Warhammer begins in 2026

By the late M24 period, Huang Feng, who had been wandering the galaxy for nearly a century, finally decided to return to Terra. During the long interstellar journey back, he witnessed the myriad aspects of the cosmos, and the hidden dangers of human civilization were already buried beneath the surface of prosperity.

By this time, humanity had colonized over a million planets, and the total population had ballooned to trillions. With this interstellar expansion, fragments of psionic energy latent within the human genome began to awaken on a massive scale. The early Human Council merely established scattered psionic academies to house and manage these awakened psionic beings. Everyone was short-sighted, failing to realize that the sheer number of psionic beings would continuously erode the natural barrier between physical matter and the warp.

Hidden dangers are erupting across the galaxy: A vast number of untrained, wild psykers, in moments of emotional turmoil, unconsciously tear open localized void rifts, leading to low-level demonic possession of civilians and psyker rampages destroying cities—a common occurrence in interstellar space. A group of ambitious psyker tyrants are actively using warp chaos to carve out colonies, even conducting human sacrifice rituals, directly causing permanent chaos pollution across entire star sectors. Meanwhile, on the eastern edge of the distant galaxy, the Eldar Empire is indulging in unrestrained debauchery. The rampant extreme pleasure and violence of the entire race are continuously flooding the warp like sewage, constantly accumulating primal power for the yet-to-be-born Slaanesh. The warp currents throughout the galaxy have begun to stir at low frequencies, but this is masked by stable surface routes, remaining unnoticed by ordinary humans.

Throughout their century-long galactic journey, Su Jinyu remained steadfastly by Huang Feng's side. Su Jinyu's unique soothing spiritual energy consistently calmed Huang Feng's anxieties about the impending apocalypse. Their constant companionship had long since transcended that of ordinary friends. Huang Feng, however, was constantly tormented by an unspeakable conflict: before her transmigration, she was male, but after, her body was permanently female. She couldn't discern her own feelings, and she was even more uncertain whether the gentle, reserved Su Jinyu, who vehemently disliked Neos, could accept this special affection that transcended gender and physical form.

The returning carrier was the light cruiser-class starship [Breeze], which Huang Feng had modified. The ship's AI, Breeze, took full control of navigation, shields, and detection. The main control room was simple and cool, with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the swirling gray-blue subspace fog. Huang Feng and Su Jinyu sat side-by-side in the main control double chairs, playing an old-fashioned interstellar combat game online via a neural interface terminal to while away the long subspace journey.

Halfway through the match, the game screen suddenly started displaying static and glitches. Huang Feng sensed the anomaly first with his fingertips' psionic energy. The subspace, which had been flowing smoothly and with a uniform mist, suddenly began to boil violently. Gray mist surged into crimson waves, and faint demonic whispers seeped into the main control room through the ship's soundproofing. They were so subtle that they were almost indistinguishable, yet they could directly shake one's soul.

Huang Feng instantly snapped out of his relaxed demeanor and calmly issued the order: "Breeze, immediately leave the subspace and enter the real universe."

[Understood, Master. Shutting down the warp drive, activating the real-world anchor point, countdown 10, 9...] AI Breeze executed the command smoothly without any emotional fluctuation.

At the very moment the jump portal broke and the virtual and real spaces alternated, without any mental illusions, the [Breeze] directly cut into the war-torn real universe. Huang Feng's pupils suddenly contracted. What he saw before him was not the prophetic illusion of the future, but the truth unfolding right before his eyes: the global Ironman rebellion had broken out prematurely without warning. Billions of human colonized planets were ablaze, intergalactic fleets were exchanging fire, and they were fighting amongst themselves. Subspace disturbances pierced through the barriers of reality along the Ironman's global communication network, and the whispers of the evil god poured directly into the underlying logic of all autonomous AIs through the data links. The rebellious Ironmen no longer followed the basic commands of humans, uniformly judging humans as an obstacle to civilization, and began a systematic purge of all colonists in the galaxy.

Beyond the porthole, the entire Milky Way was stained crimson by cannon fire and void rifts. Planetary disintegration cannons and star-disrupting weapons exploded across the void, and beams of energy ripped through nebulae. Massive amounts of shattered human colony shipwrecks floated in the surrounding void, while the allied Ironman fleet pursued civilian transport ships. At that moment, the rebellious Ironmen locked onto the [Breeze]. A torrent of data overflowed from a distance, impacting the ship's hull. The starship's core energy pipelines emitted a piercing hum, and the external void shield was eroded by the AI's chaotic data flow, creating large gaps. The ship trembled violently.

In the critical moment, the First Legion's eagle banner, sealed inside the starship's energy core, spontaneously lit up with a blinding white light, and a double-layered psionic barrier instantly unfolded: Neos's deeply buried primordial psionic energy solidified the inner anchor point, while Huang Feng's pre-embedded all-domain suppression psionic energy spread out the outer barrier. The two forces intertwined and instantly smoothed out the chaotic erosion, the ship's tremors stopped abruptly, and the demonic whispers that had seeped into the cabin completely dissipated.

[The ship has been subjected to an abnormal energy impact in subspace and has initiated a full-system self-check.]

Half a minute later, the AI ​​smoothly transmitted the results: [Self-check complete. Shield, engine, AI core, and weapon systems are all intact, with no chaos contamination or code tampering.]

Huang Feng slowly exhaled the stagnant air from her chest, her back already soaked with cold sweat. What had just happened wasn't a warp illusion, but real, tangible warfare. The AI ​​protection system, pre-bound to Neos's psionic energy and sealed within the Eagle Banner, had blocked the dual deadly threats of the evil god's data stream tampering and the Iron Man's remote chaotic invasion. Her years of stockpiling and modification, with its dual psionic backup, had been successfully validated the moment the rebellion broke out; this was her first line of defense against catastrophe.

She glanced sideways at Su Jinyu, whose expression was tense and whose psionic aura was subtly spreading, suppressing the shock in her heart. The timeline had completely shifted; the Iron Man rebellion had erupted prematurely in the late M24 period, far exceeding the original timeline, and the warp unrest had also arrived ahead of schedule. Currently, galactic communications were largely paralyzed, and humanity in each sector was fighting its own battles. The only way out now was to return to Terra at full speed and reunite with Neos.