"Please, I'm begging you. As long as I can worship the God-Emperor, I'll do anything."
"I have nowhere to go. I'm going to die."
"Oh no, oh no, oh no..."
"Wait. Where exactly are you people from?"
Zhou Ye stared at the three Word Bearers in front of him, completely baffled about how they had gotten here.
He had just finished shaping the Emperor's statue and instructed everyone to go worship the Emperor -- specifically to redirect the faith energy away from himself before it caused him any complications. He had not expected to wake up the next day and find three Word Bearers standing in front of the Emperor's holy image, weeping their eyes out, dressed in what could only be described as beggar's rags plastered head to toe with pages of Imperial scripture.
His Astartes had caught them and deposited them at his feet.
He had not established a proper planetary defense grid yet, but Ai-chan was continuously scanning the surrounding area for him. He could confirm there were no Word Bearers ships anywhere in the vicinity. Not a single ship of any description.
This location was the definition of the middle of nowhere. And these three looked like they had been through genuinely terrible experiences.
"My Lord, as long as we can bathe in the God-Emperor's light, we will do whatever you ask."
"Certainly. First, lower your mental defenses. I need to examine your memories. We can discuss everything else after that."
He studied the three peculiar figures for a moment, then walked over.
They were not Chaos-corrupted -- that much he could already confirm just from looking at them. But there was a great deal else he didn't know. So Zhou Ye needed to establish where they came from. He pressed his hand to the nearest one's head, and the Authority of Sentience activated directly.
Very quickly, his face settled into an expression of extraordinary difficulty. He waved the three of them away, telling them to stop hovering in front of him.
The full picture, as it turned out:
They were in fact members of an Ultramarines sub-chapter that had suffered significant losses in battle. The sub-chapter had applied to the Adeptus Mechanicus for Gene-seed resupply. The Mechanicus had obliged with complete carelessness -- they had assembled a batch of whatever was in the inventory and handed it over. The vast majority was Ultramarines Gene-seed. But buried within the batch were three Word Bearers Gene-seeds.
Nobody had noticed. The sub-chapter's Apothecary had been killed before the losses, and the emergency replacement who performed the procedures did not look closely at what he was working with. The three Gene-seeds were implanted. At first, nothing appeared unusual. These three were just notably more devout than the rest, gravitating toward Chaplaincy work.
Until they ran into a group of rebel Word Bearers -- and discovered they were, genetically speaking, Word Bearers themselves.
That encounter had not converted them. They were already worshipping the Emperor freely within the Imperium, a luxury they found genuinely superior. Then their sub-chapter was scattered in the subsequent engagement and all three of them ended up stranded on this particular planet.
They had spent the past several decades living as primitives, unable to leave. Then they had spotted Zhou Ye arriving with his people and rushed across the planet to catch a ride out. At which point they had spotted the blazing golden statue.
This place was heaven.
Zhou Ye could not be bothered to deal with them further. He quietly ran his standard insurance protocol -- a subtle, minimal infection making them his Kin -- and let them go. They could go worship the golden boy to their hearts' content.
These three seemed willing to help manage the local Ecclesiarchy. Let them. He had no desire to touch that particular realm himself. The last thing he needed was to accidentally contaminate himself with something worse than Warp psyker energy: faith.
After all, this grimdark universe needed people doing the worshipping. Worshipping the Emperor was at minimum preferable to worshipping any of the four answers-to-nothing who headed the Chaos pantheon.
Besides. He had considerably more important things to attend to.
Specifically: processing this engagement's haul.
"Damn. I actually managed to steal a fragment of Old Mo's Warp essence. Not much -- he'll recover it eventually. But it's something. Keep it for now. Might find a use for it later."
He had not anticipated that final moment of tearing away part of a Daemon Primarch's fundamental Warp essence. Honestly, between all the Daemon Primarchs, Mortarion and Fulgrim were the two whose Warp essence was genuinely pristine. Nurgle was called Grandfather for reasons -- by the standards of the Dark Gods he was genuinely the most benevolent. He had never touched Mortarion's Warp essence; Fulgrim's had been donated by Perturabo as the offering that elevated Fulgrim to daemonhood in the first place. And after Mortarion had burned the Garden of Nurgle in one of his rages, Nurgle's response had been approximately nothing. Any of the other three Chaos Gods would have produced an entirely different result.
---o---
In the Garden of Nurgle...
"Uwaa.... Accursed one. I hate you."
Nurgle was weeping with considerable sincerity.
Right in front of him had been the most perfect, the most ideal, the most utterly beautiful thing he had ever perceived -- more beautiful than even himself, a convergence of life and death that Nurgle, who had long since abandoned the death side of that equation, had never managed to achieve. Simply sensing that presence had made Nurgle feel like every drop of fluid inside him was boiling. The countless Nurglings riding inside him were so agitated by that boiling sensation they kept trying to escape.
And yet. That perfect being -- Nurgle simply could not see it. No matter what he tried, he could not locate it. The Accursed One, the wretched being currently sitting on the Golden Throne, had taken the original essence Nurgle had given him all those ages ago and somehow forged from it something this extraordinary. And then concealed it so thoroughly that even Nurgle's sight could not pierce through -- specifically blocked by that wretched golden presence.
Nurgle was devastated. Such a perfect potential child. Why was it not his? He wanted it. He wanted it so desperately.
Compared to this being, even his most cherished Mortarion looked suddenly diminished.
As for Mortarion himself...
He was currently curled inward in complete existential collapse. His fundamental essence had been partially damaged. He had been held down and beaten. His wings had been physically ripped off. Nurgle had restored them, thankfully, but the missing fragment of essence would need time to regenerate on its own.
"If I had managed to collect even a drop of his blood, I would brew a divine plague specifically tailored to him. I would make him understand what suffering truly means!!!"
Mortarion was grinding his teeth through the words. By any honest accounting this had been a total, comprehensive, and thoroughly humiliating defeat. The kind of defeat one does not discuss.
But Nurgle had said nothing. He was too busy being sad.
As for Mortarion -- he was already planning his next move. He was going to brew a plague. A plague specifically capable of killing his mysterious new sibling. So he found Ku'gath, the Great Unclean One with whom he maintained decent relations. Ku'gath was obliging enough to have previously joined Mortarion in ignoring Nurgle's orders to torment Guilliman.
On the subject of this defeat, Mortarion was absolutely not going to let it stand. If that individual could be drawn into the Warp and fight there instead, Mortarion would not be sitting here in this condition.
"Accursed One -- I will take my most perfect child from your hands!!!"
Mortarion caught the words just before leaving earshot, clenched his fist once, and then accelerated out of the area.
As for the resurrected Typhus:
He did not say a single word.
He had not, in his wildest projections, imagined that the being he had thrown everything at and failed to defeat -- that being, who had then casually hung him up and beaten him senseless -- was genuinely a Primarch.
Looked slightly smaller than expected, roughly three meters or so. But a Primarch was a Primarch. The implications were beyond terrifying.
"I recall that Abaddon killed a clone of his Gene-father. So this is the difference between a copy and the original."
Typhus muttered it quietly to himself, then moved rapidly away from the Garden to resume his own operations.
Nurgle had not been particularly furious about the failed plan or the catastrophic losses. He was, in fact, almost delighted -- he had perceived a being of such extraordinary perfection that his present mood was primarily consumed by figuring out how to acquire it.
Not that Zhou Ye was aware of any of this, naturally. He had no intention of ever entering the Warp and had no idea what was transpiring inside it.
---o---
Elsewhere. Not astronomically distant from Zhou Ye's current position, but not exactly close either....
The Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar. The finest address in the entire Imperium by any objective standard -- because in most of the galaxy, even catching an Inquisitor's peripheral gaze was enough to make a citizen flinch and back away. People living in the underhive who had accidentally attracted Inquisitorial attention generally found it more convenient to shoot themselves preemptively rather than risk a full clearance operation. But here, especially on Macragge itself, an Inquisitor was treated as something of a curiosity.
Inquisitor Chris stood in silence, watching the residents pointing at him and murmuring.
The Inquisition's capacity to make children stop crying through reputation alone appeared to have somewhat limited effect on Macragge.
"Chapter Master Calgar. Regarding the matter of the Second Empire..."
At that phrase, Marneus Calgar's expression shifted immediately.
This was a secret the Ultramarines did not discuss. How had an Inquisitor learned of it?
"Very well. Chapter Master Calgar. I did not come here because of that. Too much archival material has been lost on Terra. Macragge's records are comparatively more complete. I came to ask whether you might know anything about a certain individual..."
The Second Empire was, ultimately, an awkward piece of Guilliman's history. Not the same category of shameful secret as the Dark Angels' obsessive dysfunction -- but still not something anyone brought up casually. Calgar mentally ran through the situation and responded with firm certainty.
Macragge did have considerable historical records. But the bulk of them covered events after Guilliman's founding of the Chapter -- the earlier eras were largely undocumented.
As for how Chris had even learned of the Second Empire: it had been an information chain starting from a rambling priest at Aestia who kept shouting it aloud, which eventually reached a passing Ultramarines patrol, who investigated, heard a Necron making constant reference to the Second Empire, received an explanation that the Second Empire was simply the second iteration of the human Imperium following the collapse of the first during the Dark Age of Technology -- and then quietly kept watching. One thread led to another until several clues eventually pointed back to the Star of Trailblaze Chapter, connected to the old Tech-Priest 010 Omega alias. Chris was not interested in pursuing the Second Empire angle itself. He was here for the records -- because whoever had been behind that entire Aestia situation knew far too many secrets, and as a representative of the Golden Throne's interests, he needed to maintain at least minimal vigilance regarding them.
"What exactly do you want to know?"
"Regarding a mysterious individual operating under the designation Tech-Priest 010 Omega. I suspect it is merely an alias. This person possesses an extraordinary volume of classified knowledge. As a servant of the Golden Throne, I am obligated to monitor them."
"Never heard of it."
Calgar relaxed slightly -- the Inquisitor had let the Second Empire matter drop without pressing it further. He thought carefully and gave his honest answer.
---o---
Meanwhile. In an Ultramarines base facility.
Most sub-chapters and successor organizations maintained their own homeworlds or operational strongholds. But several years ago, a major campaign had inflicted severe casualties across several companies and even damaged their home installation. They had submitted a resupply application to the Adeptus Mechanicus, but before the formal response had arrived, a tithe collection ship had been caught by a Warp storm and deposited somewhere in the vicinity of Macragge. Aboard it happened to be a batch of Ultramarines Gene-seeds.
The companies in question had not been particularly formal about it -- they simply boarded the tithe vessel and took what they needed. Astartes Chapters enjoyed considerable autonomy in such matters, and the official application had already been filed. Call it early delivery.
However....
"Last time this lot gave us a batch that included Word Bearers Gene-seeds. Let's hope there's no trouble this time."
Several company captains muttered among themselves. Other mixed Gene-seeds were one thing. Receiving Word Bearers seeds was quite another. And their three unfortunate previous recipients had vanished entirely -- nobody knew what had become of them. This time everyone was being significantly more careful.
"I've confirmed -- pure Ultramarines Gene-seed. And remarkably pristine at that. Apparently submitted by the Star of Trailblaze. Do we even have a sub-chapter called that?"
The Apothecary had come to personally supervise this time. The previous incident had annoyed them thoroughly.
"Never heard of them. Oh -- they're waking up."
The freshly implanted recruits opened their eyes at that moment. And what surprised everyone present was the expression cycling rapidly across their faces -- cycling between crystalline clarity, complete bewilderment, and something approaching serene madness.
Then:
"Excuse me -- are you Fulgrim?"
"!!!"
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