"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river. Don't bully a poor young man. If you've got the guts, don't use Psychic Power!"
"Shut up! If I have Psychic Power and don't use it, what kind of Master of Mankind would I be? Speak! When did you get here?"
"I just arrived! Stop hitting me, stop hitting me, big brother—ah, no! Father! I know I was wrong. I shouldn't have caught you and Malcador fooling around."
Mordred would have been fine if he had kept his mouth shut, but the moment he opened it, he made people want to smack him. Even Malcador, who had been watching the show from the side, rolled up his sleeves and joined in.
Since he had made the Master of Mankind lose face in front of the Arch-Magos, Mordred was subjected to a joint beating by the two of them. They pinned him to the ground and slapped him around for a full half hour, beating him into a swollen mess.
Thankfully, the Adeptus Custodes stationed outside were sensible enough to close the door behind them. Otherwise, if anyone else had seen this, Mordred's newly established image of a Good Father would have been ruined.
"Why aren't you back with your legion? What are you doing here?"
Mordred, collapsed on the ground, wriggled his body and rolled over like a maggot. This time, he didn't dare take any more verbal liberties. Raising his swollen face, he spent quite a while finding the right direction before finally asking what had been bothering him:
"Old Man Huang, why are there so few people in the Second Legion? Did you hide my soldiers?"
In truth, Mordred had a legitimate grievance. After acknowledging his good son, he soon discovered an important problem: the Second Legion's numbers were simply far too low.
After observing them, Mordred hadn't found any genetic diseases among his offspring. Aside from being a head taller than ordinary Space Marines, they were practically perfect.
Then he learned that, ever since its founding, the Second Legion had been scattered among the various legions and had only recently been gathered back together. Mordred immediately suspected that the Yellow Skins had stolen his children.
The thought that he might have been taken advantage of for nothing made Mordred feel extremely uncomfortable. He immediately ordered the legion to go back and eat while he went to demand an explanation.
After hearing the Rebellious son's account of his inner journey, the Emperor and Malcador exchanged a glance. Only after confirming that Mordred hadn't overheard their previous conversation did they speak:
"Everyone from the Second Legion is here. I didn't hide any of your offspring. As for why there are so few of them, that is entirely your own fault."
"Mine?"
The Emperor nodded. A flash of golden light appeared in his hand, and an experimental log was tossed into Mordred's hands.
"Because of your higher-dimensional properties, even though you had been reduced to barely a few scraps when you fell to Terra, turning you into a Primarch was still no easy task.
"To construct a body for you, I had no choice but to merge you into Subject Number Two, which had already failed. Yet even then, I still couldn't stabilize your form. But I was not someone willing to accept failure, so..."
"So what?" Mordred was genuinely starting to panic. Who knew what bizarre things the Emperor had stuffed into him while creating him?
Fortunately, the Emperor didn't play riddles this time and readily explained what came next.
"So I stuffed in all the leftover scraps from making the other Primarchs. But by then, there were too many Warp fragments, so I added some Star God Fragments as well—or, to put it more accurately, bits of Star God dandruff.
"That made your Gene-Seed extremely difficult to adapt."
Mordred found it difficult to describe his current feelings. It was like raising a puppy, only to discover after it grew up that it was a mutt. Even worse, he was the dog in question.
This was where the difference in emotional intelligence between the Emperor and Malcador became apparent. When they saw the foolish child's mentality collapse, the Emperor merely stood there discussing the experimental results, while Malcador handed Mordred a cup of tea.
With a weed-infested heart and trembling hands, Mordred chewed up and swallowed the entire cup, tea and all, before continuing:
"Don't I have any strengths? Just like each Primarch has a different role, give me some positive feedback!" Mordred still refused to give up. He desperately wanted to hear a few objective evaluations from the Emperor.
"Of course you do. I'm the greatest scientist in the Imperium. It may sound a little haphazard, but you can look at it from the opposite angle."
"What do you mean?"
"For example, you might possess Number One's civilization, Number Three's skills, Number Four's broad-mindedness, Number Ten's wisdom, and even the Fealty of my Sagittarius aspect. In short, anything is possible."
Mordred laughed silently. After sorting out who those examples referred to, he revealed a smile uglier than crying.
"So I'm just completely useless?"
"I will not allow you to insult my offspring," the Emperor denied outright. He would never admit that he had conducted the experiment with the intention of making use of waste.
Perhaps because he had just beaten Mordred, the Emperor's normally intermittent emotional intelligence had seized the high ground. He comforted him:
"Even if you don't trust the brothers you have never met, you must trust me! You inherited some of my traits, after all."
"Then what strengths do you have?"
Mordred racked his brains but truly couldn't find any human-like traits in the Emperor. Yet the Golden Giant seemed completely unaware of this. Pointing at his own face, he said:
"Charisma. You inherited my extraordinary, peerless charisma."
"But what use is this lousy thing to me? Am I supposed to become a Roman mother too, like you... Hmm."
Before he could finish, Mordred felt a shiver run through his entire body. It was as if something terrifying would happen if he said the rest aloud, so he hurriedly shut his mouth.
After learning this secret, Mordred quickly connected it to the Grassland Illusion that had appeared when he was struck by the Lance that day.
Looking at the result, Mordred truly shouldn't complain. If the Emperor hadn't had that sudden flash of inspiration, Rambo and the others might have been finished.
Whether it was for some other purpose or a rare form of compensation, the Emperor actually granted Mordred some privileges before kicking him back to his legion and running off with his people.
First came the return package every Primarch received: special tax exemptions on their homeworld, authorized dominion over nearby worlds, tax exemptions for a certain number of years, and so on.
In short, it meant: I don't have time to manage you. Handle things yourself. Anything you conquer is yours. As long as you don't cross the Imperium's red lines, do whatever you want.
The only special provision was that the Second Legion did not have to participate in the Great Crusade immediately. The Emperor gave Mordred an almost indulgent degree of freedom.
Even Malcador spoke up, promising that, despite the Imperium being in the midst of its tense founding phase, he would assign a mechanical Arch-Magos to the Second Legion. Then they would have everything they needed.
However, after handing over this billion-credit subsidy, the two Old Ones gave Mordred a small task: establish a starport nearby as soon as possible, bringing the surrounding star systems fully under Imperial rule and turning the area into a supply station for the front line of the coming Crusade.
Honestly, when such treatment—enough to make the Butcher's Nail's Wetware weep with envy—was dumped on him, Mordred actually felt guilty. He wondered whether he had been judging the others too harshly.
Watching the Dream Fleet vanish in a streak, the blond Golden Giant, who had been kicked back to Serenity, sighed for a long while. Then he saw a group of oversized Canned Ones staring at him with eager anticipation.
"What are you looking at? From now on, your father is joining you. Hurry up and take me to our flagship for a look. By the way, where did that Goff fellow go? Why haven't I seen him?"
"Ah, well, Goff... He fell ill. Yes, that's right! He fell ill. He's probably doing rehabilitation exercises in the Duelling Cage right now."
The Captains each said a few words, quickly leaving Goff behind as they surrounded their Primarch and escorted him aboard the Stormbird.
At the same time, Goff, the former Legion Commander, was being mobbed inside the Duelling Cage as he fought to protect the helmet his father had personally touched!
"Quack—hand over the helmet!"
Before you continue