The Light of the People made a circuit of the nine Chapters' homeworlds. Their mountains and rivers were buried under supplies, every warehouse was packed, and vast quantities of materials hung in the sky.
The IV Legion's navy had brought over two thousand warships, and our allied forces had taken out around a thousand of them. (Proud face.)
Unfortunately, most of those warships had been chewed up. Under the Techmarines' deliberate supervision, certain incomprehensible devices aboard some of the ancient vessels had been preserved.
Even the enormous Light of the People could not hold that much material. After parting ways with the Eternal Mountain, which carried Evan, the flagship headed for the outer orbits of the other homeworlds' star systems, dumped the supplies into space, and left.
And that was why everyone was still busy cleaning up the mess.
Evan needed a fleet. Badly. Even flying coffins would do. This was an unprecedented opportunity.
In the Calixis Sector, apart from a handful of reconnaissance forces near the Black Sun and a few defensive gunboats around each planet, almost every warship had been requisitioned by the Lord Regent to fight the Blood Legion.
Likewise, the surrounding worlds lay devastated. The IV Legion's plundering had been "extremely humane." They had taken almost all the supplies, leaving only the bare minimum of food needed to keep the workers alive.
They encouraged infighting among humans. The IV Legion had no need for concubines, walking corpses, or anything else. They only needed humans to produce supplies in an orderly fashion, at maximum efficiency. Thus, they needed stronger slaves. Whoever could seize more food was a stronger slave. The more "fortunate" ones would be selected for transformation into Astartes.
Perturabo's banishment had come very suddenly. The Iron Warriors had only just turned some worlds into lesser