The sun hadn't even risen, but the training grounds were already alive with movement, grunts, the clash of training blades, the stomp of boots, and the ever-present voice of the drill instructors echoing across the cold marble field.
Seventeen-year-old Elias Kane wiped the sweat from his brow, breathing hard. His muscles screamed, his lungs burned, and the gene-seed within him pulsed with unfamiliar energy. But he didn't stop. He couldn't stop.
The Emperor had called him to become more than a man.
He was training to be a Space Marine, one of the Emperor's angels.
He sat on a stone bench during the short break, clutching a ration bar between gloved fingers. His eyes caught the glow of a small screen embedded into the wall. A training schedule. But he couldn't stop marveling at it.
"Touchscreen," he whispered to himself, tapping the crystalline surface. "Just a few years ago, we had to whack the TV antenna just to get a picture. Now this thing syncs with my body vitals."
He chuckled softly, glancing over at a fellow trainee. "Remember smartphones? Thought those were the future. Now we've got retinal links, neural feedback suits, energy-dense rations that actually taste good."
His friend, Malik, gave a dry laugh. "Yeah. And we're turning into super soldiers with reinforced organs and bones harder than steel. Bet the kids in the 30s didn't see that coming."
Elias looked up at the stars. Ships now floated among them, human ships. Real ones. Not fantasy. Not fiction. The Emperor had changed everything.
He remembered the day he heard the call. That voice in his mind, echoing like thunder wrapped in honey:
"Come. Become my angels. Become the shield of humanity, the blade of our future."
He'd dropped his books in school, looked around to find others had heard it too. Their eyes met. They all knew. Something massive had just shifted.
And now… here he was. A boy no longer.
The training was brutal. Surgeons had cut him open, installed organs he never knew could exist. Ossmodula, Biscopea, Larraman's Organ… the names still haunted him from the surgery table. He had screamed for hours. Some hadn't made it.
But he had survived.
And each day, he grew stronger, faster, more focused. His mind clearer. Emotions sharper. His will, steel.
He rose again to train. Weighted armor. Simulated combat. Mental trials. Hours spent in complete sensory deprivation chambers to hone his perception. It was not just physical, it was spiritual.
Sometimes, at night, he would cry. Not from pain. From awe. From purpose.
His father had died in the war, a soldier fighting to the bitter end. Elias had grown up believing there was nothing but suffering and survival.
Now… there was glory.
As he moved into his next drill, a live blade combat simulation against a mechanical opponent twice his size, he whispered under his breath:
"For Terra. For the Emperor."
He dodged. Struck. Parried. Every motion clean, deliberate. The Emperor's presence was a fire in his chest, his soul sharpened by duty. He was no longer Elias Kane, the frightened orphan.
He was becoming an Angel of Death.