"Are you certain you're not lying? About the real-time information transfer… and these Star Rails."
At this moment, Roboute Guilliman had lost all semblance of a statesman's composure. He grabbed Zhou Ye by the arm. He knew it was incredibly rude, but he couldn't control himself any longer.
Nearby, Konrad Curze was equally shocked, and…
"Hmm…"
He realized a major problem. It seemed he had completely thrown the mission his Father had given him to the back of his mind. In that single instant, a cold sweat broke out on Curze's brow.
He immediately wanted to rush out without a second thought, but he only came to his senses when he reached the doorway. He was tens of thousands of light-years away from Zhou Ye's Trailblaze Sector; there was no way for him to get there.
"Forget it. So many years have passed already. Given the Imperium's administrative efficiency, a few decades is hardly an issue."
Curze fully embraced a 'let it rot' mentality and sat back down.
As for Guilliman's question, Zhou Ye simply rolled his eyes. He couldn't be bothered to answer. But Guilliman looked at Curze, then thought back to Cawl's reaction, and he became certain.
It was real. And with that realization, a flood of thoughts entered Guilliman's mind…
"Phanes, have you told this to anyone else?"
"Besides my own people, the only other one who clearly knows is Cawl."
"Phew…"
Guilliman visibly relaxed at this, then continued his inquiry:
"Have you connected it to Terra?"
"No link has been established, and it's impossible to link there in the short term. The environment around that area is far too complex, completely different from your Macragge."
"…"
A complex expression appeared on Guilliman's face. He was simultaneously relieved and troubled.
He thought of the three major powers on Terra: the Navigator Houses, the Astropathic Choirs, and the potentially reactive Adeptus Astronomica. These three were the biggest problems. Zhou Ye's Star Rails were useful, but their coverage was far too small. Currently, it only spanned his own thousand-world Trailblaze Sector and the main artery to his own Macragge.
Even the five hundred worlds of Ultramar at its peak were nothing compared to the entirety of the Imperium. If the Imperium was a large country, his Macragge was merely a single community district.
If he were to have a falling out with the Astropaths and Navigators, the already precarious Imperium would shatter on the spot.
He didn't want to see the Imperium disintegrate like that, and neither did Zhou Ye. After all, the threats he had faced so far were relatively limited. Even Khorne's ultimate goal was to corrupt him personally.
Thus, the pressure he was under was limited. While the quality of the wars he fought was high, they weren't as devastatingly brutal.
Many of the Great Crusade's major campaigns had laid entire sectors to waste. An Imperial Sector was a unit of measurement calculated in light-years. Zhou Ye's domain currently barely covered a single sector, and many of the planets within it still belonged to the Imperium. Zhou Ye had no desire to take on all that messy baggage.
So, there was still room for a gradual approach. Of course, that was also the headache; it meant solving the problem would be a much slower process.
And…
"Wait, what did Curze just say? A supercomputer? Do you have an Abominable Intelligence here?"
"Show some respect, Guilliman. That is a Machine Spirit. On what grounds do you presume Prometheus is an artificial AI? Besides, compared to me, the one who truly uses artificial AI is the Golden Fiend. Do you want to go take a look at what's under the surface of Terra?"
Facing Guilliman, Zhou Ye spoke with righteous indignation. He knew he couldn't hide this forever. Besides, if anyone dared to harm his mecha-girl, Zhou Ye would dare to set them on fire.
"…"
Seeing this reaction, and hearing Zhou Ye curse out the "Golden Fiend" so directly, Guilliman shrank back and said nothing.
A Machine Spirit it is, then. Not a big deal.
After all, even the Adeptus Mechanicus couldn't clearly define the difference between a Machine Spirit and an Abominable Intelligence. Since this individual was so confident, he would let it be. As a politician, he knew not to cross another's bottom line. It was a fundamental principle, provided there was no fundamental conflict between them.
As for Curze, he couldn't care less. He had seen far stranger things in Zhou Ye's domain.
"This dataslate and your command console are quite effective. Can they not be corrupted?"
"Corrupt them? I think it would be easier to just destroy them. The only drawback, as you've seen, is that they can only be used within the range of the Star Rails."
Zhou Ye said this nonchalantly. As for Guilliman, if he were to return to Terra, he would have to resume his battle with his parchment for the foreseeable future. However, if Zhou Ye remembered correctly, there were no sheep on Terra, just as there were no werewolves on Fenris.
Best not to dwell on the origin of the parchment. Of course, it probably wasn't human skin either. Based on what Zhou Ye had seen, he guessed it was soaked in the holy oils of the Ecclesiarchy to resist corruption.
But Zhou Ye's technology was different. Without the Star Rails to power them, his devices were useless. So, when Guilliman returned to Terra in the future, he wouldn't be able to take any of this stuff with him.
Naturally, Guilliman understood these intricacies better than Zhou Ye did.
Therefore…
"In the future, when I return to Terra, I will help you eliminate all political obstacles. You just need to focus on laying the Star Rails. Use your Trailblaze Sector and my Macragge as two anchor points and cover as much of this galaxy as possible. As for the Adeptus Mechanicus, I will keep them in check as well."
Having thought it through, Guilliman gave Zhou Ye his assurance. He would use every method at his disposal to stabilize the Astropathic Choirs and the Navigator Houses, or at least ensure they didn't hinder Zhou Ye's progress.
"Then I'll leave it to you. And the problem of Imperium Nihilus is also significant."
Zhou Ye nodded, then glanced out the window. A moment later, the corner of his eye twitched.
The recovery operation for the Emperor Titan was not going smoothly. They were being obstructed by those gearheads. Of course, they weren't trying to steal Zhou Ye's Titan. Seeing an existence that could field an entire legion of Emperor Titans, they knew just how powerful this forge world must be.
Although they had never heard of it, they could guess. As for the reason for the delay…
Smoke swirled around the Emperor Titan as the cog-boys began their standard Mechanicus procedure. To put it nicely, they were placating the Machine Spirit. To put it bluntly, they were performing a shamanistic dance around his Emperor Titan.
They were angry that this Emperor Titan might have been improperly modified, but they still afforded the machine itself the highest level of respect and worship.
So there they were, leading a large contingent of Skitarii and Mechanicus apprentices, circling the Emperor Titan and chanting blessings. They also sneakily took a group photo for posterity, since this Emperor Titan had just obliterated a Khornate Abominable Titan.
This left Zhou Ye's people at a loss for words. They had no such compulsory traditions. And since Zhou Ye didn't want to reveal too much, he simply let them be.
His forces were now busy recovering the wreckage of the Abominable Titan. The machine was severely corrupted. Even the gearheads knew it was completely beyond repair. Plus, it was Zhou Ye's war trophy, so they didn't object.
Of course, to Zhou Ye, this was excellent material. He'd just toss it into the Thousand-Person Theater for a good washing. All that warp corruption was just fuel, and the purified materials would be extremely valuable. Nothing would be wasted. As for the wreckage of the two Warlord Titans, Zhou Ye had no intention of touching them.
---o---
Pulling his gaze back, Zhou Ye casually pinched and crushed a mouth that had grown out of Guilliman's desk. Then, his eyes fell upon an object preserved within a stasis field nearby.
The Guilliman Toilet Paper. No, the Codex Astartes.
"I never imagined my sons would have preserved the Codex Astartes I wrote back then so well."
Seeing Zhou Ye staring at the Codex he had authored, Guilliman spoke politely. This was Guilliman—he would never let a guest feel awkward. This was also why so many of his brother Primarchs disliked him; his political mindset was too ingrained.
Though it wasn't so much ingrained as it was simply being extremely polite and skilled in social etiquette. This was nothing special on his former Earth, but in the galaxy of psychopaths that was 30K and 40K, it seemed somewhat out of place.
And perhaps because he had seen his own Legion, Guilliman didn't seem to have asked Calgar anything about the Codex.
"The Guilliman Toilet Paper. Its fame precedes it."
"You!!!"
Hearing Zhou Ye's merciless words, Guilliman shot to his feet in anger.
"Hahaha, it really is the Guilliman Toilet Paper."
Konrad Curze, on the other hand, let out a merciless laugh, which made Guilliman's face darken even further.
To be fair, the book couldn't be called useless. Given the current state of the Imperium, the original legion-style warfare was no longer suitable. Compared to the grand battles of the Great Crusade, what was needed now were pacification campaigns. Splitting the Legions into Chapters was appropriate for the time.
But the problem with anything is ossification. A nation can run into problems after just a few decades, or a few centuries, due to systemic rigidity and require reform. Yet this thing had been used, without a single word changed, for ten thousand years. One could see how massive the problem was.
"You don't know?"
"Ah?"
The furious Guilliman saw a strange, unsettling smile in Zhou Ye's dark pupils, and it sent a shiver down his spine. It was like a bucket of cold water poured directly over his head.
As a politician with an exceptionally sharp mind, he guessed a great deal from Zhou Ye's single sentence…
"You've figured it out."
"It can't be true. The one they're using is not…"
"That's right. This book of yours has been used for ten thousand years straight. They haven't changed a single thing. And even more impressive is Rogal Dorn. He truly followed your standards and pegged Chapter strength at exactly one thousand men!!!"
Zhou Ye took the book out of the stasis field and held it up to Guilliman.
"NO!!!"
At Zhou Ye's words, Guilliman clutched his head and let out a pained scream in front of the two men.
He could no longer refute the fact that this thing was, in essence, no different from toilet paper.
"By the way, Guilliman," Curze chimed in. "Back when we were reorganizing the Legions on Trailblaze, someone asked Phanes about the Codex Astartes. Do you know what he said?"
"…"
Seeing Curze's dark and twisted smile, identical to the one he wore ten thousand years ago, Guilliman's heart filled with despair.
"He said; 'If Guilliman could wake up, he'd wish he could travel back ten thousand years and give his past self a huge slap across the face.'"
"…"
This time, Guilliman didn't refute it. He couldn't. His original intention for the book was for it to be a reference manual. Although he had split the Legions, the initial divisions weren't that scattered. For example, the Imperial Fists were originally split into only three parts: the Imperial Fists, the Black Templars, and the Crimson Fists.
Even though the Imperial Fists had suffered heavy losses as the main force during the Siege of Terra, their numbers would not have dropped to a mere three thousand. So, in reality, their numbers were over-strength. The one who truly shattered the Imperial Chapters into so many disparate parts after Guilliman was interred was Rogal Dorn. And his theoretical basis, of course, was the Codex Astartes.
So it was certain that even if Guilliman wasn't the primary culprit, he still had to bear a large part of the blame.
The main issue was that he never expected to be put on ice. The Codex was meant as an emergency measure. It could help the Imperium deal with all sorts of minor problems—after all, you can't send an entire Legion to deal with a single planet's Chaos uprising; a Chapter-sized unit is clearly more practical.
Most Chaos incursions could be handled by a single Chapter company. And in truth, the Codex did stabilize the Imperium. But the problem was that it prevented the Imperium from clenching its fist to deliver a decisive heavy blow when necessary.
Of course, this was only one aspect. The separation of the Astra Militarum, the Astartes, and the Imperial Navy was a similar problem. Just thinking about it was enough to make Guilliman despair.
---o---
Soon…
"Hahaha, that's it! That composed politician finally shows such an expression! This is truly amusing!"
Walking out of Guilliman's chambers, Curze couldn't hold back his laughter. The Ultramarines Honour Guard standing watch by the door instinctively reached for their bolters, but considering that Konrad Curze had indeed fought to protect Macragge, they held back.
After all, he had led the boarding parties that had annihilated the Chaos fleet's warships. It could be considered a great service.
But just as Zhou Ye stepped out…
"Father!!!"
A constipated look appeared on Zhou Ye's face as he saw a group of Grey Knights rushing toward him. He was already cursing the Golden Fiend's eighteen generations of ancestors.