Guilliman declined the bishops' request without a second thought.
It was not yet time.
If he met them now, how would he put these bishops in their place later?
"Our meeting should take place only on Espandor, before the holiest church where faith in the Emperor runs deepest. This meeting shall be held under my father's witness, not aboard my flagship."
Guilliman's voice echoed across countless channels throughout the Espandor system, sending innumerable believers into cheers.
Guilliman's words meant that they had received recognition.
The Emperor's son considered their faith sacred. That left them utterly exhilarated, their blood surging as though fierce flames had ignited within their hearts.
The Lord of Ultramar must surely have been a faithful believer in his father as well.
He was the Emperor's true spokesman, the Ecclesiarchy's most legitimate representative, and the embodiment of the Emperor's will.
Upon hearing Guilliman's words, several bishops apologized for their rashness and personally lashed themselves with thorned iron rods as punishment for their arrogance and selfishness.
Their Stormbirds joined Guilliman's fleet as it made its grand way toward Espandor's spaceport.
A magnificent ceremony was also being prepared.
Four hours later.
On the surface of Espandor, in its largest city, the City of Faith.
Five enormous horns forged from gold emitted piercing, hoarse blasts.
The deafening horn calls reverberated through the colossal city, filled with incense and prayers, reaching every corner and ensuring that every believer could hear them clearly.
The horns announced the arrival of the Emperor's son, the Lord of Ultramar.
These golden horns had been crafted from donations by the faithful, their surfaces engraved with countless scriptures.
Each horn weighed several tons and was placed atop sturdy towers and castle walls, used only for the most important celebrations.
As the horns' hoarse roars slowly faded, music from Ecclesiarchy bands composed of countless believers followed.
Trumpets, bugles, and great drums merged together, playing to the rhythm of hymns to the Emperor composed by some peerless musical genius.
Amid the grand music, a great swarm of flying objects poured forth from the various magnificent temples.
Buzzing servo-skulls, Cherubs resembling human infants, gene-crafted beings cloned through Adeptus Mechanicus technology, and elderly Chaplains seated upon Anti-grav pulpits all flew over the crowd.
They emerged through clouds of incense smoke, which the gilded banners they carried churned into spiraling vortices.
More than a dozen different hymns were chanted simultaneously to all manner of beautiful melodies, blending with the Chaplains' shouted exhortations for the faithful to revere the Emperor.
Thousands of high-ranking priests emerged from their respective temples. Some floated, some walked, some crawled, and some rode mounts, every face filled with delirium and excitement.
Their attendants followed close behind, singing hymns to the Emperor together in an effort to drown out their peers and prove that they were the most devout believers.
Auto-preachers advanced through the crowd, the mechanical limbs supporting them clanking incessantly.
Within these machines were the brains of the most devout worshippers, specially processed and program-coded to continue serving the Emperor.
Through primitive loudspeakers, they bellowed religious phrases, encouraging people to devote themselves faithfully to the Emperor.
Hunchbacked laymen were scattered among the crowd, holding censers billowing with fragrant smoke as they chanted sacred hymns to the Emperor.
Upon several lavish parade floats, bishops stood on platforms with golden scepters in hand, delivering fevered speeches.
The heavy floats were pulled by a group of naked slaves, the weighty iron chains seeming ready to crush their sin-laden bodies.
Frateris Militia lashed those sinners unwilling to exert themselves, forcing them to pull harder.
The welcoming ceremony was unprecedentedly grand.
Every believer expressed their joy at the Primarch's arrival in their own way.
As Espandor's planetary defense shields shut down, numerous warships equipped with weapons capable of destroying worlds appeared within the dark atmosphere.
The immense Macragge's Honour was particularly eye-catching.
A group of Stormbirds flew from the massive warship. They were uniformly azure, with touches of dark green along their wing edges, like the color of an ancient forest.
Behind the Stormbirds came a landing fleet composed of Thunderhawks, troop transports, and heavy Gunships.
They crossed the atmosphere in perfect formation and entered the City of Faith's spaceport.
Those troop transports docked in the vast spaceport, the roar of their air currents even drowning out the believers' cheers.
With the soft hiss of high-pressure gas, the troop transports slowly opened their hatches.
Five hundred Space Marines wearing ornamented Helms stepped out of the holds, their cloaks snapping behind them.
They formed two lines, gripping their Bolters as they stood on either side of the red-carpeted passageway, scanning their surroundings for any possible threat.
Under the expectant gazes of the masses, a living god finally appeared before the world.
He wore azure and bright gold armor, while a simple, practical white cloak fluttered behind him.
At the center of his breastplate was the golden emblem of the Imperial Aquila, and a green laurel wreath rested upon his flawless brow.
Countless believers erupted into cheers at the appearance of this living god, powerful and thunderous as ocean waves.
Guilliman smiled and waved to the crowd, drawing even more frenzied cheers from them.
He stepped onto an anti-grav platform waiting nearby and proceeded along the broad avenue covered in red carpet.
Amid the cheers, Guilliman and his entourage arrived before Espandor's largest church.
A statue of the Emperor, hundreds of kilometers tall and piercing the atmosphere, towered over the vast square before the church.
The bishops waited for the Primarch at the church entrance.
Once he stepped down from the floating platform, they approached him one by one and bowed in respect.
"This ceremony is truly magnificent."
Guilliman looked at the bishops and spoke with a smile.
He knew that the Ecclesiarchy was wealthy. After all, it was the Imperium's sole sanctioned religion and could collect religious tithes.
Yet the Ecclesiarchy's wealth still astonished Guilliman as he passed through the city.
The decorations of those churches and their daily expenditures alone could support a sizable army.
And this was merely a single missionary world. Counting the other church worlds, they could likely support a powerful army capable of sweeping aside the Xenos.
"To spread the Emperor's glory, a little waste is necessary," one bishop stepped forward and explained respectfully.
"Very good. If the Emperor were to awaken and see such devotion from you, he would surely be greatly pleased." Guilliman smiled as he spoke words that would have earned him a resounding slap from the Emperor on the spot.
The Emperor had despised religion above all else and would have gladly tied every holy man to a pyre.
In the early days of the Great Crusade, wherever the Emperor went, he would have even anthills in temples scalded with boiling water. One could easily imagine his attitude toward religion.
Back then, Lorgar had merely built a City of Faith. Though he was a Primarch, he had been forced to kneel on one knee and admit his mistake, while Monarchia was burned directly into ruins.
The present-day Ecclesiarchy was countless times more fanatical than Lorgar had ever been. If the Emperor from the Great Crusade crossed into this era, the Ecclesiarchy would probably be the first thing he wiped out.
Upon hearing Guilliman's words, the bishops' faces filled with excitement, their bodies trembling.
Receiving the Emperor's son's recognition would bring immense benefits to the Ecclesiarchy.
Before they could finish celebrating, Guilliman abruptly changed direction, his tone rising considerably.
"However, while you may be devout, you have not fully understood my father's intentions. You have even distorted them. I cannot help but wonder whether you have been misled, or whether you were heretics from the very beginning."
After Guilliman spoke, he placed his hand upon the Emperor's Sword.
It was the absolute manifestation of the Emperor's will, and it also proclaimed Guilliman's identity as the Emperor's son.
The bishops' faces, flushed red with excitement moments before, turned pale in an instant.
Several were so frightened that their legs gave way, and they collapsed to the ground.
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