Datch did not answer Curze's question. He simply raised his hand and opened the World Editor interface.
A curtain of light composed of countless parameters and points of light slowly unfolded.
Atmospheric composition, floating particle concentration, light intensity, cloud thickness, and all other planetary data appeared before Datch's eyes.
Datch looked up at the sky and decided to start by changing the atmospheric composition.
With a single thought, the industrial dust, sulfides, and heavy metal particles that had accumulated over thousands of years were quietly wiped away by an invisible hand.
The pollution began peeling away layer by layer from the lowest level of the atmosphere.
The heavy gray smog that had covered the world for thousands of years slowly disappeared to both sides as if a veil were being lifted, revealing a clear sky. Sunlight poured through the gaps, piercing the vanishing smog and falling to the ground.
The streets that had been wrapped in eternal night were illuminated by the rising sun. The darkness receded like the tide.
People looked up at the sky in astonishment. The deep blue sky was reflected in their pupils.
In the square, a man wearing work clothes stained with oil and rust stopped. He raised his face. Warm sunlight shone on the wrinkles carved by time and hardship, and he involuntarily raised a hand to cover his eyes.
This was the first time he had ever been bathed in sunlight since he was born.
Once his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, he slowly and carefully lowered his hand, allowing the sunlight to fall freely on his face.
Feeling the warmth of the sun, the man shed tears.
Many people, just like the men, stopped at the beauty of this moment and wept.
Children chasing each other in play, elderly people scavenging through garbage, women taking care of their families as housewives — joy overflowed on everyone's faces.
Curze was shocked by the scene, and then a feeling of ecstasy washed over him.
He foresaw the future that had been prophesied in his hallucinations.
Amazingly, it had actually worked.
In his hallucinations, Curze had seen sunlight pouring down onto the ground of Nostramo countless times.
He had seen the gray streets illuminated by golden light and the despair-filled faces warmed by the sunlight.
He had once believed they were lies, because Nostramo was a world of eternal night where sunlight should never shine.
But now, knowing the actions of that nameless man, everything fell into place.
Everything he had seen was neither hallucination nor lie.
Rather, it was the true future — the future the nameless one had chosen from among countless possibilities, the future that was supposed to happen.
Yet it was not prophecy or fate that had made it real. It was the nameless one.
Curze quietly made up his mind.
From now on, he must follow the advice of that Nameless One and act according to the law rather than through lynching.
We should guide the people, not rule them through fear.
We must believe that ordinary people also have the power to change the world.
He must work hard to make Nostramo into a better new world.
Curze's transformation was similar to the transformations of the other rebel Primarchs.
It resonated deep into the Warp and unleashed a terrifying ethereal storm that shook the domains of the gods.
The crumbling threads of fate trembled. The original history was distorted.
The Chaos Gods felt an increasingly urgent sense of crisis. The chess pieces they had carefully cultivated were about to be peeled away from the board one after another by the interference of the nameless one.
They understood very well that things could not continue like this. They had to start a new plan immediately.
They wanted to show the nameless ones through their actions that they were not beings who could be so easily defeated.
The Emperor seated upon the Golden Throne was also looking toward the past.
The actions of the nameless ones were changing the flow of history, and they were only waiting for the Horus Heresy to be completely overturned.
The entire flow of history would change, and the gods would suffer a catastrophic blow.
However, the Emperor's joy was short-lived. He soon witnessed an entirely new timeline emerging from the past.
It was a new timeline that had never existed before, created by the alterations the nameless ones had made to the past.
The Emperor followed the new flow of time with his eyes, but the scene he saw there caused his pupils to involuntarily contract.
In this new timeline, Horus, who served as the commander of the war, did not betray the cause.
Even after becoming Warmaster, Horus continued to lead the expeditionary fleets across the galaxy, conquering planet after planet.
Plant the flag of humanity throughout the galaxy.
Without Erebus, the negotiations with the Interex civilization proceeded smoothly. He never went to Davin's moon, never got injured, and never fell in the Temple of the Serpent.
The traitors were Primarchs who had originally sworn loyalty — Lion, Sanguinius, Guilliman, and others.
The greatest change was that in this timeline, he, as the Master of Mankind, was killed by Guilliman.
Primarch XIII used this to complete his own sacrifice, becoming the most brutal and terrifying ruler in the galaxy and plunging the entire galaxy into endless despair.
The root of everything lay with Guilliman's adoptive father, Konor.
In this new timeline, Konor did not die from a brutal murder by the nobles.
Instead, they survived until the arrival of the Imperium of Man.
At first, Konor was delighted by the arrival of the Imperium of Man.
He thought this was the change he had long awaited, and that the ideals he had fought for throughout his life for Macragge had finally been realized.
However, when he saw that the Imperium had only nominally declared liberation and had not actually reformed the region,
they had not abolished the corrupt aristocratic system, nor had they transferred power to the people.
He felt he had been deceived. The Imperium of Man was nothing more than a lie spoken by the Emperor.
A lie that used "liberation" and "unification" as a pretext to conceal dictatorship.
Under his influence, Guilliman also began to feel wary of the Emperor.
The Primarchs were concerned that the planets liberated by the expeditionary fleets would once again be ruled by the old aristocratic class.
The "liberated" people continued to suffer under Imperial rule.
The conquered planets had simply gained new rulers. Nothing else had changed.
Konor accompanied Guilliman and attended a conference to discuss the fate of the galaxy.
At the meeting, the Emperor, as usual, passionately and eloquently spoke about liberation and unification.
This Master of Mankind made no mention of the people of those worlds, of the individuals who had been sacrificed, or of the ordinary people crushed under the wheels of the Imperium.
Konor could no longer endure it. He stood up and sharply refuted the Emperor.
"As long as taxes are paid, you can turn a blind eye no matter how much the rulers exploit innocent people. Does such liberation truly have any meaning?"
"If that is the case, it would be better to leave them alone in the galaxy. At least they would not have to pay an extra tithe."
"Is this war that has taken countless lives nothing more than a self-satisfied drama to you?"
"Simply to sit on the ruler's throne and look down upon all living beings?"
No one knew how an ordinary human like Konor had the courage to refute the Master of Mankind.
Perhaps he had witnessed too much suffering and wanted to fight for the suffering people.
Perhaps he loved Guilliman too much and did not want to see the child he had raised become a tool of a tyrant's conquest.
But there was no doubt that his words and actions caused a great uproar.
The Imperial Guards were furious. They tried to arrest Konor, put him on trial, and execute him.
To protect his father, Guilliman stood up and stood in front of the Imperial Guards. "Who is going to do that?" Guilliman shouted while glaring at the Imperial Guards.
The other Primarchs also raised their voices and pleaded for Konor.
After refuting the Master of Mankind, Konor realized the consequences of his actions and voluntarily apologized to the Emperor.
"Master of Mankind, I apologize for my rudeness. Please forgive an old man's impulsive actions."
Considering the urgency of the Great Crusade, the Emperor accepted the apology and settled for only a whipping, without allowing a substitute.
Konor was beaten until he was covered in blood, but he neither cried out nor begged for his life. He simply gritted his teeth and silently endured the pain.
Guilliman stood to the side, watching his adoptive father suffer, and for the first time felt hatred toward the Emperor.
The conference ended unpleasantly. Shortly after returning home, Konor collapsed due to mental illness.
On his deathbed, he called Guilliman to his side and entrusted his final wish to his adoptive son.
"It was a great mistake for me to anger that human lord, but I do not regret it."
"The future of human civilization must not be entrusted to a despotic dictator. My child, I have never asked you for anything before, but this time I hope you will take on that responsibility."
"We must never let down our guard against the lies of the Imperium of Man. And we must never allow innocent people to become slaves again."
Guilliman held the hand of his dying adoptive father while shedding tears.
He knelt in front of the bed, pressed his forehead against his father's cold hand, and swore that he would never allow his father's worries to become reality.
In order to stop the Imperium of Man from exploiting and enslaving all of humanity, and also to avenge his adoptive father,
Guilliman devoted even more effort to war than before and worked hard to stockpile troops and supplies.
His conquests were more efficient than those of any other Primarch. He dominated every planet.
On paper, the number of Ultramarines Legion soldiers was only 200,000, which met the organizational requirements set by the Imperium for the Ultramarines.
However, in secret, many Space Marine aspirants who had not undergone the final surgery were serving as officers in the auxiliary forces.
Guilliman used his talents to conquer and rule far more planets than in other timelines.
His armies were countless, their scale surpassing the combined scale of all other Legions.
The fleets stretched as far as the eye could see. Battleships appeared from every corner of the galaxy and merged into a river of steel in the void.
From the very beginning, he regarded the entire Imperium of Man as a hypothetical enemy.
To increase the possibility of victory, he constantly researched xenos and Dark Age technologies and equipped his armies with various advanced weapons, advanced shields, and efficient engines.
They also secretly formed alliances with alien races such as the Aeldari, the Votann Alliance, and even races designated for eradication by the Imperium.
He needed every force, every ally, and every resource to fight against the Master of Mankind.
In the Battle of Ullanor, the Ork Empire was destroyed. Horus was elected Warmaster, and the Emperor returned to the Palace to carry out the Webway Project.
Knowing that the Emperor could not easily leave Terra, Guilliman acted completely according to instinct.
He ordered his armies to conquer unconquered territories as quickly as possible, recover lost technologies, implement rational policies, and promote planetary development.
On the surface he followed the orders of the Warmaster Horus, but inwardly he was only maintaining and concealing his true strength by disobeying the orders.
Outwardly they appeared to obey, but in reality they kept their most elite troops in the rear and the most advanced technologies in their own worlds.
At this time, Lion, who had been defeated in the election for the position of Warmaster, was in the midst of conquering an ancient planet when he was seduced by the Chaos Gods.
The gods revealed the Emperor's evil schemes to him — the Webway, the Thunder Warriors, the lost Legions, and the true fate of the Primarchs.
They told Lion that he and his brothers were nothing more than tools and weapons of the Emperor.
Once used, they would be discarded immediately.
Seeing the evidence the gods presented, Lion believed that his father, the Master of Mankind, would definitely settle accounts with all the Legions after the Great Crusade ended.
Thus Lion accepted Chaos and first slaughtered all the Dark Angels who had been guarding Caliban.
The former Lords of Cypher were also killed, and in their place appeared Cypher Lords who had fallen to Chaos.
The Lion usurped the power of the Ouroboros and led the entire First Legion into corruption.
"Father, if you do not want me as the commander of the war, then I have no choice but to settle matters with my own hands and reclaim everything that rightfully belongs to me."
"I will prove that I am your most outstanding descendant."
After purging the opposing forces within the Legion, Lion quietly made an oath.
The corrupted Lion first targeted Sanguinius.
Newly appointed as a lord of the Inner Circle, he was sent to the Ninth Legion for research and exchange.
During the conversation, the Cypher Lord secretly exposed the corruption of the Ninth Legion and revealed the secrets of the Red Thirst and the records of genetic mutation.
This action rendered all of Sanguinius's efforts to restore the image of the Ninth Legion futile.
As time passed, criticism of the Ninth Legion from various departments of the Imperium grew increasingly fierce.
Countless people looked at the Blood Angels with strange eyes and denied their past achievements.
During this time, Sanguinius also received information from the Terra garrison.
By chance, a staff member stationed there witnessed that the records of the Thunder Warriors had been erased.
The Thunder Warriors who had gone out of control were mercilessly annihilated by the Imperial Guards, and their historical records were erased as if they had never existed from the beginning.
At the same time, Sanguinius also had many visions of the future.
He envisioned a future in which his descendants were regarded by the Imperium as ominous vampires, used as cannon fodder in the most brutal battles, and received neither honor nor recognition.
Even if they shed blood and sacrificed their lives on the most brutal battlefields, all they would receive was suspicion and fear.
In the end, the Blood Angels Legion would be falsely accused and executed by the Imperial Army without even being given the opportunity to beg for mercy.
These illusions overwhelmed the kind-hearted Sanguinius.
He feared that his own weakness and compassion would destroy the Ninth Legion, and that the Blood Angels would be purged like the Thunder Warriors.
He feared that, like the purged Thunder Warriors and the Second and Eleventh Legions, the Ninth Legion would also be completely forgotten.
Sanguinius wanted to protect his children and give them a future where they could live without fear or suspicion.
At this time, news arrived from Signus that the local regime that had initially submitted had betrayed them again.
Sanguinius and the Ninth Legion were dispatched to carry out the suppression mission.
The supplies that should have been delivered to them were destroyed by a Warp storm on the way to their destination.
In the past, Sanguinius would undoubtedly have regarded it as a natural disaster.
However, after a series of events, Sanguinius stubbornly believed that his father and Horus were weakening the Ninth Legion, whether intentionally or not.
If the Ninth Legion was sufficiently weakened, it would be completely destroyed just as the other two Legions had been.
At that time, even people's memories would be erased by the Emperor's power.
Out of love for his children and the hopelessness that his situation would improve,
in the Signus system, Saint Sanguinius chose to surrender himself to Chaos in exchange for a solution that would satisfy the thirst for blood.
Thus Sanguinius received the blessings of the gods and became the Angel of Chaos.
He swore to end the Great Crusade started by the Emperor and restore peace and freedom to the entire world.
"Father, I did not want to do such a thing either, but seeing your actions, I realized that the Primarchs and humanity are nothing more than tools to you. You betrayed me and betrayed everyone. You never intended to save humanity from the beginning."
"For human civilization to rise again, I must do this. Only by overthrowing your tyranny will peace return to the galaxy."
When Sanguinius accepted Chaos, the Ninth Legion also gained the ability to find joy in slaughter.
As long as they continued to slaughter regularly, they could escape the suffering of the thirst.
Out of fear of the nameless one, the Four Chaos Gods exceptionally did not influence the Primarch who was about to be thrown into Chaos.
They simply quietly gave their blessings and granted him the power to oppose the Emperor and the remaining loyal Primarchs.
Under the illusions of the Four Gods, Jaghatai also chose Chaos.
The Eagle of Chogoris realized that the Emperor's Imperium of Man was nothing more than a large cage, and considered the Great Crusade to be nothing more than a form of enslavement.
He did not want his Legion to become a tool of a tyrant, so after Lion made an offer of reconciliation, he firmly chose to betray him.
Primarchs such as Ferrus, Leman Russ, and Vulkan, through various events, completely lost faith in the Emperor and were secretly preparing for a rebellion against the Imperium of Man.
Upon receiving the invitation from Lion, he jumped into that chaos without hesitation.
They purged their Legions, secretly executed warriors who remained loyal to the Emperor, and transferred officers who questioned their decisions. Thus the Legions were quickly placed under their control.
They secretly joined hands and planned to wait for an opportunity to annihilate the other Legions and weaken the Imperium's combat strength.
When Horus gathered a large number of Legions to suppress the rebellion caused by the return of the remnants of the Rangdan, Lion, Sanguinius, Ferrus, and Vulkan responded to the Warmaster's call.
Their fleets gathered from every corner of the galaxy and formed a massive force in space.
Horus stood on the bridge, looking at the warships of his allies, filled with satisfaction.
As long as they were there, the remaining Rangdan forces would soon be wiped out.
However, when the Luna Wolves descended to the ground to deal with the Rangdan xenos,
Lion and the other rebel Primarchs quickly ordered their subordinates to begin attacking the Luna Wolves.
The warships in orbit opened fire all at once, shattering the warriors of the Luna Wolves and their drop pods into pieces.
The ground forces began attacking the Luna Wolves warriors, who were engaged in fierce combat with the Rangdan xenos, from behind.
In an instant, the Luna Wolves suffered enormous damage and were routed.
Warmaster Horus learned that his brothers including Lion and Sanguinius had betrayed the Emperor, and felt both shock and rage.
He wanted to ask Lion and Sanguinius why they had done such a thing.
The only response to Horus was silence and further bombardment.
In the desperate situation, Horus fought desperately together with his loyal warriors Abaddon and Loken to open a breakthrough and launch a counterattack to reverse the desperate situation.
However, faced with the encirclement and suppression by multiple Legions, the Luna Wolves were ultimately defeated.
Horus finally suffered a joint attack from Lion and Sanguinius and met a tragic end when Lion beheaded him.
Most of the Luna Wolves forces were annihilated. Only a few loyal warriors such as Loken survived.
They escaped and paid a great price to deliver the message.
This betrayal, known as the "Fall of the Shadow Wolves," shook the entire galaxy the moment it was revealed.
People all over the world who refused to submit to Imperial rule rose up in rebellion.
Wherever the news reached, war broke out.