Chapter 274 — The Golden Throne
The workshop remained completely silent after Gaius's final words.
"And then father faced son."
Nobody spoke.
The Name alone carried enough weight.
The Emperor.
Horus.
The ruler of the Imperium standing before the son who is trying to destroyed everything he had built.
For several seconds, only the quiet hum of machinery filled the room.
Then Tony was the first to break the silence.
"What happened after that?"
Everyone's attention remained on Gaius.
The conversation had gradually transformed from a history lesson into something else entirely. What had started as questions about gene-seed and Primarchs had become the story of an entire civilization's greatest tragedy.
Gaius thought for a moment before answering.
"Horus was killed."
The answer came simply.
No dramatic buildup.
No flourish.
Just fact.
Then he continued.
"Destroyed completely."
His expression remained calm.
"The Emperor ensured there was nothing left of him."
A brief pause followed.
"Not even the Ruinous Powers could bring him back."
That drew a small reaction from Naruto and Mindy.
Not outwardly dramatic.
Just relief.
Some tension they hadn't realized they were carrying finally eased.
Over the course of the discussion, both of them had become more invested in the story than they had expected.
Horus had become more than a name.
He had become the villain responsible for everything Gaius had described.
The betrayal.
The war.
The deaths.
The destruction of humanity's golden age.
At least he had been stopped.
At least there had been an ending.
But then Gaius continued.
"The Emperor was also mortally wounded."
The relief disappeared immediately.
Tony's expression tightened slightly.
Naruto frowned.
Mindy blinked.
Gaius continued.
"His injuries were so severe that even with His immense power, He would not have survived."
Nobody interrupted.
The statement alone was startling.
Everything they had heard about the Emperor painted the picture of a being beyond ordinary human understanding.
And yet even he had limits.
"For that reason," Gaius said, "He was placed upon the Golden Throne."
Tony immediately sat up slightly.
Something clicked.
A piece of information finally connected with something he had seen before.
"That's why the Emperor was sitting on that throne?"
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"That's why he's called the Corpse Emperor."
He was mortally injured and has been sitting on the Golden Throne for ten thousand years, Tony thought.
"Yes."
Gaius understood exactly what Tony meant.
There was no offense in the question.
Only recognition.
"Yes."
The answer was immediate.
"The Emperor has remained upon the Golden Throne for ten thousand years."
Silence followed.
Halsey felt her thoughts slow for a moment.
Not because she doubted Gaius.
But because the scale remained difficult to fully process.
The Emperor had existed before the Imperium.
Gaius had already explained that.
The Emperor had walked Earth before humanity reached the stars.
Before interstellar civilization.
Before the Imperium.
Before everything.
And now she was hearing that the same individual had remained upon the Golden Throne for ten thousand years afterward.
The timeline was absurd.
Not logically impossible, not anymore.
Too much evidence already existed for that.
But it remained shocking.
Halsey kept her expression neutral.
Years of discipline prevented otherwise.
Internally, however, she remained deeply unsettled by the scale of it.
Naruto finally spoke.
"Why is the Emperor on the Golden Throne, Gaius?"
The question was simple.
Direct.
The same question Halsey had been building toward.
She immediately turned her attention back toward Gaius.
Gaius took a moment before answering.
"The Emperor was placed upon the Golden Throne after the Horus Heresy."
His voice remained steady.
"He was mortally wounded during the final confrontation."
Nobody spoke.
"There was no known way to heal Him."
The statement landed heavily.
"So the Throne became the only means of keeping Him alive."
Naruto frowned slightly.
"So it's like..."
He searched for the right words.
"Life support?"
Gaius considered the comparison.
"In a very simplified sense, yes."
Then he shook his head slightly.
"But it is also more than that."
Everyone continued listening.
"The Golden Throne is a mechanism designed to sustain His life."
A brief pause followed.
"And to power and maintain the Astronomican."
Immediately, Halsey's attention sharpened.
The Astronomican.
That term had appeared several times already.
Every previous explanation had treated it as something critically important.
"You mentioned before that the Astronomican is a beacon that guides humanity through the Warp."
Her tone remained controlled.
Focused.
"What exactly is the Astronomican?"
Gaius paused.
Not because he lacked an answer.
Rather because the answer itself was difficult to reduce into simpler terms.
Finally, he spoke.
"The Astronomican is a psychic beacon."
Halsey listened carefully.
"It is not a physical light."
He folded his arms.
"It is projected into the Warp itself."
That caused her to frown slightly.
"Projected... how?"
The unfamiliar terminology settled into her mind.
Psychic.
It was not a scientific term she would normally accept.
Yet her definition of normal had already shifted dramatically.
Naruto existed.
The Warp existed.
She had spoken to Diana, who had stated being the daughter of Zeus.
At this point, disbelief had largely given way to categorization.
If something existed, then it existed.
The challenge was understanding how it fit into a larger framework.
Gaius answered.
"Through the Emperor."
Halsey's gaze narrowed slightly.
"So your Emperor has a supernatural power?"
She thought for a moment.
"Psychic?"
The word still felt unfamiliar.
But the concept itself no longer did.
Gaius nodded.
"Yes."
His answer was simple.
"The Emperor is a Psyker."
Halsey absorbed the term immediately.
Psyker.
A designation.
A category the Imperium used for individuals with certain abilities.
It explained very little by itself.
But it was a starting point.
For now, there simply wasn't enough information to draw meaningful conclusions.
She made a mental note of the term and listened for what came next.
Outwardly she showed none of that.
Gaius continued.
"He channels His psychic power into the Warp."
Everyone listened.
"And from that, the Astronomican is projected."
His gaze moved across the room.
"Allowing humanity to travel the Warp."
A brief pause followed.
"It is still dangerous."
Then he added,
"But not blind."
That statement clarified a great deal.
The Astronomican wasn't merely important.
It was necessary.
Without it, humanity would be navigating a nightmare dimension without guidance.
Halsey thought for a moment.
Then followed the next logical step.
"So the Emperor, while mortally injured, is still on the Golden Throne."
Gaius nodded.
She hesitated briefly.
Then asked the question that naturally followed.
"Is he being healed by it?"
Gaius shook his head immediately.
"No."
The answer was direct.
"The Golden Throne does not heal him."
Silence followed.
"It only keeps him alive."
Something settled heavily in the room.
Especially for Halsey.
Not because the answer was surprising.
But because it had removed any possibility of recovery.
Not treatment.
Not restoration.
Not healing.
Only maintenance.
Keeping him alive.
Nothing more.
Tony quietly watched the direction the conversation was taking.
He already knew where it would end.
He slowly shook his head.
Halsey remained silent.
Her thoughts continued moving.
Mortally wounded.
No recovery process.
No healing.
No known cure.
And simultaneously,
Maintaining the Astronomican.
Powering humanity's interstellar navigation.
Sustaining a civilization.
This wasn't medical.
Not really.
It was engineering.
A machine pushed beyond safe limits.
A reactor running beyond its intended lifespan because shutting it down would be worse than the consequences of continued operation.
A damaged vessel held in flight indefinitely because crashing would destroy everything below.
The comparison felt increasingly accurate.
And increasingly uncomfortable.
The conclusion was impossible to avoid.
The Emperor was not being preserved as an individual.
He was being maintained as infrastructure.
A necessary component of civilization itself.
The thought sat heavily in her mind.
Finally she spoke again.
"Gaius."
He looked toward her.
"What is powering the Golden Throne?"
She paused briefly.
"Or is it his psychic ability as well?"
For a moment, Gaius was silent.
Then he answered.
"The Golden Throne is being powered by the souls and life of one thousand psykers."
Silence.
"And with the Emperor in tandem powers it."
His voice remained calm.
"The energy goes to the Emperor as the focal point."
Halsey stared for a moment.
Then replied.
"Oh."
That was all she said.
Just one word.
Naruto blinked.
Mindy stared.
Then both reacted almost simultaneously.
"One thousand psykers?"
Their voices overlapped.
They looked toward Gaius.
"Like the Emperor?"
Tony let out a long sigh.
There it was.
The part he had been expecting.
The part that always seemed to arrive eventually whenever discussions about the Imperium became detailed enough.
Gaius nodded.
"Yes."
Then he clarified.
"But weaker than the Emperor."
A pause.
"Very much."
Naruto stared.
Mindy stared.
Neither seemed entirely sure how to process that information.
Meanwhile, Halsey's earlier response finally caught up with her.
Her simple "oh" had not actually been a reaction.
It had merely been the sound she made while thinking.
Because her mind had already moved several steps ahead.
One thousand psykers.
Souls.
Lives.
Fuel.
Power source.
Her thoughts immediately shifted toward scale.
Efficiency.
Consumption.
Requirements.
The same thought process that had guided countless engineering decisions throughout her life.
How long?
That was the missing variable.
How long did one thousand sacrificed individuals sustain the system?
Months?
Years?
The answer mattered.
Because the answer determined the true cost.
She looked back toward Gaius.
"Gaius."
Everyone turned toward her.
"How long is that one thousand psyker sacrifice for?"
The question hung in the room.
Nobody spoke.
Even Naruto and Mindy looked toward Gaius.
Waiting.
Gaius remained silent for a moment.
Then he answered.
"A day."
Silence.
Complete silence.
The answer settled over the room like a physical weight.
One thousand psykers.
Every day.
~~~
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