This is the bonus chapter for reaching 150 Powerstones.
Next Goal = 300 Powerstones.
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Deep within the Warp.
Lucian's energy body hovered in the void, gazing into the operating room in the material universe. Zeke had just completed his augmentation and was feeling out the newfound power in his body.
"The time has come."
Complex patterns rippled across the surface of the energy body, marking a resolute decision.
He pulled up the System interface. His hand hovered over the [Bestow Champion Status] option for a moment, but he didn't click it. (TL/N: Chosen will be Champion from now on)
"Bestowing it directly is too blunt... I have to let him choose it himself."
Lucian recalled all the various methods the Emperor used to drag people into his crusade from his past life's knowledge.
He also remembered how Tzeentch operated in the Warhammer universe—using knowledge and power as bait to lay traps that seemed brimming with hope.
"Then... I'll borrow a skin."
His energy body vibrated slightly, utilizing True Energy to construct a space caught between reality and illusion.
It wasn't a pure hallucination. Using the massive amounts of emotional energy he had absorbed as material and True Energy as the framework, Lucian wove together a hypothetical life.
A piece of teaching material meant to let Zeke personally experience the absolute hell mortals lived through in this universe.
–
Material Universe, Crimson Dawn Base, Operating Room.
Zeke had just acclimated to the surging power in his new body and was testing the exertion of every muscle fiber.
Suddenly, his vision went black.
His thoughts were overridden by some higher-dimensional entity, his consciousness forcibly ripped from his body and plunged into a sea of pure white light.
When Zeke opened his eyes, he found himself no longer in the operating room.
He was standing in a filthy, squalid alleyway.
Looking down, he saw a pair of thin, small hands, caked in grime and covered in frostbite.
He was wearing clothes stitched together from torn burlap sacks and scrap fabric. The biting wind cut through the gaps, making him shiver violently.
"Where am I..."
Zeke tried to speak, but the voice that came out belonged to a young child.
Memories flooded his mind like a tidal wave.
They were... the original memories of this body's life.
His name was Paul Barnes. He was six years old, living in the underhive of Dawn City.
His father had been a clerk in the mid-hive, and his mother an elementary school teacher.
During the upheaval that swept through the Dawn City Hive three years ago, his parents, terrified of being purged, abandoned their property and fled to the underhive with him. They barely scraped by on scavenging and odd jobs.
The memories were crystal clear.
The image of his father teaching him how to read under a dim oil lamp. The warmth of his mother sneaking her own rations into his hands. And those vague legends about the glory of House Alar—his grandmother was apparently a distant relative of some branch family.
Then, disaster struck quickly. It was the chain reaction of a collapsing order.
After Dawn City was subjected to orbital bombardment by the Iron Hands Legion, its entire ruling structure disintegrated instantly.
The assorted scum previously suppressed by the Blaec House and House Alar—small gangs, wasteland bandits, and opportunistic merchants—swarmed in like vultures scenting rotting meat.
They carved up territories and established their own rules.
When Paul was five, a bandit group calling themselves the Bloodfang Gang raided their underhive settlement.
His father tried to protect the family's last tube of nutrient paste. A bandit chopped his head off with an axe.
Before his mother was dragged away, she shoved him into a hidden compartment under the floorboards.
He huddled in the dark for a day and a night, listening to the screams, manic laughter, and explosions outside gradually fade away.
When he crawled out, the settlement was a ruin.
His mother's body had been casually discarded on a street corner, piled among dozens of others, already being gnawed on by mutant rats.
Paul didn't cry.
He crouched down and pried a rusted metal ring from his mother's stiff fingers. It was a wedding gift his father had carved from scrap metal.
Then, he turned around and walked deep into the ruins.
Time flowed agonizingly slow.
From a first-person perspective, Zeke lived through this life.
At ten, fighting wild dogs for food in a junkyard, he lost a section of his left pinky finger.
At twelve, he joined a small scavenger gang and learned how to stab someone with a shiv. The target was the kidney—it incapacitated them quickly without killing them instantly.
At fourteen, the scavenger gang was swallowed up by a larger syndicate. Kept around because he was ruthless enough, he laid hands on a real gun for the first time—an ancient autostub pistol that jammed thirty percent of the time.
At sixteen, he caught a bullet to the gut during a gang shootout. With no medicae available, he branded the wound shut with a red-hot piece of iron.
He ran a high fever for three days and nearly died. He survived, but was left with a hideous, hand-sized scar on his stomach.
On his eighteenth birthday, he sat alone on the highest point of the ruins in the settlement, staring up at the eternal darkness of the underhive ceiling.
In his hand was a moldy nutrient paste—traded for half a bottle of purified water he had robbed from someone that morning.
The wind blew, carrying the unique damp and gloom of the underhive.
He suddenly remembered something his father had told him a long time ago.
"Paul, do you know?"
"In the eyes of the Imperium, people like us aren't even statistics."
He hadn't understood it back then.
Now, he did.
He understood because his life was worth even less than a statistic. A statistic at least proved you existed. But him? And the thousands of others living in these ruins just like him? Their existence wasn't even acknowledged.
Right at that moment.
The pitch-black sky above suddenly lit up.
A mass of pure, warm, and holy white light—as if capable of dispelling all darkness—bloomed.
Within the light, a figure slowly descended.
The figure was cloaked in a halo, making its exact features indiscernible. Yet, its silhouette was graceful, its posture majestic, radiating an aura that made one feel safe, even evoking a desire to drop to one's knees and worship.
It landed in front of Paul, slightly lowering its head. Its voice was like the gentlest spring breeze.
"Hello, Zeke."
Zeke froze.
"First of all, I am not a god. I am Hope."
The figure continued, its tone warm and candid. "Because you are the first player to attain power surpassing a mortal, and your reputation has met the hidden requirements."
"You have unlocked the hidden quest: The Path of the Champion."
It extended a hand, palm facing up, and a swirling orb of light materialized.
"Are you willing to become a Champion?"
"The sole objective of the Path of the Champion: complete the salvation of humanity within this Mecha Universe."
"Warning: Becoming a Champion will permanently lock you out of logging off until the quest is completed."
"By becoming a Champion, you will receive: The Champion Trait, The Perfect Respawn Trait, and an S-Rank All-Rounder Psychic Talent."
It was an overwhelming amount of information.
But Zeke's mind—sharpened by both his original memories and a decade of surviving in the ruins—operated with abnormal clarity.
First, the entity called him Zeke. It knew his player identity.
Second, it said, "First of all, I am not a god." That line alone was incredibly suspicious.
In the Warhammer universe, besides the Emperor making such claims, no Chaos God ever denied their divinity.
Third, salvation of humanity of the Mecha Universe?
That goal was absurdly grandiose. It sounded like... a massive, empty promise.
Also, what was with the Mecha Universe name-drop?
Fourth, no logging off until it was done.
That meant once he accepted, there was absolutely no turning back.
Fifth, the rewards were terrifyingly generous: The Champion Trait, Perfect Respawn, and an S-Rank Psychic Talent. That surpassed the scope of blessings given to most Primarchs.
Zeke slowly stood up.
His eighteen-year-old body was gaunt from chronic malnutrition, but his eyes were as sharp as knives.
He looked at the figure before him, countless possibilities flashing through his mind.
Tzeentch.
The most likely culprit.
The Lord of Deceit, who delighted in weaving long-term conspiracies, loved using knowledge and power as bait, tricking his prey into thinking they were outsmarting the trap they were walking into.
This entire speech—offering him power to save the world—smelled entirely like the Architect of Fate's handiwork.
The Emperor? Impossible.
Some unknown Warp entity? Also possible.
The Warhammer universe was vast. Beyond the four major gods, there were countless minor gods, demigods, Old One constructs, and C'tan shards...
But.
Zeke smiled.
That smile contained the ruthlessness honed by a decade of underhive survival, and the decisiveness forged as the Chapter Master of Crimson Dawn.
It also contained something much deeper—a stubborn, almost foolish perseverance etched into his very bones that had never changed.
He thought of the sacrifices Schrödinger Bro and the others had made.
Those ordinary people in the real world had staked all their resources, their trust, and even a shared ideal entirely on him.
He thought of Aska's calloused hands. The terrified look in Helovia's eyes when she awakened. The despairing wails of the mother and daughter White Scars had mentioned.
He thought of every starving child, every casually slaughtered civilian, and every life struggling in the mud that was never seen during his decade-long illusionary life.
"This is just what everyone endures in this cesspool of a Warhammer world."
Zeke muttered softly to himself.
Then, he raised his head, staring straight at the holy figure.
"I accept."
No hesitation. No bargaining. He didn't even ask what would happen if he failed.
Because he knew there were some paths that, once seen, left you with no reason not to walk them.
Even if it might be a trap.
Even if it might be a Chaos God's game.
Even if it demanded a price from which there was no turning back.
"I have always been me," Zeke said. "From the moment I saved those workers in the industrial zone, from the moment I took in the refugees on the wasteland, from the moment I chose the Salamanders gene-seed—I never intended to be some saint."
"But if power allows me to do what I want to do, and change the world I want to change..."
"Then even if it means dancing with Daemons or striking deals with Chaos Gods, I'll take it."
The figure seemed slightly moved.
It nodded, a trace of genuine... appreciation?... creeping into its voice.
"Very good."
The figure raised its hands. The pure white light surrounding it began to split and condense, transforming into five orbs of light, each a different color.
The first, golden, radiating pulses of Hope.
The second, green, exuding the aura of Compassion.
The third, red, carrying the weight of Resolve.
The fourth, blue, pulsating with the vitality of Pioneering.
The fifth, white, shining with the brilliance of Wisdom.
"With these five great traits, the foundation of the Champion is forged."