BOOM!!!
An indescribable, terrifying psychic power erupted from the Golden Throne, sweeping through the entire hall.
The Custodes nearest the Throne were flung away without any ability to resist, smashing heavily against distant walls or pillars, their armor groaning under the strain.
Guilliman reacted with lightning speed, plunging the Emperor's Sword into the floor before him to barely withstand the terrifying shockwave. He was about to turn back to grab Zeke, only to see Zeke standing immovable as a mountain.
The Blackstone suit grants immunity to psychic energy, O Avenging Son.
Even so, the hurricane generated by the psychic impact distorted Zeke's face.
"Emperor, you absolutely must not stand up!" Zeke shouted against the gale.
Outside the Imperial Palace, the two massive golden gates were blasted open by the internal psychic eruption.
Blinding golden light and violent energy streams poured out from within.
Countless believers, Mechanicus representatives, and officials waiting quietly in the plaza watched the open gates.
They saw a golden radiance, full of vitality and hope, erupting from the depths of the originally dark palace.
The Astronomican, which had been dim for the past few days, also emitted a buzzing, unstable glow, as if about to shine brightly once more.
"What is happening inside? Lord Primarch and that human barely just went in, and now such an anomaly occurs."
"A miracle! This is a miracle!"
No one knew who shouted it first, but immediately, cries of ecstasy and awe, like a mountain tsunami, swept through the entire Holy Terra like a tidal wave.
Inside the Throne Room, the Emperor realized his excessive action.
The Enchanted Golden Apple had not only repaired his physical trauma but also partially restored his psychic state.
Coupled with emotional fluctuations unseen for ten thousand years, this led to an amplified psychic output.
The restraint and guidance systems of the Golden Throne, already running at full capacity, momentarily overloaded, causing this psychic storm and leakage.
He took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing all the rippling emotions, and returned to that state of an ancient, undisturbed well.
The golden light receded, and the storm subsided.
Zeke breathed a sigh of relief. His Enchanted Golden Apple had only resolved the Emperor's external injuries and restored his physical state.
For the Emperor to actually stand up, there was still a long way to go; Zeke could think of at least three unresolved issues right off the bat.
"Faith" was one.
The Golden Throne itself functioned to inhibit and disperse the power of faith.
The Emperor currently bore the fanatical faith accumulated over a millennium by the Empire's quadrillions of citizens.
If he truly stood up and broke away from the Throne's suppression, he would likely be swept up by this massive power of faith and forced to ascend as the fifth God of the Warp—and then it would be game over for everyone.
Then there was the Talisman of Seven Hammers.
To prevent the worst-case scenario, Vulkan had installed a device called the Talisman of Seven Hammers on the Golden Throne.
As soon as the Throne experienced any anomaly, it would go boom and blow up all of Terra.
Furthermore, many Chaos Daemons are actively trying to breach the Webway portal immediately beneath the Golden Throne; without the Emperor's suppression, they would flood directly into Terra, which was also a major problem.
Under the repair of the Enchanted Golden Apple, the Emperor's condition was better than ever before.
Though still trapped on the Golden Throne, he had regained some spare strength.
He raised a hand; the air above his palm began to twist. Extremely concentrated psychic energy was forged, emitting light and heat like the core of a sun.
The light took the shape of a thick, heavy book and floated toward Zeke.
"Your power is extremely peculiar and compatible with my psychic energy. I cannot do much, but consider this a token of gratitude."
[Emperor's Prayer Book] x1
Description: A magic book compatible with Iron Magic, capable of transcribing and casting various spells. It possesses 20 spell slots and comes with a passive effect: all buff-type spells have their duration extended by 500%.
Considering the highest-level Iron Magic books only had a dozen or so slots, this saved him the trouble of crafting one himself. Zeke accepted the Emperor's Prayer Book.
Zeke wasn't a stingy person either. He dug around in his backpack and pulled out a bucket of Milk.
After all, Enchanted Golden Apples and Milk could be mass-produced; even if Zeke didn't give them to the Emperor today, someone else would surely offer them in the future.
"Here." Zeke handed the Milk toward the Throne. "It can help clear away some negative status effects."
The Emperor accepted the seemingly ordinary liquid; He was no longer surprised by Zeke's rule-based creations that defied common logic.
The Milk was consumed.
A power that cleansed the dust of the soul spread through the Emperor's psychic essence.
The tidal wave of whispers—filled with fanaticism, despair, pleading, and curses—that eternally buzzed in his ears was temporarily walled off.
His humanity, worn down by ten thousand years of these noisy prayers, gained a moment of respite and a chance to emerge.
The Emperor's eyes, which had been tightly closed, opened. A trace of extremely fleeting exhaustion leaked from that gaze through the slit.
Guilliman stared blankly at this scene, a trance-like expression appearing on the Primarch's resolute face.
The Emperor before him was aligning more and more with the human figure he was familiar with ten thousand years ago—the father who would smile when Malcador the Sigillite was still around, even if that smile had been a disguise.
"That is about the limit of what I can do for now."
Zeke watched as the [Faith Poison] debuff in the Emperor's status bar was completely cleared.
Given the Empire's current population, the Faith would continue to accumulate, but it wouldn't cause severe consequences for the Emperor again for another few centuries.
"It is enough. It is already enough." The Emperor's speech now held intonation.
The Emperor did not waste this hard-won turning point; His will immediately began to operate.
The Golden Throne required the burning of many psykers daily for various purposes.
Now that the Emperor's condition had vastly improved, these useless sacrifices were no longer necessary.
The psykers could be sent to where they were needed more, serving as fuel in other ways.
The Emperor issued orders to the Custodes and also announced his will to those in the dungeons beneath the Golden Throne.
Beneath the Golden Throne lay a massive underground architectural complex—the Dungeon.
Since the Throne's installation, the Dungeon had been converted into a laboratory where hundreds of red-robed Tech-Priests worked endlessly to maintain the normal operation of the massive machine that was the Golden Throne, though most of the time they could only serve as an early warning system.
He contacted the Adeptus Mechanicus, instructing them to find solutions for the Talisman of Seven Hammers and the Webway daemons, as well as to repair the wear and tear the Webway had suffered over the years.
Having finished his communications, the Emperor turned his gaze back to Zeke.
This time, there was a complex nuance in his look.
"Of the Chaos Gods of the Warp, the majority excel at destruction, while those who excel at creation are few and far between. Creation is ten thousand times more difficult than destruction. Perhaps under your leadership, humanity can run towards a better future."
Having extricated Himself from pain and faith, the Emperor possessed humanity; his words even carried a trace of urgency.
Zeke stepped back. "Wait, what do you mean by that?"
The Emperor tried his best to squeeze out a kindly smile as he looked at Zeke.
"How about you become the Emperor?"
Are you kidding me? I did so much for you, and you… you want to trick me into sitting on the Golden Toilet?
Zeke suddenly felt his butt clench.
He couldn't find a single benefit to being the Emperor. The thought that a simple matchbox house he built might be surrounded by mortals and worshipped as a divine miracle...
It was too terrifying. I absolutely refuse.