Chapter 155: The 41st Millennium's Despair, Taro: The Land of Light Must Save the Human Imperium

Above the sky-screen, that tragic hymn gradually fell silent.

The image froze on the shattered wreckage atop the Golden Throne, utterly silent.

After an unknown span of time, a new line of subtitles, like congealed bloodstains, slowly emerged.

【The Horus Heresy has ended.】

【But the Emperor's dream died with it.】

【Imperial Truth was abandoned; science and reason were deemed heresy.】

【In their place came fanatical worship of the "God-Emperor," and endless war against xenos and heretics.】

【Humanity entered a darkest age.】

【In the cold darkness of the 41st Millennium, there is only... war.】

The scene shifted, time leaping forward in units of ten thousand years.

The myriad-world viewers saw

the Imperium's territory constantly shrinking and expanding in the fires of war, technology no longer advancing but continuously being lost.

Humanity's fleets grew ever more bloated, ever more superstitious; every warship resembled a moving Gothic cathedral rather than an efficient killing machine.

【Chaos never relented.】

【Horus's successor, Abaddon of the Black Legion, inherited the Warmaster's will and the blessings of the Four Chaos Gods.】

【Over the following ten thousand years, he launched twelve galaxy-spanning "Black Crusades," each like a heavy hammer striking the Imperium's already overburdened husk.】

【Yet these twelve crusades were merely feints.】

【His true objective was only one: Cadia.】

The view focused on a resilient planet.

It sat at the sole stable exit of the Warp storm "Eye of Terror," like a nail driven into the gates of hell.

Beneath the planet's surface

lay spread the "Blackstone Obelisks" built by the ancient race, capable of suppressing Warp energy.

【Cadia is the last lock sealing Chaos.】

【999. M41, the Thirteenth Black Crusade begins.】

This time, Abaddon committed everything.

A flesh-tide of billions of Chaos zealots, the steel torrents of several Traitor Legions,

and endless daemons surged forth from the Eye of Terror, encircling Cadia completely.

The savagery of the war in no way fell short of the Siege of Terra ten thousand years prior.

But this time, humanity had no Primarchs, no Emperor.

Only mortals.

Cadia's defenders, those Imperial Guardsmen in khaki uniforms, backed by the Celestian Knights, engaged in a desperate death-struggle against an enemy ten times their number.

"For the Emperor!"

"Cadia Stands!"

However, Abaddon's true killing blow did not come from the ground.

He turned his colossal flagship, built of blackstone and capable of shattering moons, the "Blackstone Fortress,"

toward Cadia.

【"Let the galaxy burn!"】

With Abaddon's cold proclamation, that mountain-range of a fortress, trailing destruction, crashed into Cadia without hesitation!

There was no sound.

In the sky-screen's image, only a silent, ultimate white light.

When the light faded, Cadia... shattered.

That planet symbolizing humanity's ten-thousand-year will to resist, along with all its Blackstone Obelisks, turned together into cosmic dust.

The lock was smashed.

Boom!!!

The "Eye of Terror's" energy, no longer bound, like a primeval ferocious beast breaking its cage, suddenly expanded outward!

A massive Warp rift spanning the entire galaxy, thousands of light-years wide,

like a giant unhealing scar, tore the material universe in two!

It was named — 【The Great Rift】.

Countless worlds were devoured by this mad energy storm, contact with Terra severed completely.

The Astronomican's light was obscured; millions of fleets lost in the Warp, billions of humans plunged into eternal darkness and despair.

The Imperium was split in two.

Necron flagship.

Grand Marshal Sidney's face was iron-blue, fists clenched white-knuckled on the armrest.

"Strategic catastrophe! A catastrophe through and through!"

Crash!

For the 10,086th time she smashed the coffee cup in her hand; the aide instantly handed her a fresh one.

"Staking an entire civilization's survival on a single planet's defense! What a stupendously foolish strategic layout!"

"Ten thousand years, twelve warnings!"

"They didn't even establish any fallback lines, didn't develop any alternative technology to the 'Blackstone Obelisks'!"

She looked at the massive wound tearing the galaxy apart, her eyes filled with anguish and sorrow.

"This isn't losing to the enemy; this is losing to my own arrogance and stagnation!"

……

Trisolaran Fleet.

The Supreme Leader's thought-body fluctuated violently, filled with the relief and lingering fear of one who has just survived a catastrophe.

"Dark Forest…… Our Dark Forest Law is so 'benevolent'!"

"The strike of the suspicion chain, at least, is physical, precise."

"But this 'Great Rift'…… it is pollution at the level of rules!"

"It turns the entire universe from an ordered chessboard into a chaotic, trap-filled mire!"

"It renders the 'Security Declaration' completely ineffective, because darkness itself splits open beneath your feet!"

……

Cybertron.

Optimus Prime watched the screen, where Cadia's last defenders continued firing even as the planet shattered in its final moments, and said in a low voice:

"Cadia may have fallen, but the spirit of Cadia stands unbroken."

Megatron then let out a dismissive cold laugh:

"Foolish sacrifice. But…… Abaddon, this fellow I have come to admire a little."

"Ten thousand years of persistence, twelve failures, all for one final success. This kind of willpower is far stronger than those Autobots who only know how to wail!"

……

Just as all the myriad-world spectators thought the Human Imperium would now fracture and collapse entirely toward destruction.

The heavenly screen's image shifted once again.

【At the Imperium's darkest hour, a hope-light dormant for ten thousand years quietly reignited from the ashes.】

The scene arrived at the homeworld of the Limitless Warriors Legion, Macragge.

Deep within a magnificent temple, inside a static force field generator, a towering figure lay motionless.

Roboute Guilliman, the genetic primarch of the Limitless Warriors Legion.

Ten thousand years ago, when he dueled his fallen brother Fulgrim, he was grievously wounded by a poisoned demon blade, his life hanging by a thread, and was sealed here, unmoving for ten thousand years.

And now, a man named Belisarius Cawl, a mechanicus Archmagos whose thoughts are deemed "heretical," accompanied by an Eldar emissary, has arrived here.

They brought with them a completely new life-support system capable of saving the primarch.

【The Emperor's unfinished work, fulfilled by mortals.】

Under the gaze of countless eyes, the static force field deactivated.

The body that had slept for ten thousand years, its heart, beat once more.

Roboute Guilliman, resurrected!

……

Meanwhile, in the Warhammer universe.

Holy Terra, deep within the Imperial Palace.

Roboute Guilliman suddenly lifted his head.

He gazed at the heavenly screen,

at the version of himself who had just awakened from the static stance, eyes still clouded with confusion and bewilderment.

He also saw the image flashing by—himself during the Great Crusade, vigorous and full of martial spirit.

Finally, he saw the figure in golden armor, the one who bestowed the rank of Warmaster upon Horus—his father.

One glorious memory after another, contrasted with what he now sees with his own eyes upon resurrection: this foolish, corrupt, dark Imperium, forming the harshest contrast.

Guilliman's eye sockets grew moist.

He slowly turned, gazing toward the deepest part of the Imperial Palace, that place he had only returned to once in ten thousand years.

"Father……"

He whispered softly, his voice filled with endless fatigue and sorrow.

"I have returned…… but you…… are no longer here."

"Is everything I have done truly what you wished? This realm built in your name, a kingdom of lies and superstition…… what now for our future?"

As if in answer to his question.

A hum.

A faint psychic tremor, almost imperceptible, yet seeming to originate from the very dawn of the universe, gently came from the direction of the Golden Throne.

It carried no words, no images.

Only a single thread of pure, ancient will—exhausted to the extreme, yet bearing undeniable affirmation and resolve.

【Continue.】

Guilliman shuddered throughout his body.

He closed his eyes, and two clear tears streamed down.

Immediately, he flung his eyes open, his gaze now holding only steel-like resolve.

"As you command, Father."

……

Above the heavenly screen, the image continued.

【The resurrected Guilliman faces a shattered Imperium. His first act is to go to Terra, to audience with his father, who has sat motionless upon the throne for ten thousand years.】

【No one knows what transpired between them within the throne room.】

All that was known was that when Guilliman emerged once more, he had become the "Imperial Regent," wielding the Emperor's Flaming Sword, granted the supreme authority to reforge the Imperium.

He launched the unprecedented "Indomitus Crusade," assembling the more powerful "Primaris Space Marines" secretly created by Cawl, and launched a counter-offensive into the dark frontiers severed by the Great Rift!

The myriad-worlds audience saw hope.

Squad after squad of brand-new Space Marine Chapters, equipped with even finer wargear, led by Guilliman, pierced like swords into lost worlds occupied by Chaos and xenos.

After the crusade fleet paid a tremendous price,

they finally opened a stable route crossing the Great Rift in a spiral arm of the galaxy — the Nachmund Gauntlet.

The two halves of the Imperium's territory were finally reconnected.

However,

Chaos has never been humanity's only enemy.

In the 41st Millennium, the ultimate predators from beyond the galaxy launched their third, and largest-scale, invasion.

【Tyranids (Tyranids)】

The scene cut to a dead silent starfield.

A biological fleet too vast to be counted by numbers drifted in silence.

They were not forged of steel, but composed of chitin, flesh, and claws.

【First Tyrannic War, Hive Fleet "Behemoth": they devoured over a hundred worlds, finally suffering crippling losses on the Ultramarines' homeworld Macragge.】

【Second Tyrannic War, Hive Fleet "Kraken": they changed strategy, splitting their forces, like an inextinguishable plague igniting war across the entire Eastern Fringe.】

【Third Tyrannic War, Hive Fleet "Leviathan"...】

The lens pulled back sharply, arriving at a panoramic view of the galaxy.

A shadow composed of billions of Tyranids, blotting out the sky, descended from the "underside" of the galaxy, bypassing the detection range of all civilizations, like a gaping maw lunging straight for the galactic core.

Target: Holy Terra.

Where they passed,

worlds were gnawed clean,

even atmospheres stripped away,

leaving only bare, bald rocks.

The Wandering Earth universe.

Liu Peiqiang watched the gnawed-clean planets on the screen, feeling his scalp tingle.

"MOSS, analyze the threat level of this species."

"Threat level: incalculable."

MOSS's red dot blinked, its voice calm as ever,

"Tyranids do not invade to occupy, nor to colonize; their purpose is to convert all organic matter in the entire galaxy into their own biomass."

"Every invasion of theirs is a net growth."

"The more they fight, the stronger they grow; the more they eat, the more numerous they become."

"From a thermodynamic perspective, they are perfect executors of entropy increase."

"Compared to them, the Trisolarans we worry about are practically neighbors paying a friendly visit to Earth."

Dragon Ball world.

On King Kai's planet, King Kai stared dumbfounded.

"Good heavens... Frieza destroys planets with energy blasts at least, 'boom' and it's gone."

"Majin Buu turning people into candy counts as a kind of... art?"

"These bugs... they 'eat'!"

"They chew up a whole planet, along with all life on it, every blade of grass and tree, and swallow it down!"

"This... this is more terrifying than destruction itself! This is total erasure!"

Land of Light

Zoffy's tone was unprecedentedly grave:

"We have fought countless kaiju, but most are independent individuals.

"But this Tyranid race is a unified 'Hive Mind.'"

"Killing ten thousand, a hundred million, means nothing. As long as their 'Mind' exists, they are undying."

"This is a... conceptual-level natural disaster."

However,

just when the myriad worlds thought the Tyranids would be the final straw that breaks the Imperium,

the sky-screen's image once again turned deep and ancient.

【When a galaxy-level threat appears, another ancient nightmare also awakens from slumber.】

【Necrons (Necrons)】

In the scene,

deep beneath a dead silent desert world,

a pyramid tomb slumbering for sixty million years slowly opened.

Countless skeletal warriors of living metal marched out of the darkness in neat lockstep.

The Gauss weapons in their hands can disintegrate matter at the atomic level.

In the 41st millennium, with the emergence of the Great Rift and the violent fluctuations of warp energy, countless slumbering tomb worlds were awakened.

The most significant event among them was that their supreme monarch, the Silent King Szarekh, ended his self-imposed exile lasting tens of millions of years and returned from the dark void beyond the galaxy.

On the screen,

a massive king's ship emitting an ominous green light,

silently appeared at the edge of the galaxy.

The reason for his return is simple: he encountered the vanguard of the Tyranid swarms beyond the galaxy.

He realized this would be the ultimate threat to all life in the galaxy—whether humanity, the Eldar, or even his own soulless people.

The Silent King began traversing the galaxy, awakening more tomb worlds, attempting to reunify his fractured dynasty.

His goal: at any cost, defeat the Tyranids—even if it meant using all the "noisy" young races in the galaxy as pawns and cannon fodder.

…

Cybertron.

Optimus Prime gazed at the necro-metallic constructs and seemed to see another possible future for the Cybertronians.

"To gain immortality, they sold their souls… ultimately becoming machines devoid of emotion and free will."

His voice was filled with sorrow,

"This is a tragedy more thorough than our own civil war."

"They gained eternal life, but lost 'life' itself."

…

The flagship of the Star People's Alliance.

Marshal Sidney rubbed his temples, feeling a splitting headache.

"Chaos, xenos, bugs, and now an ancient machine empire……"

He stared at the star map, where red represented Chaos, purple represented Tyranids, green represented the Necrons, and gold represented humanity—interlocking and clashing in endless melee.

"So many xenos!"

"This universe… is practically a jar for breeding gu."

"All the most extreme and powerful civilizations have been thrown in to wage an endless bloody elimination match."

"And humanity, surrounded on all sides."

…

On the celestial display, the star map showing the four-way mêlée of Chaos, Tyranids, Necrons, and the Human Empire gradually faded.

Despair, chaos, endless war.

This is the entirety of the 41st millennium.

Land of Light.

Before the Plasma Spark Tower, all was silent.

All Ultramen were stunned into silence by this hellish sight.

After a long while,

Taro Ultraman stepped forward suddenly, gazing at the tall, majestic back before him, his voice trembling slightly with emotion yet filled with unquestionable resolve.

"Father!"

Ultraman Father slowly turned around.

In Taro's eyes burned a light never seen before—a flame mixed with pity, anger, and a sense of duty.

"Father, this universe is truly too dark!"

"We can no longer stand by like this! We can no longer remain mere observers!"

He clenched his fists, addressing Ultraman Father and all his fellow beings in the Land of Light, letting out a soul-deep cry.

"We cannot sit and wait for death—we must save them!"

…