At this moment, Adam—still on the Bridge of the strike cruiser—naturally had no idea that an Imperial miracle vast enough to blanket nearly the entire Imperium of Man had just occurred.
Had he known in advance, he would have been instantly on guard; he'd already had more than one taste of that yellow-skinned bastard's inhuman way of doing things.
Unfortunately, a strike cruiser in the hands of a Chaos Warband devoted to Slaanesh might contain just about anything—except an Ecclesiarchy chapel.
"Lord Adam… why is the back of your hand glowing?"
Sibylla's puzzled voice pulled Adam from his thoughts.
He'd been racking his memories of his past life, searching for clues about the lesser Warp gods and the star god shards so he could find the best breakthrough point for his next promotion.
"What's going on?"
Adam raised his arm and looked.
In his vision, a golden Two-Headed Aquila was clearly shining on the back of his hand, radiating soft light.
Wait—wasn't that the sigil the Emperor had left on him before tricking him into this universe?
"Not good!"
Adam's vision went black.
Emperor, what fresh hell are you pulling now?
But everyone else on the Bridge could not share his mood; they watched the miracle unfold with awe.
A golden sun seemed to rise. Streams of light flew from Adam's hand, wrapping around him and lifting him into the air.
Then an almost unbearably brilliant radiance burst forth. Its warmth cleanly purified everything nearby, driving the ship's sickening taint of Chaos completely away.
Where the light passed, the grotesque alloy of flesh and steel reverted to ordinary metal, and the blasphemous "artworks" adorning the walls ignited and turned to ash.
So that's it.
Adam probed lightly with his Reality Warper senses and quickly got his answer.
This was something extremely common in the universe.
—The power of faith.
In this universe, faith isn't mere superstition; it carries real force. Enough humans worshipping for long enough can even spawn new gods inside the Warp.
Unfortunately, it neither raised his Reality Intensity nor had any normal effect on an "insulator" like him, who lacked even a Warp-shadow.
What's He messing with now?
Adam muttered inwardly.
But he soon realized something and gave a relieved smile.
"Hah, as expected of you!"
For the Emperor—worshipped by uncountable humans across the galaxy—the faith gathered upon the Golden Throne reached astronomical numbers beyond imagination.
If faith was so convenient, why didn't the Emperor use it all the time?
Because faith came with a tiny side-effect.
The Emperor's own will became the least significant part under the endless, conflicting tides of human belief and desire.
After all, hundreds of billions of hearts pictured the Emperor differently—sometimes they couldn't even agree on how many arms He had.
The result: the Emperor on the Throne often seemed schizophrenic, babbling and incoherent, unable to act upon reality.
From that, Adam instantly grasped the Emperor's intent.
Use a Reality Warper's power to annihilate the messy strands of faith, clearing His mind.
Enjoy the benefits of belief without the drawbacks.
The guy wanted a free ride.
Free-riding the faith was one thing, but why drag me into it?
Without hesitation, Adam activated his Reality Warping Ability. A pulse of intangible information materialized and shot back through the golden aquila.
If you want me to work as your paper shredder, at least pay the fee.
The Emperor said nothing—just kept pumping faith.
His fists clenched.
"…Don't play dead. Neoth of Terra, surely you don't want me to erase the sigil you left and walk away from building your Imperium?"
The moment that threat was delivered, the aquila reacted.
Instead of jumbled faith, a vast tide of the Emperor's personal psychic force poured in.
"That's more like it. Emperor can still understand plain speech."
With the Emperor's Psychic Power—nurtured by millennia of faith and perfectly attuned—Adam immediately began to ponder.
Under the awed gaze of the three below, the star-like streamers around Adam spread outward and condensed into phantom particles.
Using the Emperor's psychic energy as the core, human faith as material, and his own Reality Warping Ability, he forged an anomalous substance that gathered before him and solidified into a silver-white longsword.
The blade was pure white and razor-sharp; the hilt was black crystal, the guard an Imperial two-headed golden aquila.
All three watchers instinctively held their breath.
They could feel the terrible power within the weapon at a glance.
Adam landed gently. With a gesture, the sword's point dipped and it began to orbit slowly beside him.
"What is that?"
Lucia's eyes widened. "I sense overwhelming sanctity in it."
"…Think of it as a weapon forged jointly by the Emperor and myself," Adam said. "It carries His might—an extension of His power—and can do things I currently can't."
As he spoke he stepped forward.
The air turned solid beneath his feet; he walked upward like climbing invisible stairs and soon reached his destination.
There loomed a massive steel throne—the captain's seat.
Such devices are common on nearly every human voidship, binding the captain's soul to the vessel's machine spirit so the ship can be commanded.
But this strike cruiser's machine spirit had long been corrupted by Chaos sorcery; an ordinary person who linked with it would instantly be twisted into a fanatic of the lord of pleasure.
Purifying it with Adam's current Reality Warping Ability would take ages—but with the Emperor's Holy Sword, the outcome was very different.
He raised the sword high and drove it straight into the Captains Throne.