"A Primarch!"
When he saw the man who had suddenly appeared, Yao En, aboard the warship, cried out in alarm.
The Emperor looked at the teleported Primarch, his expression incomparably complicated.
Delight, bewilderment, doubt, contemplation...
In the end, all those emotions became a single greeting. "Russ... are you... well?"
"Not too bad." Russ bowed to the Emperor. "Long time no see, Father. More precisely, the human side of my father. They all said you were easier to get along with than the complete Father-Emperor. I hope that's true."
"They all said?" The Emperor looked puzzled.
Russ immediately explained, "Guilliman and my sons found me one after the other. Before that, I'd been hunting down the remaining Thousand Sons who had fled into the Warp. Then Corvus and I did it together, and we were found together. When I learned what you and he intended to do, I immediately bade Guilliman and my sons farewell, then came here with Corvus."
As he spoke, Russ glanced at Qin Mo.
He had clearly learned about Qin Mo from his other brothers.
"Corvus?" The Emperor frowned.
When he looked behind Russ, Corvus, who had accepted his own nature and no longer appeared human, emerged from Russ's shadow.
The demon-like Primarch forced an ugly smile onto his face, but even from that awkward expression, one could still sense that Corvus's reason had not vanished.
"What were you doing before this? I mean, over these ten thousand years?" the Emperor pressed.
"Hunting Magnus. Hunting the Thousand Sons." Russ answered with some embarrassment. "From my perspective, only a brief, hazy stretch of time passed. I didn't accomplish much, and then I suddenly found myself ten thousand years in the future."
At that, the Emperor's nose twitched twice.
If Lion had been the Emperor's sword, then Russ had