Zeroth Civilization from the Galactic Universe

Raven looked at Calas Typhon.

He sized the man up.

In the predetermined timeline, this man would eventually rename himself Typhonus, become Nurgle’s lackey, and serve as the host of the Destroyer Hive.

Calas Typhon had been the first normal human Mortarion met after escaping from his warlord foster father.

It was Typhon’s persuasion that had prompted Mortarion to betray his warlord foster father.

Thus, Calas Typhon held a very important place in Mortarion’s heart.

Calas Typhon was also a Psyker.

Because Mortarion disliked Psykers, he had never displayed his talent. He used his authority to recruit Psykers into his own forces and secretly taught them how to control their powers.

In the early days of the Great Crusade, Calas Typhon had performed brilliantly and was greatly trusted by Mortarion.

Everything changed after Calas Typhon met Erebus.

Calas Typhon learned of the Four Chaos Gods from that scum of Warhammer.

Having learned of them, Typhon chose to turn to Nurgle.

Because he had been able to hear those inexplicable whispers ever since Barbarus.

After taking part in Horus’s rebellion, Typhon made a bold move.

He deceived Mortarion, claiming that all Navigators were spies and lackeys of the sorcerer Malcador.

He had Mortarion slaughter every Navigator in the Fourteenth Legion—the Death Guard.

Then he volunteered, claiming that he could serve as a Navigator himself.

In the end, Mortarion was led into Nurgle’s trap by him.

The fleet was paralyzed in the Warp, unable to move.

The plague took the opportunity to invade the fleet, subjecting countless Death Guard warriors to torment.

After a long period of suffering, Mortarion could not bear to see the sons of the Fourteenth Legion suffer any longer and had no choice but to agree to join Nurgle’s camp.

"You possess Psionic Power?" Raven did not say that Calas Typhon was a traitor or anything of the sort.

The predetermined timeline was the predetermined timeline.

The present was the present.

The two were completely different.

He could not apply the old timeline to the current one.

Horus’s betrayal had been the result of multiple factors piling together.

Recklessly treating the traitors from the predetermined timeline as traitors could very well turn them into real traitors, perhaps even triggering a rebellion on an even more terrifying scale.

Mortarion turned his head, surprise on his face.

He knew nothing about Typhon possessing Psionic Power.

Typhon froze for a moment. He had wanted to deny it, but then he thought that if Lord Raven had not been absolutely certain, he would never have brought it up.

Lying before him would not only leave a bad impression, but any inspection would expose him as well.

"Yes." Typhon nodded. "I possess Psionic Power, and I have been secretly studying its techniques."

"How did I not know about this?" Mortarion asked.

"You dislike Psionic Power," Typhon said. "You even reject it strongly. I feared that if I told you, you would hold it against me."

"You—" Mortarion had just begun to speak when Raven interrupted him.

"It is nothing serious. The Imperium is currently establishing a psychic system to ensure it can face a variety of threats. Since you possess Psionic Power, you can form a Librarius unit under the Death Guard and prepare for the future."

"The war in this universe is nearly over. The Fourteenth Legion will certainly be deployed to other universes. Psionic Power is especially important in certain unusual universes and can tip the scales of a campaign."

Raven’s words made Mortarion swallow his accusation.

He had visited Other Universes and knew how powerful the beings there could be.

If the Fourteenth Legion was ever sent to an Other Universe, Psykers would undoubtedly be indispensable.

"Next time, do not hide something this important from me. I am not as narrow-minded as you think," Mortarion told Typhon.

"I know I was wrong, Father," Typhon said.

Watching a potential conflict between father and son dissolve, Raven silently gave himself a thumbs-up.

Although in the predetermined timeline, Typhon had been the chief culprit behind Mortarion’s descent into Chaos.

Typhon had also been loyal to Mortarion.

After all, they had known each other since Barbarus and fought through so many battles together.

If a rift formed because of Psionic Power alone.

Then even if Nurgle did not corrupt them in the end, father and son would turn against each other, leaving other Chaos Gods an opening to exploit.

The sources of corruption had always been watching hungrily from beyond the universe!!

Once cracks appeared within the Imperium, they would exploit them.

Typhon did not disturb the Primarch and Lord Raven. He took the other legion officers away to formulate a military plan against the Herud.

Mortarion remained to accompany Raven, discussing recent events and the Imperium’s plans for the future.

Raven did not hold back either. He told Mortarion that the Imperium would venture into the myriad realms, and that the Primarchs could establish themselves independently in the future.

The dual-Emperor system established by the Emperor and Raven would become a beacon of faith or guidance leading human civilization forward.

The Primarchs and those heroes who opened up new universes would hold real power.

The reason Raven said all this was to reassure Mortarion.

To put his mind at ease.

To let him know that the Emperor would not only refrain from purging the Astartes, but would instead invest even more heavily in cultivating them to ensure humanity’s smooth rise.

Elsewhere.

Typhon and the others prepared to annihilate the Herud.

He gathered the legion’s senior officers and directed the battle from the iron sphere chamber of the secondary strategy room, assigning tasks.

The command chamber stood on the high walls of the command deck, open to the outside.

A ship model occupied the center, surrounded by railings.

From that position, one could observe everything happening across the multilayered bridge.

The chanting choirs of servitors rose layer upon layer, towering around the captain’s dais.

Giant holographic displays revolved through the open space above the deck, displaying the entire star system.

The moment the human fleet entered the Gorgis System, the Herud detected humanity’s invasion.

They swiftly gathered their fleet and launched an attack on the humans.

The Herud fleet was peculiar, formed from strange aggregates of fungus-like matter coated in plating.

They could travel through the void by using their unique temporal energy.

They bored holes through time and space, passing freely through them.

Herud warships fired bright Entropy Beams.

Once struck by such beams, all matter within the affected area collapsed under the distortion of time.

Several warships were hit.

Different parts of the ships were forcibly shifted into different frames of reference.

Matter was displaced through time by years at a time.

The results were explosive.

Some crew members aged, even turning into skeletons.

Others reverted to their younger selves.

Everything became utterly chaotic.

The massive hulls slowly came apart in the void before finally collapsing.

Several cruisers exploded in space, becoming dazzling spheres of light.

"The Time Weapons have been deployed and are ready," reported a sage of the Adeptus Mechanicus to Typhon.

The Herud’s unique force fields could only be destroyed with Time Weapons.

To exterminate this species, Mortarion had requested Time Erasers from Terra.

This technology came from the Time Variance Authority of the Marvel Universe.

Erased lifeforms would vanish completely from the timeline and be exiled to the end of time.

Even the memories others held of them would disappear.

It was perfectly suited for dealing with the Herud.

"Then grant these xenos mercy," Typhon ordered. "Fire the Time Beams. Erase their existence."

Emerald-green beams fired one after another.

The struck Herud warships vanished as though rubbed out of spacetime by an eraser, leaving no trace behind.

The Herud fleet was swiftly routed.

Yet they did not surrender. Instead, they chose to board Imperial warships, intending to turn the battle around through boarding actions.

They passed through time and space in groups, and after entering Imperial warships, they charged down the corridors toward the Imperium’s armed crewmen.

The Herud possessed exquisite Time Technology. They could fire Time Beams and condense Time Lightsabers in their hands.

Whenever human crewmen were struck by their attacks, their aging accelerated.

Many crewmen died miserably.

They became skin and bones, ragged old uniforms hanging from their corpses, wisps of white hair clinging to their wrinkled scalps.

Every one of them had died of old age.

Many xenos flooded into the Indomitus.

Typhon had no choice but to join the battle.

Herud emerged from folds in the air, wielding double-bladed lightsabers that smoked from the dissipation of entropy.

The Time Weapons tore at the warriors’ senses.

As Herud died, time on the battlefield slowly ground to a halt.

Countless warriors struggled in the viscous current of time like insects trapped in slime.

From the edge of the battlefield, the warriors at its center appeared to be moving many times slower.

Typhon activated the Longsword in his hand and adjusted the Gene Engine within his body to overloaded combat mode.

Before he even saw the Herud, he had already sensed their presence.

Their influence tore at the very fabric of spacetime. The strange accelerated motion surrounding them altered the composition of the air and made it heavy.

The beams exceeded their natural limits, their hues subtly shifting toward the blue end of the spectrum.

A Herud pounced at him.

It was invisible. Only while moving could its trajectory be seen through faint ripples of distorted spacetime.

Typhon reacted swiftly, swinging his sword and cutting down the attacker.

Death caused the creature’s entropy field to fail, revealing its horrifying form.

Huge black eyes blinked across its broad face, while thick mucus flowed from the pitted pores of its expressionless features.

The mandibles at the corners of its mouth twitched constantly. Its hairless skin was slick and revolting, and its eyes were filled with pain.

The Herud had not a single feature resembling a human. A foul-smelling robe wrapped it from head to toe.

Beneath the robe was articulated armor fitted tightly around its agile limbs.

Typhon flung aside the corpse and lunged at the next enemy.

The Astartes warriors and armed crewmen joined forces to clear out the invading Herud.

When the boarding action failed, the Herud realized they could not withstand the Imperium’s offensive.

They began to flee.

The warships hidden beneath layers of shifting temporal fields were nearly invisible. Only advanced instruments capable of detecting spacetime could barely discern a few clues.

The Imperial fleet intercepted those xenos warships, but quite a few Herud still managed to escape.

In the end, the planet inhabited by the Herud also underwent a transformation.

The Herud city slowly rose into the sky. Numerous xenos warships circled around it, forming a hollow cube as bright Time Beams leaped from their crude hulls and linked together.

The spacetime fluctuations they created affected the entire star system.

The planet aged rapidly.

Within hours, the star, which had been in its prime, entered its expansion phase.

Terrifying explosions continuously erupted across its surface, and its brightness increased by several hundred times.

Realizing something was wrong, Mortarion had no choice but to take command and bring Raven to the command room.

"Raise the Time Weapons to maximum power and wipe out every spacetime fluctuation."

The bridge personnel faithfully carried out the Primarch’s orders.

They adjusted the Time Eraser launch system to maximum output.

Many areas of the Indomitus dimmed, its systems entering dormancy solely to supply power to the temporal device.

At last, a bright jade-like beam shot forth, piercing the void and striking the Herud planet that was releasing the spacetime fluctuations.

In an instant, the Herud planet was erased entirely.

Even those xenos warships vanished without a trace, completely wiped away.

The Herud suffered a crushing defeat.

Yet many Herud still escaped.

If the Death Guard wished to exterminate them, they would still have to spend considerable time and effort.

After the battle ended, Raven spoke with Mortarion for a while longer before leaving.

He still needed to visit several other Primarchs.

The next Primarch he would visit was the Lord of Drakes, Vulcan.

When Raven arrived, Vulcan was negotiating with envoys from the Interes Civilization.

He was doing his utmost to persuade them to join the Imperium peacefully.

The Interes Civilization was an ancient civilization.

They had survived the long Age of Darkness and lived peacefully alongside several xenos races.

In the predetermined timeline, Horus was the one who came into contact with this civilization.

The planet where the Interes Civilization had exiled the giant Chitines was discovered by the Blood Angels Legion. After they sent people down, every last one of them was wiped out.

The Sixteenth Legion received the distress call and rushed over, clashing with the giant Chitines. Only after a bloody battle did the Interes Civilization realize they had come to stop the war, and they began negotiations with Horus.

Fearing that the Human Empire had been corrupted by Chaos, Interes had never dared trust Horus and the others.

Once they realized Horus and his people knew nothing about Chaos, Erebus stole the Chaos creation they had kept sealed away, triggering a bloody war between the Interes Civilization and the Sixteenth Legion.

Meanwhile, on Terra.

The Emperor was still working on his Golden Throne.

With the Golden Throne’s amplification, he had already established an arcane network, time nodes, an instant communication network, and the Webway he had once been determined to build.

Beyond that, the Emperor also attempted to project his power into other universes.

His previous meeting with Guilliman had been one of those experiments.

This time, after taking his seat upon the Golden Throne, he once again projected his consciousness into the void.

He greedily absorbed all kinds of information from the void.

Ordinary information could not travel through the void. Only information carrying its own spacetime field could endure there.

Such information was usually emitted when a universe was destroyed, or sent out by universe-level beings capable of creation.

Greetings, beings beyond the universe. We are the Zeloth. We have developed to the limit permitted by the universe, and so we send this call beyond it. Any being who receives this message, please establish contact with us. These are the coordinates of our universe: *******.

One message caught the Emperor’s attention.

Was this bait?