Everyone Shall Have Gene Seeds

Cordelia Hearst fell into a coma after consuming the living blood of Hogg, and the Aeldari warriors, having been assured that their lord was unharmed, remained at the encampment assigned to them on the Blacklight.

After several years of growth, Hogg had become increasingly stable and developed new abilities. As a remnant of a higher-dimensional lifeform, the gene-seed crafted from fragments of his flesh and essence could grant Blackwatch Space Marines remarkable resistance to the Warp and powerful regenerative capabilities, which gave Hogg a new idea.

Since Emperor could create gene-seeds using his own, could he, having inherited Emperor's biochemical knowledge, create new gene-seeds suitable for other lifeforms?

The answer was yes. In essence, other Primarchs were high-grade Warp deities; the gene-seeds made from such things were, in fact, Warp constructs.

In this universe possessed of souls, humans implanted with gene-seeds would slowly absorb Warp energy, and by combining it with their own flesh and genes, they would use themselves as a matrix to produce the next seed. This was why Space Marines shared a special connection with their Primarchs.

But Hogg was different. Hogg was not a Warp deity; he was somewhat akin to the Outer Gods of the Cthulhu mythos or the Old Gods of World of Warcraft. His flesh was his soul; illusory tentacles moved as his physical body moved, unlike other humans, Primarchs, or even the Chaos Gods, who possessed stable projections within the Warp.

The souls of believers could drift toward him only because they had been subjected to Hogg's higher-dimensional corruption and sought to return to the source, but this created a paradox.

The higher-dimensional law that denied the existence of souls was carved into Hogg's very essence. Aside from the portion corrupted into energy, any drifting soul was simply obliterated; Hogg was, in effect, a crematorium for soul-based faith.

Moreover, this physical shell was merely the vessel of the Eleventh Primarch originally created by Emperor. It was just that the first creature Hogg had devoured and killed upon arriving in this world was Eleventh, which was why Hogg had initially asked Emperor with such trepidation if he acknowledged him as his son—after all, he had killed his son with his own hands.

Returning to the main topic, the Blackwatch, whose gene-seeds differed fundamentally from those of other legions, had very peculiar shortcomings—or rather, they could not even be called shortcomings. Although their frames were petite, their physical strength was not weak. This could be considered a legion trait, much like the charcoal-skinned Salamanders. The key issue arose when compared to the psykers of other legions.

It was simple: the Warp loathed these bizarre entities.

Psykers used their souls as beacons to draw energy from the Warp to cast various powerful psychic spells. Hogg had no soul, so he could only use his own being to pollute the Warp, consume the energy of C'tan shards, and convert it into a dark red energy he named Psionic Energy to strengthen himself.

For instance, before his physical form had stabilized, the Dimensional Lightning he obtained from devouring the Void Dragon was dark green. It slowly turned emerald, and now it had become dark red Dimensional Lightning, which meant Hogg had fully assimilated that power.

Blackwatch psykers had souls, but they could not tap into Warp energy; they had to rely on absorbing and storing it themselves before releasing it.

It sounded great and safe, but while other psykers could shatter stars and fill seas or communicate with the world's spiritual energy, Blackwatch psykers were limited by a small mana bar. Once the bar was empty, they had to wait for a recharge. Coupled with the Warp's loathing, the skills of Blackwatch psionic warriors were one more bizarre than the last.

Useful ones included stealth like the Raven Guard, or firing off a few lightning bolts like Pikachu—note that it was only a few bolts to kill a few xenos—or playing musical instruments to provide buffs to the warriors.

Useless ones, like those of First Captain Rossmanderson, involved placing an incredibly ugly, ridiculous hat on a target. However, these eccentric abilities shared one highly significant trait: they were extremely stable and would not cause the caster to be corrupted.

Therefore, in order to have psionic soldiers who could serve as battlefield artillery, Hogg set his sights on the Aeldari. Long ago, when he returned, there were Aeldari living specimens on the Blacklight. Experiments revealed that the Aeldari were indeed the former masters of the galaxy; they were a fully psionic species with an extremely high baseline.

After simplifying the gene-seed and combining it with various xeno technologies, a new genetic enhancer was secretly manufactured by Hogg, unknown even to Tech-Priest Candice Laza. It was created using Hogg's blood as the matrix and was named the G301 Living Flesh Enhancer.

This living blood could slowly integrate into the Aeldari genome, strengthening their resistance to alien energy and allowing the inoculated Aeldari to better resist the whispers of the Warp. The technology of the Old Ones was too formidable, and too much of the remaining genetic code was tied to psionics. Excessive modification would only destroy the Aeldari's innate psychic potential, so this was all Hogg could do.

Once the host's body matured, the G301 required nearly a year to differentiate a portion of living blood for transmission, perfectly executing Hogg's goal of controlling the Aeldari by directly copying Emperor's gene-seed technology one-to-one.

In truth, it was mostly because Hogg was a psionic muggle who couldn't understand that black technology. The implanted Aeldari, much like Space Marines, would possess a behavioral filter, feeling a heartfelt love and reverence for their Primarch—Hogg himself.

Currently, what Hogg was tinkering with in the laboratory was a suit of power armor. Last time on Aiers, to draw fire and buy time for the legion to break out of the tunnels, all the xeno fire on the front line had been concentrated on Hogg.

This power armor had been directly enveloped by excessive plasma, and the internal sensors and plating were already in tatters. He had made do with it back then because he lacked the ability to forge armor, but now that his coffers were full, Hogg had the confidence to start making his own.

He removed the electronic muscle that served as the core of Space Marine power armor to gain more space. As a "little monster" in the true sense, Hogg did not need such things. The overall shell was made of auramite and adamantium, and the armor was divided into multiple segments that could expand and contract with the changes in his own form.

A plasma reactor was installed on the back as a power source, and a variety of weapons were mounted on the weapon platform, such as gravity cannons, particle shredders, gauss disintegrators, and melta missiles, along with a pile of xeno weapons hidden within the armor. Finally, he thoughtfully installed the romance of mecha: a self-destruct device.

He borrowed the power of the C'tan to warp a pocket dimension to serve as a storage point for ammunition and spare replacement components. Two adamantium mechanical tentacles could flexibly attack enemies from any angle. Two sets of retractable power claws were mounted on the arm brackets, ready to pop out and deliver a heavy blow to the enemy at any time.

Hogg was quite satisfied looking at the completed power armor, but looking left and right, he felt something was missing.

"Right! Why is it gold? Damn, I almost ended up with the same taste as Old Man Yellow."

Startled, Hogg hurriedly found a bucket of black paint to spray over it, and only felt satisfied after painting the scarlet triangle emblem of the Blackwatch on the pauldrons. This suit of power armor inherited the name Raider and officially became Hogg's active-duty weapon, and in the future, this armor would write its own legend.