Terrabyte began his aimless wandering in the warp. Here, there was no concept of time or space, only an eternal, chaotic tide of energy and emotions. Thanks to his authority over Information and Data, he was like a stealth agent with top-tier early warning radar, always able to sense potential dangers in advance, those sudden surges of abnormal emotional waves representing some 'thing,' and the energy fluctuations stirred up by the movement of powerful entities.
Whenever he encountered such situations, he would decisively 'turn back.' After all, in his current state, encountering a greater daemon-level entity would likely lead to a bitter struggle.
This extremely cautious approach, while ensuring his safety, also caused him to miss out on all potential opportunities. He didn't feel much regret about this; there's always a possibility if you're alive, isn't there?
After an unknown period, Terrabyte's perception picked up a faint energy fluctuation again. He had seen this characteristic energy fluctuation once before; it was a warp rift connecting to the real universe.
The last time, he personally observed a Tzeentchian Blue Horror struggling with immense effort to squeeze through such a rift. He hesitated for a moment but ultimately didn't try to seize it. If it were an ownerless Chaos creation, he might have stepped in to analyze it, but he decided against interfering with something that had a patron.
This time, Terrabyte observed repeatedly, using his authority to scan the rift countless times from the inside out, confirming there were no anomalies. This was a naturally formed, ownerless warp rift.
As for why he wasn't afraid of an ambush? Because during his previous long wanderings, he had 'seen' from afar Skarbrand the Exiled, the greatest greater daemon under Khorne. He silently noted down the opponent's energy intensity as a benchmark.
Afterwards, he found an undivided Chaos Daemon Prince whose strength was roughly half of Skarbrand's and conducted a remote, undetected 'detection experiment.'
The experimental results confirmed one thing for him: his authority in the areas of escape, concealment, and detection was unparalleled. Unless the difference in magnitude was too great, and a Great Old One-level entity personally set a trap for him, no one could catch his tail.
And if he really did get the personal attention of those five, then there was no point in resisting; anyway, with his current power, he couldn't resist, so he might as well think about which position would be most comfortable to lie down in.
After confirming safety, Terrabyte cautiously extended a wisp of his perception, like the finest probe, into the warp rift, attempting to detect the situation in the material universe on the other side.
The next second, a surge of pleasant surprise welled up in his data-composed consciousness.
This warp rift had opened precisely on a planet in the material universe!
Even more to his delight, this planet harbored intelligent life, and in considerable numbers! His perception, like an invisible giant net, instantly spread across the entire planet, centered on the rift. In an instant, the macroscopic situation of the planet was fully revealed.
This was a planet named Perditia. Humans, orks, dark dldar, chaos cultists, genestealers... various factions were all 'contributing' to this rusty, dying world.
Uh, looking at it this way, the human situation doesn't seem too good, does it?
However, a troubling fact also emerged. Terrabyte somewhat helplessly discovered that he was simply too weak now; his perception range could barely cover this planet, not even reaching the star system this planet was in.
He had originally intended to use this rift to gradually extend his perception, covering as far as possible, growing himself like a snowball. But the current situation put him in an awkward position. He had already 'swept' through the entire planet's 'static information,' and the feeling of weakness in his body had eased somewhat, but this amount of information was not even enough to satisfy him.
However, there was still a way.
Fixed information, like technological blueprints, genetic compositions, and biological structures—the 'stock' of information—he had already scanned. But there was also constantly changing 'incremental' information, such as communication between intelligent beings, battles, construction, betrayal... These activities could continuously generate new information; this was dynamic information.
Terrabyte was already somewhat tired of the wandering life of hiding in the warp. It would be better to stay here and continuously absorb this dynamic information. After all, even if he found a new warp rift, it might not be ownerless, and even if it were ownerless, there might not be a planet on the other side, and even if there were a planet, there might not be intelligent life.
Moreover, Terrabyte quickly discovered that on Perditia, the most efficient activity for producing dynamic information was war. Among these, the information output by humans was the most 'premium.'
He thought about it and quickly came to a conclusion: the souls of the dark eldar were gradually dwindling; everything about the genestealers was for the Hive Mind, with almost no individual thought; the orks lived very purely, WAAAGH! and that was it; chaos cultists had long since become puppets of the Evil Gods.
Only humans still retained a considerable degree of mental activity. And war was the best catalyst to unleash the potential of this species. A brutal war could advance the creativity, destructiveness, emotions, and strategies of the human species at a thousandfold pace, generating massive amounts of high-quality information.
Therefore, if he wanted to absorb information most efficiently, he needed to ensure the continued existence of humans as this 'information source.' It wouldn't matter if humans eventually eliminated all other races; after humans eliminated external enemies, they would inevitably engage in internal strife. At that time, both warring parties would be human, providing him with even more information.
However, Terrabyte scanned the human forces on Perditia again and found the situation precarious. All they had that could be called armed forces was a tattered Astra Militarum regimental designation. With such a comparison of strength, even if he transmitted all intelligence and technology—ork technology, dark eldar tactics, genestealers deployment maps—to this Astra Militarum commander, humans would still lose. The pure difference in quantity and quality was too great.
It seems the only way is for human forces to 'grow out of the ground' out of thin air. Preferably, they should be able to shoot guns, drive tanks, and be fearless of death as soon as they emerge. Otherwise, the humans on this planet are already hopeless.
Terrabyte knew that with his authority, it wasn't difficult to conjure physical bodies out of thin air through the exquisite use of energy. The difficulty was that he lacked the ability to create souls out of thin air; if creating human souls were that simple, the Evil Gods of the warp wouldn't be so desperate for souls from the real universe.
Thinking of this, Terrabyte's digitized consciousness stirred slightly.
He shifted a part of his attention, through that mysterious link, back to Earth on the other side.
Although he couldn't gain power in that low-magic world without the warp, his information could pass through. Did this prove that information from the other side could also come through?
If so, then the 'souls' he needed for those empty shells of bodies might... be within reach!