---o---
If it had been any other Primarch, this particular thought would never have crossed his mind. But this was Fulgrim, and that made all the difference.
If it were Angron, Zhou Ye had exactly zero interest in finding entertainment at that madman's expense. The man was a beast. Nothing to be said there. If it were Old Mo, the entertainment would have to come from somewhere else entirely. And Magnus wouldn't inspire the same idea either.
But this was Fulgrim. You stole his sons, you stole his Legion, you stole his very name....
Slaanesh must be delighted.
If he were being honest, Zhou Ye figured that if he weren't a Herrscher — with his soul projecting into Imaginary Space rather than the Warp — the Four Small Vendors and the big golden fellow would probably have had him in their sights long ago. But he wasn't. So they didn't.
"I remember Trazyn holds some position in the Inquisition — Ordo Xenos, was it? Doesn't matter. Xenos aren't the real problem. Heretics are the real problem."
Hefting the enormous Contemptor Dreadnought on his shoulder, Zhou Ye made his way back toward the surface. The ancient warrior had simply been too old. The moment he relaxed, he had fallen back into sleep. He hadn't even answered Zhou Ye's last words. But that was fine.
Later he could use his Authority to mend what remained of the man's soul. And add a failsafe while he was at it. Zhou Ye genuinely hoped the failsafe would never need to activate. And besides....
"A Contemptor Dreadnought, right. I'll fabricate a few more when I get back. A Chapter without a few Dreadnoughts for prestige and gravitas isn't a proper Chapter. I'll build some when I'm back. And I've got a massive amount of memories on hand now — I can compile them into a specialized template, then fold in a little seasoning of my own, and then.... this is getting fun."
"Alright, that's everything here. Next jump, then. I've marked this resting place of the loyal dead. The mournful song will be transmitted again. Time to move on to the next world."
A single jump, and he was back aboard the Hyperion. Zhou Ye looked down at the planet below, then glanced back at the Contemptor Dreadnought resting inside the warship. This was a genuine ten-thousand-year-old Ancient, and a tough one at that.
For now, he lay sleeping, while Zhou Ye slowly worked to restore what remained of his soul. He could have pulled him back out and put him to work already.
But thinking it over — not yet. The Star Rail network was still sparse. He wasn't ready for that level of exposure. Stay quiet for now.
He muttered this to himself, then carefully catalogued and stored everything from this haul. Istvaan III had nothing left to offer him now. He needed to proceed steadily, step by step.
Having only himself doing all the exploration was far too slow. What he really wanted was a proper Space Marine Legion of his own — sending them out in every direction at once.
"Oh, and I've also finished fabricating the Star Rail communicator. It can only function through my own Path, though."
He produced what could only be described as an artifact of black technology — a mobile phone. A phone that could connect calls across star systems in an instant with zero interference. For now, large-scale deployment in this cesspit was out of the question.
There were two conditions for using it without being contaminated. First, transmission had to travel along the Star Rail tracks he had already laid — worlds without a track simply couldn't connect, like trying to lay bricks without a foundation. Second, each unit had to be charged and blessed with a quantity of Imaginary energy during fabrication to seal it against corruption.
So production volume was inherently limited. But even so, it was considerably more reliable than the local Vox network, which had to route everything through the Warp. By the time a Vox message had bounced through enough relay points, the information would be so warped and distorted it became completely abstract.
For example: a Planetary Governor sends a Vox message reporting that his world is under attack from Greenskins and Genestealers, they cannot hold, requesting immediate reinforcement.
By the time it finishes bouncing through an unknown number of relays, it arrives at its destination reading: the Planetary Governor has married a Greenskin Warboss, and the Khorne cultists on the planet are castrating the Slaanesh cultists — that level of surreal, reality-distorting distortion.
"Come to think of it, am I unclogging the Golden Fiend's toilet for him. Whatever. If it needs unclogging, it needs unclogging. I'm in this cesspit too, after all. Better to make things a little more liveable. Aestia seems stable for now — the only question is whether the Figurine King Trazyn will make the trip over."
That thought trailed off. If he wanted to truly pull a Fulgrim on Fulgrim, the Archbishop of Aestia was an essential piece of the puzzle. It was just that with the galaxy's infamously terrible communications network, who knew how long it would take that piece of news to reach a certain Necron collector. But Zhou Ye was fairly confident he would show up eventually. A holy Necron was simply too rare to ignore.
"Captain, initiating jump."
The voice came just as Zhou Ye finished the thought. Before he could say a word in response, everything in his field of vision stretched rapidly outward, and the next moment the desolate surface of Istvaan III had vanished.
What appeared before him was an entirely new world — mountains and plains, rivers and seas.
His pupils contracted slightly.
This was clearly not the Catachan-adjacent green nightmare from his last landfall. This was a relatively normal world.... a Garden World, perhaps. Or a Feral World. Or a Feudal World.
Whatever it was, it was definitely not a Hive World. Anyone who got to live on a world like this could count themselves among the luckier souls in all the Imperium.
"Ai-chan, find an undetectable position to disengage the Imaginary Shield, and set us up to look like we just dropped out of the Warp."
Looking down at the world below, Zhou Ye issued the command. The Hyperion's exterior had been reshaped to look like a Battle Barge, though the Imaginary Shield was still installed. Unlike the Void Shield — which used the Warp itself as a dumping ground for absorbed damage — the Imaginary Shield was designed to evade conventional scanner detection. It was what he used to conceal the ship's jump signature and keep the Hyperion off local sensor grids.
The world below looked promising. He just didn't know what the situation on the ground was yet. So the moment Zhou Ye dropped the Imaginary Shield and opened the communication channels —
"Hmmm....."
His comm system nearly crashed. An avalanche of messages came flooding in all at once.
"What the..."
"Planetary Governor's channel. Internal affairs tax collection vessel's channel.... my registered identity reads as a Chapter's Battle Barge. Fine. Let's see what's happening."
He looked at the comm system for a moment, then opened one of the channels and connected.
"This is the Chapter Master of the Star of Trailblaze."
"Great Angel of the Emperor, please, I beg you, help us. The Aeldari pirates are attacking us. Please, we need your help."
"Hm.... yes. Understood."
Zhou Ye agreed almost before he had finished hearing the words. The Battle Barge began to move, and within short order, arrived in position above the Governor's Palace near the planet's equator.
---o---