The player is playing like a god, and has already advanced to Space Marine level at the start.

Yan led A-Zhui and Mo Yi out of the main hall.

The metal doors closed, and the hall fell silent.

He Xi didn't speak. She sat on the steps, flipping through the virtual projection of the Warhammer 40K artbook, the text and pictures flying across her fingertips.

"Tomboy"

He Xi suddenly spoke, her gaze never leaving the projection.

"What?" Keisha leaned back on her throne, resting her chin on one hand.

"The more you read the book, the more outrageous the settings become." He Xi zoomed in on the projection and pushed it in front of Keisha. "Take a look at the origins of this 'Emperor'."

Keisha glanced up and swept her eyes over.

"8000 BC? Anatolia?" Keisha read the text aloud. "Shamanic sacrifice? All the shamans committed mass suicide, their souls merging to create an immortal being?"

"The Stone Age." He Xi held up a finger and wagged it. "Back then, Earthlings were still playing with stones and sticks. This guy already existed. And, the book says he was the most powerful human psionicist."

He Xi turned a page and pointed to a passage.

"Look at this power. In order to provide energy for the flagship 'Red Tear' of his ninth son, Sanguis, he used psionic energy to compress a star with a diameter of six billion kilometers into an energy core that is only a dozen meters in size."

He Xi looked up at Keisha.

"Six billion kilometers. Compressed to the level of a dozen meters. Can our sacred treasure trove of knowledge calculate the energy required?"

Keisha sat up straight.

"We also have star-driven technology," Keisha said. "That little girl, Lena, can detonate a star. But compression..."

She shook her head.

"Detonation releases energy, while compression does work in reverse. Forcibly confining the mass and energy of a star to a microscopic scale while maintaining a stable output is not just a matter of energy; it's a violation of the laws of physics."

"The key point is that he casually gave it to his son as a toy," He Xi exclaimed in amazement. "That's much more generous than what we've done."

The scene shifts to an illustration of Saint Gilles, depicting a handsome man with enormous white wings, dressed in magnificent golden power armor.

"Saint Gillespie," Keisha said, looking at the wings, "an archangel. If you only look at his appearance, he looks more like an angel than we do."

"Indeed." He Xi nodded, but...

He Xi changed the subject abruptly, her expression becoming somewhat strange.

"This emperor may be powerful, but his ability as a father is simply disastrous."

She quickly flipped through the pages, pointing to the section on the protogenes.

"Look at these Primarchs. Twenty sons, lost and then found. What did they do?"

He Xi clicked on Anglong's entry.

"The twelfth son, Angron. His head was nailed with the 'Butcher's Nail,' a torture device that constantly stimulated the brain, causing excruciating pain and rage. The Emperor found him, but instead of removing the nail, he forcibly took him away from his gladiator brothers who had shared life and death with him, and watched helplessly as his brothers were killed."

"And what happened?" He Xi spread her hands. "Angron hated him his whole life and eventually betrayed him and joined Khorne."

Keisha frowned slightly.

"Possessing the ability to compress stars, yet unable to cure a brain surgery?"

"The book says it's ancient technology, something even emperors couldn't fix." He Xi curled her lip. "An excuse. I think he's just too lazy to treat it, or he thinks these nails will increase his fighting power, and it's better to use his son like a mad dog."

He Xi then pointed to the entry for Peturabo.

"And then there's this one, Perturabo. He was also a child who craved love, and all he wanted was a word of praise from his father. But the Emperor used him as a laborer, making him gnaw on the toughest bones and fight the most grueling battles. After he finished, he didn't receive a single kind word, but instead went and praised Dorn."

"This emotional intelligence," He Xi gave a thumbs-up and gestured downwards, "is ridiculously low. Even a rock would warm up after being covered for ten thousand years, right? This emperor's heart is harder than a neutron star."

Keisha glanced at the fates of the Primarchs; they were either betrayed or suffered heavy casualties.

"These Primarchs," Keisha commented, "have demigod bodies, but their minds are mostly stuck in adolescence. They desperately crave fatherly love and are extremely sensitive. The Emperor gave them godlike power, but didn't teach them how to be complete human beings."

"Because he himself is not a normal person."

He Xi turned to the chapter about the "Golden Age".

"Look here. In the golden age of human technology, this emperor used the alias 'Nyos.' What did he do?"

He Xi pointed at the words and laughed out loud.

"He's a terrible student and a total shut-in. He spends all his time hiding behind the scenes, watching humanity struggle."

"Socially anxious," He Xi declared. "Definitely socially anxious. An old monster who has lived for tens of thousands of years actually doesn't want to interact with people."

Keisha also found it somewhat absurd.

"A socially awkward person actually unified Terra and conquered the galaxy?"

"That's why this premise is so outrageous." He Xi slapped her thigh. "Can you imagine? A shut-in guy, suddenly one day, says he wants to save civilization."

"Then he got up."

He Xi stood up and waved his hand, mimicking the emperor's gesture in the book.

"Then he created twenty Primarchs, built ten thousand Custodians, and two million Space Marines. He fought his way from Terra to the edge of the galaxy, crushing all the Xenomorphs and human traitors under his feet."

He Xi sat back down on the steps.

"The contrast is too great. I can't believe it's the same person."

Keisha didn't laugh; her gaze remained fixed on the "Thunder Warrior" chapter.

"He's not just socially awkward," Keisha's voice turned cold. "He's also an extreme pragmatist. Look at these Thunder Warriors."

The scene depicts a group of barbaric warriors clad in rudimentary power armor, wreaking havoc on the battlefield.

"Stronger and more brutal than the Space Marines. They helped him unify Terra," Keisha said. "And what happened? As soon as the war was over, he purged these heroes. Right there on Mount Alarath, he personally ordered the massacre of most of the Thunder Warriors."

"Because they're unstable, short-lived, and prone to going crazy," He Xi continued. "They're disposable. Like using a dirty rag."

"The same applies to the Primarch."

Keisha points to the prologue to the Horusic Rebellion.

"He knew about the existence of the Warp from the beginning, and about the threat posed by the Chaos Four. But he never told his sons. He made the Primarchs believe that the Warp was just a dimension without intelligence, and forbade them from studying psionic powers."

"The Nicaea Conference," He Xi added, "He banned all use of psionic energy. As a result, Magnus had to break his Webway project in order to send him a message, and was ultimately forced to rebel."

"He treats his son as a tool." Keisha leaned back in her chair. "In his eyes, the Primarch is not a child, but a general, a weapon for expanding territory. Since he is a weapon, he doesn't need to know the truth, he only needs to obey orders."

He Xi nodded.

"Of all these Primarchs, Guilliman is the only one who's somewhat normal."

She pulled up Robert Guilliman's file.

"The Primarch of the Ultramarines. The genetic father of Lu Xiao. This man was a politician and a logistics master. Mentally mature and emotionally stable. He knew how to govern a country and how to carry out construction."

"That's why Lu Xiao is so shrewd and calculating," Keisha said. "It's genetic. Guilliman grew up in Macragge, received a good family education, and had loving adoptive parents. Many Primarchs don't have that kind of luck."

A moment of silence followed in the main hall.

He Xi closed the projector and rubbed her temples.

"To be honest, after seeing all this, I have mixed feelings about this emperor."

He Xi looked at Keisha.

"You call him a bastard? He is. Cold-blooded towards his son, deceiving, concealing, purging—he did everything a tyrant should do."

"but."

He Xi changed the subject.

"He truly loved humanity. Not any specific person, but the concept of 'humanity,' the race."

Keisha nodded.

"He allowed humanity to live for another 10,000 years in this malevolent universe."

Keisha pointed to the back cover of the book, where it read—"In the dark, distant future, there is only war."

"That story is far more brutal than ours. The Chaos God wanted to devour human souls, the Tyranids wanted to devour human flesh and blood, the Necromancers wanted to annihilate all living beings, and the Ork only wanted to fight."

"In that desperate situation, he was the one sitting on that golden throne."

Keisha's tone carried a hint of respect.

"Ten thousand years. Enduring the agony of their souls being torn apart every day, burning themselves to maintain the navigation of the starlight, allowing human ships to navigate in the warp. Even as a skeleton, they refused to breathe their last breath."

"As long as he lives, the human empire will not collapse."

"He was an incompetent father, a terrible friend, and a cruel tyrant."

"But he has done right by all of humanity."

Keisha turned to look at He Xi.

"He gave all his love to humanity on a macro level, leaving only cold calculation and sacrifice for the individual. The only people he wronged were his sons who called him father."

He Xi sighed and tossed the book aside.

"This kind of love is too heavy. I can't bear it." He Xi stood up and patted her skirt. "We angels are better. At least we won't turn our sisters into batteries, nor will we drag the heroes away to be shot."

"So we are angels," Keisha said calmly. "He is the emperor. That universe doesn't need a merciful god, it only needs a monster who can keep humanity alive."

Keisha returns to the throne.

"That Lu Xiao inherited this gene. When he killed Sun Wukong, he didn't hesitate or show any pity. Because in his eyes, Sun Wukong was an 'alien,' a 'fake,' a threat that had to be eliminated."

Keisha waved.

"Go ahead. I'm tired too. This story is giving me a headache."

After bowing, He Xi turned to leave, but when she was almost at the door, she suddenly stopped and turned back.

"Tomboy"

"What's wrong now?"

"Tell me," He Xi pointed upwards, "what do you think would happen if that emperor could really stand up?"

"The Emperor is two sides of the same coin; he is both the ruler of mankind and the king of darkness."

"If he could really stand up, someone like Karl who plays tricks would probably be slapped to the wall and pinned to the ground. Of course, if he stood up, he would immediately become the Dark Lord, and humanity would fall to the same state as the Eldar."