20. Capturing the Eagle (VI)

Chapter 728: 20. Capturing the Eagle (VI)

Many times before, Fulgrim had stood in orbit and gazed upon his homeworld.

Homeworld. What a special concept that was, wasn't it?

People always habitually romanticized her, beautified her, endowing her with all manner of warm ideas that existed only in memory and imagination. They even renamed her "she"—homeworld, mother, the great land that had nurtured everyone.

But what if all that were cast aside, and she were viewed through reason alone? Then there would probably be nothing remarkable about her. In the end, people would realize that she was merely a gigantic ball of rock.

But ultimately, human reason could not overcome emotion.

What drove the first primitive man who dared step out of his cave into the night and smash a prowling beast to death with a stone? Anger born from fear pushed to its limit? The courage to take a gamble so that the children of his tribe might survive?

Perhaps both. But such things were irrational. They transcended the scales that weighed gains against losses. They had no weight of their own, yet they were enough to make countless people willingly shatter themselves to pieces.

Homeworld.

Fulgrim gazed at her, watching her suffer and sink into a green hell.

She had once been beautiful. Since her ecosystem had been rebuilt, she had possessed vast oceans, forests, and land. The power of technology had restored in mere centuries things that would have taken nature countless ages to shape.

Fulgrim still remembered that moment. Facing the people of Chemos, who had spent generations aboard ships in the era after the rebellion, he announced that the transformation of their homeworld was complete. Now, everyone could return to Chemos, set foot upon solid ground, and live properly.

In that single instant, the immense