“What the…
holy hell?
Where the fuck did I end up?
Is this even China anymore?”
Ross Vance stood on a street reeking of piss and nameless filth, looking down at the stiff, crusty, grime-caked trench coat whose original color was anyone’s guess.
He was completely dumbfounded.
He jerked his head up, flipped a middle finger toward the overcast sky, and let out a furious roar so loud that a homeless man dozing in the corner scrambled up, clutching a knife.
The cause of all this traced back a few minutes.
Ross was an upstanding twenty-first-century young man with no bad habits—save for an obsessive love of Paradox Interactive and Warhammer games.
Recently, he had been tortured half to death by his doctoral dissertation.
His advisor’s annotations were longer than the actual draft, and by the fifty-eighth revision, Ross felt the last string in his brain was about to snap.
So he decided to reward himself.
Namely, booting up *Stellaris* for a stress-relief run.
His save file was right in its golden age.
The miserable days of turtling and building up quietly were long past.
Now his federation commanded top-tier tech; if a planet looked at him funny, a single click converted it into bio-electricity—profitable and effortless.
That feeling of absolute control was more relieving than anything else.
But as he launched the game, his hand slipped and clicked the wrong line.
Popping up on his screen was the launch splash for *Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2*.
“Fine, opened it anyway.”
Ross leaned back in his chair with a remarkably easygoing mindset.
“Purging heretics is purging heretics either way.
Swapping to a boltgun is just as satisfying.”
He waited for the game to load to the main menu, but no matter how long he waited, the screen remained stuck on black right after the splash.
Just as he was about to open Task Manager, a prompt suddenly popped up—framed in gold, styled in Gothic font, and complete with a backing Gregorian chant.
It read:
“The Emperor calls upon you.
Will you heed the great summons and journey to Terra to judge all heretics?”
Below were two options:
[Accept the Summons] and [Decline the Summons].
Ross stared at the screen for two seconds and snorted with laughter.
“Alright, even the devs are playing the loyalty meme now?
Everyone claims loyalty until it’s time to actually go.”
Without a second thought, he clicked “Decline the Summons.”
“Trying to troll me?
No way in hell.
Who knows what Easter egg this triggers.
If the Corpse-Emperor wipes my hard-earned save file, who am I gonna cry to?”
Then he heard a voice.
It felt like it surged from every direction at once, yet also poured straight into his brain, carrying an indisputable majesty along with a faint trace of offended displeasure.
“Insolent mortal, you dare refuse Our summons.
You have violated the Lex Imperialis.
Now, We shall deliver judgment in person.”
Ross’s pupils shrank.
That voice, that aura, those lines—
“Wait…
the Big E is real?!”
Before he could shout another word, the monitor flared with blinding golden radiance.
A violently spinning golden vortex materialized in the center, pulling him toward the screen with irresistible gravitational force.
His chair flipped, his headphone cord snapped, and Ross only managed to let out a bloodcurdling scream before being completely swallowed by the golden light, vanishing without a trace.
In the apartment, only the PC fans hummed softly as a line of small text slowly surfaced on the screen:
“If loyalty is not absolute, it is absolute betrayal.
—The Emperor of Mankind”
***
Consciousness falling.
Ross felt as though he had been crammed into a space elevator stripped of its brakes, plunging through layer after layer of twisted golden light.
It wasn’t darkness around him, but a thick, almost liquid gold—heavy, searing, suffocating him until he could barely draw breath.
After an eternity or a split second, the weightlessness vanished.
He found himself standing in nothingness.
No ground beneath, no sky above, surrounded by an endless golden mist.
A nameless, indescribable scent hung in the air.
Then he saw it.
No, not “saw.”
He sensed it.
An existence vaster and more ancient than anything he had ever known slowly emerged from the depths of the golden mist.
He couldn’t even be sure if it was a “person.”
Perhaps merely a silhouette, a colossal figure woven from light, seated upon the Golden Throne.
The figure had no facial features, yet Ross felt clearly that it was watching him.
No rage, no warmth—only a scrutinizing gaze that transcended human comprehension.
“Are you the one who refused my summons?”
The voice returned.
Just as before, it poured directly into his mind, but this time far deeper, even tinged with a hint of amusement.
Ross parted his lips and realized he could speak.
His mind raced, assessing the situation in a flash.
He was almost certainly no longer on Earth, and the being before him was in all likelihood the Emperor of Mankind from the Warhammer 40K universe—the one who had sat on the Golden Throne serving as a human lightbulb for ten thousand years.
Facing a true deity, what attitude should one adopt?
The answer: I’m already dead, so what the hell am I afraid of?
Besides, I’m a hundred-percent pure-blooded human.
Worst case, I become fuel for the Astronomican.
“I’m the one who clicked decline,” Ross said dryly.
“But I thought it was a game Easter egg.
Your people meme you online every single day, and I don’t see you turning any of them into servitors.”
The golden figure fell silent.
The silence lasted for three seconds.
Ross felt those three seconds stretch longer than three hours of getting chewed out in his advisor’s office.
Then the voice resonated again, its tone carrying a subtle hint of…
defensiveness?
“Those unfilial scoundrels…
sooner or later, I will banish every last one of them to Cadian soil to guard the Gate of Chaos.”
Ross: “…”
He suddenly wasn’t sure whether he should kneel in repentance or burst out laughing.
“Enough.
Back to business.”
The Emperor’s voice regained its prior majesty.
“You refused the summons.
Under the Lex Imperialis, that warrants execution for treason.
Yet I appreciate your nerve, so I shall grant you a chance to redeem yourself through service.”
Before the words fully faded, the golden mist churned, coalescing into a tiny mote of light that drifted slowly in front of Ross.
It was barely the size of a fingernail, yet radiated an energy pulse that chilled the soul.
Like a miniature star, countless tinier specks of light swirled, collided, and annihilated violently within.
Pure psionic energy—a primordial force born only where the Warp intersects the material realm.
“This is a psionic seed, born from a fragment of my own will.”
The Emperor’s voice was solemn and distant.
“You shall be dispatched to an alternate world far beyond the borders of the Imperium.
You have only one mission: judge every heretic upon that world.”
“Judge…
heretics?”
Staring at the pulsing mote before him, Ross swallowed hard.
“All who defy the Lex Imperialis are heretics.”
The Emperor spoke without haste, yet each syllable bore undeniable authority.
“The psionic seed will absorb the merits of your judgments, converting them into your psionic reserves.
The stronger your psychic power, the more powerful you will become, and the more you will be able to summon.”
Ross’s pupils dilated abruptly.
“Summon…
summon what?”
“Everything.”
“Space Marines of the Warhammer world, the Imperial Guard, Grey Knights, Sisters of Silence—as long as your psychic power is sufficient, the entire Imperium can fight for you.”
Ross’s breathing grew ragged.
“And what else?”
“The technology of the Stellaris universe: starships, megastructures, Shroud powers—as long as you have seen it, as long as you know of it, your psychic might can manifest it into reality.”
Ross felt his heart nearly leap out of his throat.
A corvette.
A chainsword.
A Titan.
An entire Space Marine Chapter.
A whole fleet of world-crackers?
The Emperor continued.
“Be it technology or psychic phenomena, anything that once existed within the systems of those two worlds can be replicated by your psionic seed.
The stronger your psychic power, the greater the scale and tier of your summons.”
Ross jerked his head up, twin flames igniting in his eyes.
“So, all I have to do is keep purging heretics in that world to get stronger?
Summon bigger things?
And then purge even more heretics?”
“An unending cycle,” the Emperor said coolly.
“Until that world is utterly cleansed, or until you fall gloriously in battle and your soul returns to the Golden Throne.”
Ross automatically filtered out the latter half of that sentence.
His brain was revving into overdrive, more exhilarated than the day he got accepted by his PhD advisor.
Just as he opened his mouth to ask what counted as a heretic, the psionic seed suddenly moved.
It turned into a streak of light and slammed into Ross’s chest.
There was no pain.
Instead, a far more terrifying sensation washed over him.
Like a drop of ink dripped into the deepest recesses of his brain, diffusing at breathtaking speed, dyeing every blood vessel, every nerve ending.
He felt something new take root deep within his consciousness—a living, pulsing entity fused seamlessly with his soul.
Simultaneously, a flood of dense information poured into his mind.
Articles of the Lex Imperialis, the overarching definitions of heresy, the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, methods of channeling psychic power.
A few tenets were particularly stark:
— Any technological system unauthorized by the Imperium is heresy.
— Any worship of deities other than the Emperor is heresy.
— Any alliance, interbreeding, or collusion with xenos is heresy.
— Any unauthorized alteration of sacred human genetics carries an aggravated penalty.
— Any use of unsanctioned psychic power warrants immediate summary execution.
Ross’s eyes widened as a dreadful premonition seized him.
“Wait…
what do you mean by altering human genes?
What do you mean by worshiping gods other than the Emperor?”
The Emperor did not answer.
The golden mist began receding like an ebbing tide, and the colossal figure seated upon the throne faded into the distance.
“Go forth, my successor.
Carry out your duty.”
“Hey, hey, hey!
You haven’t explained what kind of world this is!”
Before Ross’s shout even hit the ground, the weightless vertigo struck again.
Golden light detonated across his vision.
He felt as if someone had booted him straight off a hundred-thousand-foot cliff, leaving only the Emperor’s final words echoing in his ears, growing fainter and more ethereal:
“Do not disappoint me.
Otherwise, our next meeting will not be as simple as exile.”
***
*Thud!*
Ross’s back slammed hard into the muck- and trash-strewn pavement.
He lay there, eyes wide as he stared up at the smoggy sky, gasping violently for air.
The psionic seed in his chest still radiated a gentle warmth; with every pulse, a faint crackle of golden lightning flickered across his body.
It took him a full two minutes to scramble to his feet.
First, confirm he was alive.
Second, confirm his memories.
Finally, confirm that the seed was indeed inside his body.
“…Well damn.
Skipped straight from grad student to crown prince.”
Bracing against the wall, Ross stood up and brushed the filthy water from his clothes.
He stumbled out of the alley, and just as he began scanning his surroundings, he caught sight of the gigantic electronic billboard on the facade of the building across the street.
“Stark Industries CEO Tony Stark announced today that…”
The familiar logo.
The familiar surname.
The familiar setup.
Ross froze entirely in place.
Marvel.
This was the Marvel universe.
His psionic seed suddenly gave a violent thump, and an intense sensation surged from his chest, making his scalp tingle.
Throughout this very city, signals of heresy blazed everywhere.
He stared blankly at the giant screen, then looked down at the tiny arc of golden lightning flickering in his palm, running through the entire Stellaris Tech tree and Warhammer arsenal in his head from top to bottom.
“Holy shit, Big E…”
“You really handed me one hell of a job!”