It was silent Deep within the sanctum of the Imperial Palace, where the God Emperor of Mankind lay bound to the Golden Throne, save for the hum of the Astronomicon and the subtle creak of ancient, weathered bones. Above him, in the Great Vaults, the light of the Emperor's immortal mind flickered dimly. His body, a withered husk, remained tethered to the Golden Throne—a prison of adamantium and psychic power—endlessly sustaining the Imperium and warding off the horrors of the Warp. To the universe, he was the God Emperor of Mankind, revered, feared, and ultimately forgotten by many. But to the Chaos gods, he was the Corpse Emperor, a lifeless vessel of untold power.
In the deep recesses of his mind, the Emperor's consciousness stirred, pulled from the depths of a timeless suffering. His mind, a vault of millennia of knowledge and experience, twisted with the unbearable weight of countless defeats. The grim future, full of hopelessness and endless wars, loomed large in his thoughts. He had known, for ages beyond counting, that humanity would inevitably fall to the encroaching forces of Xenos and Chaos, and yet… the plan had been set in motion.
He had waited. Watched. Seen and memorized the countless battles where victory was just beyond his grasp. The Chaos gods had taken pleasure in his suffering, reveling in the knowledge that even his unimaginable foresight could not alter the grim tide. But now, in his final moments of clarity, A plan, a gamble so absurd, so insane, that it might just be the only way to save mankind was about to be completed.
He and his old friends malcador the sigillite and Constantin Valdor has started a plan so stupidly impossible right after the news of the heresy reached them as a last resort
The final gamble malcador called it right before he turned to ashes
The emperor knew after being put in the golden throne that this plan was the only chance mankind had so he endured the torture of bieng made and unmade physically for 10,000 years just for this moment
The price? Immense. A sacrifice beyond anything any mortal—or god—could comprehend. He would offer his very life, the lifeblood of the Astronomicon, the flame that guided humanity's ships across the stars. He would give up the power of the Golden Throne, the apparatus that had kept him chained in a cycle of agony for ten thousand years. But worse still, his gamble would not only cost him his existence—it would cost everyone. A galaxy's worth of lives would be drained from existence, consumed by the very essence of the Astronomicon itself.
But the stakes were far greater than that. If he succeeded, he would manipulate fate itself, sending his memories and knowledge back to a time to the end of the Unification Wars before the scatter of the primarchs . Back to the Emperor of the distant past, a younger version of himself still filled with hope, vision, and the power to alter the course of history to make mankind rule above everything and everyone with no hesitation no matter the cost.
His mind reached out, grasping at the delicate threads of time. He could feel the fabric of reality itself quivering beneath his touch. Every decision, every moment, was a potential pivot. One wrong move, and the past would unravel, leaving him lost in an impossible paradox. But he had no choice. The future was already written in blood, and his children—his sons—were scattered, lost to the vagaries of fate and the horrors of the Warp. His dream of uniting the stars under the banner of humanity was slipping through his fingers like sand.
He summoned his power, drawing on the remaining fragments of his shattered psyche . The process was grueling, a tear in the very essence of his being, and he knew that the outcome was uncertain. The Warp, the realm of Chaos, was a fickle mistress. And yet, his will remained firm. He would shape the future. He would reshape mankind's destiny. The plan would come to fruition, or it would consume everything in its wake.
He focused on the most vital moments, those critical junctures where his failures had led to irreparable loss. The betrayal of Horus, the fall of his sons, the rise of the Imperium's enemies. These were the moments that had defined the grim future he had lived through. He would alter them, reweaving the tapestry of fate, and guiding the Emperor of the past to avoid the catastrophic missteps that had led humanity into its darkest hour.
And so, the Emperor made his choice. The knowledge of a thousand battles, the pain of a thousand defeats, and the hope of a thousand tomorrows surged within him. He cast his consciousness forward and back, locking himself into a temporal paradox, prepared to risk everything for the chance to reshape reality itself.
As his mind spiraled through the maelstrom of time, the price of his gamble became clearer. Lives would be lost—billions upon billions. The very foundation of the galaxy would tremble beneath the weight of his decision and this fucked up timeline shall be sacrificed. But the alternative was worse: the galaxy, already so close to ruin, would fall to the machinations of the Chaos gods and the unstoppable tide of the Tyranids and the Necrons, eldar, or the orks . Humanity would be swallowed whole, its potential never realized.
In that instant, the Emperor made the ultimate sacrifice. His essence, the force that had driven him for millennia, was drawn into the very fabric of the Warp, and the vastness of the Astronomicon flickered like a dying star. The Golden Throne was abandoned, its power lost. A ripple shot through the fabric of space and time shocking the Ruinous Powers, and for a brief moment, the galaxy stood still.
The universe trembled. The stars flickered. And the Emperor of Mankind, the God-Emperor and the Corpse Emperor, cast his memories back to a time when the future was yet unwritten.
And so began the gamble of a lifetime—a gamble that would change the very course of destiny. Whether it was a stroke of brilliance or a fool's hope remained to be seen. But one thing was certain: the Emperor was no longer the passive observer of his fate.
He had returned to the beginning.