To Thisli, the Chapter Master remained an utter mystery.
The Contemptor Dreadnought before him was noticeably different from the others he had seen in this Chapter. Those other Dreadnoughts were covered in elaborate carvings and honorific markings. This one had nothing. Not a single adornment, as though it had been denied every honor a warrior of its stature should carry.
That alone didn't fit with what a Contemptor Dreadnought was supposed to look like. And for reasons he couldn't quite explain, looking at it only made Thisli feel a deeper wave of sympathy.
It seemed to notice his distress as well, because the Dreadnought let out a slow sigh.
Then it opened the case in its hand.
Inside was a fresh set of Mark VII Power Armor.
These had originally been prepared for the Lamenters, but Zhou Ye had put all of them through the Rubicon Primaris procedure, so none of them could wear Mark VII any longer. His own Chapter was entirely Primaris as well, leaving these suits without owners. It might as well be put to use here. As for the Dark Angels situation....
Honestly, Zhou Ye just found it tiresome. He had just stared down Nurgle's forces in a battle of this scale, so he was hardly afraid of the Dark Angels.
If things went truly sideways, he could always storm the fortress, haul Lion out of wherever he had been sleeping for ten thousand years, and make the two of them have it out until one of them finished the other off.
As for those Dark Angels descendants, he could always put them all on their knees asking for forgiveness if it came to it. Though it probably wouldn't even get that far.
Their current Supreme Grand Master, Azrael, was actually not quite as singularly obsessed as the stereotype suggested. He had even cooperated with certain Fallen Angels on occasion. What Zhou Ye didn't know was whether Azrael was genuinely that measured by temperament, or simply appeared that way because he spent all his time cleaning up the messes left behind by people far more obsessed than him.
"Lion El'Jonson betrayed us. He betrayed the Imperium. Back then I was only just....."
As he got those words out, Thisli's eyes filled with something close to genuine grievance. Nobody's first enemy as a fresh recruit should be their own Primarch. And beyond that, he had drifted in the Warp for so long, only to emerge and find that ten thousand years had passed.
Then he looked around and saw what the Imperium had turned into. A mess of truly spectacular proportions. That, combined with everything else, sat badly on a person.
Now, with an Ancient finally before him, Thisli let everything pour out at once.
He looked exactly like a small, miserable kitten sobbing its heart out in front of a great big cat.
The Dreadnought did not speak. It simply listened in silence until Thisli had said everything he needed to say. Though when it heard about Lion El'Jonson's betrayal, its entire frame shuddered once.
The identity Zhou Ye had fabricated for it was much the same as the others. Istvaan III was a useful place. The fact that Zhou Ye had been able to fish anything out of there at all confirmed that among the loyalist forces caught in the bombing, there had been warriors from multiple Legions. So its background was this: caught in the Istvaan III bombardment, escaped alongside other survivors, made it back to Terra to report. Then, during the Siege of Terra, blown into the Warp while boarding the Vengeful Spirit alongside the Captain-General of the Custodian Guard and the Emperor. Lost ever since, until Zhou Ye found it.
Which meant it had no knowledge of anything that happened on Caliban. Upon hearing Thisli's account, it was clear that something in it was genuinely moved.
Because....
The Ordinatus cannon that had blown it into its Dreadnought sarcophagus had been Perturabo's. And that cannon had been given to Perturabo by the Lion himself. Then in the subsequent fighting it had been following the Captain-General and the Emperor in the boarding of the Vengeful Spirit when everything went sideways in the Warp.
A Zhou Ye fabrication, technically. But it didn't seem to have any actual problems.
As for whether the Lion would eventually recognize it for what it was, Zhou Ye didn't particularly care. Worst case, they had a fight about it.
But....
'I once heard the Chapter Master say that when their vessels approached Caliban, they were struck by orbital bombardment from the planet's surface. The Lion's mind was already stretched to its limit at that point, right at the edge, having just come through the great betrayal.'
"...What?"
Thisli blinked.
Before he could say anything more, the Dreadnought's voice came through its vox with something unmistakably close to bitter resentment, layered with a depth of grievance that exceeded even Thisli's own.
"The Ordinatus cannon that blew me into this sarcophagus was the one Perturabo had. The one the Lion gave him."
"....."
For a moment, the room went completely quiet.
Thisli stared at the Dreadnought in front of him with his mouth open. And in that instant, he found himself thinking that perhaps his own suffering wasn't quite so terrible after all.....probably.
Whatever Lion El'Jonson's loyalties might or might not have been, one thing was beyond any doubt: he had an absolutely enormous amount to answer for.
This was the single greatest point of agreement the two of them reached, there in that wide underground room.
......
---o---
"All handled. Start getting some of the people out."
He had taken a quiet look at the situation in the basement, and sent the freshly prepared Dark Angels Dreadnought to go handle it.
At the same time he turned his attention elsewhere. He had a new task for the Lamenters now: help evacuate some of the survivors, transport them up to the ships waiting in orbit.
Whatever the outcome of this battle, Zhou Ye felt fairly confident this planet wasn't going to be usable in any meaningful way afterward. His original purpose had been to come here and recruit. And he had passed a habitable, undiscovered planet along his transit route.
Naturally there were still people on the more remote continents of this world, people he had never made contact with. But there was no point. The people already under his protection were fine, but the others were not worth the effort of seeking out.
So he'd simply leave it here. If the planet didn't literally fall apart after the fighting, he might look at it as a potential recruitment world for the Death Guard successor forces he was building. But that was a question for later.
"Little ones. Our mission right now is to get as many civilians out of here as possible."
On the other side of things, the Blood Angels Dreadnought was leading the Lamenters through the fortress in their yellow armor, methodically arranging the civilians for evacuation. Zhou Ye's two ships had been brought out as well.
When the time came, the civilians would be locked in the hold and would see nothing. They'd be released at the destination without having observed anything sensitive. So exposure wasn't a concern.
As for the Astra Militarum regiments and the Space Wolves, they obviously weren't included in this. If they wanted to leave when it was over, they could arrange their own transport.
Regardless of everything, he still needed to recruit enough soldiers for his purposes, then split off a portion of them to help him keep laying the Star Rail tracks. Otherwise getting ambushed every other campaign like this was genuinely exhausting. And every single one of these deployments turning into a Grand Free-for-All was starting to wear on him inside.
"Captain, according to my sensors, a portion of the Nurgle forces have broken off and moved toward their own army's rear. Someone has launched a charge against them."
"...Hm?"
Zhou Ye paused slightly, not entirely following.
"Who in the galaxy is brave enough to go digging into Nurgle's rear like that? Not afraid of getting blown apart?"
He was genuinely curious, because he couldn't make sense of it. This wasn't some ancient pre-modern army where flanking the rear meant anything decisive. And if someone had the strength to pull that off, they'd have been better off reaching out to him first.
"I don't know. The Warp concentration in that area is too high for a clean reading."
"Forget it, it doesn't matter.....
"Hey, is that thing over there a Gargant....no wait, that looks more like a Mega Gargant."
Without any further attention paid to whatever high-caliber mystery fighter had decided to punch Nurgle's rear guard, Zhou Ye noticed something enormous making its way toward their battlefield, one ground-shaking step at a time.
---o---
Author's PS: Today's updates are done for now, off to stockpile chapters.
Also, don't panic every time you see the word T'au. I haven't actually written anything yet.