There was darkness.Not peace. Not sleep.It was the kind of darkness that pressed in on you. Thick. Like drowning in oil. Something about it hummed—like the world itself was holding its breath.
And then—Pain.Not the kind that makes you cry. The kind that wakes you up like a defibriltor to the soul.
He gasped.
Air flooded in. Harsh. Sterile. Tasted like dust and metal. His eyes snapped open to a ceiling full of ancient pipes and flickering green lights. The distant drone of machines pulsed through the floor.
He was on a sb. Cold. Half-naked. Hooked up to things.
He moved his fingers.They moved.
He sat up—groaning like someone twice his age. Arms. Legs. Still there. Coordination? Wobbly, but online. He looked down at himself. Scarred. Gaunt. Some kind of sterile robe hung loose over a body that felt... older than it should.
Then came the memories.Two lives smming into each other like high-speed trains.
Terra.The Emperor.The Primarchs.The Heresy.Chaos.
Everything from the books. The codexes. The wiki spirals at 3 a.m.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered, voice hoarse. “This isn’t a dream.”
A faint beep echoed nearby. Ancient cogitators flickered to life as if responding to his thoughts. A low whirr followed—and a servo-skull hovered into view.
A literal floating skull, with red optics and mech-tentacles. Looked like something from a haunted sci-fi museum.
“Identity confirmed,” it rasped in binaric. “Advisor Caelestis. Neural instability within acceptable parameters. Alerting medical servitors.”
He blinked at it.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
This wasn’t a shrine. This wasn’t some cospy b. This was a real facility. Machines from a lost age. Consoles so old they looked like they predated the word computer.
And they were responding to him.
He wasn’t just in Warhammer 40K. He was in it before the Great Crusade. Before the Primarchs were scattered. When the Emperor still walked Terra in the flesh.
And somehow, he was in the body of Advisor Caelestis—a man with enough clout to trigger machine spirits just by breathing.
“Alright. Deep breath. Step one: Don’t die. Step two: Figure out what the hell Caelestis knew. Step three: Start changing fate before this whole timeline goes full nightmare fuel.”
Footsteps thundered down the corridor outside.Heavy. Too heavy.
He tensed.The doors hissed open—and in stomped three Thunder Warriors.
Bigger than any Space Marine figure he'd ever painted. Hulking sbs of war. Ancient armor. Scars like tattoos. They looked like monsters built for a single purpose—destruction.
One raised a power axe.
“Advisor Caelestis,” he said, voice low and guttural. “You’re not cleared for this sector.”
The others fnked him. Weapons charged.
He raised a hand, palms open.
“Alright, easy. Just woke up. Memory’s scrambled. I'm not looking for a fight—”
They stepped forward anyway.
Of course they did.
“Figures,” he muttered. “Crazy-ass thunder meatheads. This is why nobody mourns your extinction.”
He scanned the room.
Tray of surgical tools. Old machinery. Loose cabling. A servo-skull still floating nearby, probably watching this unfold with a polite ck of concern.
Then—he moved.
Fast.
Snatched a vibro-scalpel and jammed it into the knee joint of the closest Thunder Warrior. Armor cracked. The bastard roared and stumbled.
The second raised his bolter.He rolled sideways, felt the heat of the shot graze past. Came up behind him, grabbed the breathing tube at the base of the neck, and tore.
A hiss. A gag. A crash.
The st one charged.
He grabbed a broken surgical arm from the wall, drove it like a spear under the shoulder pting.
Crunch.Down.
Silence.
He stood there, panting. Hands bloody. Three corpses at his feet.
“Guess I’m not that rusty after all.”
The servo-skull floated closer.
“Combat efficiency: revalidated. Reauthorizing command protocols. Welcome back, Advisor.”
He blinked, still catching his breath. “Cool. Let’s skip the part where you call more of your friends.”
The skull beeped in response.He stared at it, then muttered, “Advisor Caelestis, huh? Cool name. Not bad for a sci-fi warzone NPC.”
He looked at his hands. Steady. Breathing slow. No panic. His mind was sharp, focused.
“My emotions are stable... weirdly stable. Is it the body? The neural impnts? This whole world?”
Whatever the reason, he wasn’t panicking. Not yet.
“Right. Time to get out of here and figure out what the hell is going on.”
Ten minutes ter, he emerged into the upper levels of the pace.
The Imperial Pace.
But not the gothic, ruined husk he knew from the 41st millennium. This one was alive. Glorious. Still being built into the bones of the Himayas—what used to be modern-day Nepal.
It was massive. Indescribably so. Every wall felt like the size of a stadium. Every hallway echoed with ritual and command.
He stopped at the threshold.
“Holy hell… how the f—how is this even real?”
“I really transmigrated... didn’t I?”
He was in the past. The real past. Before the fall. Before everything went to warp-damned hell.
Around him, workers moved like ants—gene-borers, scribes, cybernetic servitors. Tech-priests floated past on grav-ptes, chanting binaric hymns that buzzed like code. Banners of Unification rippled from high arches. Gold and white and crimson.
And then—he saw Him.
Down the corridor. Speaking to a cluster of Terran generals.
The Emperor.
He stopped walking.
It was one thing to read about Him. To argue with strangers online about His motives, His pns, His lies.
But seeing Him?
He was massive. Towering. Radiant.Literally radiant. Like light bent around Him. Gold armor that looked forged by stars. A presence so intense it made the world feel… secondary.
Even his own body reacted—Caelestis’ spine straightened, heart rate quickened, knees almost buckled.
“Is this the Advisor’s programming? Awe conditioning?” he thought. “Or is He just that... real?”
The Emperor turned.Looked right at him.
Just for a second.
A flicker of recognition. Or maybe curiosity. Or suspicion. Impossible to tell.
He held the gaze, then slowly bowed.
“You have no idea what’s coming, do you?” he thought.
He stood there, breathing deep.
“Alright. If I’m stuck in this gaxy-sized meat grinder, I might as well try my best to survive.”
Since stuck he might as well try to change the course of the history.
