The screen continued to play.
Deep beneath the Terra Imperial Palace lay the hidden lair of the Imperial Biotechnology Department, a gathering place for the most brilliant and mysterious biological scientists under the Emperor of Mankind's command.
They came from all directions; some were personally recruited by the Emperor, joining the Empire's Great Work with endless passion for science and infinite reverence for the Emperor; others were ruthlessly plundered from the hands of other technological barbarian tribes on Terra, forced to submit to the Emperor's authority.
Despite their diverse backgrounds, at this moment, they were all loyal to the Emperor, dedicating all their wisdom and talent to this Master of Humanity, working tirelessly for the strength and prosperity of the Empire.
The laboratory located at the base of the Himalayas was once the pinnacle of Imperial genetic engineering technology, where countless brilliant achievements were born, laying a solid foundation for the rise of the Empire.
However, a sudden and brief Warp storm, like a catastrophic disaster, swept through and reduced everything here to nothing.
Piercing alarms echoed through the ruins. Those experimental instruments from the Dark Age of Technology, which should have been priceless treasures, were now reduced to a pile of twisted scrap metal, scattered across this testing ground that was once full of hope.
This tragic sight would be enough to make any technological barbarian king with ambitions to dominate Terra feel heartbroken and devastated.
But the Emperor, the Master of Humanity, merely stood silently amidst the ruins, that faint, enigmatic smile still on His face, as if all this destruction had nothing to do with Him, or perhaps as if He had long anticipated such an outcome.
[Did you do this?]
As if in response to the Emperor of Mankind's question, a woman stepped out from the shadows.
"Yes."
[I see.]
"...You are surprisingly calm."
[It was to be expected.]
"Perhaps you should apply your mercy elsewhere."
[This is not mercy, poor Erda, merely indifference.]
"...That is why I could not imagine those children growing into adulthood by your side."
[Oh?]
"They are not Perpetuals; they are merely imitations you crafted to mimic Perpetuals."
[Mhm.]
"Merely tools to complete your goals."
[You are wrong, Erda.] When the Emperor of Mankind retorted, there was not the slightest fluctuation in His tone, as if He were speaking of something trivial, like whispering to an ant on the ground. [Weak-willed people can never persevere to the end.]
[Weak-willed people can never persevere to the end.]
"...We have walked through many years together, Neoth."
This was the first time she had called Him by His name since He became the Emperor.
"We once had many companions, but now only I, Malcador, and you remain. But look at you now; sometimes I cannot even tell who is a greater threat to humanity: the demons in the Warp, or you..."
[So you sent them away because you had a terrible nightmare?]
"Yes."
[It does not matter, poor Erda, cowardly Erda. I will not be angry at your actions.]
[I only feel pity for the despairing Primarchs. Let it be so.]
The Emperor of Mankind turned to leave, but when He was halfway, He turned His head back.
He showed an expression that shocked Erda.
A smile of trust, like that of a human father toward his children.
[I look forward to our reunion, my sons.]
————
Warhammer World
The light and shadow on the screen slowly dissipated. The image of the ruined laboratory beneath the Himalayas, along with the figure of the woman named Erda, faded into the darkness.
However, the truth revealed by the image was like a silent nuclear explosion, detonating eighteen demigod hearts within the Throne Room.
After a brief, suffocating silence, the first sound rang out.
It was not words, but a beastly roar suppressed to the extreme, squeezed from the depths of the soul, filled with endless pain and hatred.
"Love?!"
Angron lunged up from his seat, his massive frame trembling violently with uncontrollable rage.
The Butcher's Nails churned frantically inside his skull, tearing his sanity into fragments, but what drove him now was a pain deeper and more primal than that metallic creation.
His bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at where the screen had vanished, as if he wanted to drag the woman's image back from the void and tear it to pieces.
"She—calls—that—love?!" Each word seemed to be squeezed through his teeth, carrying the scent of blood and fire.
"She threw me into the gladiator pits of Nuceria! Made me wear these damned nails! Made me watch my brothers be slaughtered! This is her 'love'?! This is her so-called 'protection'?!"
His roar echoed in the hall. It was not the shout of a Warmaster, nor the roar of a warrior, but the most desperate wail of a slave who had been utterly betrayed and stripped of everything.
"She merely threw us from one cage into another, filthier, more decayed hell."
Mortarion's raspy voice followed immediately. He stood up from the shadows, his body emitting a cold aura like the poisonous mists of Barbarus.
"I struggled all my life, resisting my xenos foster father, just to breathe a single breath of free, even if poisonous, air. And this woman, our so-called 'mother', easily decided my fate and threw me into that endless torment. What difference is there between her and the tyrant I hate?"
"Difference?" Konrad Curze's sharp, crazed laughter, like that of a night owl, rang out abruptly. He slid down from his shadow throne, drifting into the center of the hall like a ghost.
"The difference is that your foster father was at least honest about his tyranny! But this woman, she uses 'love' and 'mercy' to package her extreme selfishness and betrayal! She saw future crimes and used an even greater crime to 'prevent' them! Ha! This logic... I'm just... so familiar with it!"
His words sent a chill through everyone present.
Then, Curze suddenly turned to the Golden Throne, his crazed eyes for the first time looking directly at the Emperor without concealment, issuing the sharpest questioning:
"And you! Father! You just let her go?! A criminal who committed treason, destroyed your greatest creation, and delayed the future of the entire galaxy for hundreds of years! You just watched her leave those ruins?! Where is your justice? Where are your laws?!"
This questioning was like a heavy hammer striking the hearts of all the Primarchs.
"Curze is right." Roboute Guilliman's voice was cold and rational, but the fury within it was like a volcano about to erupt.
He stood up.
"Father, this is more than just an emotional betrayal. From a strategic perspective, this is an immeasurable disaster! How much precious time did we lose because of this 'accident'? How many centuries was the progress of the Great Crusade delayed? How many human Worlds that could have been quickly liberated fell into darkness and war during this time? How many trillions of lives perished innocently because of a woman's 'nightmare'?"
"This is an even more unforgivable dereliction of security!"
Perturabo's voice, full of resentment and mockery, rang out. He stared fixedly at the Emperor, as if trying to drill two holes into His calm face.
"Your most core laboratory, located in the heart of Holy Terra, could actually be easily broken into and destroyed by a woman. Your greatest creations, twenty demigods of war, were just swept away by a Warp vortex! Father, where were your omnipotent Custodes? Where was your all-seeing psychic power? Or was it that from the beginning, we were just pawns in your plan that could be easily sacrificed?!"
The lord of iron's questioning viciously turned the spearhead from Erda toward the Emperor's incompetence, or even intentional neglect.
"Enough!"
A gentle but authoritative shout silenced the boiling Throne Room.
Sanguinius slowly stood up, his angelic face filled with unshakeable sadness. The wings behind him fluttered unconsciously, emitting a soft light, trying to calm the storm in his brothers' hearts.
"I can feel your anger, my brothers, because I feel it too. That pain of being abandoned by one's closest kin, that loneliness of struggling in the dark."
His gaze swept over Angron, Mortarion, and Curze, filled with deep sympathy.
"But... I also saw her fear. A soul crushed by a future she foresaw and could not bear. She used a way that was extreme and wrong to try to protect what she loved, but in the end, she destroyed it with her own hands. This is not evil; it is a... deeper tragedy."
"A tragedy directed by stupidity and weakness!"
Lion El'Jonson coldly interrupted him, the Lion's voice like the winter of Caliban. "Any betrayal, no matter how 'noble' its motive, must be eradicated. This is not about tragedy; it is about duty."
Just as the Primarchs were about to descend into argument again, the figure seated upon the Golden Throne finally moved.
The Emperor slowly raised His head, His gaze deep as the Universe sweeping over the face of each son. In that gaze, there was no anger, no defense, only a calm that transcended time, bordering on indifference.
[Do you think I did not know what she was doing?]
The Emperor's voice echoed in the hall, sounding as if it rang directly within everyone's soul.
[Do you think I could not stop her?]
The entire hall instantly fell into a dead silence. All the Primarchs, including the most furious Angron, were stunned by these words.
[The moment she had that thought, I already knew. While she was weaving that Warp storm, I could have extinguished her life and her plan as easily as snuffing out a candle.]
"Then why didn't you?!" Guilliman asked impulsively, feeling for the first time that his logic and reason were completely unable to understand the father before him.
[Because,] the Emperor's voice became low, as if recounting a grander truth they could not comprehend. [The moment she chose to side with Chaos, her fate was sealed. Judgment may be late, but it will never be absent. And the one to carry out that judgment will not be Me.]
[As for her...] The Emperor's gaze turned toward the void, as if seeing the woman's fate.
The Emperor's words ended. Within the Throne Room, there was no longer a single roar or question. The Primarchs stood in place, digesting this cold, cruel, yet grandly logical explanation.
Their anger had not completely dissipated, but it had been replaced by a heavier, more complex sense of mission. They realized that their past, those pains and struggles, were in their Father's eyes merely the prelude to a greater future war.
————
Marvel Universe
"Finally, someone sees this fellow's ugly face clearly, but unfortunately, the person who resisted her was not rational."
After sending out the bullet chat, Captain America internally agreed with Erda's act of resisting the Emperor. However, when seeing the methods Erda employed, he couldn't help but feel speechless and disappointed.
"She didn't choose a reasonable way for the Primarchs to escape; instead, she used the dangerous method of the Warp."
Iron Man Tony Stark frowned deeply, his gaze flickering with incomprehension and concern over Erda's decision.
"Doesn't she know that the Warp is currently full of demons?" Doctor Strange Stephen Strange's voice was low and powerful.
As the Sorcerer Supreme who guarded the multiverse in the Marvel Universe, his understanding of the Warp far exceeded that of ordinary people. He knew that the demons in the Warp were constantly coveting the real World, and once released, the consequences would be unimaginable.
"And a group of children not even a month old simply have no way to survive. In a sense, it would have been better to let them stay by the Emperor's side; at least that way they could have lived."
Black Widow Natalia Alianovna's voice carried a hint of helplessness and sympathy.
"Stupid, yet brave."
"She tried to change that destined fate by her own power; such courage is worthy of respect."
However, Thanos's gaze flickered with a hint of disdain and mockery. "But the method she chose was like an ignorant child running blindly in a dark forest. The Warp is a place of chaos that even I cannot fully control, yet she sent a group of children with no ability to protect themselves into it. This is not resistance; this is accelerating their demise."
The corners of Thanos's mouth curled slightly, revealing a cold smile.
"In the face of power, all emotion and morality are pale and weak. If she truly wanted to resist, she should have sought greater power, rather than pinning her hopes on those fragile lives. Her actions are nothing more than a laughingstock, disrupting the Order of the Universe but unable to change the final outcome."
This overlord of the Universe only saw the balance of power in his eyes; he could not understand or agree with Erda's resistance based on emotion and morality.
In his view, the Universe operated according to its own laws, and any attempt to change this through non-power means was a desecration of the universal Order.
——
Super God World
"I didn't expect that even a Perpetual who walked through ten thousand years with the Emperor would actually be governed by such simple emotions."
Keisha's voice was low and powerful, like an echo from the far reaches of the Universe, reverberating in the silent screening hall.
Her tone carried a hint of irony, as if mocking Erda's naivety and impulsiveness.
Keisha, as a powerhouse in the Super God World, had always been known for her calmness, rationality, and wisdom. She knew that in the long river of the Universe, while emotions were important, they could never be the dominant factor governing behavior.
Erda's actions, in her view, were extremely irrational. A Perpetual who had walked for ten thousand years would actually be swayed by feelings like a mortal; this was unbelievable in Keisha's eyes.
"Is this also the influence of those Chaos Gods? I'm starting to get interested in what happens next."