Roan opened his eyes.
The experience of traveling between universes was not as painful as he had imagined; in fact, there was no special sensation at all. Roan merely felt a moment of trance, and then the scene around him changed completely, the world turning upside down.
He looked around. He was currently inside a room made of steel alloy. The furnishings in the room were relatively simple: just a desk and a single bed.
The double-headed eagle emblem of the Imperium of Man was engraved on the wall. The air carried the scent of candles and incense. A thick book lay on the desk, with The Holy Word written on the cover.
All signs indicated that he was no longer in the previous universe.
Roan smiled.
He laughed out of anger.
"Motherf**, that golden-skinned bastard set me up!"
Yes, he understood everything now.
Successfully escaping the cesspool that was the Foundation's world was certainly a beautiful thing.
But, damn it, why was he so unlucky as to jump from one cesspool right into another!
Warhammer 40K. In his past life, it was a very famous space opera game on the internet, created by the British company GW.
It was a setting themed around Gothic darkness and war, where various races and factions participated in a grand event within a small galaxy. Each had their own strengths, each had unique skills, and their secret weapons could bring endless surprises!
According to the contract, the faction Roan needed to lead to revival was called the Imperium of Man. This empire was the most absurd of the absurd, having successfully absorbed the dregs of every different political system in human history.
The shirking of responsibility of democracy, the iron-fisted oppression of totalitarianism, the ignorant fanaticism of religious systems, the rigid stagnation of feudalism, the total sacrifice of militarism, the cruel exploitation of slavery, the inefficiency of bureaucracy, the imprisoned thought of theocracy, and so on and so forth. It was truly a stench that reached the heavens.
Ever since a small accident during the Great Crusade ten thousand years ago, after the Emperor sat upon the Golden Throne, the entire Imperium had been sprinting downhill at top speed. Even though many heroes tried to save it, on the whole, it was of no avail.
"Fine, no need to be so pessimistic."
Roan quickly calmed down.
Now, the primary task was to figure out where he was in the galaxy and what year it was.
He walked toward the door of the room, intending to open it and go out.
He pushed, but the heavy alloy door did not budge; it was firmly locked.
"...Tsk."
Roan frowned. With a thought, the originally solid door instantly turned into loose sand, rustling down.
Cold light from the outside shone in. He stepped out, and the scene before him opened up.
It appeared to be a ship's hold originally used for storing and transporting goods. At this moment, however, the sounds of explosions and gunfire rose and fell; a slaughter was taking place.
The executioner of this slaughter was a Chaos Space Marine. He wore pink and purple power armor covered in twisted patterns, his entire body emitting an uncomfortable fragrance. Holding a chainsword in one hand and a bolter in the other, he danced through the crowd with an indescribably elegant posture. Wherever he passed, blood splattered and corpses fell.
"For the Four-Armed Emperor!"
An Imperial Guardsman had just picked up a melta bomb when his head was severed by a sword. The helmet fell in mid-air, revealing a hideous face and a bald head covered in chitinous plating.
The bomb was also lightly flicked away by the Chaos Space Marine, thrown to the side where the explosion instantly swallowed several people. The slaughter continued.
"Good lord, Gene-thieves guarding the gate, huh?"
Seeing this scene, which could only be described as very 'Warhammer,' Roan couldn't help but retort in his mind.
The two sides, currently in a heated exchange, also noticed Roan stumbling into the battlefield. Their reactions were different. The Genestealer side continued to pour firepower onto the Chaos Space Marine, while that Chaos Space Marine turned directly around and charged straight at Roan!
"Praise the Prince of Pleasure!"
For a Chaos Space Marine who worshipped Slaanesh, pursuing victory was absolutely not the most important matter; enjoyment and stimulation in battle were.
He was already tired of slaughtering these xenos controlled by genes and psychic energy who emitted no fragrant scent of fear. Seeing a mortal suddenly appear on the battlefield was a pleasant surprise.
How should he thoroughly play with this pitiful mortal?
Got it. Keep him alive, skin him whole, and then carve the False Emperor's Holy Word onto the tendons all over his body. Just thinking about it was stimulating!
The Chaos Space Marine had just marveled with joy at the idea that popped into his mind when, suddenly, his body stiffened. He came to an immediate halt in front of the mortal he had thought would be easily broken.
What happened?
"Startled me. Good thing I'm one step ahead!"
Roan, whose thought had locked down the opponent's Mark VII power armor, commented inwardly.
In his original world of the Foundation, almost all anomalous organizations had extensive experience in countering reality benders. In Roan's memory, every squad sent to capture him came equipped with Scranton Reality Anchors to shield against his reality bending abilities.
A situation like this, where the enemy was completely defenseless against warping abilities, was exceedingly rare.
Roan reached out his hand and clenched it gently.
Bang!
An explosive sound rang out.
The Chaos Space Marine immediately swayed and pitched forward onto the ground. His power armor cracked open, and massive amounts of blood sprayed out from the gaps.
Roan hadn't really done much; he had simply converted a portion of the blood inside the Marine's body into nitroglycerin.
This explosive, used by M2 humanity for mining, was still just as reliable in the 41st millennium. It directly blew apart the opponent's two hearts and three lungs, causing instant death.
Roan exhaled slightly. With the death of the Chaos Space Marine, he felt an energy filling his entire body, slightly elevating something fundamental within him.
The quality of this Chaos Space Marine's soul is not bad. Just one is enough to equal several hundred ordinary human souls.
He sighed with secret admiration.
...
The Warp, the Sixth Circle of Slaanesh.
A perfect palace, which mortals could not imagine in their entire lives nor describe one ten-thousandth of with words, stood quietly amidst the waves of the Empyrean. Between the pillars inside were sculptures, oil paintings, and various artworks rarely seen in the world, each one enough to make a person deeply obsessed.
In this palace, the most eye-catching things were not those artworks, but a massive number of seemingly ordinary mirrors. Arranged like stars surrounding the moon, they were spread throughout the interior of the palace, encircling a magnificent bed in the center of the space.
On this large bed, a twisted scene that would cause mortals to degenerate into Chaos Spawn upon a single glance was taking place.
Every mirror reflected that blasphemous scene on the bed. Each mirror represented a possibility. The figure inside the mirror would feed the stimulation they felt back to the main body in sync. This stimulation, amplified who knows how many thousands or tens of thousands of times, could be considered enough to provide sufficient pleasure to a Slaaneshi demon whose threshold had already been raised an unknown number of times.
After an unknown amount of time, a Keeper of Secrets lay limply on the bed, clearly unable to move.
And the other "person" slowly straightened up.
She wore the vestments of an Imperial Sister of Battle, completely incongruous with this blasphemous scenario, but the purity seals involved had all been replaced with twisted symbols related to Slaanesh.
Her limbs and torso were also extremely mutated, standing fully four meters tall. Her slender limbs brought reptilian creatures to mind, and her face was twisted yet bewitchingly beautiful.
Miriael Sabathiel.
The shame of the Order of Our Martyred Lady, a fallen Sister who abandoned her faith and bowed her knees to Slaanesh, and also a Chaos Champion blessed by Slaanesh.
She extended a tongue that was fully a meter long and licked her own face. The spiked tongue scraped bloody streaks across her face, which quickly vanished.
In this way, Miriael's brain finally cleared a little.
"What is the matter? My dearest Miriael."
The Keeper of Secrets lying on the bed asked in a cloying voice.
"...It is actually nothing major. It is just that the soul of a 'little fish' I had reserved seems to have escaped my control."
Miriael looked languid.