"Lion El'Jonson? Good. A fleet from the First Legion will return to Terra first, and you will command them. At the same time, a Custodes battleship will become your temporary flagship.
As for your personal flagship, it will probably arrive after you return to Terra with Lion El'Jonson." The Emperor was very generous, directly sending people and warships.
As the High Lord of the Raven Guard Legion, it was impossible for Swain to not have his own flagship. As for why not dispatch a battleship from the Raven Guard? Firstly, the Raven Guard needed to be integrated, and secondly, the Emperor believed that ordinary warships were not worthy of Swain's status as High Lord.
The Imperium currently had no spare Gloriana-class Battleships, but relic warships were available. Some relic warships even had more firepower than Gloriana-class ships. The Emperor chose one of these warships to be Swain's flagship.
"Only the rich can be so generous, Emperor. Thank you." Hearing this, Swain immediately perked up. Although the Emperor often didn't act like a human, he didn't drop the ball at critical moments.
Excellent, very spirited!
"Warships are secondary; this gift is what will help you the most." The Emperor pulled out a metal cube emitting a green glow from his massive armor.
Strange patterns were carved on the metal cube. The Emperor reached out and touched the center of the pattern on the front, and the metal cube began to emit several crisp, pleasant clicking sounds.
The metal cube ignored the rules of gravity, automatically hovering in the air and opening an extradimensional space.
"Guess what grand gift I've prepared for you?" The golden light almost blinded Swain's shocked and curious eyes. The Emperor directly covered the contents of the Hypercube Labyrinth with his psychic power.
"A Necrons Hypercube Labyrinth! That's a grand gesture." Swain exclaimed.
"This thing connects to an alternate space, so the size of this gift must be very large, not a conventional one. I guess it's a World Engine." Swain made an outrageous guess.
"Pfft... What did you say? A World Engine? You wish!" The precious tea the Emperor had just put in his mouth hadn't even been tasted before he spat it out.
He had seen greedy people, but never one so greedy.
"The supreme leader of a galactic overlord race shouldn't be unable to produce such a thing, right?" Swain looked at the Emperor.
"I have this thing, are you sure you want it?" The Emperor asked. He didn't have a complete one, but he did have the wreckage of World Engines. He could assemble a complete shape for him, but whether it could operate was not something the Emperor needed to consider.
"Forget it, you don't have it anyway. Don't try to fool me with trash." Swain said.
"See for yourself." The Emperor directly removed the blinding golden light.
Swain's gaze swept towards the opened Hypercube Labyrinth, and then he froze. Only one sentence remained in his mind, "Wow, golden legend!!" It echoed continuously in his mind... "Hey, stop spacing out. Are you satisfied?" The Emperor poked Swain, who had been hard-controlled for several seconds, with his finger.
"How can you bear to give me this? Wasn't it locked in the Eternal Night Labyrinth on Mars?" Swain's eyes widened.
He saw a largely humanoid, slender green metal skeleton bound by golden chains, with a pair of reverse-growing metal wings on its back emitting a deadly cold glow. It was none other than the Void Dragon!
The moment he saw the Void Dragon Shard, his body felt an incomparable urge of hunger. Every cell in his body was excitedly shouting, "Eat it, eat it!!!" Swain even felt the long-lost sensation of his stomach rebelling again, secreting massive amounts of stomach acid.
Although his stomach might not be able to digest it, who cared? Secrete first, ask questions later!!!!
"This is a shard that fell off when Saint George slew the dragon back then, not the big guy locked under Mars." The Emperor said.
"Oh, okay, that's fine. If it were truly the big guy under Mars, it's hard to say who would swallow whom." Swain pondered.
The piece under Mars should be the largest shard of the Void Dragon. As a renowned entity among the C'tan, the Void Dragon's strength was also among the top ranks of naturally born gods.
"Devour it. Only then can your physical body truly become permanent." The Emperor said.
After such a long time together, and having extracted countless barrels of Swain's blood, the Emperor finally found a flaw in Swain's cheat, or rather, it wasn't a flaw, but that Swain had never found high-quality enough energy or rules to fill himself.
The various delicacies he ate and the energy bars he gnawed on could only maintain the superficial strengthening of his physical body. He would be very strong when bullying weaker opponents, but in the Emperor's eyes, he was like an Ogryn with brute force who didn't know how to utilize his advantages. A master could easily toy with him and then kill him once bored.
As the second-in-command of an Astartes Legion, above all else, combat prowess must come first. Especially since he was about to command a fleet from the First Legion to find Lion El'Jonson. The First Legion would faithfully execute the Emperor's orders and follow Swain's command.
But to truly conquer these proud veteran soldiers of the First Legion, he could only speak with the sword in his hand. For this, the Emperor devised a series of training plans to improve Swain's martial arts.
Training in eighteen types of weapons, marksmanship, firearm application, and various other aspects, in addition to strategy, tactics, and legion command and management, densely filled most of Swain's time.
The accompanying Raven Guard, Custodes, and Death Guard would train him in their respective specialties. The Primarch would be the final hurdle he faced.
After completing these trainings, the Emperor could guarantee that no Astartes would be Swain's match.
"Are you sure this training plan is for me?" Swain fell into contemplation, looking at the dense training schedule.
"Is it for me, then?" The Emperor retorted.
"Do you understand swordsmanship? Can you wield an axe? Do you understand firearm structure? Do you know where to stab to kill someone fastest...?" The Emperor's questions bombarded Swain like a volley of cannon fire, waking him from the joy of obtaining the golden legend.
"I can say without exaggeration that anyone randomly picked from a gang in the underhives of any Imperial Hive City world knows more than you. There's a saying, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.' You have to adapt to this martial galaxy, instead of seeing certain scenes and throwing up bile." The Emperor recounted the bloody and terrifying scenes Swain witnessed when he first broke into the criminals' territory.
If he couldn't even endure that, how could he be of great use? Swain hadn't even seen the methods of the Drukhari / Dark Aeldari yet.
"Should I have the Eighth Legion dispatch an Executioner Squad to let Swain have a good experience?" This thought suddenly popped into the Emperor's mind, but he quickly dismissed it.
If Swain saw the methods of those from the Eighth Legion, he would probably use his Flying Head Fist more diligently than anyone else, and it would also cause conflict between the two Legions. In his memories, the Eighth Legion's gene-Primarch, Curze, was already very jealous of Corax. The Emperor decided not to stir up trouble.
"Put the training aside for now. First, absorb this Void Dragon Shard, then I'll draw a tube of blood. I have to go; there are many things the fleet needs to handle." The golden light in the Emperor's hand flared, and this Void Dragon Shard, which had little consciousness and was like a puppet, only managed to let out a wail before being crushed into powder.
The green Void Dragon powder, enveloped by the golden light, surged directly throughout Swain's body. Although it was said that Swain absorbed it himself, it was actually the Emperor's personal feeding. The Emperor's psychic skills were very, very high.
He directly injected the pulverized Void Dragon Shard into every part of Swain's body, without harming even a single hair on Swain in the process.
"Ah..." Every cell in Swain's body immediately began to frantically devour the powder. Under the Emperor's microscopic observation, a profound black energy appeared within these cells, directly plundering all the energy from the Void Dragon, the embodiment of the physical universe's rules, into itself. Swain's physical body began a fundamental transformation.
However, how long this transformation would take and how many C'tan shards or other energies it would need to consume was another matter.
"C'tan shards work, so wouldn't the essence of a Primarch also work, and perhaps be even simpler to absorb?" The Emperor mused, his golden eyes reflecting the transforming cells.
Not only that, but besides the task of finding the Primarchs, Swain had another important mission: grave robbing!!
Yes, grave robbing. Most of the C'tan in the galaxy were shattered by the Necrons and imprisoned in various important facilities as power banks. For Swain to complete his thorough transformation, conflict with the Necrons was inevitable.
As for the Necrons, the Emperor didn't care. Once he unified the galaxy and survived the Great Heresy, he would naturally have the means to deal with the Necrons.
Oh, right, his good son, the Archangel, seemed to be good friends with the most powerful Silent King among the Necrons, didn't he?
"It's all Eldar's fault!!!" The Emperor thought indignantly about the fate of his children: Mortarion adopted by xenos, the Archangel flirting with the Necrons, Angron becoming a mount for the Butcher's Nails... "Emperor, do you have more?" Swain asked, smacking his lips. This was even more delicious than all the food he had ever eaten.
Galactic delicacies brought him the kind of pleasure that satisfied his appetite, but the Void Dragon Shard made every cell in his body exude an incomparable sense of satisfaction. In just a few minutes, he felt a long-lost sense of fullness.
He, Swain, was finally no longer a glutton!!
"Your body has just finished absorbing it and needs some time to digest. There are a few more pieces inside; you'll have to gnaw on them yourself later." The Emperor casually tossed the Hypercube Labyrinth, which had shrunk back into a metal cube, to him, instructing him. As for how difficult it would be to devour Void Dragon Shards without the Emperor's feeding, the Emperor decided to save that as a surprise for him.