"Konrad Curze!!!"
CLICK-CLACK.
With Guilliman's roar, everyone—with the exception of the forces Zhou Ye had brought—instantly leveled their bolters at the Night Haunter. Dark Angels, Space Wolves, all of them.
A massive shadow instantly enveloped the room, and Konrad Curze's omnipresent voice echoed from the darkness.
Seeing this, the Emperor's Sword in Guilliman's hand burned fiercely, and with a single slash, he tore the shroud of darkness to shreds.
"All units, be vigilant! Protect yourselves!" Guilliman commanded with cold calm. Everyone except Zhou Ye's forces and those who had fought alongside Curze on Trailblaze immediately formed a shield wall.
"My dear Primarch, is this how you welcome one of your own successor chapters?"
"Your silver tongue... hm?" Guilliman began to retort with contempt, but then he noticed his own sons... their eyes were shifting uncomfortably.
He instantly realized something was wrong and looked towards Calgar. The Chapter Master, despite his high rank, visibly flinched under Guilliman's gaze.
"What happened?"
"Heh, put away your father's sword. It's truly wasted on you," Curze said, retracting his shadows. He wasn't surprised by his reception. Among the nine traitor Primarchs, while he wasn't as universally reviled as Lorgar, he was no mere clown either.
BANG!
With a dull thud, Curze casually swatted the four singing Cherubs out of the air, causing them to explode. Though a madman, he was still keenly aware of his own actions. Like Guilliman and Zhou Ye, he found such constructs absolutely intolerable. This was, incidentally, the first time he'd seen them. He had spent a great deal of time with Zhou Ye's Tech-Priests on Trailblaze—he had to lobby for better wargear for his own sons, after all—but they had nothing like this. They didn't even have servitors or servo-skulls. The busiest things there were the little Cherub-Automata, which were surprisingly cute once you got past their name. Seeing these Imperial versions, Curze had attacked on pure instinct.
THUD!
At that moment, a heavy sound came from above. Clad in black-and-gold armor, his eyes glowing with a tangible golden light, Zhou Ye descended from the sky.
SLAP!
With another dull sound, he tossed Angron's wings onto the floor. Glancing from Fulgrim's severed head to Angron's wings, everyone in the hall, including Curze, was left stunned.
To banish two Daemon Primarchs in a single day... not even the Great Angel Sanguinius had achieved such a feat. With the two leaders cast back into the Warp, the now-leaderless daemons of Slaanesh and Khorne descended into chaos. Under Guilliman's command and with the overwhelming firepower and superior equipment of Zhou Ye's forces, the demonic remnants were quickly encircled. The annihilation phase was about to begin.
Victory was at hand. Even the Imperial and Trailblaze Grey Knights had charged out. The Trailblaze Knights, in particular, were crossing names off their Book of Daemons as they fought. While not numerous, a good number of lesser Daemon Princes had accompanied the main invasion. Now was the perfect time to harvest them, especially with the Trailblaze Knights' weapons...
"Brother, what are those weapons?" an Imperial Grey Knight couldn't help but ask. They had noticed that any daemon killed by these weapons was left shattered and broken. Their very essence was grievously wounded. Even if they fled back to the Warp, they were incomplete. They would either have to be painstakingly reassembled from countless fragments or be personally resurrected by their blasphemous masters. In a very real sense, this was a permanent death.
"These are weapons forged by the Father's own hand, capable of permanently banishing daemons, my brothers!!!" a Trailblaze Grey Knight declared proudly, holding his custom-made Nemesis force halberd. "Unfortunately, because we are missing a certain surgery, we cannot unleash their true potential."
Just then, three Grey Knights in Zhou Ye's custom Aegis Terminator armor walked out. They had accompanied Zhou Ye, but because he had teleported his main force directly, the three of them had been unable to keep up and had only just landed.
"Ooooh..." a mournful sound came from the Imperial Grey Knights. Damn the Mechanicus to hell! They skimped on our surgical procedures!
Zhou Ye walked into the hall. After fighting two Primarchs back-to-back, he couldn't help but roll his neck. But...
CLACK.
With the exception of Guilliman and Curze, every single being in the hall dropped to one knee and performed the Aquila salute, offering what they believed to be the highest possible honor. This was especially true for Calgar and his Ultramarines. If Zhou Ye hadn't arrived when he did, Macragge might have been wiped from existence, and Guilliman would never have been awakened. Or rather, awakening would have been pointless.
Now, looking into Zhou Ye's eyes, which shone with a physical golden light, even Konrad Curze and Roboute Guilliman found it difficult to meet his gaze.
Seeing the entire crowd kneeling before him, Zhou Ye's body went stiff. He was so awkward he wanted to dig a four-bedroom apartment with his feet. To end the unbearable situation, he reiterated, "First, I am not a Primarch. Second, if you must worship someone, worship the Yello—... the Emperor!!!"
Seeing that the first half of his sentence got no reaction from anyone but his own men—with Guilliman and Curze looking at him as if he were speaking another language—Zhou Ye wisely changed tack. This was surely the Emperor's great power; it had nothing to do with him.
As expected...
"Praise the Emperor!!!" a Battle Sister exclaimed, and a chorus of praise echoed through the hall.
That finally made Zhou Ye feel a bit more comfortable. The Yellow Fiend's reputation was quite useful.
"..."
However, someone else was now experiencing that toe-curling awkwardness: our future Lord Regent, Roboute Guilliman. Listening to the praises from his own sons and those strange warrior-nuns, a chill ran down his spine. Ten thousand years. Ten thousand whole years. How has the Imperium fallen to this state? The Emperor had fought so hard to prevent this, even ordering him to destroy Lorgar's Perfect City. But now, the Imperium had fallen so far.
With this thought, he strode over to Curze and grabbed him by the collar. He dismissed Zhou Ye's "I am not a Primarch" comment as hot air. He and Rogal Dorn had held the highest authority in the Imperium. And Guilliman knew that parts of his own memory were missing, but that was because he had personally asked Malcador to remove them.
Not dwelling on it, Guilliman grabbed Curze, his eyes red with fury.
"Where have you been for the last ten thousand years?! Why did you stand by and watch the Imperium fall to this?!"
"..."
Curze, having had his precognition switched off, had not seen this coming. He averted his gaze from Guilliman's fiery stare. "I was imprisoned in the Shadow-Cellars beneath the Imperial Palace."
"If you had truly wanted to, that place could not have held you! And if you had been willing, Father would not have kept you locked up!!!"
"..."
Faced with Guilliman's rage, Curze was at a loss for words.
POW.
A fist crashed into his forehead. Guilliman then looked at the scene before him with a complicated expression. Zhou Ye just shrugged nonchalantly. The rest of the battle didn't require his intervention.
"Brother... could you give me a moment alone?"
"As you wish."
Zhou Ye looked at Guilliman, then at the shattered remains of the Cherubs on the floor. His face, like Guilliman's, took on a constipated expression. He had been in Warhammer for so many years, but he still couldn't get used to these things. Not just them, but servitors too. The only thing he could barely tolerate was servo-skulls, and even then, only as decorations. He would never actually use one.
"And I'm not your brother... tsk, tsk. In such a hurry to go be depressed."
Watching the chamber door close, Zhou Ye shrugged helplessly. Good. Once you're done sulking, get your ass back to Terra and help me run the government. Until my rails are complete and I've amassed enough power to take on all four of the Warp's great turds at once, you can use the Imperium of Man as my shield.
Clank, clank, clank...
Just then, a series of footsteps approached. It was Lemont Icefang, running over with an expression like a happy pug chasing its tail. The moment he got close, he pointed a finger straight at Calgar.
"The blasphemous Ultramarines registered Trailblaze as one of their successor chapters!"
"..."
Silence.
The entire hall went dead quiet. Everyone turned to stare at the already sweating Calgar with the kind of look one reserves for a heretic.
"Blasphemy! This is blasphemy! Penance is required!!!" Asmodai roared, banging his crozius for emphasis. He had almost forgotten about this matter while fighting daemons. Now that he remembered, he recalled his true purpose for being here.
CREAK.
The great door opened again. Guilliman, having barely composed himself, nearly tripped and fell.
Emperor preserve me, what did I just hear? My son registered a whole damn Legion as his successor chapter?
What incredible ambition! Even he would never dare do such a thing.
"Oh..."
Zhou Ye's reaction, by contrast, was quite mild. His original plan had been to masquerade as an Ultramarines successor, using their great name as a shield while he secretly developed his own power. Then he had run head-on into Mortarion, and things had started to go off the rails.
He had successfully developed his power, but it had deviated a tiny bit from his initial projections. But it didn't matter. It was just an insignificant variable in the grand plan. Who could say he hadn't developed? His original plan had even succeeded, in a way. Through his own careful guidance, he had successfully operated under the Ultramarines' name. This proved his plan was flawless.
As for the Ultramarines' reaction... well, that wasn't part of his considerations. It was an insignificant matter.
"What have you done?!"
Guilliman strode over to Calgar and lifted him off the ground. In his day, he may have coveted the Dark Angels Legion, but he would never have dared to say that Lion El'Jonson's First Legion was his successor chapter. Good, very good. You're even more ambitious than your father. And this was a full-fledged Legion, by Great Crusade standards. A Legion even more refined than those of the Great Crusade. I never knew, Calgar. Your ambition is even greater than my own.
"Father, it was an accident..." Calgar looked utterly mortified. He truly hadn't known at the time. He had received over a hundred units of gene-seed from Trailblaze, and the Mechanicus registry had listed them as an Ultramarines successor. He had assumed it was one of the Chapters lost in the Warp that had just re-emerged, so he had casually filed the paperwork. Normally, this wouldn't have been a problem; over seventy percent of all Chapters in the Imperium were of Ultramarine stock.
The problem was, who knew the other party was a Primarch? The man had shown him face, how could he have dared to accept it?
And to make matters worse, why were those bureaucrats on Terra so efficient for once? In the past, it would take decades to get a reply to any petition. This time, they had approved it and sent it back in just a few years. At that moment, Calgar had felt his world collapse, but there had been no time to fix it.
"Hmph. My deepest apologies. This was our mistake," Guilliman said, turning away from Calgar. "But I must say, extensive use of gene-seed from the traitor legions is a very dangerous matter. Although the Emperor's Children have been tested, still..."
"The one behind you," Zhou Ye interjected, "if I'm not mistaken, has a stock of cryo-preserved Astartes from every Legion. Their numbers are even greater than the total number of Astartes active today."
"???"
Hearing this, Guilliman turned to look. He saw Cawl's eyes darting away guiltily. It was obvious that what this man said was true.
So...
He looked at Calgar. Then he looked at Belisarius Cawl.
Guilliman raised a trembling hand and said, "You two... you're a regular Crouching Dragon and Phoenix Chick!!!"
Though he didn't know what "Crouching Dragon and Phoenix Chick" meant, the term just inexplicably popped into his head, possibly due to the influence of Zhou Ye's Black Abyss, White Flower creation.
"Broth—... never mind. What should I call you?"
"Just call me..." Zhou Ye blinked, then a mischievous look crossed his face. "Phanes Akivili Kaslana."
---o---