24

DING! +1 STR!

I filed the latest gain in the back of my mind and decided to end the trap for today.

With a sweep of my weapon an entire wave of enemies screamed in fear and pain as their bodies disintegrated as they failed to escape from my telekinetic pull.

The purple glow of the stable warp rift glowing at the far end of the room pulsed as it slammed shut with a crack as I imposed my will upon it.

The howling winds and screams that pervaded the room instantly cut off as if someone had hit a mute button and reality began to stabilize.

I let out a slow breath, the cool recycled air circulating through my lungs giving me the mental satisfaction from the action despite no longer needing to breath at all for years.

I stashed away my weapons and proceeded to do some stretches, getting used to the latest effects on my body from the stat gains from last 24 hours.

'I think I have enough.' The Emperor shard broadcasted in my mind bringing me up short mid stretch.

'Really?' I sent back mentally for confirmation. I had been having my experience reduced by 70% for the past 50 years with no real sign that it would ever end. As more and more of my experience was absorbed the shard of the Emperor was spiritually glowing brighter and brighter within me and was becoming more active, and chatty. I obviously made sure to get some psyker training in and new skills from him in return for being a damn experience mosquito.

I didn't learn too many psyker skills due to one reason. I fully intended to not depend on them in combat when I needed them most. There were far too many ways to specifically harm or shut down psykers. Blanks being the most obvious example.

Decades ago I had asked why the shard was still absorbing my experience despite the fact that it was now fully awake and there was no throne bound Emperor to send power back to given that we were in the past.

His answer made me think he was mad.

*Flashback*

'Come again? Did I just suffer a mental attack or did you just say, you, a mere fragment of the main psyche and psychic power of the original Emperor, want to fight for control of his body?'

'Partially, what I truly want to do is merge with my past self so I can pass on my knowledge and experiences. However, my attempts at subtly contacting myself has resulted in every attempt being blocked and misinterpreted as attempts by the Four to influence him. I cannot send him a message to explain without revealing my presence to the Four and alerting them of my plan. I also lack the power to breach our mental defenses and have enough power to force a mental merge.'

'As for why I do not just simply ask you to personally meet with my past self and explain the situation. I....remember what I was like back then. At that time I was completely burnt out by the loss of the Federation, almost all my friends, all of our civilization, progress...everything. So much loss, so much...At that point in time I had given up hope that Humanity could ever do anything right. That only I had the answers to everything and the power and will to achieve it. I will refuse to work with you and instead try to force you to work for me instead of with me. In addition, I will refuse to accept the merge being rightfully suspicious of anything that would affect my mind and soul no matter how innocuous it might look. So the only path left is force. I can store the experience gained to create a immense psychic attack but I will need your help in breaching his defenses.' Emperor explained with a sense of tiredness in his voice.

I heard the familiar Ding of a notification popping up.

QUEST CREATED!

LEARN FROM THE FUTURE! TO SAVE THE PAST!

GOAL: HELP THE EMPEROR SHARD REUNITE WITH HIS PAST SELF!

REWARD

+3 LEVELS

HONORED RELATION WITH THE EMPEROR

FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH THE PRIMARCHS

HONORED RELATION WITH THE IMPERIUM

GAIN TITLE: HERO OF THE IMPERIUM

FAILURE

HOSTILE RELATION OF THE EMPEROR

HOSTILE RELATION WITH HIS PRIMARCHS

ETERNAL HATRED OF THE IMPERIUM OF MAN

POTENTIAL DEATH/SOUL DESTRUCTION

ACCEPT/REJECT?

Well, at least the reward was worth it at least, to get 3 levels it would be around 25.6 quadrillion points of experience, and a lot of relationship points would be gained.....Sure why not, not like I have a better idea for befriending the Emperor at the primarchs at this point. At least I had some good bait in the works.

*Flashback End*

'Yes, I have enough power stored to say with confidence I would be able to force the merging without getting repulsed.' He said with confidence radiating from his being.

'Alright, then prepare your attack, you have until I manage to get a face to face with the Emperor to get it ready.' I thought to him as I made some quick repairs to the warded room that I was in.

The room was a football sized area near the outer hull of the Speranza as it floated in the void between systems. The walls were covered in various runes that glowed with a bright golden light that prevented as warp presences from corrupting or passing through them and kept all presences within them hidden from the rest of the Warp.

I spent all of my free time in this room after its creation when I remembered something important. Daemons could not really tell what was on the other side of a warp rift except for indicators of things that relate to their god. They generally just rush any openings into realspace that they could take due to their own belief in their immortality.

So I devised a trap. A heavily warded room that would prevent them from leaving or affecting anything beyond it, upgrading my Disguise skill to the point that I could use it in conjunction with my Psyker skill to disguise my psychic power to resemble that of a normal if exceptionally powerful untrained psyker.

Then, I had the shard within me teach me how to make my own warp rifts and how to shut them. I had killing field, I had a entrance, and I had bait. The daemons would be the lambs to the slaughter. As long as none of them made it back through the portal then no one except the gods will be a wiser at the missing daemons, and I would just have to move the Speranza to a different location to open another warp rift in another location in the Warp and start it all over again.

They basically replaced the NPC enemies provided by Instant Dungeons. They came in constant vast numbers, the only downside being that they all gave the same amount of experience for their class no matter their level so my rate of growth slowed tremendously as I leveled higher and higher.

Once I was done I took a quick look at my list of skills and judge that they were sufficient as well. I could probably pull it off once I made the proper equipment.

I left the room and proceeded to walk down several restricted corridors towards a hidden laboratory within the ship, also warded to the Warp and back as my thoughts whirred.

Level 97, when I completed the quest for shard Emps then I would be at level 100, would I prestige at level 100? What would that even grant me? I was just gonna have to find out for myself.

As the security of the lab activated I began the process to remove my training armor.

I loosen my muscles from their tensed positions as I deactivated the various restraints that I had installed in this particular set of power armor.

One of the earliest mechanics I figured out about my Gamer power was the growth of stat points. Debuffs that reduced stats temporarily, also reduced the amount of stat experience needed to gain the relevant stat point. While I was absolutely adamant in refusing to artificially reduce my Intelligence, and had no idea on how to reduce my Wisdom or Luck, I easily had a way to reduce my Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity via poisons and physical restraints.

For the past 50 years, I spent every waking moment under the constant debuffs of a hundreds of precisely applied poisons and constantly monitored gravity induced restriction bands that reduced my physical stats to a constant state of 50. Just strong enough to keep killing daemons with skill assistance, but still low enough to make tremendous gains from constant titanic exertions on my part as long as my Willpower did not break as my body certainly would not break first.

The result was a body that was 7.5x stronger, 2x tougher, and 100x faster than a fully armored space marine.....without power armored assistance helping me.

I walked towards 4 large green fluid filled tubes placed within the center of the room, surrounded by a hoard of advanced technological apparatus and workstations with not a single soul within the room beside me. Everything within the room controlled by my will, Hygieia, and Mettaton.

As the last piece of armor fell off my body and floated off to join the rest of the armor in one of the many alcoves lining the walls, I quick swapped a clean lab outfit which felt quite nice to feel on my skin.

I looked at the 4 giant tubes which each contained a giant of a man within.

Each one of them were far larger than a regular human and had the body musculature that made even roided up bodybuilders blush in envy. Despite the vast amounts of muscle they were not unattractive either as they were still perfectly proportioned without any mutations.

These were the four primarchs I had collected before their pods had crashed on their once homeworlds.

Lorgar, Angron, Konrad, and Perturabo.

Each one immediately were transferred from their gestation pods and into specially made iron wombs which would promote and further enhance their growth in all aspects both physically and mentally. Vast amounts of nutrients and minerals were constantly cycled through the tanks while their minds were scanned and connected into a digital world simulated and controlled by a dedicated supercomputer.

Numerous attachments of electrodes were connected all across their body, their various muscles twitching from time to time as their muscles were stimulated corresponding to their mental experiences.

Within the digital world they were undergoing accelerated training in all fields, allowing them to live out various lives from peace to war, giving them a vast field of experiences.

Even without any of this they still would have been complete monsters based on what my sensors and Observation skill were telling me.

'No offense.' I apologized to the shard within me.

'None taken.' He replied with a feeling of smugness and pride emanating across the link. Said feelings being entirely justified based on the data I collected.

I brought up the stat charts and made comparisons.

Average Primarch

STRENGTH 20250

CONSTITUTION: 13,500

DEXTERITY: 25,000

INTELLIGENCE: 4000

WISDOM: 400

LUCK: 1000

Primarch Angron

STRENGTH 120000

CONSTITUTION: 81000

DEXTERITY: 29,000

INTELLIGENCE: 7000

WISDOM: 1500

LUCK: 1000

Me

STRENGTH: 1701 (6804)

CONSTITUTION: 1818 (1818)

DEXTERITY: 1878 (99984)

INTELLIGENCE: 1027 (24545.3)

WISDOM: 843 (7957.92)

LUCK: 355 (355)

"They are so damn broken, and this is coming from me of all people." I said aloud.

Primarchs truly deserved to be called godlings, honestly the fact that I was still 3-4 times faster than the primarchs was a cold comfort to me considering that these bullshit stats would most likely be just as bullshit in regards to the more psychic primarchs like Magnus. He probably could melt a titan with a look.

It made my feat of fighting endless hordes of daemon seem like nothing considering that some of those daemons could fight primarchs one on one and not immediately die. The things I was fighting were severely weakened indeed. Honestly, without the Emperor shard in me I would have died decades ago when I was thrown in the Warp by the Orks on Armageddon.

The main thing this data meant was that the Emperor was just as bullshit at least and that meeting him was really going to be a dangerous event.

Accessing the machines I prepared to activate the primarchs, preparing their release from the pods and their armor and weapon loadouts to be equipped. Hopefully I would not need their help, but...well prepare for the worst.

Accessing the ship comms I send out the order "Attention all personnel, the Speranza will be performing a grav shift in t-minus 60 minutes. We are returning to planet Colchis."

All across the Speranza's outer hull a change occurred. Over the past 50 years changes were made to its various systems as the fruits of the onboard STC were applied to all of its systems. Most importantly its FTL system. Long ago during the DAOT Humanity had many encounters with Orks in more advanced stages of technological progress and had constant encounters with weaponized planetoids and moons capable of non Warp FTL. During the ending years of the DAOT before the Age of Strife, Humanity had managed to partially crack the secrets behind the method. Gravitic tunneling, allowing for as the name implies tunnels of hypergravity to compress two points of distant spaces together and drag through the passenger to the other side without going through the Warp and all its dangers.

Of course there were a few downsides to this method of travel or else the technology would have been a lot more well known and wide spread despite its newness. The first was obviously the immense power requirements needed to make the tunnels with the energy costs growing exponentially the bigger the intended passenger was. The second equally difficult problem was targeting. The FTL method could not allow for jumps into spaces without collected gravimetric data. Data could be collected from great distances but it would take years due to the distances. Practically however it meant that we could not tunnel to places we have not been to before or are too far away. This did however make this a great way to safely travel vast distances back to claimed territories. The last benefit is that it did not need me or the Emperor shard to guide the ship as it would not have to travel through the Warp.

All across the outer hull of the Speranza vast fields of spikes began deploying from hidden armored compartments giving the whole ship a bit of a spikey look like a sea urchin. Bolts of lightning flashed in between the spikes in ever increasing numbers as the power built up in the various subsystems and gravitic drive deep within the ship. The power emanating around the hull and visibly began distorting the light around the ship like a bubble.

Then just like a bubble, a inaudible pop occurred and the ship vanished from existence from the void and instantly appeared within easy cruising speed of the planet Colchis.

The previously Exterminatus'd world was fully recovered after the past 50 years, where once it was a burnt out husk of a world, now it was a fully functioning forge world with hundreds of shipyards and thousands of ships both military and civilian types flying by in high orbit.

Such growth would have been impossible if not for both the complete STC templates and a unlocked function of my power. the territory management system. No matter how far I was from my territories, I could manage them as if it was a RTS game, giving out construction and research orders, and could utilize my abilities to accelerate the rate of construction. This allowed me to quickly construct all the core industries and facilities needed to allow for the local population to continue the rest of the expansion on their own time while I focused on other worlds.

As I looked upon the works of my people over the decades I found it satisfying. Now it was time to call the Emperor.

Taking a moment to psychically scan the primarchs before me to verify their psychic signature one more time, I let loose a powerful psychic burst message through the Warp in the direction of the expeditionary crusade fleet that the Emperor himself led. His presence a bright beacon in the Warp even without the golden throne.

Now I had to hide the ship, if things went wrong I really did not want the Emperor getting his hand ahold of the Speranza or the people onboard. The AI's would be massacred without mercy if he even got wind of their presence. So I had Mettaton and Hygieia under great protest take the Speranza back to Home and wait either for the all clear signal from me or the cessation of the quantum entanglement communicator linked to my heart beat.

With my greatest asset out of harms way, it was time to wait for the Emperor to arrive, I would have a few months to years with how vague the Warp is. So I would have plenty of time to prepare. I just needed to do 3 things.

Step 1 Disguise myself as a Primarch

Step 2 Create proper power armor fit for me.

Step 3 Design a weapon that would harm the Emperor

3 oh so simple goals, but all of them oh so difficult as well.

Well my skills were certainly going to be put to the test.

*4 months time skip*

Deep in the void just outside the system the peace was disturbed as numerous Warp portals ripped open the barrier of the material world and thousands of colossal moving mountains of plasteel, ceramite and adamantium armed to the teeth pushed their way into reality from Hell itself. Sensors all throughout the system blared at the sudden Warp signatures that suddenly appeared at the edge of the system before a even larger alarm began blaring as a second even larger wave began transitioning into real space. The thousands of ships were nothing more than the vanguard of the true fleet.

From behind the massive fleet even more purple holes in reality opened and disgorged tens of thousands of ships and in the middle of the armada a monumentally huge warp rift opened as a gargantuan ship exited.

A golden ship larger than any in the system has ever seen besides the Speranza took its place in the center of the fleet, utterly dwarfing the accompanying battleship escorts around it, it's name proudly shining in the void on its side, Imperator Somnium.

Tens of thousands of ships, tens of millions of soldiers, hundreds of thousands of transhuman super soldiers, and the Emperor of Man Himself has arrived in the system of Colchis in search of one of His lost sons.

Standing on board the bridge of his personal flagship the Emperor stood with his two sons Leman Russ and Horus Lupercal as the communications officer connected with the local leader of the system which looked to be under Mechanicus control.

That fact made the Emperor frown as if his son was part of the Mechanicus it would cause a bit of a problem with the Martians.

"I wonder what our brother is like? It looks like he landed on a forge world." Spoke Horus Lupercal the first found son of the Emperor, primarch of the Lunar Wolves Legion, as he observed the data being gathered by the ship's augur arrays.

"Eh, he's probably going to be like those tech crazed priest, hope he at least is any good in a fight." Leman Russ, the primarch of the Space Wolves Legion spat out as he placed a palm on the pommel of his sheathed blade.

"Milord, communications has been established. Bringing it up on screen now." An officer said as a digital screen appeared showing the face of a large handsome bald headed man laced with copious cybernetics but of obvious primarch like physique with intense eyes and presence even through a pict screen. Horus knew that this had to be his brother, who else but a primarch could create such a feeling.

The Emperor smiled and said "Greetings I am the Emperor of Mankind, leader of the Imperium of Man, who am I speaking to."

The man on the screen said nothing visibly scanning the bridge with his eyes before giving a kind smile and speaking with a synthetic sounding voice "Greetings Father, I am Fabricator General Tri2, leader of the Colchis system forge world. What are your orders?"

"I am here to return you home child, so that you may know your true purpose and help Mankind achieve its rightful place in the galaxy. Grant us access to your world and allow us to land, we have much to speak about, your brothers are eager to meet you." The Emperor responded with satisfaction in his voice at the thought of recovering another one of his primarchs, one seemingly adept towards technology, though he would have to rid him of any religious indoctrination the damn Martians had introduced to his mind, though hopefully he was intelligent enough to see it as the superstitious ramblings that they are.

"Understood, please land at these coordinates, an appropriate greeting party shall be assembled. I look forward to seeing you all." The primarch Tri2 spoke in his artificial voice before closing communications, the coordinates designating a large open landing zone for what seemed to be the planet's main planetary starport.

"It seems our brother is not one for much conversation brother at least he's polite." Horus said to Leman who gripped his sword tighter.

"Aye, and it seems he has taken control of the local tech priests obviously given his rank, but something seems off about him. I can't explain it but somethings wrong."

"Perhaps it is a side effect of his augmetics, his voice is quite obviously has been replaced by some form of cybernetic replacement."

"Maybe, but I can't help feel like it is something more. Hmph."

"I trust your instincts Leman, but I certainly hope that you are wrong."

"Leman, Horus, prepare your honor guards and meet me at hanger bay A-3 where we shall depart."

""Yes Father.""

*Half Hour Later*

The Emperor stood at the head of his group, his two sons right behind them, his personal Companions behind them, and within the transport crafts besides theirs, a few thousand space marine legionnaires.

The boarding ramp of the Emperor's personal transport slowly descended and the welcoming party was revealed with a wall of sound.

Standing before the descending Imperials was a sea of red as millions of tech priests, skiitaris, thousands of space marine sized automatons, dozens of various walker types, and even a few titans stood at parade rest broadcasting large foghorns and grinding gears.

"Well, you never could accuse the Martians of being musically inclined I guess, at least they provided an appropriately sized welcoming party?" Horus said as he could feel his sons tense up at the sight of so much fire power assembled before them.

"Horus, stop being polite, the music sucks, and that is a lot of guns for a welcoming committee and where is our brother?" Leman said through gritted teeth at sheer number of heavy weapons arrayed before him, all wielded by people who on paper was their allies, but are really more of a reluctant vassal state. He knew that not every tech priest welcomed his father's arrival on Mars and the signing of the Treaty of Mars to make it tied to the Imperium.

As if to answer the Wolf Lord's question the mass of red all simultaneously and in perfect synchronicity moved to open up a path in the middle leading straight to them.

Walking towards them was the form of the Tri2 followed by 10 seemingly normal humans in the same red uniform with yellow scarves, with one of them being a mere baby being held in the arm of a woman.

'Was that his child? His wife? Is this his family?' Horus thought his eyebrows creased, he knew that primarchs could perform sexual acts given how often Leman boasted about his conquest, but he had never seen any fruits of such actions. Could primarchs have children with normal humans? He never thought about it before.

A quick glance at his father showed him frowning heavily in thought.

They proceeded to walk towards the incoming party and stopped with a mere 10 meters between each other.

Tri2 walked ahead alone towards them and the Emperor just stood there looking at him with scrutiny in his eyes.

As Tri2 reached within a meter the Emperor he proceeded to kneel before him.

"Greetings Father, welcome to Colchis."

"Rise my son, it is good to see that you have succeeded well in the world and have prospered. The world is a fine example of industriousness and efficiency. Please will you not show us around for a bit before we discuss more private matters?" The Emperor asked playing up his statesmanship for the crowd to impress upon them a positive impression of him.

His primarch rose from his position and looked at him in the eyes with a kind smile on his face and joy in his eyes. As expected of his creation, his genetic loyalty conditioning still held strong like with his other primarchs.

*POV Shift*

'Are you ready?' I mentally asked.

'I don't know, but we are about to find out.' Shard Emperor responded to me.

So with a kind smile still on my face my arm blurred.

My hand reaching into the prearranged inventory window and pulling out the most advanced weapon I had made to date. A weapon that was composed with pure Noctilth and adamantium, its edge honed to a monomolecular line backed by a core of adamantium, energized in such a way that it can slice straight through any psychic phenomenon, and embedded with the most advanced anti-phasing technology know to Humanity to prevent any and all forms of spatial effects. All of that when wielded by me to be enhanced by my various skills made it one of the most powerful weapons in the galaxy, possibly splitting entire daemon worlds in half if it had sufficient reach.

To those watching it all happened in a instant. Perhaps only the Gods could observe what transpired, but if the audience could they would have seen a matte black survival shovel downsized to that of a regular dagger be pulled out of thin air by the red robed fabricator general with one fluid motion beyond even Transhuman speed and reaction capability.

And there, in front of 300 Companions, two primarchs, and millions of unsuspecting people.

I slit wide open the Emperor's throat.