It was time for a vacation.
That was what Lancelot thought.
Granted, outside, the First War for Armageddon was about to erupt, and the Daemon Primarch Angron was preparing to tear through the veil of the Warp and descend into realspace.
But to Lancelot, a war on that level was still a little too far away.
For now, his mission was to awaken Guilliman.
If the sky collapsed, the tallest man could hold it up.
He would take the chance to grow properly first, then come back to save the Imperium of Man.
With that thought, Lancelot reached out with his will and touched an anchor point that already existed within his senses, or perhaps within his instincts.
The thing felt like breathing.
As long as he focused, he could control it.
And when Lancelot concentrated, making the sensation of that anchor grow clearer and clearer, a burst of white light suddenly bloomed before his eyes.
When the white light faded, Lancelot’s vision returned.
What entered his sight again at that moment was a scene of peace.
A blazing sun.
Blue sky.
White clouds.
A grassy plain and flowing rivers.
“Hah…”
He could not help exhaling a breath of stale air.
Strictly speaking, Lancelot had spent about a day in the Warhammer universe, but those twenty-four hours were absolutely something he did not want to remember.
Everywhere had been cold, hard steel.
Warning-red lights, incandescent glare, Ork blood, Genestealers, the malformed bodies of mutants, and the skin-crawling sight of skulls and Cherubim.
Whenever he thought of the ordinary Imperial citizens suffering through all of it, Lancelot felt an overwhelming mental weight press down on him.
All he could do was force himself to keep swinging the power sword in his hand, cutting down every enemy before him with fury.
It was like keeping a string pulled taut.
After arriving aboard the Lamenters’ warship, confirming that he was safe, and making plans for the road ahead, the string inside Lancelot finally loosened.
The moment it did, fatigue surged through him.
Lancelot felt tired.
Very tired.
His body was still that of an Astartes, but his soul had once belonged to an ordinary man.
Just one war had already left him like this.
It was hard to imagine how much despair an idealist would feel in the cesspit universe of Warhammer, facing endless war without relief.
So, Guilliman, the Thirteenth, Roboute…
you had better hold the line.
Abaddon is basically from your nephew’s generation, and even his Black Crusades keep winning one victory after another.
Since I’m waking you up early, your Indomitus Crusade had better be the same!
Whether I can develop safely in the rear all depends on your hard work!
You hold things together first.
Once I grow across the multiverse until I’m at single-universe level, I’ll bring you along and beat the four Chaos Gods senseless!
Thinking this, Lancelot’s mood lifted slightly.
He removed his helmet, hooked it at his waist, then lay straight down on the grass.
A long, gentle wind swept past, and Lancelot exhaled another breath of turbid air.
“Hah…”
Now this was how people were supposed to live.
Lancelot closed his eyes and thought of nothing.
He rested for a short while, and only opened his eyes again when the sun had slowly climbed to noon.
The traits of an Astartes took effect.
After only a brief rest, Lancelot already felt full of energy again.
He rolled to his feet, still curious about what world he had descended into this time.
According to the description of the universal anchor point, he could only remain in this world for seven days, almost like a tourist. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Since crossing universes happened randomly based on his own cognition, there was a good chance it would be a universe he was familiar with.
If that was the case…
then the best option would be a world derived from the Avengers movies.
After all, if it was a Marvel universe, he would have far more room to maneuver.
In Marvel, obtaining extraordinary power was extremely simple.
He only needed to get his hands on an artifact.
And in the Marvel world, the most representative extraordinary artifacts were the Infinity Stones, which symbolized the fundamental principles of the universe.
If Big E saw the Space Stone, he would probably drool with envy.
After all, the Imperium of Man’s greatest problem right now was that it could not escape reliance on the Warp for faster-than-light travel and communication.
Maintaining the Imperium at its current scale meant countless planets separated by unimaginable astronomical distances.
Whether for support or trade, the Imperium could currently only rely on Gellar Fields and ships sailing through the sea of filth known as the Warp.
It was not as though Big E had never tried to solve that problem.
In fact, the reason Big E was now seated upon the Golden Throne was precisely because he had been researching the Webway’s faster-than-light technology left behind by the Old Ones.
That thing was essentially the universe’s highway.
It opened a passage through the Warp that was completely unaffected by the Warp.
If it succeeded, humanity could free itself from the Warp’s shackles and truly stride back toward a Golden Age.
Unfortunately, the four Chaos Gods of the Warp, who normally could not stand the sight of one another, had still chosen to hold their noses and unite in the face of that situation.
Especially Tzeentch.
As a pure Chaos God of the Warp, he could not directly interfere with realspace, yet he deceived Magnus into sending one psychic phone call.
The gods of the Warp used that power and amplified it countless times over, tearing a massive wound through the pristine Webway.
From that moment onward, the Emperor’s dream of restoring humanity was shattered.
Countless daemons poured into the Webway.
Thus began the hidden war concealed behind history: the War Within the Webway.
That was the battle that truly broke the Imperium.
The Horus Heresy on the surface had never been the real problem.
It was the Webway War that shattered the Emperor’s dream.
And if he could obtain the Space Stone from the Avengers world…
even if it could not function in a different universe the way it did in its original one, it should still be able to create a sliver of hope for the Imperium of Man.
With that thought, Lancelot rose and prepared to scout this world.
In the Warhammer universe, he was nothing more than a Space Marine treated as expendable.
But to ordinary people, he was a superhuman who had undergone nineteen surgical augmentations.
In ordinary human society, he possessed overwhelming power.
Even S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most secure underground fortress would be little more than paper before him.
He reached out, and a Bullock-pattern jetbike appeared beside him.
The Secret-Keeper Space could not actively store items, but it could temporarily hold back the things forged inside it and keep them from being taken out, allowing him to retrieve them whenever he needed.
As a vehicle used by Space Marine units during the Great Crusade, the Bullock-pattern jetbike was deeply beloved by the White Scars.
The reason was naturally its formidable performance.
It could ignore terrain and launch rapid assaults that defied common sense.
Lancelot mounted the bike and followed the river, searching for traces of civilization.
As he rode on, he saw a vast, empty structure resembling an ancient Roman colosseum standing abruptly at the center of the grassland.
What was this place?
Curious, Lancelot drove the Bullock-pattern jetbike closer.
Within ten kilometers, there were no other artificial structures at all.
The place looked like paradise itself, and Lancelot was the only person there.
There were no prying gazes, nor any dangerous creatures.
Everything was peaceful.
The grass was so level and smooth that simply moving through a place like this was a pleasure in itself.
Lancelot looked at the green blades swaying in the distance, and the astonishment in his heart was hard to describe.
Carrying that question, Lancelot arrived at the ancient Roman-style arena.
He got off the jetbike and climbed into the colosseum.
The instant he saw the scene inside, a hair-raising aura of savagery crashed into him head-on.
His pupils contracted.
The source of that vicious aura appeared before Lancelot.
It was a stretch of exposed red sand.
And that red sand felt like a wound in the world.
Outside was a beautiful grassland with flowing water, yet within the colosseum in the middle of that plain lay a red-sand arena that could almost be called a scar.
There was not a single spectator.
Not the slightest sound or movement.
Lancelot only saw a stone stele standing at the center of the colosseum.
It seemed to have small words carved upon it.
Lancelot put away the jetbike, leapt down into the arena, crouched, and grabbed a handful of red sand.
The grains slipped through his fingers, and Lancelot could clearly see that the red sand was not made only of sand.
It also contained fragments of human teeth and bone soaked crimson.
What had happened here?
What was this place?
Why did such a special location exist?
With those questions in mind, Lancelot approached the stone stele.
When he drew near, he saw something that made his breathing stop in an instant.
First…
Lancelot saw an ornate passage of High Gothic.
Language was the foundation of a civilization.
If he had merely seen English, Lancelot would not have reacted too strongly.
But the appearance of High Gothic made the corner of his mouth twitch.
Because this damn thing was the official language of the Imperium of Man!
The universe he had crossed into was actually Warhammer 40,000 too?!
In other words, he had jumped from one cesspit straight into another cesspit?
Was that even possible?
No, no, no, no, don’t scare me like this!
Could all of this be some scheme by that big blue bird Tzeentch?
The Secret-Keeper System, the Emperor’s Blood from before…
could all of it be some damn trick that god of schemes cooked up for his own amusement?!
Lancelot felt every muscle in his body go rigid, yet his eyes could only stare blankly at the stele before him.
The moment his gaze swept over the first line, the confusion in his heart grew even stronger.
…
“I miss the days when I fought alongside my brothers and sisters.
I want to invite them to Nuceria and show them my ideal.”
…
Lancelot stared at the words before him and felt the absurdity in his heart keep rising.
What did that say?
Nuceria?
Wasn’t that the homeworld of Angron, Primarch of the World Eaters and host of the Butcher’s Nails?!
Wasn’t that planet a barren gladiator world, where the few decent patches of land had all been turned into arenas?
How could there possibly be an oasis this beautiful outside?!
What the hell was this place?!
Lancelot once again looked up at the sky like a grot whose toes had just been stepped on and let out a mournful cry.