Zadkiel: Father, you don't understand, he truly

The real god was not him, but the Black Emperor.

Cyrine Valantyne's prayed-for reckoning did not arrive until two months after the Perfect City's destruction, when gray warships returned to Kuhl one after another.

One hundred and sixteen warships carried one hundred thousand Word Bearers filled with rage.

Not long before, Zadkiel—newly granted power by the Black Emperor and made the "Baron of Corruption"—stared in shock as a quarter of a continent was reduced to charred ash.

An authorization signal of higher authority forced its way into the 17th Legion's communications network, and a deep, cold voice broke through Zadkiel's shock.

"Warriors of the Word Bearers, I am Guilliman of the 13th Legion, Lord of Macragge."

"You are to proceed to the planet's surface at once and assemble in the heart of what was once Monarchia's ruins."

"Coordinates are being transmitted. This directive is not to be disobeyed. Your entire Legion must assemble as ordered. Out."

Amid the rubble of millions of marble buildings blown apart, windborne powder clung to the armor of one hundred thousand Word Bearers.

The ever-accumulating dust stained the oath papers and prayer scrolls on their gray armor an ashen white.

One hundred thousand red eyepieces stared straight ahead, gray iron fists clenched around bolters.

Sergeants led their squads, standing in perfect order behind their captains, while companies assembled beneath their chapter banners.

"Prepare yourselves," First Company Captain Kor Phaeron growled from within his Terminator armor, his frame leaner than the Word Bearers around him.

"The Primarch is coming."

A faint, devout chant rose over the vox-channel, and the Word Bearers waited for this moment with grief and expectation.

For most of them, this was the first time they would bask in their Primarch's radiance, and they felt blessed by fate.

Smoke and dust weighed