"No one should have to go hungry. Everyone has the right to be full."
Alexander's voice echoed within the shadows, accompanied by the surging faith directed toward him. Within the "Holiday Agricultural Set," rice stalks shimmered under mini-suns, and the sound of whips cracked like thunder.
Custodes clad in golden power armor—resembling giant ears of corn—bent over to catch locusts in the fields. Food, clean water, and protein-rich locusts flowed from the agricultural set into the hands of every starving hive worker. The Indomitus Crusade fleet set sail, carrying these sets to one hungry planet after another.
Countless people received ample food from the Church of Saint Doraemon, and their faith in Alexander sprouted and grew. The reason was simple and unadorned: Alexander could keep them full. Gratitude coalesced into a sense of satiety that radiated outward from Alexander.
Simultaneously, within the Four-Dimensional Pocket, a sense of satisfaction flowed from the Tyranid Swarm. This satiety intertwined with the hunger of the Greedy Dissolution domain, canceling each other out and merging.
Eating and being eaten are both parts of Greed; thus, satiety and hunger must both exist within its domain. Just as love and jealousy coexist in Slaanesh's realm, change and hope in Tzeentch's, or bloodshed and courage in Khorne's—satiety and hunger are two sides of the same coin. One hungers because they chase fullness; one eats because they are hungry.
The cycle spiraled, head biting tail, propelling Alexander deeper into the heart of Greedy Dissolution. In the Warp, demons watched in terror as the domain of Malicious Craft collided with Greedy Dissolution.
At the intersection of these two domains, Alexander's silhouette flickered. The sounds of machinery, turning gears, and budding inspiration clashed with the gnawing sounds of hunger and the imagery of the agricultural sets.
The domain of Malicious Craft manifested as a 20th-century Earth town—Tsukimidai—with gurgling streams and open lots filled with cement pipes and childhood wonder. Under Alexander's will, Greedy Dissolution also began to take shape. His consciousness shattered into billions of fragments, permeating every corner of the domain.
The "Holiday Agricultural Set" spread across the hunger, transforming it into wheat fields surrounding Tsukimidai. Insects buzzed over paths where barefoot children ran or rode bicycles, laughing and catching fish until dusk. When their stomachs growled, they ran home to mothers serving chestnut manju, dorayaki, and roasted sweet potatoes. Day after day, the cycle repeated—a sunset for every sunrise.
The two domains fused. Every person and creature within them became a facet of Alexander's consciousness. Floating within each fragment was a "Wish-Granting Credit Card."
[Item: Wish-Granting Credit Card]
[Origin: 22nd Century Earth — Future Department Store]
[Function: A prop with miraculous hypnotic effects. Write a task on the card and place it in someone's pocket; they will act according to the card.]
During his ascension, Alexander's existence merged with the domains. To preserve his humanity and his will as a person, he used this tool to hypnotize his own fragments, immersing his vast consciousness into pre-planned roles. He only needed to re-gather and awaken his core will...
But he failed. Every fragment of his will felt a violent tug—an uncontrollable urge to be born.
In the Warp, a metallic blue raccoon-like figure stood tall. As its round hand rose, infinite inspiration manifested in the void. The pocket on its belly hung open like a pitch-black maw, ready to swallow everything in sight.
The Seventh Corner of Chaos—the Eternal Dragon—was being born. But like the Omnissiah, its birth was caught in a paradox. The Warp dictated that gods must be born in sequence, and since the Dark King had not yet fully manifested, the Eternal Dragon and the Omnissiah remained trapped in a state of "almost-born."
The Warp shuddered violently. The domain of Erosive Destruction flickered in the sea of souls, and the Black Sun drew closer to the Empyrean. The momentum of birth dragged Alexander's shattered will downward, pressing it against the Dark King's burning flames.
The black tongues of fire consumed soul after soul. The silhouette of the Master of Mankind grew thinner as His different facets were stripped away. These facets chose revenge over hope, choosing to become the Dark King.
The entity began to take shape: a black sun held aloft by trillions of despairing souls. A substance like black smoke and molten iron poured from the sun—the collective of humanity's past, present, and future. It was the God-Emperor; it was the Dark King.
Brown hair billowed, golden armor shimmered, and a halo of black, gold, red, and white spun behind His head, shrouding His face in a gentle, silent, holy light. He opened His mouth, and countless voices spoke at once—pleading, threatening, mocking, questioning:
Why persist? Why block humanity's revenge for a phantom hope? Most of mankind craves vengeance more than survival. This universe has no value left; why not put this malicious cosmos to the torch?
The concept of the "Master of Mankind" had been usurped by the Dark King. From the corpse-god on the Golden Throne in M41, to the Emperor walking among men during the Great Crusade, to the Neoth of the Unification Wars, the scholars of the Golden Age, the researchers of NASA, the workers of the Soviet Union, the soldiers at Verdun... every identity at every moment had become the Dark King.
Only a Boy from Asia Minor remained standing before the Dark King. Against the God-Emperor of Revenge, the boy looked fragile and small.
The Dark King extended a finger, and His "beast" was unleashed—one of the two forgotten sons. This son was born from a naive fantasy: the dream of early humanity that aliens would be noble and civilized, the dream of a universal utopia where all races were friends. The result of this fantasy was the shattering of despair.
A beast with countless alien heads lunged from the Dark King's side toward the boy.
Beside the Boy from Anatolia, the other forgotten Primarch drew a blurred sword. He sighed. He had been forgotten by humanity, betrayed by the Imperium, and abandoned by his Father. No one knew his name; his progeny no longer remembered him.
Yet he drew his sword for hope. He was born from a cruel vigilance: the early human fear of the malice in deep space, the hatred of the xenos, and a universe darker than Earth. His purpose was survival—nothing was more important than the survival of the human race, not even revenge.
The two forgotten Primarchs clashed. But the Dark King held more than one son in His hand...
BOOM!!
A heavy hammer tore through the air. As a towering dark shadow appeared, Ferrus Manus attempted to defend the boy. But with a single strike, his breastplate shattered and his soul nearly dissipated.
The Eye of Horus watched it all. He was the first sacrifice to the Dark King, and He would be the last. He was the First-Found, the Centaur, wreathed in the fires that once scorched the galaxy. One by one, the souls surrounding Neoth were scorched, wailing in despair as they were absorbed by the Dark King.
The wheat fields of Asia Minor were burning. In the boy's eyes, the image of a sunset reflected. At the dawn of civilization, under a sunset, the boy had watched his father be murdered in these fields. Now, at the end of civilization, under a sunset, the boy watched his own sons come to kill him.
The Boy from Asia Minor showed no fear. He watched Horus approach step by step, watched the hopeful souls around him go out one by one. Only a deep sense of apology flowed in his heart.
"I am sorry," the boy said to those still protecting him. "In the end, I could not save our race. Instead, I made you bear ten thousand years of agony with me. To sustain our species, I did many despicable things. I oppressed and harmed many. If I had stayed in my corner of the world, perhaps a spark of humanity would have survived. It was my greed, my fault."
"But what makes me even more guilty is that I know... if given the choice again, I would still start the Great Crusade. I would still try to save us all. I am grateful you chose to stand with someone as irredeemable as me."
The boy looked up at the descending Alexander, whose shattered will struggled against the instinct of birth.
"I'm sorry... I couldn't hold on. The burden of the three domains is too heavy, and I crave revenge more than I imagined. If you can find my True Name, unite the Four Gods, and use the tools of the 22nd century, there is still a sliver of hope to defeat the Dark King."
That was the boy's hope for Alexander. He had even left behind some hidden measures—failsafes meant to kill himself—to aid Alexander in the final struggle.
Finally, the boy looked at Horus. He smiled with a faint, apologetic warmth. "Horus, my my son. I am sorry. Ten thousand years ago, I lied to myself that you were all tools, that my care for you was just a means to use you better. But you were always my most beloved son. You were my hope, the extension of my dreams. If only I had trusted you more... been more honest..."
The boy offered no resistance. He had little strength left, and no soul could stop Horus. "My son," the boy whispered.
Horus's movement faltered for a fraction of a second as he gazed at the boy's face. Horus loved the Emperor, loved his father—but this boy was only a small part of Him. The Dark King behind him was the vast majority of the Emperor, the vast majority of humanity.
And Horus, too, craved revenge against the Gods. The warhammer swung down toward Neoth.
The boy sighed. Suddenly, a pulse of psychic energy that did not belong to the Emperor erupted from within the boy. A flash of astonishment crossed the boy's face; he recognized that energy. It was like a beacon, a guiding starlight. A staff carved with a double-headed eagle reached out from beside the boy, as a brown robe of woven linen fluttered.
A silver strand of hair flashed from beneath the hood. The staff, carved with the double-headed eagle, stood like the Morning Star before the night had ended—bright, yet not searing.
The staff blocked Horus; it stood before the ultimate sacrifice of the Dark King. Psychic energy surged like a tide. Neoth felt the silver power ripple through his brown hair, his eyes soaked in tears.
At the end of fate, a son no longer protected his father, soldiers were powerless to shield their general, Custodes could not guard their sovereign, and believers could not save their god. Even the Emperor had forsaken Himself. But a friend was still protecting his friend. A ghost—one who had died long ago—had stepped forward to protect him once more.
"They always loved to call you the Sun," the silver-haired youth's voice rang out amidst the wind, heat, fire, and death. "But I never liked calling you that."
"The Sun... so scalding, so searing. It radiates over all living things but also monopolizes the sky, allowing no one to draw near. To reach for the sun is to be burned to ash. How lonely, how painful."
"But you aren't like that. In my eyes, you are a star."
"You are a steadfast and brilliant lone star, rising as death approaches. You rise in the realm of shadows and candlelight, advancing through the cruel darkness of ruins, until you ascend into the night sky to emit a white, pure, and blazing light."
"When I walk in the desert, I can find you among a cluster of grey stars. When I sail on the wild seas, I can find you amidst the raging storms. When I walk in despair, I find you in hope."
"Looking at you, hope is born. Watching you, direction is found. Gazing at you, courage is gained."
"Above the abyss of darkness, you said: Let there be hope. And so, I had hope."
The silver-haired youth took a step forward. A bright, pure light erupted from his body, forcibly pushing Horus back. A faint smile played on his lips. "It turns out, the sun is just the star closest to me."
Neoth looked back. He saw Malcador sitting upon the Golden Throne—burning, yet smiling. He thought Malcador was long gone, but he had always been there. From Malcador on the Throne, that conviction had been passed down through every successor, through every mortal.
They said they were the successors of Malcador. They inherited not only his duties but also his eyes. When the world saw the Emperor as a sun, they saw Him as a bright, steadfast star.
Tearfully, Neoth felt himself truly becoming that distant lone star, looking down upon the shadowed desert from the firmament. Malcador took the first step, holding a lantern high, gazing at that distant star as if it dictated his path.
Then, the people followed behind Malcador, stepping into the desert together, their eyes reflecting that starlight. From the dark heavens, it looked like a flickering sea of stars. From Malcador to Tieron, that starlight remained in their eyes—each a faint sixth-magnitude star, yet together, they were brighter than any sun.
"I have called you Malcador the Hero," Neoth said with tears in his eyes. "Now you sacrifice yourself for me once more. How can I ever repay you?"
The Malcador of ten thousand years ago, sitting on the Throne, simply smiled. "Why not call me Malcador the Friend?"
The silver starlight forced Horus back, but it did more than that. Neoth stood up from the burning wheat fields and walked step by step toward the Dark King. With every step he took, the Dark King weakened, and he grew stronger.
Facets that had leaned toward the Dark King regained hope because of Malcador's appearance. They chose once again to resist. The starlight summoned by Malcador rekindled the sun named the Emperor. Many despairing souls found hope again. Though the boy's power remained thin compared to the Dark King's, he successfully halted the King's birth, jamming the path of ascension once more.
"Why?" the Dark King asked, His face filled with sorrow as He walked toward the boy. "Why resist? Ultimately, we are the same person. My love for humanity is as deep as yours. That is why I crave birth—to take revenge on everything in the galaxy."
"The night the Old Night fell, you could have become the Dark King, the arrow on the bow of revenge to slay those who destroyed human civilization. But you refused. You chose a Great Crusade, which earned you only a rebellion."
"When facing Horus, you could have chosen to become Me. As Me, you could have easily killed him and taken revenge on the Gods. But you refused again."
"Throughout these ten thousand years, you could have become the Dark King at any time. You knew humanity was descending into despair; you felt their pain. Why are you unwilling to end it? Why?"
Neoth looked at the Dark King. He opened his mouth to answer, his mind drifting through memories of Alexander, Guilliman, Sanguinius, Malcador, and Ollanius Persson.
His thoughts settled on a specific memory—the warmth and coldness of loess soil. He remembered asking a similar question once. Back then, he was just one of twenty-one journalists visiting a yellow-soiled plateau—an inconspicuous one at that.
But a certain man had seen his uniqueness. They sat on the loess slope at dusk. The man rolled two cigarettes, handed him one, and kept one for himself. They talked of history, war, the past, the future, reform, revolution, and the masses. Finally, he had asked the man a simple question: "Why do you do this?"
Yes, why him? He was just a mortal.
There were powerful Perpetuals living on that land—the prototypes of myths—yet they had not stood up. There were powerful psykers whose powers were honed and blessed by the Warp, yet they had not stood up either.
Only he had stood up. A mortal. Not a Perpetual, no psychic powers, even his health was poor with heart issues. His background was not even prominent among mortals. But he stood up. Why?
He had asked many "heroes" in history this question. They often believed they had a divine mandate, a calling, or a religious mission. But those feelings were usually delusions of pride or the influence of the Warp. Realizing this, the Emperor had often retreated from the spotlight of history.
The man took a puff of his cigarette. On the rugged edge of the loess, the orange sun had dipped low, and everything turned dim, save for the tiny red spark of the cigarette—like a miniature red sun.
The man did not claim a divine mandate. He simply patted his knees and said: "It is nothing more than a single thought to save the common people."
Was he influenced by that man?
His "mission" was to ascend as the Dark King and burn the galaxy for revenge. But his thoughts flowed further back, to that wheat field, to the simple boy who dipped his toes into the waters of Sakarya.
"What kind of person do you want to be?"
"A kind one."
Neoth gazed at the Dark King and spoke softly: "I learned what type of man I want to be... I want to become a kind person."
The Dark King sighed. A longsword burning with golden flames pointed at the boy. "I shall have to destroy a part of myself."
The flaming sword swung down—brighter than a star, darker than the void. The moans of trillions of suffering souls echoed behind the Dark King. Their gaze was fixed on the boy—they had nothing left but hatred. Vengeance was their only desire. Their loathing was directed at the entire malicious universe. They hissed, cursed, and hated the cosmos they were born into, turning into a fierce, howling wind of fire.
But the wind was severed by a blade-light as black as glass. A jagged blade carved from obsidian fell from on high, piercing into the flickering domain of Erosive Destruction, landing right before the boy.
The blade's name was Anathema.
Ironic.
At the moment the boy halted the Dark King's birth, Alexander's ascension was also momentarily jammed. He seized this instant to reconsolidate his will and cast the Anathema into the fray. He had taken the ritual dagger shards from Erebus and used the Time-Cloth to reverse time, recreating the weapon.
It was the tool that killed Horus, and the weapon used in the first murder of mankind. Everything began with this blade; everything ends with it. This blade is the personification of "The End and the Death." If anything could kill the Dark King—or if there was a weapon the Dark King prepared for His own suicide—it was the Anathema and Drach'nyen.
Neoth pulled the Anathema from the ground. He knew how to use it. Holding the golden hilt, gazing at the obsidian blade that looked like solidified black smoke, he saw the blood it had tasted—from his father to his son.
One only needs to bring their lips close to the blade and whisper the name of the one they wish to kill. Even a mortal governor corrupted by Nurgle could nearly kill Horus with such a weapon.
Now, the boy was to use it to harm himself. He only needed to speak the name. He vaguely remembered his original name—two short syllables, simple and rustic, primitive and sincere. It still bore the traces of an ape-man's roar. He remembered its meaning: strong, great, glorious, blessed, high, healthy as a bull. A father's blessing for his son.
But he had forgotten the name itself. His True Name, given by his father, was lost to history. Alexander's voice rang in his ear, coming from the distant past, delivering the forgotten name.
It was as he remembered: two short, simple, primitive syllables. In Akkadian, the word symbolized "God" or "Divine." To the Canaanites and Levantines, it meant the Highest God. The names of Enlil, El Elyon, El Shaddai, and Elohim all originated from this root. So did the God of Christianity, and Allah of the desert, and the Asha of the Zoroastrians...
The boy realized that he had been unconsciously using the name his father gave him all along, hiding it deep within human religion and history. Alexander had dug it out from the depths of time and returned it to him.
He raised the obsidian blade to his lips and softly spoke the name his father had given him:
The boy from Asia Minor softly uttered that name—the very first name his father had given him. It was a father's sincere hope for a child's healthy growth, originally meaning nothing more than "a boy as strong as a bull."
Yet, over the vast expanse of history, it had evolved into a collective term for divinity. Its true pronunciation had long been lost to time; Eli, Elohim, El, Allah, Eloi—all were mere guesses. But the authentic phonetics had been recorded in the far, far East, thousands of miles from Asia Minor.
In Mesopotamia, El developed into a title for all gods. As the Aryans migrated eastward, it spread with Zoroastrianism—known to the East as Mazdaism or "Fire-Worship." In the East, El was translated as Ào, meaning the "God of the Foreign Heaven."
In the lexical traditions of southern Mesopotamia, preserved in early Sumerian–Akkadian word lists, the primordial divine name El was rendered not as a personal name but as a title: Ilum or An—"the High One."
When spoken swiftly in ritual recitation, Ilum-An collapsed into An, the sky-father. When Alexander came to understand this, he could not help but marvel that the Emperor—the God Himself—should bear a name so close to An or Anu, the supreme god of heaven.
An (or Anu) signified height, vastness, authority, and the boundless firmament. From this root, later Semitic traditions expanded El into Elohim, a plural form of majesty. This concept was closely associated with Enlil, the Sumerian lord of storm and command, one of the earliest archetypes of God.
Enlil was the Great God, the decreer of the Great Flood, the Great Mountain that binds heaven and earth—attributes that, in Babylonian thought, all flowed from the same idea of overwhelming divine magnitude.
The Hebrews also added Elyon to El, making it El Elyon. The meaning of Elyon is similarly "Great" or "Exalted"—again, Hong. Alexander even had a fleeting suspicion: could that "Jesus," who claimed to be the second son of God, actually have been a son of the Emperor?
As the name left the boy's lips, the Anathema—resembling a coil of black smoke—writhed. A silent shriek echoed across the fields. Self-destruction is the ultimate truth of the Path of Erosive Destruction.
Neoth raised the obsidian blade. Silver starlight gathered around him, and the fires of the Erosive Destruction domain ignited the Anathema. The Dark King let out a cry of lamentation.
The burning Sword of the Emperor was raised high, its blade swelling instantly until it was wider than a sun, more magnificent than a galaxy. A single spark leaping from its edge seemed capable of drowning thousands of worlds.
The silhouette of the Dark King—that Golden Man—grew equally monumental. His head rose higher than the galaxy, higher than reality, higher than the Empyrean itself. From the highest point of the universe, He looked down upon everything.
His face became a blur of holy light, a magnificent sun looking down upon all living things, destined to scorch them to death. In contrast, Neoth stood as if in a wasteland. Around him were only tiny, flickering souls still clutching their lanterns of hope. Together, they looked like a sea of starlight, or perhaps just fireflies in the night grass that mistook themselves for stars.
The silver-haired youth reached out, his hand joining the boy's on the hilt of the Anathema. He gave the boy a slight, knowing nod.
Neoth felt a brief trance. Hope—what a strange word. Malcador always said he found hope in the Emperor, and that humanity saw hope in Him. But the boy always wanted to tell them that He drew His hope from them.
Malcador had never seen the Golden Age of Mankind. He was too young. When he was born, the Golden Age had already ended, and the storms of the Old Night were ravaging the stars. Malcador could only glimpse humanity's former glory through ancient texts, ruins, and the Emperor's descriptions.
Yet, for a glory he had never witnessed, Malcador gave his entire life. He burned until he became a handful of dust. Countless mortals like him had done the same. They were born into a gray, dying age, yet they were willing to burn for things they had never seen.
Many called this ignorance, stupidity, or fanaticism. But Neoth could not call this hope "false." Fireflies might mistake themselves for stars, but the light they give is real.
The burning Sword of the Emperor swung down. The boy, Malcador, and the countless souls of hope gripped the Anathema together. The obsidian blade collided with the flaming sword, and the sound of shattering rang through reality and the Warp alike.
Every living creature looked up in terror. Demons in the Warp wailed in fright. In the cathedrals of the Emperor, worshippers began to weep uncontrollably. Hive workers finishing their shifts stopped to look at the street-side icons of the Emperor. Starship crews trembled as they looked at the scriptures in their hands.
An Ecclesiarchy bishop let out a cry of grief and collapsed onto the pale stone tiles of his altar, blood flowing from his bruised knees. He reached out with trembling arms toward the massive statue of the Emperor.
In every hive city, the rows of statues began to shudder. Cracks appeared on those majestic faces. Whether carved from fine marble or crude stone, whether painted with master-crafted inks or sketched in charcoal, every likeness of the Emperor began to tremble and break.
On those handsome, regal faces, cracks and burns appeared. Violet tears flowed from the stone and painted eyes. Everyone gazing at His likeness felt the same sensation: that the Emperor was watching them, that He had a thousand words He wanted to say.
He seemed to want to tell them not to be afraid. He seemed to want to tell them which path to take. He seemed to want to tell them of His love, to apologize to them, to urge them to be strong...
So many words seemed choked in the Emperor's throat.
+Humanity...+
+Live on.+
Ultimately, the thousands of words vanished, leaving only this single command echoing in the ears of all humanity.
Live on. No matter how ugly, how difficult, how hopeless, or how desperate the struggle—live on. As long as you live... as long as you live... there will always be hope.
CRACK.
The sound of total fracturing erupted. The Emperor's face crumbled inch by inch. Marble fell, ivory split, canvases burned, and charcoal dust scattered. Violet tears stained the ground. The great bells tolled thirteen times. The golden wheat fields vanished in the fire. The brass-colored Sakarya River had long since run dry.
Neoth saw his father's corpse falling into the mud. He saw the beads his uncle had just finished stringing scatter one by one.
"I will take stones smoothed by the stream to make beads for my daughter's wedding."
"I will raise many, many flocks of sheep, like clouds on the grass, and a pack of hounds so you can never steal again."
"I will hone my craft, learning from the best silversmiths to carve the most beautiful patterns on your silver spear."
"I will be your chancellor, your friend, standing forever by your side to restore the radiance of mankind."
"I will be your centaur; wherever your finger points, my arrow shall fly."
"I will buy sweet melon seeds from the street shop for my daughter when she finishes her studies at Mrs. Nama Karl's."
"I will get a jug of amasec and pour it down my throat to feel the burn of the alcohol."
"I will go back to the hive in Ashford and open another tavern, brew a pot of good wine, and invite Alexander and Lager to taste it."
"I want to live a little longer, until my son returns as an Angel, so I can tell him I am proud of him."
"I want... I want... I want..."
Neoth felt the hot wind on his face. He felt the flaming sword pierce his chest, just as he felt the Anathema in his hand pierce the chest of the Dark King.
"I want..."
Neoth, the King of Ages, the Dark King, the Emperor of Mankind—He spoke softly: "I want to go to the fishermen by the sea on a moonlit night, exchange for enough smooth shells, and use them as my father's eyes."
The boy held his father's skull, molding his father's face out of rough clay, carving it with a stone knife. He polished two shells until they were translucent and shimmering. He gently placed the shells into the eye sockets to serve as eyes.
Holding that head, looking at the clay-carved face, He had a momentary trance. He realized then that it was not His father's face—it was His own.
Neoth held the skull and walked step by step into the burnt wheat field where His father had died. He lay down gently upon the soil. It was so warm, so rhythmic, so quiet.
He closed his eyes, letting out a final breath...
He smiled gently.
So gentle, in ten thousand years, He had never smiled so sincerely.
Statues collapsed and shattered. Paintings burned to ash. Digital images dissolved into static. The faithful in the cathedrals wailed in grief as the Emperor's face broke apart. Every record of the Emperor's appearance in the galaxy was destroyed—statues, paintings, and videos alike.
A collective realization struck all of humanity. A soft sigh echoed in the void.
Alexander's will gathered once more, taking physical form. Wreathed in Mini-Doraemons and chestnut manjus, he stepped between the Empyrean and reality.
"The Master of Mankind, our Emperor... He has passed away."