The Lord of Iron

Not to mention the Wolf King—Horus Lupercal, as the first Primarch to return, was already one of the commanders of the expeditionary forces.

Before long, Ferrus would complete his mission and lead the Iron Hands onto the grand stage of the Milky Way. The Iron Hands Legion would use their most adept Iron Tide to crush every Xenos they encountered, and Ferrus would eventually become one of the expeditionary forces' three commanders.

In the early days of the Great Crusade, the Imperium's expeditionary forces had three commanders. The Emperor served as supreme commander, while Horus Lupercal and Ferrus acted as his deputies, jointly commanding the Imperium's vast fleets.

Before the other Primarchs had returned, Horus and Ferrus had each led several other Legions in their campaigns across the Milky Way.

When the position of Warmaster was contested after the great victory at Ullanor, Ferrus had been Horus's greatest rival. Later, Ferrus realized that he was unsuited to the role and withdrew from the competition.

From every perspective, Ferrus's abilities ranked among the very best of all the Primarchs.

"I wonder which brother Father will bring back this time?" Ferrus said expectantly. At the very least, the three Primarchs who had returned so far had gotten along quite well.

As for whether the Emperor would win, Ferrus had never worried about that. That towering man had never lost.

Horus's humility and Russ's delicate heart beneath his savage exterior both pleased Ferrus greatly. Only the Primarchs were truly of the same kind; mortals, Astartes, and even the Custodes were all far removed from them.

The Milky Way was too vast, and humanity faced far too many threats from every kind of Xenos. Ferrus met with his other two brothers very rarely, and they mostly kept in contact through other means.

Horus and the Wolf King would share with Ferrus the troublesome Xenos they encountered during the Great Crusade, as well as the suffering humanity endured throughout the Milky Way. As the Lord of Medusa came to understand the various Xenos more thoroughly, his hatred for them also deepened.

Ferrus was not affected by those emotions. He followed his own pace, mastering the qualities a Space Marine Legion commander needed in the interstellar age.

Ferrus always remembered the Emperor's teaching: "Sharpening the blade does not delay the chopping of wood." In the interstellar age, every combat order concerned the lives of tens or even hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Even with a Primarch's formidable individual combat ability and godlike capacity for learning, years of study were still required.

It was not only the Primarchs who needed to study. The subordinates who had undergone genetic modification alongside their Primarch on their homeworld also needed time to adapt to the rejection reactions caused by the various implanted organs of the Space Marines, as well as their corresponding training. Even after all nineteen Gene-Modifications had been completed, they still needed to start as recruits, accumulate all kinds of experience, and become qualified Space Marines.

Today's recruits had it much better than Terran recruits. In the beginning, a newly modified recruit needed decades to become a qualified Space Marine. (Original text, don't blame me, this is GW's math.)

After the Adeptus Mechanicus found technology capable of directly pouring knowledge into a Space Marine's brain while recovering ancient technologies, the training cycle for recruits was finally shortened to a few years. (Warhammer specialty: technological progress relies on archaeology.)

"Who knows? The return of a Primarch is like the Blind Box game that has become popular on Terra. Before the result is revealed, no one knows which number they have drawn. Even someone as powerful as the Emperor is no exception. We'll know once we see which Legion is being mobilized.

My break is over. Work hard, Ferrus." With that, Malcador returned to his Department of the Interior.

After a flicker of Psychic Power, the hunched old man and the barrel of Fenrisian mead on the floor vanished along with him.

"Uncle Malcador really is busy. He cannot even bear to waste time traveling back to the administrative offices." Ferrus glanced at the clock hanging on the wall of the Magnificent Palace. It pointed exactly at twelve o'clock, and he sighed.

Malcador timed things so perfectly that he did not waste even a second—what people commonly called clocking in right on time.

Psychic teleportation was an exceedingly profound application of Psychic Power. Malcador used it with effortless ease. Within the Imperial Palace, he was probably the only one who could still wield Psychic Power like this while enduring so many Psy-dampening Wards. An ordinary Psyker would have exploded long ago—the kind of explosion that left nothing but shattered fragments.

Malcador was known as the Sigillite. Whenever the Emperor was absent from Terra, Malcador could make the final decision on matters great and small throughout the Imperium.

As the Great Crusade expanded in full swing, the expeditionary forces reclaimed more and more lost worlds, and the front lines' demand for supplies grew ever greater. Malcador and the officials under his Department of the Interior were what kept all of it running.

Furthermore, Malcador was an Immortal, and he possessed Psychic Power second only to the Emperor's.

After marveling at Malcador's dedication to his work, Ferrus returned to the enormous Primarch's desk and resumed the task the Emperor had assigned him. This time, he needed to sift through the vast sea of documents, identify the problems in Legion logistical supply, and resolve them.

Storm Sector, Barbarus—the mountain fortress shrouded in poisonous mist all year round.

A tall, thin figure like a reed swung the iron chain in his hand, smashing his Xenos attendant to pieces. He charged toward the steepest cliff beside the fortress, then leaped from the walls without looking back.

Below the steep cliff was a group of humans trying to flee the pursuit of slaver bands amid the chaos. Mortarion had seen this scene earlier and heard one of them howling up at him, which was why he had made his decision.

"Who are you?!" Typhon's throat had been damaged by the poisonous mists that perpetually filled Barbarus. He cried out, half wailing and half pleading.

"Will you just stand up there and watch from across the river? You can clearly help us!" Typhon shouted with difficulty as he struggled to fend off the Xenos attacks.

As for the humans who had escaped, they either fought these Xenos with rusty weapons in their hands or had already been poisoned by the toxic gas from the mountains, waiting for death to arrive.

Without reinforcements, these frail people with no combat experience would soon be torn to pieces.

"Please, stranger, you're human too. You can help us."

Typhon looked toward the figure atop the wall. His instincts told him that the other man was undergoing an intensely violent inner struggle.

Finally, from the corner of his eye, Typhon saw the tall, thin figure smash apart the attendant following at his side. Those attendants were Mortarion's subordinates, and also his jailers.