A Gift from the Emperor

The Far East Frontier?

At least I'd figured out where I was. It should be near the Smurfs, beyond Segmentum Obscurus.

The good news: I might be close to the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar.

The bad news: I'd run into Chaos on my very first colony world.

The rest of my colonies definitely wouldn't go smoothly.

Still.

Even knowing the Chaos Gods were looking for trouble, Cisrain wasn't too troubled.

When soldiers came, he'd meet them with soldiers; when the water came, he'd dam it with earth. If the sky fell, the Emperor would hold it up first.

Besides, he'd planned to conquer the whole map from the start.

If Chaos didn't come knocking, he'd go looking for them.

The only difference was whether it happened sooner or later.

The Chaos Gods?

Once the snowball started rolling, who knew who'd be calling whom a Chaos God?

He still needed to pinpoint exactly which Segmentum he was in. But whichever one it was, it would be a tangled mess, with all kinds of factions crossing paths. Those Chaos worshippers weren't obedient types, either. Every last one had their own agenda and wanted to be king of the hill. Even Abaddon could only unite them temporarily through the promise of rewards before launching the Great Crusade.

The more people who came, the better. The more chaos, the better.

I'm short on slaves, anyway.

On the bright side, if everyone was an enemy, he wouldn't need an excuse to declare war. And he wouldn't have to worry about lowering other species' opinion of him by developing weapons recklessly. Chaos only had to build a beacon, but I had a lot more to think about.

Come to think of it, Chaos had already sent people.

The Emperor called me every day to get me out of bed. There was no way he wouldn't send me something, right?

I could use more people here.

"Governor, are you hurt?"

"Governor, you can't do that again. That was far too dangerous."

Here we go again.

Every day, Cisrain had to listen to the Gamma Empire's finance chief, chief scientist, and chief diplomat drone on and on. It gave him a headache. At least this time, it wasn't the most long-winded one of the lot.

Listening to them prattle on was worse than getting into a fight and hacking through the enemy.

"Have the soldiers clear the battlefield."

"Also, deploy technical support and quickly set up a Research Station in orbit around Ozrax."

"Chief Scientist Brown will supervise the work."

"Find someone who knows this place. It's time to get down to business."

The Chaos Beacon on Ozrax had been destroyed.

In a system not far from Ozrax, a purple pillar of light suddenly blazed to life on a Desert Planet.

The Wasp-men, who were invading as the vanguard under the command of the Tau Empire, suddenly sensed a mysterious Psionic threat. "Something's wrong. Send a signal!"

But before they could warn anyone, the space around them froze instantly. The power of the Warp turned the desert itself icy.

On the Desert Planet, a corrupted Xenos Chaos Cultist raised the Mark of Chaos that had been buried deep underground and summoned a daemon from the Warp.

A blood-soaked, fire-wreathed Bloodletter, consumed by hatred and fury, emerged from the Warp. The Butcher's Nails had been embedded in its skull for eternity. Behind it floated a Chaos Sorcerer, whose twisted creation controlled the Bloodletter before him.

But the Bloodletter still crushed the Chaos creature in front of it with one hand.

"Slaughter this planet. Summon more Chaos."

The freed World Eater became a tyrant from hell. Kill, kill, kill! Slaughter everything in sight and turn the world into a sacrifice to please Khorne.

As the Chaos Beacon on Ozrax vanished, it seemed the other beacons were lighting up one after another.

And every beacon summoned Chaos creatures.

Together, they formed a barrier, cutting off Ozrax and Gamma Planet from all the resources they could access, as well as from contact with Segmentum Obscurus.

"...Abaddon... It's time to set the galaxy ablaze once more."

Cyrus and his scouting squad had no idea what was happening. They thought the war was over and the fleet had withdrawn when they came across the Astra Militarum.

The Guardsmen were using Flamers to burn the corpses in front of them. A scouting squad in red Power Armor approached.

The Guardsmen hurried over to greet them.

"My lords."

"We're taking care of these bodies."

They hadn't expected to encounter another group of the Emperor's Angels.

What luck!

Two squads of Space Marines in a single day?

He'd probably used up all his luck for the next few decades. Their impressive record might even become a mark of honor.

"Soldier, I need to speak with your commanding officer." Cyrus's ship was damaged, so he needed to speak with their commander and figure out a way back to the Blood Raven Chapter's flagship.

"Sorry, my lord. Our commander's been gone for a long time. But I can take you to another lord. He just destroyed Chaos, defeated the invading daemons, and saved us."

"..."

"Lead the way." Cyrus frowned.

Normally, information about Chaos wasn't shared with ordinary people, since they were more susceptible to corruption. In some cases, if a place had Chaos Cultists among the populace who couldn't be rooted out, it could attract an Imperial Exterminatus, followed by an aerial bombardment that destroyed the entire planet. But these soldiers knew so much about Chaos that he didn't know what to say. After all, he was with an outside Chapter, and had crash-landed here by accident.

They didn't know much about this place.

Perhaps the soldiers' loyalty had helped them resist the daemons' temptations.

Or perhaps the Inquisition's rigid rules and regulations simply didn't matter here.

Cyrus followed the soldier, his gaze sweeping over the traces of battle on the ground.

Their helmets analyzed the scene and quickly reconstructed the battle from the data. "Not a single corpse of an ordinary person. One person did all this damage."

"Not a single body intact. Every one of them was killed in one blow."

"Chaos servants, Cultists, Space Marines who joined Chaos, even... daemon Servitors and Hellbrutes!"

"They were all torn apart by sheer strength."

"Captain Cyrus, could a company commander from some Chapter have held this battlefield?"

"Hard to say." Cyrus spoke over the squad's internal comms. "Hellbrutes are monsters that can give even our company commander a headache. I once saw one in a battle in the Trus Region. It destroyed a Dreadnought, and cost us dearly."

"Looks like whoever held this place was another warrior passing through."

"Captain Cyrus, if we really run into another Chapter, maybe our scout squad can trade for some weapons. They must have brought good gear. I even brought paint for their armor."

"..."

"My lords, we're here."

Cyrus followed the Guardsman toward the church. Looking up, he saw Cisrain, wearing something like Power Armor, with his back to them as he spoke to someone who knew the planet.

A silver-white cape edged in gold hung over the heavy Power Armor.

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

Cisrain turned around.

"You're here."