"The Imperium... why has the Imperium become like this..."
In his chambers, Guilliman covered his face with his hands in anguish.
He had already spoken with his sons, with the Living Saint, with Cawl, and even with the Eldar. He was already numb to the shock of discovering that Cawl's true form was now that of a young boy.
A deep sense of powerlessness washed over him. The Imperium had rotted to this state. But what pained and horrified him most were the Cherubs. He knew his Father had a fondness for children, but who told you to make these things out of them? Although Cawl claimed the Cherubs weren't made from actual children, Guilliman's own analysis led him to a single conclusion: the only reason they weren't using children was because they had tried and found it didn't work well. Even so, the thought disgusted him to his core.
The only piece of good news was that his mysterious brother and all his followers seemed to share his revulsion. And it wasn't just them; even the certified lunatic among his own brothers, Konrad Curze, felt the same. Guilliman was surprised to find that Curze's morals were now strangely similar to his own, and his insanity had abated considerably.
"Where is Phanes?"
Guilliman was surprised to find that Zhou Ye was nowhere to be seen.
"I don't know..." Calgar replied, looking just as bewildered.
Cawl had told him of Zhou Ye's origins. The most mysterious of Primarchs, one who had completely erased his own existence. The Imperium's final salvation, the Emperor's last resort. He had taken the survivors from Istvaan III on a near-suicidal crusade into the deepest reaches of the Warp, to places even the Chaos Gods dared not tread, and had brought back the Imperium's true redemption. Guilliman had been filled with anticipation, but the man had vanished the moment the battle ended.
Fortunately, the lunatic Curze was still here, which put Guilliman somewhat at ease. He had a genuine psychological trauma when it came to that one. For others, ten thousand years had passed, but for him, it had been but the blink of an eye.
---o---
As for Zhou Ye...
"Your mechanical augmetics are so crude, even the most basic servo-skull would laugh at your craftsmanship."
"Your code is filled with redundancies and errors. The Omnissiah himself would weep."
"The movements of your mechadendrites are so clumsy, they look like they've been modified by an Ork."
"Your understanding of the Codex Mechanicus is so shallow, you probably can't even recite the most basic binary prayer correctly."
"Your bionic legs are so slow, you likely can't even perform the simplest rite of ambulation."
"Your servitors are so clumsy, they look like they're being piloted by Orks."
"Your knowledge is so lacking, you probably can't even comprehend the most basic mechanical principles."
"Your station is so low, you likely aren't even permitted to participate in the most basic rites of the Cult Mechanicus."
"@#!¥%#!&*...#@!"
Faced with Zhou Ye's torrent of eloquent insults, the local grease monkeys were initially able to respond. But soon they were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data Zhou Ye was injecting into their minds, with Prometheus's assistance.
He switched between Binary, High Gothic, Low Gothic, Ork-speak, and Eldar-tongue for every single sentence.
At first, the group of Tech-Priests could keep up. But soon, they were washed away by the immense data-stream. Every one of Zhou Ye's verbal attacks came with a payload of junk code that was difficult for them to even parse.
It had all started when Zhou Ye's Tech-Priest was dutifully repairing the Titan and was accosted by a group of the local grease monkeys. They claimed Zhou Ye's modifications to the Emperor Titan were blasphemy, and that his use of precious STC templates was sacrilege. To be fair, Zhou Ye's Tech-Priests were different. While they were also the top of their class, these local priests spent most of their days burning incense and praying. They were more mystics than technicians. One couldn't exactly blame them, given the fucked-up nature of the universe.
But that didn't stop this group of centuries-old relics from relentlessly harassing him. Zhou Ye's Tech-Priest was berated to the point of tears. He was, after all, just a recent college graduate. While the culture on Trailblaze was boisterous and fierce, its academic circles were quite pure. With an absolute authority like Zhou Ye keeping everyone in line, the atmosphere was actually very good. They didn't engage in pointless flame wars, and besides, he was just one man; he couldn't win a shouting match against a mob.
When Zhou Ye heard about this, he didn't stand for it. He seamlessly switched to his Magos Omega 010 persona and went to confront them himself. With his own eloquence and immense processing power, he single-handedly defeated over a hundred Tech-Priests, shouting them into system crashes.
Academic debate in the Mechanicus was a bit different. Barring physical violence, it was a contest of processing power as much as language. A battle to see whose data stream was superior. It was a bit like a Chaos scrap-code attack, but not quite. With the virtually infinite processing power of Prometheus backing him, these grease monkeys stood no chance. They would spew a line of code at him, and Zhou Ye would decode it in a few nanoseconds. When Zhou Ye fired back, it took them tens of seconds, sometimes minutes, to even understand what he'd said.
"Nice. Recover the Titan."
Zhou Ye patted his own stunned young Tech-Priest on the shoulder and walked away. He could have performed a miracle, but the Imperial Cult already worshipped him enough to give him a headache. That, at least, he could solve by tossing the faith back at the Yellow Fiend. But if the Mechanicus started worshipping him, Zhou Ye wasn't sure if the Yellow Fiend would even accept that. He decided to stay far away from these nutjobs.
On his command, the Ark Mechanicus sent a recovery team to slowly retrieve the Titan. Leaving it here wasn't an option. He was here to reinforce Macragge and get Guilliman's help, not to throw him a grand birthday party.
"Father, Guilliman is looking for you. When you get back, the brothers have something to say."
"Alright."
Leaving behind a pile of local Tech-Priests with smoke coming out of their heads as they still tried to process his data, Zhou Ye returned to the grand hall. He found a group of Grey Knights looking at him with pleading, puppy-dog eyes. Even he couldn't help but shudder. Damn it, I was barely twenty before I crossed over. I'm only forty or fifty now, still a wet-behind-the-ears youth. Being stared at by these centuries-old guys is really unnerving.
But...
"Yo, Guilliman."
Zhou Ye strode confidently into the messy room, where it looked like Curze and Guilliman had had a scuffle.
"Since the Imperium is beyond saving, why don't we found a Third Imperium? You can be Emperor, Curze can be Chancellor, and I'll be Warmaster. How about it? Just like you, the Lion, and Sanguinius did ten thousand years ago."
"You ambitious Guilliman. This is why you are so disliked."
Curze, who had been silent, froze at Zhou Ye's words. He then looked at Guilliman with a sneer. Any other Primarch might have flown into a rage, but he knew the history. He had almost been sacrificed to christen that Second Imperium. It had also been his words that had caused it to dissolve on the spot. In a way, Konrad Curze had destroyed the Second Imperium with a single sentence. So his reaction was relatively mild.
"..."
But Guilliman's face turned green.
"Did Curze tell you?"
"Mm. Isn't it written in black and white in your own library? Anyway, the Imperium is what it is now... hmm... you don't want to be Emperor? How about Curze becomes Emperor, and you be Chancellor?"
"I am not the ambitious Guilliman! The Imperium of Man can have only one Emperor!!!" Curze's face instantly turned green as well. He immediately shot down the idea. He wanted no part of that.
"..."
But for some reason, Guilliman fell silent.
Because...
"How about you become Emperor?"
"Huh?"
Zhou Ye was taken aback. But Guilliman was serious.
He had seen Zhou Ye banish two Primarchs. He had seen that brilliant golden light. According to the Living Saint, it was the aura of the Emperor himself; he was the closest being to the Emperor she had ever met. According to Cawl, he had spoken with Tzeentch's chosen champion, Ahriman, who had shared his own theory about this Primarch's identity: that he was not one of the twenty brothers, but a far more ancient being. The Emperor had lived for tens of thousands of years. His offspring, known as the Star-Children, were scattered across the galaxy. Guilliman, though a bit jealous, was fine with it, as most of those supposed descendants had not inherited the Emperor's power. But this one was different. He was likely an incredibly ancient being, perhaps older than the Imperium itself, older even than the Dark Age of Technology. The Emperor had foreseen this day in the ancient past of Terra and had sealed him away. Only after the failure of the Webway Project had he been reawakened, his gene-seed used to create the Grey Knights, and sent with a doomed legion into the deepest parts of the Warp for over ten thousand years.
If anyone else had made such a suggestion, Guilliman would have fought them to the death. But for some reason, looking at this man, Guilliman felt it was... right. That he was perhaps even more suited for that position than Sanguinius. Curze, surprisingly, had the same reaction.
"Don't be ridiculous!!!" Zhou Ye decisively shook his head. That position was too unlucky. The Third Imperium dissolved on the spot! What a tragedy!
"Alright, the most important reason I'm here is for the Star Rails."
"What are Star Rails?" Guilliman asked, the term unfamiliar to him.
"You didn't tell him?" Zhou Ye looked from the bewildered Guilliman to Curze, who just shrugged.
"I felt it would be best explained by you personally. Now I understand why Father was so concerned."
"Damn it, Yellow Fiend!!!"
"What's a 'Yellow Fiend'?" Guilliman asked curiously.
"A species of mammal from the weasel family, an ancient Terran creature," Curze answered, not Zhou Ye. "According to folklore, the weasels would ask humans for a 'seal of approval,' something along the lines of 'Do I look like a man, or a god?'"
As he finished speaking, the room fell silent.
Because...
The resemblance was uncanny.
There are no wrong names, only wrong nicknames.
Realizing what he had just said, Curze's face filled with horror. Guilliman silently took a step away from Zhou Ye.
But unfortunately, the psychic beatdown they were both expecting never came. To be honest, if the Yellow Fiend dared to hit me with a psychic beatdown, I'd dare to slap him right back. Who's afraid of whom?
"How did you know that?" Zhou Ye asked Curze, trying to change the subject.
"You took in so many of the Thousand Sons. They built a library in your supercomputer and filled it with ancient folklore and myths. It's open to everyone except the Space Wolves. I saw it there."
"..."
Zhou Ye fell silent. Those sons of Magnus really couldn't change their ways. But it wasn't a huge problem. Anything related to Chaos couldn't actually be uploaded; the Imaginary energy would destroy it instantly. So, on the whole, it was fine. But barring the Space Wolves from entry... that was kind of funny.
"This is the Star Rail, and the hyperlink that comes with it. I obtained it from the deep Warp. I don't know if it comes from a past more ancient than even the War in Heaven, or from a civilization rebooted after the end of all things."
Zhou Ye produced a Primarch-sized dataslate. Guilliman frowned but took it and began to browse.
He shouldn't have looked. The moment he did, his eyes went wide. His entire body began to tremble, and he started to breathe heavily.
(Incidentally, the Black Abyss, White Flower was still active, held by Zhou Ye's Grey Knight Grand Master. All of his creations were Imaginary constructs and worked best with Imaginary energy. The Grand Master was slowly healing Guilliman, who would soon be able to remove his life-support armor.)
"Emperor preserve us!!!"
Soon, both Guilliman and Curze let out the same cry of astonishment. Curze had known Zhou Ye possessed special technology, but he hadn't known the specifics. Seeing it for the first time now, he couldn't help but cry out in shock.