36. The Manifestation of Anger

Saul Tarvitz stared at the information before him, his hands trembling. Within the Legion, he was a model warrior. His martial skill had reached its peak, and after everything he had been through, after dying and rising again, he had thought nothing could make him lose composure anymore.

He had miscalculated.

The Glyph Array laid out before him everything that had happened after Isstvan III. Black words on white paper, clear and unmistakable—Nathaniel Garro's warning, the rebellion, the Legion's fall, its schism, war igniting everywhere.

Then came the five words he could not tear his eyes away from.

Siege of Terra.

Even with his superhuman mind, Saul Tarvitz spent a precious hour digesting the shocking news. In his worst imaginings, Saul had never thought Terra could be surrounded. Could even come to the brink of Destruction.

This was worse than the situation they had faced back then.

He took several deep breaths, calmed himself, then continued reading. The title of the next chapter nearly made him fall out of his chair.

By The Emperor.

Saul Tarvitz's eyes fixed tightly on the top-secret material, taking in line after line—the collapse of the Webway Project, The Emperor's near-death, the sacrifice of Regent Malcador.

He could not read any further.

Tarvitz rose to his feet. He still did not know that he was called "the hero who had brought honor to his Legion," but even if he had, he probably would not have cared much about his image at that moment.

In the minds of the common people, the Astartes were The Emperor's Angels of Death. They were emotionless supermen, dedicated to slaughter. From a certain point of view, that was not wrong. But the Astartes were not without emotion.

They merely suppressed it deep within their hearts, and suppressed emotion would one