Seeing this, Rowan spoke up.
"There is no need to be so reverent. You don't have to call 'My Lord'."
"From the mont I witnessed such a perfect manifestation of the Omnissiah's might, I understood—this is the future hope of the Imperium of Man," Cawl declared.
"Honestly, by whatever definition you use, I am no god." Hearing that title yet again, Rowan sighed.
Familiar. All too familiar. This was a textbook Imperial response.
This left Cawl—who had lived through the baptism of the Great Crusade ten millennia ago—sowhat torn between laughter and tears.
Are you going to preach a doctrine called the 'Imperial Truth' next, and start proclaiming there are no gods in the universe?
Are all the gods of humanity like this?
The two walked briskly through the corridor. The cold, eerie green light characteristic of the Tomb World shone upon them, illuminating the silhouettes of incoming attackers.
Rowan didn't speak. A bolt of plasma materialized out of thin air in his palm, tearing through the air and instantly lting a charging Skorpekh Destroyer. Imdiately after, he spun around and blew up a Deathmark attempting to ambush him from the shadows.
anwhile, the servo-skulls controlled by Cawl roared into action. Their machine spirits rejoiced, laying down terrifying suppressing fire that effortlessly ground the intercepting Canoptek Scarabs and Necron Warriors into fine dust.
Having easily dealt with this wave of resistance, Rowan turned to Cawl.
"No, you misunderstand . How do you define a 'god'? Or rather, what kind of entity do you call a god?"
"An entity wielding power beyond mortal comprehension? An omniscient and omnipotent entity in a religious sense? A distant spiritual anchor? An entity representing all humanity's virtues and ultimate answers?"
Belisarius Cawl fell into deep thought. He could roughly grasp what the other was trying to convey.
"Undeniably, there are entities in this universe that can be called gods, and I have no intention of creating so doctrine that completely ignores things that already exist. That would just be another form of religious dogma and idealism, differing only in its outward expression."
Rowan paused, as if pondering sothing, but then continued.
"Because gods do exist, and religious faith is indeed effective, but this has also inflicted massive damage upon reason and rationality."
In his past life, although Rowan was highly dissatisfied with the Foundation and the Global Occult Coalition hunting him down for so long, it was undeniable that their world was also a chaotic dance of demons, filled with gods and other bizarre anomalies.
Yet they had indeed used human tenacity and reason to carve a path out of the darkness, one vastly different from this universe's.
The Imperium of Man, however, was different.
Currently, Rowan was still a unique faction existing outside the Imperial order.
Carefully selected by a certain golden-armored skeleton sitting on a throne, the teammates he had encountered so far were rare "normal" people in this galactic cesspit. To so extent, they were all very "un-Imperial."
The Sister of Battle didn't spend every waking mont thinking about tying heretics to pyres to burn them alive; the Custodian wasn't isolated and arrogant; the Tech-Priest Magos actually retained an incredibly rare spirit of progress and innovation; even the fanatical Inquisitor knew how to analyze rationally and assess a situation.
However, if Rowan—who disliked everything else about the Imperium—wanted to change it and tried interacting with the rest of the populace who had been driven mad and fanatical by the oppression of this decaying environnt, they would undoubtedly give him a little taste of Imperial "shock".
He couldn't exactly brainwash and personality-remodel everyone one by one, right? (You're being a bit too extre.jpg)
"I understand your aning," Archmagos Cawl nodded.
I get it. Isn't this just wanting to restore the reason and progress of the Great Crusade era?
"That will be exceptionally difficult. Even with your mighty power, attempting to completely revive a galactic empire that has been sinking into decay for ten millennia will be a path fraught with monuntal challenges."
"I can do it," Rowan stated as if it were a matter of fact.
"...Then, I am honored to be a fellow traveler on this glorious path," Cawl replied earnestly after a mont of silence.
"But bringing the topic back—your primary task is to stop perceiving as a supre deity," Rowan smiled. "For instance, discard the religious titles. Refer to a god as an 'Apex Pluripotent Entity' to demystify its divinity as much as possible."
"And do not perceive my abilities as divine gifts. Simply call a Reality Bender, or a Type Green. Utilize this power rationally and objectively."
Drawing on the intelligence he knew before transmigrating, he continued explaining.
"A Reality Bender's powers are limited by their own perception and understanding of the world. Therefore, maintaining a sense of rational restraint often stabilizes one's abilities significantly."
This was precisely the reason why the Foundation's standard operating procedure for Reality Benders involved deception and information suppression, which drastically reduced the difficulty of containing such entities.
There were many examples.
For example, tricking a reality-bending little girl into believing she was an apprentice witch who had to recite a spell before using her magic. Once she believed it, her previously omnipotent abilities naturally gained constraints.
Or tricking a supersonic girl into thinking she was rely a speedster superhuman, and so on and so forth.
Rowan didn't want to finally find a suitable conversion candidate, only for them to treat this wondrous ability as a divine miracle, completely wasting the ontological intensity he had invested.
"I understand." Fortunately, Cawl's experience and personality were sufficient for him to grasp Rowan's underlying aning. He nodded.
anwhile, deep within the Tomb World.
"This is the enemy you claid would be the easiest for us to eliminate first?" The Cryptek stared at the projection screen, deep in thought.
"Exactly. Just trust ," Trazyn declared with absolute certainty.
"Based on my understanding of the Imperium of Man, the composition of their squad is extrely elite—exceedingly rare even across their entire history." His finger traced over the holographic figures projected by the Canoptek Spyder, explaining them one by one.
"This glittering golden thing is called a Custodian. You can think of them as humanity's equivalent to our Triarch Praetorians—perhaps even an enhanced version. Not to be trifled with."
"This winged entity is a sorcerous construct created by a certain ancient piece of jerky on Terra. Not to be trifled with."
"This one appears to be an Inquisitor, and her psychic intensity is far from weak. Not to be trifled with."
After identifying all the mbers and doxing their capabilities one by one, Trazyn finally pointed to his selected target.
"It's him. The uniform he's wearing marks him as an Astra Militarum Commissar, but to put it bluntly, he is rely a baseline mortal. He is the most optimal target to strike first."
"I understand your reasoning." Sutekh stared at the massive chanical klaw on Yarrick's right arm, falling into deep thought. "But why does the prosthetic attached to this mortal's right arm look exactly like Ork technology?"
"Oh, pay it no mind," Trazyn waved his hand dismissively. "Human technology is so crude it's practically indistinguishable from Ork tech anyway—it's all just big, clunky, and stupid. What, do you actually think he has a Waaagh! energy field?"
"Very well, you make a fair point." Sutekh nodded, convinced.
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