This is Our Warhammer Journey

Ramesses pulled himself together after a brief moment of dejection.

After all, he was an adult. A bit of venting and complaining was fine, but that was as far as it went. Good brothers would always be willing to listen to your inner pain—but right now, they were all prisoners. No one was in a better position than the others.

If he couldn't get a grip on himself and dragged the rest of them into an emotional spiral, that would be utterly pointless.

The top priority was still figuring out how to survive in this world.

"Ahem. Then let this Second Empire Representative Council commence, under the witness of our brotherhood chapter," Romulus said, trying to lighten the mood with a forced cough.

"Why not just call it the Third Empire? The way you say it makes Ramesses sound like an outsider," Arthur couldn't help but quip.

"I mean... that works too."

"I'm down with that—munch munch—how about we even name our—munch munch—new chapter after it?"

"I swear, you're asking for an explosive round in the mouth."

None of the four had any reverence left for the Imperium. After all, what was left of it was a decaying husk of a once-sustainable corpse. Internally, it was ruled by a dysfunctional political machine; externally, Chaos and Tyranids were circling like sharks.

If it weren't for the countless heroes still fighting and dying for humanity's future—and the one still sitting on the Golden Throne—the Imperium would've been sealed in its coffin long ago.

If they had to sum up the Imperium and the galaxy in one sentence—

"The Imperium is a fermented slurry of congealed garbage, and the Warp is a toilet. We survive by inhaling the fumes."

That was Arthur's sharp critique.

Even ignoring the influence of Chaos, the Imperium was already a terrible political entity—essentially a last-ditch construct forcibly mashed together by the Emperor in a final desperate gamble for humanity.

Now that the gamble had failed, he sat stuck to a toilet—refined into the ultimate imperial weapon by the Ecclesiarchy—and left behind a headless corpse that only grew more putrid with time.

"As for the occasional flashes of brilliance? A glass of clean water poured into a sea of filth doesn't change a thing. The whole process is, frankly, a complete tragedy."

"And then there are the xenos. Even putting aside the fact that we're human in appearance and could never truly integrate: Orks are just walking jokes, the Eldar are stalked by Slaanesh, and even the technologically advanced Necrons still run on slavery."

"And the Tau Empire? Eh, we'll have to see them for ourselves. I'm human, not some ethereal. But frankly, their very existence proves that many of the Imperium's so-called 'necessary evils' weren't necessary at all."

"Well said!"

The others clapped enthusiastically.

"So no one here is under any illusion about this universe?"

Ramesses breathed a genuine sigh of relief. "That's good. I'm comforted."

"If we've abandoned illusions, then all that's left is struggle," Romulus said, seizing the opportunity to introduce his plan now that the heavy atmosphere had lifted.

"There are three key points we need to confirm: one, what era and region we're in; two, what we actually are; and three, what we plan to do next."

With that, he tossed a mechanical data plug onto the table.

"I found this in the ship's log. The vessel entered the Warp in 740.M41, around July in the Terran calendar. The location was the Pierrede Subsector in the northern part of the Ultima Segmentum. You might not recognize the name, but you've all heard of its neighbor—the Ghoul Stars."

"Backwater nowhere," Ramesses muttered, and with a wave of psychic power, pulled a cogitator over. He input Romulus's data, and a star map projected before them.

"The Pierrede Subsector. Named after a Rogue Trader from the Great Crusade era. It has twelve Imperial worlds, though only the core planet, Pierrede itself, is of any real value—basically a half-forge world. Let's see…"

"We're probably still somewhere within the sector. I've been sending out Astropathic signals, but it'll take some time for the Imperium to reply."

Everyone knew how efficient the Imperium was. Although the ship had Deathwatch identification codes, the damaged systems meant they'd probably be drifting in space for a while.

Especially since the bridge had been obliterated by Ork scrap-metal—getting this ship to move again under its own power was unlikely.

"This ship was responding to a distress call from Pierrede's core world. Apparently a heretical cult uprising broke out—pretty much guaranteed to be Chaos-related. Otherwise they wouldn't have called in the Deathwatch and Cadians."

Romulus added this extra detail.

Everyone nodded in understanding.

"On to the second question," Romulus continued, glancing at the others.

"What exactly are we now?"

"Primaris Space Marines?" Arthur offered.

Now that he had a grasp on the timeline, Arthur felt weird just standing around in his Mk X power armor.

Abaddon's fall of Cadia was still about three centuries away. If they were spotted wandering around as Primaris Marines at this time, some Mechanicus Magos would probably scream in binary.

"Physically, maybe... Actually, not even that—at least not entirely. Otherwise, I'd have been reduced to ash by red-letter psychic backlash by now."

Ramesses, gnawing on a drumstick, noticed Arthur still hadn't taken off his helmet.

"You're not eating? It's just us bros here—no need to be so uptight."

"Arthur's still not convinced of our abilities. He even self-taught himself Low Gothic," Romulus explained, making Ramesses stare in disbelief.

"...Damn."

When Ramesses first figured out his powers, he hadn't even hesitated to use them. His logic was that he'd already transmigrated into the Warhammer universe—he was at rock bottom, and anything from here could only go up. Even if Tzeentch was using him for laughs, so be it.

But the more he used his powers, the more things felt off.

Frankly, the Chaos Gods didn't seem capable of what he was doing.

"That kind of restraint is a good thing. I really respect Arthur for keeping his cool in all this. Unlike Karna, who just greeted me with two bolter shots."

"I was mid-shutdown! The Black Rage took over—okay, fine. My bad. I'm sorry."

Romulus shot a death glare at the guy currently stuffing his face like he hadn't eaten in a lifetime.

"..."

Arthur looked a bit embarrassed, unsure how to respond.

Romulus immediately sensed something was off.

"Wait... you weren't thinking of stabbing us a few times, were you?"

"Uh…"

Arthur fell silent again, trying to find the words.

Truth was, yes—he had considered stabbing his brothers. At first, he assumed Romulus was some sort of Tzeentch demon trying to deceive him. It wasn't until Romulus pulled out a full squad of Astartes out of nowhere that his doubts eased slightly.

If the Emperor hadn't shown a sign and confirmed he wasn't tainted by Chaos, Arthur might've even tried to trap the whole ship in the Warp. Better to keep the infection from spreading into the real world if it was part of some Chaos conspiracy.

If it had been a plot, he would've acted immediately.

"..."

Romulus looked at the silent Arthur and could pretty much guess what he was thinking.

Any leftover frustration he had now intensified tenfold.

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