A Gift from the Emperor

Far Eastern Fringe?

At least he had confirmed his location. He was somewhere near the Ultramarines, beyond the Veiled Sector.

Good news: he might be very close to the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar.

Bad news: Chaos had already come knocking on his very first colony world.

The colonies that came after definitely would not go so smoothly.

Still.

Even knowing the Chaos Gods were looking for trouble,

Cisrain did not feel much negativity.

Soldiers came, generals blocked them; water came, earth dammed it. If the sky fell, the Emperor would bear it first.

Besides, he had intended to conquer the whole map anyway.

If Chaos did not come looking for him, he would go looking for Chaos.

The only difference was whether it happened early or late.

Chaos Gods?

Once his snowball got rolling, who knew who would be calling whom a Chaos God?

He still needed to accurately pinpoint the star region he was in. But no matter which region it was, it would be a tangled mess of factions, their territories intertwined. Those Chaos forces were not obedient sorts either. Every one of them harbored ambitions of becoming overlord. Even Abaddon could only temporarily unite them through profit before launching a Black Crusade.

The more who came, the better. The more chaotic it became, the better.

He happened to be short on slaves.

Looking on the bright side, if everyone was an enemy, he would not need to find excuses to declare war. Nor would he have to worry that indiscriminately developing weapons would lower the favorability of other races. Chaos only needed to establish beacons, but he had much more to consider.

Speaking of which, Chaos had already sent people here.

The Emperor called him every day to wake him up. There was no way He would not send him something, right?

He was badly short on manpower here.

"Governor, you weren't hurt, were you?"

"Governor, you mustn't do something like today again. It was far too dangerous."

Here they went again.

Cisrain had to listen to the Gamma Empire's finance minister, chief scientist, and chief diplomat nag him every day. It gave him a headache. Fortunately, the one he had brought was not the worst of them.

Listening to them nag was nowhere near as satisfying as cutting loose on the battlefield.

"Soldiers, clear the battlefield."

"Also, deploy technical support. Quickly establish a research station in orbit around Ozrax."

"Chief Scientist Brown will supervise the work."

"Find people familiar with this place. It's time to get down to business."

The destruction of the Chaos beacon on Ozrax.

In a star system not far from Ozrax, a purple pillar of light suddenly ignited on a desert planet.

The Waspmen, who had been invading as the vanguard under the Tau Empire's command, abruptly sensed some mysterious psychic threat. "Something's wrong. Send the signal."

But before they could issue a warning,

the surrounding space froze in an instant. The psychic power of the Warp caused frost to spread even across the desert.

On that desert planet, a Chaos mark that had originally been buried deep underground was raised high by corrupted alien Chaos cultists. From the Warp, they summoned a daemon.

A blood-armored warrior covered in blood and fire, hatred and fury, stepped out of the Warp. Eternal Butcher's Nails were embedded in its scalp, and behind it floated a Chaos sorcerer, whose Chaos construct controlled the blood-armored warrior before him.

Yet the blood-armored warrior still crushed the Chaos creature before it in one hand.

"Slaughter this planet. Summon more Chaos."

The unleashed World Eater became a tyrant of hell. Kill, kill, kill! Kill everything before him and turn this world into a sacrificial offering to please Khorne.

Other beacons seemed to ignite one after another as well, following the disappearance of the Chaos beacon on Ozrax.

And beacon after beacon.

Summoning creatures of Chaos.

At the same time, they formed a barrier, cutting off Ozrax and Gamma from every resource they could obtain, as well as their connection to the Veiled Sector.

"Abaddon, it is time to let the galaxy burn once again."

Unaware of any of this, Cyrus led his scouting squad. Just as they thought the war was over and the fleet had withdrawn,

they encountered Astra Militarum troops conducting a search.

The mortal soldiers of the Astra Militarum used flamethrowers to burn the corpses before them. A scouting squad in red-painted power armor approached them.

Seeing them, the mortal soldiers hurried forward to report.

"My lords."

"We are dealing with these corpses."

They had not expected to encounter another group of the Emperor's Angels.

What kind of luck was this?

Two squads of Space Marines in a single day?

They must have used up all the luck of the past several decades today. Such a remarkable record could even become a mark of honor for them.

"Soldier, I need to speak with your commander." Cyrus's ship was wrecked. He needed to speak with these soldiers' commander and find a way back to the Blood Raven Chapter's flagship.

"My apologies, my lord. Our commander has been gone for a long time. But I can help you find another lord. He just destroyed Chaos, defeated the invading daemons, and saved us."

"Understood. Please follow me, my lord."

"Lead the way." Cyrus frowned tightly.

Normally, information concerning Chaos was not disclosed to mortals, because mortals were more easily corrupted. If a place had mortal Chaos cultists who could not be eradicated, it might even draw an Imperial extermination order, followed by orbital strikes that destroyed the entire planet. Yet these soldiers knew Chaos so well that he could not say much. After all, he belonged to an outside Chapter and had crash-landed here by accident.

They knew nothing about this place.

Perhaps these soldiers' loyalty had allowed them to resist the daemons' temptations.

Or perhaps the situation here had already made it impossible to care about the Inquisition's rigid decrees.

Cyrus followed behind the soldiers, his gaze constantly sweeping across the traces of battle on the ground.

Using the data gathered at the scene, their helmets could rapidly reconstruct the previous battle. "Not a single mortal corpse was killed by one person."

"There are no intact corpses. Every one was killed in a single blow."

"Chaos thralls, cultists, Space Marines who had defected to Chaos, even... daemon servitors, Hellbrutes!"

"They were all torn apart by monstrous strength."

"Captain Cyrus, this battlefield couldn't have been held by a company captain from some Chapter, could it?"

"Hard to say." Cyrus used their internal comms. "Monsters like Hellbrutes are madmen even our company captains find troublesome. I once saw a Hellbrute destroy a Dreadnought during a battle in the Trus Region, and that Hellbrute inflicted severe losses on us."

"It seems the one who held this place may have been other warriors passing through."

"Captain Cyrus, if we really run into another Chapter, maybe our scout squad can trade for some weapons. They definitely brought good equipment. I even brought paint for the armor markings."

"The scouts have already confirmed there are no signs of the enemy, only some abandoned supplies."

"My lord, we're here."

Cyrus followed the mortal toward the church. Looking up, he saw Cisrain, clad in armor similar to power armor, standing with his back to him as he searched for mortals familiar with this world.

A silver-white cloak trimmed in gold draped over that heavy power armor.

"My lord, another group of passing lords needs help."

Cisrain turned around.

"You're here."