epic?"
Magnus saw a displayed book bearing Horus's image. It looked like a record concerning the great rebellion from ten thousand years ago.
Without hesitation, he walked in, intending to read these precious tomes and discover what was written within.
Yet before Magnus reached the bookcase, he stopped in front of an exhibit, his breathing turning heavy.
"A record about me? Someone copied my image."
Before him was a displayed illustration depicting himself, the Primarch of the Thousand Sons and King of Sorcerers.
Yet very soon, disbelief seized him, followed by deep terror.
Because it did not look like a copy.
It looked more like a design.
More importantly, it carried an aura pointing toward the truth, without the slightest hint of falsehood or lie.
Some being designed this image.
Designed me?
"Impossible. Absolutely impossible. This must be one of the Savior's tricks, a conspiracy meant to plunge me into confusion and doubt!"
Magnus's already-red skin grew even redder, and red mist seeped from his body. He refused to believe his own deduction, or the possible truth.
He looked at a book beneath the displayed illustration. Its cover bore his image as well, and it seemed to be some kind of archive or blueprint.
That book possessed a special magic, drawing all of his attention. It contained an irresistible aura of truth.
It was luring the one who arrived to open it and explore the secrets inside.
"Secrets. True secrets..."
Magnus stretched out his trembling hand. This was a book about him, one that recorded the deepest hidden truths.
He vaguely realized that as long as he opened this book, he would be able to glimpse a corner of that ultimate secret of the galaxy and the Warp.
In that instant, the King of Sorcerers sensed every secret opening itself to him. Even the entire region shook madly, and cracks appeared throughout space, one after another.
His thirst for knowledge drove him to explore the secret, while the Warp and everything around him were trying to stop him.
Begging him to stop.
As though the moment he opened this book, he would face supreme terror and a deadly threat.
Endless pressure cracked his skin, forcing him to endure terrible strain.
"No!"
The instant Magnus's hand touched the book, he jerked it back, as though he had touched a branding iron heated to ten thousand degrees.
He was afraid. He did not dare reveal it all. He did not dare know that ultimate mystery of the galaxy and the Warp.
Then his crimson body abruptly turned into dark red smoke and rushed out of the library hall, leaving even his precious disc behind.
Magnus fled.
He did not dare stay even one second longer, fearing that if he remained here, he would be unable to resist uncovering the secret.
The King of Sorcerers fled all the way out of the building and hid in a street-corner, trembling.
"How is this possible..."
"Are the gods not true gods at all, but clowns manipulated by others? Is this world real? Am I real?"
He lost his proud bearing and hid in the corner as he had during his withdrawn period, trying to gain some sense of safety.
Even without revealing the secret, merely experiencing all this had dealt a severe blow to his worldview.
Magnus suddenly realized a terrifying fact.
There might be an even higher dimension beyond this world, and there might be beings more terrifying than the gods.
They might be controlling and toying with the gods, just as he controlled lowly mortals, while the gods themselves knew nothing.
That hypothesis alone was enough to drive one insane.
Originally, the Chaos Gods were already undying, eternal beings within the Warp, existing through the river of time and manipulating everything in the galaxy and the Warp.
And yet they might merely be ignorant ants?
Worse still, there were even more terrifying hypotheses, ones he did not dare think about, much less touch.
They were like an untouchable, indescribable slide.
The King of Sorcerers possessed profound knowledge, imagination, and psychic power. These were originally his advantages.
But they also made him experience all this more deeply when he came into contact with it, allowing him to feel the trembling of the entire galaxy and the Warp.
The terrifying unknown, the indescribable, had sent him into shock. It had even driven him back into withdrawal.
Faintly, he felt as though countless eyes were peering at him, observing his terrified appearance at this very moment.
The thought made the slightly withdrawn King of Sorcerers feel even more uncomfortable, and he squeezed deeper into the corner.
That seemed to make him a little safer, while behind him was the flow of traffic along the street, with the faint sounds of horns rising one after another.
"Brother, what are you doing crouched here?"
Suddenly, someone reached out and patted Magnus, making him jerk in fright.
Zzzt.
Feeling threatened, Magnus turned and unleashed a fierce sorcerous attack, wanting to strike the one who had come.
Yet the moment he saw the newcomer's face, he instinctively shrank back into the corner, not daring to act rashly.
The Savior!
Magnus constructed several layers of defensive barriers, his nerves stretched to the limit.
The Savior, Emperor of the Imperium, had arrived in this illusion region at some unknown point. In Magnus's eyes now, the other man possessed the supreme mystery and was so enigmatic and terrifying.
Clearly, the Savior held knowledge of a higher order than his own, and possessed stronger psychic power. He was not someone Magnus could handle alone.
"This man really will look at anything. Well, that explains it..." Eden quickly realized what had happened when he saw Magnus in such a state.
Not long ago, after using the Lord of Hell's power to divide the battlefield, he had brought the other primarch brothers through teleportation to defeat the fallen primarchs one by one.
And the moment he arrived in this region created from his own memories, he saw Magnus hiding in the corner, trembling as though he had shut down completely.
This guy had probably glimpsed the secret of GW and taken a bit of a hit. But it should not have been too much. Otherwise, this place would have exploded long ago, just like the last time in the Well of Eternity.
No matter what, Eden needed to properly understand exactly what condition the other man was in, and what he had learned.
"Magnus, we should have a proper talk."
Eden smiled gently and took another step forward, pinning Magnus in the corner.
Behind him, Lion and Dorn followed on his left and right with fierce grins.
The three hulking primarchs formed a circle, trapping the King of Sorcerers in the corner, while Magnus huddled there as though he was about to be brutally bullied.
(End of Chapter)
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