Chapter 119 Finally Gone...

“I didn’t hear that wrong, did I? You want to create a Human Pantheon??”

Big E seriously doubted his own ears, asking the question syllable by syllable.

During the Great Crusade, Big E had firmly pushed the atheistic Imperial Truth. It wasn’t because he genuinely believed in a godless universe. It was purely because the Warp was rotten to the core, and any kind of faith would eventually be twisted into nourishment for the four Chaos Gods.

In truth, he knew full well that many races had their own pantheons.

The most famous example was the Eldar. The existence of the Eldar Pantheon didn’t lead them into ignorance and superstition. Instead, it gave them tens of millions of years of prosperity. Well, right up until the ancient Eldar Empire decided to play stupid games, spawned Slaanesh, and brought about their ultimate destruction.

“Exactly. We need a pantheon to maintain order in the Warp,” Vane said seriously. “And right now, humanity is the most suitable race for the job.”

“Without a pantheon, human souls fall straight into the Warp after death, becoming nothing more than demon chow and fertilizer. That’s just too pathetic.”

Big E fell silent, a thoughtful look crossing his face.

Back during the Great Crusade, he had already tried the path of completely wiping out religion. Without a doubt, that path had been a miserable failure. After the old faiths were purged, the people just turned right around and made him, the Master of Mankind, their new object of worship. He hadn’t been sitting on the Golden Throne for long before the Ecclesiarchy was born. They even managed to secure a seat among the High Lords of Terra, stirring up an endless pile of shit—persecuting loyalists, hunting down intellectuals, and tying people to stakes to burn them alive.

What left Big E the most speechless was that those bastards did all of this while flying his banner.

You could never expect humanity to maintain absolute rationality. In times of despair and grief, the vast majority of ordinary people genuinely needed a spiritual anchor. Creating a pantheon to properly guide people’s faith was far better than just blindly suppressing it.

“Alright, we’ll do it your way. I’ll guide the Primarchs to Terra.”

“Then we’ll make a quick trip to the Cryptus System first to pick up the Little Necrontyr, and then head to Terra.”

Once the Human Pantheon was sorted out, Vane planned to go kick the asses of the Silent King and the Stormlord. Then he’d figure out a way to make the Necrontyr the new ruler of the Necrons, which would make completing his mission a whole lot easier.

“Could you leave the Necrontyr in my care to teach??” Trazyn immediately perked up the moment he heard the mention of the kid.

“No way.” Vane shook his head. “I’m counting on making him the new ruler to end the war after I wipe out the Silent King and his bunch of old geezers.”

Having learned that the Silent King and the other Necron Overlords were unwilling to compromise, Vane had decided to just off any overlord who refused to coexist peacefully with humanity and prop the Little Necrontyr up on the throne instead.

So, the kid absolutely had to be taught by a human teacher. Vane needed to make the Little Necrontyr feel goodwill towards humanity, speak High Gothic, and revere human culture. That way, he wouldn’t harbor any baffling hostility toward humanity in the future. With that, both sides could coexist in peace, jointly develop the galaxy, and step out into the broader universe.

As for completely wiping out the Necron race, Vane had considered it. But doing that meant he’d have to bust his ass exterminating Necron dynasties and C’tan scattered all over the galaxy, wasting a massive amount of time. Plus, war was a disaster for both sides. Plenty of innocent people would pay the price with their lives.

If an all-out war started, the Silent King would probably be the only one smiling. Once the fighting broke out, he could pull the same stunt he did during the War in Heaven—using an external enemy to distract from internal conflicts.

After the Necrontyr lost their first massive war against the Old Ones, their internal conflicts had flared up fiercely. Their sprawling empire fractured, with many Overlords refusing to bow to the Triarch’s rule anymore.

It was worth noting that the miserable lives of civilians in the Imperium of Man were mostly due to constant warfare and spotty Warp communications. Many planets that weren’t burdened with the war effort actually had it pretty good.

But back in the ancient Necrontyr Empire, the civilians lived even more wretched lives than modern humanity. They were nothing but pure fuel. Their sole purpose for being born was to ensure the eternity of their dynasties.

You had to remember, back then, the galaxy was kept in order by the Old Ones. There was no Chaos, and nowhere near as many chaotic wars. You could imagine just how utterly inhumane Szarekh and his fellow Necron Overlords really were.

To cement his own rule and get revenge on the Old Ones, Szarekh teamed up with the C’tan, sold out the entire Necrontyr race, and gave birth to the Necrons. There was a lot of public opposition at the time, but Szarekh was ruthless. He just sent warriors to round up any civilians who refused biotransference, tossed them all into the bio-furnaces, and then used control protocols to puppet the resulting Necron Warriors.

The most audacious move was that this guy even installed a Master Command Protocol to control all the Overlords, terrified that someone might rebel.

After the war with the C’tan ended, the Eldar, having inherited the Old Ones’ legacy, had already risen to become the new galactic overlords. Realizing he couldn’t win, Szarekh issued one final command to all the dynasties: everyone was to go into the Great Sleep and wait for the Eldar Empire to decline. After that, he severed the Master Command Protocol, packed his bags, and left the galaxy to travel elsewhere.

Through a series of wildly questionable decisions, he failed to become the ruler of the galaxy and managed to turn his entire race into metallic undead. To make matters worse, sixty million years of beauty sleep caused major problems for a lot of the dynasties. Plenty of Overlords woke up batshit crazy, and the lower classes completely lost their free will.

This guy’s world-shattering intellect was easily on par with Magnus the Red.

“You’re going to kill the Silent King and the Stormlord??” Trazyn’s voice was laced with astonishment.

“Yep. Since they don’t want to play nice, they can just be completely destroyed.” Vane nodded.

Only by fully embracing the strategic doctrine of ‘eliminating upper management first’ could true peace finally arrive.

“Then can I be Regent for a few days?” Trazyn didn’t show an ounce of grief over the two Overlords getting whacked; he only thirsted for the Regent’s throne.

“You, Regent?” Vane looked Trazyn up and down.

Trazyn’s attitude toward humanity was vastly better than that of the other Necron Overlords. During the Fall of Cadia, he had even guided Archmagos Cawl to uncover the secrets of the Blackstone Pylons, helping humanity fight back against Chaos. Moreover, Trazyn wasn’t interested in galactic domination. He just wanted to rob tombs, run his museum, and preserve the glory and history that once existed in the galaxy.

“Yeah, make me Regent! That way, I can order all those Overlords to hand over their family heirlooms to me.” Trazyn imagined himself as Regent, rubbing his metal hands together in glee as he threatened the other Overlords. Heh heh heh, you wouldn’t want to be branded as traitors now, would you? So…

Vane shook his head and sighed. This guy really had zero ambition. Wanting to be Regent not to centralize power or conquer the galaxy, but just to stock his museum.

“Let’s handle the Pantheon first.” Vane pulled out the linking book, ready to teleport everyone to the gunship outside.

Otherwise, walking out of there would have wasted a ton of time.

As the linking book burst with light, the surrounding space-time warped. A split second later, Vane and the group vanished.

“Finally gone,” Gork slumped to the ground. His previously naive, innocent-looking big eyes were now filled with sheer cunning. “I was genuinely terrified he was gonna whack me.”

“How the hell did such a terrifying freak show up in the galaxy?” Mork shrank back, pulling his head down.

Clearly, Trazyn had guessed right. These two acting completely harmless was nothing but a front.

Even though Gork and Mork spent all their time lounging in the WAAAGH! space, they kept close tabs on the materium and the Warp through their Greenskins. They knew humanity had produced an absolute monster of a guy. He had scared the four Chaos Gods shitless, to the point where he was openly building roads in the Warp and they didn’t even dare to intervene.

Originally, Gork and Mork had toyed with the idea of testing his combat strength. But after seeing him transform into a giant monster, walking side-by-side with the Master of Mankind, and keeping a former C’tan as a pet, they instantly scrapped that idiotic thought.

Setting everything else aside, they’d have to team up just to deal with Big E alone. Add in that human Forefather with his bottomless bag of tricks, and their odds of winning sat squarely at zero. Picking a fight would have just been asking for a beatdown.

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