Chapter 34: The Outsider

Aboard the Imperator Somnium, Laboratory.

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"My lord, the subject's body has fully healed, and its life signs are stable."

"Data indicates that the subject's body is ready for the modification surgery."

"Proceed with the surgery."

The Emperor set down the golden pen in his hand and stood up from his workstation. 

He was dressed in a simple yet standard white laboratory coat, tailored to fit snugly, revealing hints of golden threads within.

He rose and walked over to the two-meter-tall nutrient tank. 

The blue nutrient fluid inside glimmered faintly, with countless bubbles gurgling up from the bottom. 

Thick, long tubes extended from the top of the tank, directly connecting to the figure suspended in the liquid.

Hades, eyes tightly shut, floated naked and unconscious in the nutrient tank. 

After treatment and nutrition replenishment, his already impressive height of 1.9 meters had further increased, making him appear about two meters tall—a truly imposing figure.

His limbs were covered in a dense network of scars, yet oddly, his torso had relatively few marks.

Despite his formidable physique, the most striking feature was his head.

His hair had been completely shaved off, revealing the left side of his skull, now gleaming with the metallic sheen of a bionic brain. 

From within the transparent casing of his skull, one could see neatly arranged cables, flickering with fluorescent light.

A massive scar ran down the left side of his face, starting from the top of his mechanical brain, splitting his face in a crude, inverted triangle that extended all the way to his chin.

His left eye had also been replaced with a bionic eye, glowing red, but it was merely the most basic model.

Initially, the Mechanicus researchers had suggested using biochemical technology to regenerate Hades' left brain, allowing it to heal naturally.

However, the Emperor had vetoed this proposal, choosing instead to implant a semi-independent mechanical left brain.

The researchers were somewhat puzzled by this decision but silently complied with the Emperor's will.

The nutrient fluid in the tank was about to be drained, and a beeping mechanical sound echoed as the liquid began to flow more rapidly, as if it were boiling.

The Emperor gazed through the glass of the nutrient tank at Hades inside.

Hades' eyelids twitched slightly, but he did not wake.

The Emperor placed a finger on the glass and made a few casual strokes.

A faint golden light flashed across Hades' head.

Caution is good, but sometimes unnecessary.

I hope you can fulfill the destiny I have chosen for you, Outsider.

[The Outsider]

The world in which the Emperor resided was composed of the physical universe and the Warp.

And what lay beyond the world?

It was the formless, chaotic void.

Even the Warp, bizarre as it seemed to ordinary eyes, had its own set of rules.

The gods followed the original rules of the world, but there were always deities who attempted to touch what lay beyond.

The Warp sought to expand.

The games of the gods should not be confined to one world.

Tzeentch, the god of change, was the first to attempt this. 

He tried to extend the Warp's reach or perhaps break the rules of this world.

Then, he succeeded in creating a small breach in the Warp, tearing open a corner of the world.

The chaotic void surged in, obliterating all laws it encountered.

Fortunately, the breach was not large, and Tzeentch, with his power, mended the tear.

However, the barrier of this world had become thinner due to this attempt.

Whether as a punishment from the world's rules against Tzeentch, or merely by chance, on the other side of the void, across countless chaotic currents, lay a world governed entirely by physical laws.

There was a minuscule chance that a being from that physical world would be randomly cast into this world by the chaotic currents.

These fortunate or unfortunate creatures were like walking world rifts, absorbing all the Warp's laws around them and casting them into the void.

Because they originated from a physical world, they were not repelled by its laws. 

In their own world, they existed in their most original form.

If these beings were left unchecked, the rifts in the Warp would grow larger, eventually disintegrating into the chaotic void.

However, this was not good news for humanity.

The humans of this world were not purely physical beings; they had soul projections in the Warp.

If the Warp were destroyed, humanity would cease to exist.

Thus, there was a tacit understanding between the Emperor and the Chaos Gods.

If an Outsider appeared, they must be destroyed.

If an Outsider were encountered, their physical body should be destroyed. 

Without the support of physical laws, these beings would cease to exist.

But now, with the Emperor's encounter with Hades, the agreement was rewritten.

A single Outsider would not pose a great threat to this world, and the original denizens of the Warp were already stirring once more.

Even if the Emperor did not act, Tzeentch would break the agreement.

Greed, the Emperor thought. Good.

Few Outsiders could traverse the void, even fewer could land on a habitable planet and survive.

To land on Barbarus, a planet controlled by Nurgle, and thus not be immediately dominated by Tzeentch upon arrival, was even rarer.

Even more remarkable was that this Outsider possessed qualities of his own.

The Emperor saw the Hades from Mortarion's memories, the Hades who sacrificed himself to help Mortarion slay the xenos.

This was a transaction that would not be in vain, the Emperor thought.

Still, it would depend on Hades' own performance.

—Hades was just one of the Emperor's countless backup plans, seemingly insignificant. 

At this stage, he would not waste much attention on this, nor could he afford to.

Good luck, the Emperor thought as he placed his entire palm on the glass. 

Instantly, a burst of golden light flared!

The Emperor's long hair scattered in the wind created by the surge of energy.

In the Warp, the outer layer of a pitch-black rift was instantly enveloped in golden light. 

The golden light violently compressed the black void, which began to struggle weakly!

At the same time, Hades, floating in the nutrient fluid, also began to convulse! His limbs twitched and trembled involuntarily.

The black void crashed around, trying to escape the golden light's encirclement.

But the originally tiny void was no match for the immense golden light.

The black void soon quieted down, allowing the golden light to compress it.

When the black void was compressed to slightly smaller than a human figure, the golden light stopped advancing.

The golden light slightly retreated, then gradually faded, dissipated, and finally became imperceptibly transparent.

"You may proceed with the surgery."

The golden light in the laboratory, like a fleeting dream, vanished in an instant. 

The Emperor still stood there, his expression calm, his thoughts unknown.

This was a cage.

But whether the cage was meant to keep out the malice outside or to contain the monster within, that was unclear.

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Enjoy your reading (・ω・)

In the future, I might include a lot of original content or modify existing settings to make the novel more coherent. 

Apologies if it's not to everyone's taste, but my writing ability and imagination aren't strong enough to produce a completely faithful narrative.

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