---o---
"Before we begin, due to the extremely high-risk nature of this procedure and in accordance with the articles established by the great Lord of Trailblaze, you are required to sign a liability waiver first."
A young Magos Biologis stood at the entrance to the operating room, holding out a datapad with the contract displayed for Dante.
"What is the meaning of this?!"
Captain Karan of the Blood Angels' First Company nearly exploded at the words, but Dante immediately stopped him before he could continue. With a sense of barely concealed eagerness, Dante signed his name and pushed open the door to the operating room, stepping inside.
Seeing the waiver had only reassured him, as if his most anticipated moment had finally arrived.
Dante quickly passed through a sterile entryway and into a bright, clean operating theater. Since Zhou Ye had no fear of any form of corruption, he designed his facilities according to his own preferences.
He couldn't stand the grim, medieval-style sculptures so common in the Imperium, so he simply did without them. The lack of cloying incense and flickering candles felt strange to Dante, but he was not used to it.
He quickly pushed aside his extraneous thoughts and saw a familiar, small figure in a red robe waiting for him. For some reason, Dante felt a strange sense of familiarity with this person.
But Dante had no time to dwell on it. He unfastened his armor and lay down on the operating table.
"Good grief, this guy…"
Zhou Ye couldn't help but shake his head as he looked at Dante. Just like Calgar, his entire body was a roadmap of gruesome scars. This was a Space Marine, yet he still bore numerous wounds that could not fully heal, a testament to the countless horrific wars he had endured.
Zhou Ye didn't bother commenting. He simply took out a massive syringe filled with anesthetic and injected it. The 41st Millennium had some truly potent tranquilizers, capable of felling not just a Space Marine, but even a Primarch.
Taking a deep breath, Zhou Ye took out a scalpel and slowly began to peel back Dante's flesh to perform the three subsequent surgeries, and then…
Beep! Beep! Beep!
A series of alarms blared. In an instant, Zhou Ye's mouth twitched as he watched several of Dante's organs rapidly decay, his life signs flatlining in the blink of an eye.
Zhou Ye paused his work, falling into a strange, eerie silence. This had something to do with Dante, but not much.
Even without the White Flower component of the Black Abyss White Flower, Zhou Ye could easily whip up a new body for Dante even if this one was completely destroyed.
For Zhou Ye, as long as the soul was intact, the physical body was a simple matter.
What gave him pause was something else entirely. In that same instant, a peculiar rift had opened in the Warp. A shimmering, golden being appeared before him. Zhou Ye recognized its appearance at a glance.
Sanguinius.
But there was a very strange feeling about it—a sense of being stitched together.
It wasn't the complete Sanguinius. Rather, it felt like a bizarre composite.
However, this Sanguinius ignored Zhou Ye, instead gently stroking Dante's body, activating the gene-seed within him and suffusing his form with a special power.
And then…
"?"
This Sanguinius froze. He realized that Zhou Ye was staring directly at him. His current state was highly unusual; not even Guilliman should have been able to perceive him like this. Who the hell was this grease-monkey?
"Interesting…"
At that moment, Zhou Ye dropped the act. With a flash of light, he returned to his massive, super-sized form.
"Are you the one Father was always talking about?" Sanguinius asked, a hint of confusion in his voice. He had heard of this individual.
"Are you Horus with hair and wings?" Zhou Ye retorted.
It was clearly Sanguinius, but there were many strange things about him. If Zhou Ye recalled correctly, Sanguinius's soul was likely in the hands of five different shit-stains, the Emperor included.
It was also possible he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Horus, who had been pumped full of Chaos power like a cream puff. No one knew the exact situation.
Horus's soul should have been complete back then. To empower him enough to go toe-to-toe with the Emperor, he had to be whole—body, soul, and most importantly, his Warp essence.
Otherwise, it would have been impossible to elevate Horus to that level.
But the Sanguinius before him felt strange. It was Sanguinius as the primary component, sutured with Horus.
"That's right," Zhou Ye nodded, looking at Sanguinius with great interest. For some reason, Sanguinius suddenly had a very bad feeling.
"It seems you are capable of protecting my sons now. In that case…"
"Well, since you're already here, don't leave. Stay and work some overtime. Conveniently, we have your flesh on Baal."
Zhou Ye had no intention of letting him escape. Since you're here, you might as well stay and work.
Perfect. If Dante refused to become the Emperor of the Fourth Imperium, wasn't there a ready-made Emperor of the Second Imperium right here? He could just replicate the Imperium Secundus. After all, didn't even Horus want to usurp the Emperor's damn throne? He could stay and have his wish fulfilled.
At that moment, countless feathers began to drift through the room. Sanguinius's bad feeling intensified. He had no physical body to host his soul; as a purely spiritual being, he was incredibly vulnerable in the real world.
Feathers of Crossing, Zeroth-Power Output.
A single, unique feather materialized in Zhou Ye's hand. With an immense surge of power, it forcibly sealed Sanguinius inside. Then, using the supreme authority of the Herrscher of Consciousness, Zhou Ye slammed the feather into Dante's body.
In an instant, Sanguinius's soul was forcibly bound to Dante's. A tiny feather appeared deep within Dante's soul.
If Dante had been conscious, Zhou Ye wouldn't have been able to pull this off so easily. But the man was unconscious and, on a subconscious level, trusted him completely, giving Zhou Ye the perfect opportunity.
"Dammit, trying to run? You're not leaving me to backstroke in this cesspool alone."
"This was not in the prophecies!!!" the Sanguinius-entity shrieked in terror, feeling his new predicament.
"In my presence, there are no prophecies," Zhou Ye stated flatly. "'I', to this world, represent absolute change."
So-called prophecies, even for a being like Tzeentch, required observing the ripples of the Warp. But Zhou Ye did not belong to the Warp.
He might cause ripples in the Warp, but as long as his soul had no projection there, all of its prophecies and divinations were useless against him. From the Warp's perspective, he was 'nothing'. This meant that whatever he did was an incalculable variable for this world.
Prophecy was useless before him. This was a fact certified by Konrad Curze, the one Primarch who was a true master of prescience.
With that, Zhou Ye's massive form slowly dissipated, and he returned to his guise as Magos Omega 010.
He nodded in satisfaction. Whatever this thing was, it was clearly slacking off in the Warp. But slacking off was not an option. How could one slack off here?
As the Emperor of the Second Imperium, he should be sitting dutifully on his throne.
Zhou Ye was very pleased with this unexpected bounty. Now he had two backup emperors. The position of Warmaster was getting closer and closer.
When they returned to Baal, he would just whip up a new body for this guy and stuff the soul inside.
Truly, I am a little genius. Cue the meme image.
---o---
Dante felt himself drifting into a long-overdue slumber.
It was a sleep that came from the depths of his soul, a feeling he had dreamed of. This was it, the feeling of near-death. At that moment, a golden light flashed before his eyes.
A figure as if etched into his very soul appeared. The Great Angel, Sanguinius, who had fallen ten thousand years ago. Now, this great Primarch, the gene-father of the Blood Angels, was looking down at him with a benevolent gaze. Dante suddenly felt the urge to cry as an endless torrent of grievances swelled up from his heart.
"I have served for so long!!!"
Facing his gene-father, the father of his very soul, Dante finally broke. His soul screamed.
"I have fought more battles than anyone in the Imperium!"
"A thousand years of service… it was pure agony, but I endured."
"I knew this day would come. You would take me to your side."
"I can finally rest. I am so happy…"
But Dante failed to notice that as he poured out his heart, a strange smile appeared on his gene-father's face. The smile didn't last long.
Sanguinius's expression changed in an instant, twisting into one of absolute terror as he stared at something beyond Dante's perception.
"Father?"
"Father!!!"
Seeing Sanguinius's expression, Dante froze for a moment, and then…
"NO!!!"
A blood-curdling scream echoed in his mind. Dante was stunned, and a wave of despair washed over him.
"Father, have I done something wrong? Even after all I have endured, you still won't take me to your si—"
But before Dante could finish his sentence, a strange, mechanically synthesized voice cut in.
"Strange. Did I not use a large enough dose? He's already talking in his sleep. Is he waking up early? Well, no matter. It's all part of the plan."
"..."
In that instant, Dante's heart sank. Even in his semi-conscious state, he realized what had happened.
"One-three-three, three-two-one, hello, hello, are you awake?"
"..."
At the prodding voice, Dante slowly opened his eyes. A piercing pain shot through him. He couldn't tell if it was the heartache from his dream or the physical agony of his body adjusting to the new implants from the surgery.
"Good news, lad. The surgery was a success."
"..."
The grease-monkey's voice spoke again. But Dante was in a complete emo state. He didn't want to face reality. He ignored being called "lad." If he remembered correctly, this grease-monkey was the Primarch's chief tech-priest, the very one who had interred Aslot in his Dreadnought. A being like that could call him "lad" all he wanted.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk…"
A series of amazed clicks echoed. This tech-priest seemed quite talkative.
"This is simply perfect! I've collected some fantastic data. Did you know that as soon as the first step of the surgery began, your organs started to fail rapidly?"
So why didn't you just let me die… Dante screamed internally. Why did this grease-monkey's skills have to be so damn good when they shouldn't be?
"But then, your decaying organs began to regenerate at an incredible rate! So congratulations, lad…"
The figure pushed something over and placed it in front of Dante.
When Dante saw the mirror, and his reflection within it, he froze completely.
The aged, white-haired figure was gone. In its place was a handsome, blond-haired man.
Dante knew this face all too well. It was his own, from when he had just become a Blood Angel.
"Hahaha! Congratulations, kid! You have now escaped the limits of your lifespan and returned to your peak! According to my observations, you are likely a latent or incomplete Perpetual. The Primaris surgery has now fully activated your partial Perpetual abilities! Kid, congratulations on becoming a Perpetual like Malcador, Erda, and Ollanius Persson! Now you will—"
But as Zhou Ye prattled on, Dante remained frozen. If the scene were a comic panel, the world around him would be in vibrant color, but the color on Dante himself was fading, draining away until he was nothing more than a grayscale statue.
Then, a profound sense of sorrow erupted from Dante's heart.
"NO!!!"
As the shriek of despair echoed through the observation room, a smile slowly curved Zhou Ye's lips beneath his mask.
Elation!
---