Rewards and Honors

The golden warp vortex continued to expand, quantum arcs dancing along its edges and ionizing all the nearby floating space debris into dazzling ribbons of plasma light.

Amid violent fluctuations in spatial curvature, the first vessels to pierce the dimensional barrier were more than a dozen Emperor-class Battleships. These steel behemoths, each over ten kilometers long, bore black-and-gold paint schemes, while the Custodes insignias etched along their hulls gleamed coldly within the energy turbulence.

As they spread into a wedge formation, the Macro-cannon Arrays in their prows calibrated themselves. Subatomic radiance flowed within every barrel, casting the surrounding void in a deep blue through their cooling vents.

The vessels following behind displayed an entirely different aesthetic.

More than twenty superheavy cruisers burst from the void in black-and-silver paint, their sharply angled armor plates covered in hydraulically driven auxiliary mechanical arms. These moving metal structures made the entire fleet resemble some precisely operating industrial creation.

Most eye-catching of all were the Legion insignias along each warship's flanks—

The relief of a giant hand made from liquid metal refracted the alloy's uniquely frigid gleam whenever the ships turned.

These vessels belonged to the Imperium of Man's Eighteenth Legion, the Iron Hands, whose Primarch was Ferrus, the second-youngest among all the brothers.

When more than five hundred vessels of every type had completed their warp transit, the entire fleet formed a flawless formation in low Earth orbit.

The supply ships released force field generators, constructing a honeycomb energy network around the formation's perimeter. Their hexagonal field units constantly adjusted their deflection angles, refracting the occasional UED orbital bombardment into deep space.

At the center of this metallic swarm, Humanity's Glory, more than thirty kilometers long, slowly adjusted its posture. Solidified streams of energy flowed through the raised Chinese characters carved into its prow