3,500 years have passed since Paul Atreides became the messiah of the Fremen and the Emperor of the universe. His son, Leto II, sees the path his father Muad'dib saw, a future that avoided the extinction of human life.
That future, however, required the ultimate and monstrous act of selflessness of becoming a metamorphic vector between primate and worm. Leto II accepts the mantle of godhood from the Fremen and begins to transform himself into a monster of the desert, a sandworm, that has dominated the ecology of Arrakis for millennia. Leto, now confident that his Golden Path — a course into the future in which humanity's survival is guaranteed — is now secure, wants an opportunity to remove himself from the Golden Path, i.e. to die.
