"I am not a Primarch, nor am I your father."
"NO!!!"
In that instant, the entire hall erupted with cries of anguish.
The Grey Knights, who normally appeared so stern and powerful, were all wailing miserably. If Zhou Ye could be replaced with an emoji right now, it would be the one of the sweating yellow bean man.
"Father, our lives are too wretched! Not only is our equipment withheld, but even our surgeries are incomplete!"
"Uh…"
Staring at the group of Imperial Grey Knights weeping in front of him, Zhou Ye was rendered speechless.
What the hell are you talking about? he thought. Besides the Custodes, your gear is the best in the Imperium. It's not a case of men waiting for equipment, but equipment waiting for men. Don't you have any self-awareness about the bullshit-tier wargear you're holding? Honestly, if you gave me that stuff, I wouldn't even want to use it.
There was no other reason than the fact that their gear was a complete clusterfuck. In Zhou Ye's eyes, their weapons were all teeming with the loyal souls of the departed. Just how many people had they sacrificed for this?
"Fine. This happens to be useful."
Just then, Zhou Ye had an idea. He recalled how Roboute Guilliman was going to get beaten like a stray dog on his way back to Terra.
He himself had no intention of accompanying him. More importantly, while he wasn't going to Terra, he needed eyes and ears there. Modifying these Grey Knights wouldn't cost much. As for the issue of them being unable to easily recover their energy after their psychic powers were washed away and replaced with Imaginary energy without a Star Rail nearby…
He'd just let them chop up daemons with their new Heavenly Punishment weapons. With their skill level, they could easily summon daemons on their own and then harvest them.
Zhou Ye had his reasons for not doing this himself. It wasn't that he couldn't, but summoning too many daemons would create a special anchor point, weakening the barrier between the warp and reality. He wanted to stay as far away from that stuff as possible.
Naturally, he wasn't going to open a daemon-gate in his own backyard. Plus, it required sacrifices, so he had never bothered.
But these guys were already so ruthless. Terra and the Sol System were crawling with cultists. They could just use those heretics, Genestealers, or whatever for their sacrifices. Lure the daemons out, harvest them, and create a self-sustaining cycle. All in all, it wasn't a major problem.
"My surgery requires a certain price. Have you all considered it carefully?"
"As long as we can follow you, we are willing to go through fire and water!"
"Sigh, I'm really not a Primarch, and I'm not your father."
"NO!!!"
"Forget it. You will follow them back first. This surgery requires a period of adaptive training. You will spend one hundred and thirty days in a special cell."
Zhou Ye was still rather reluctant to lock people up in cells…
"That's it?"
Hearing Zhou Ye's words, Grand Master Aldrik Voldus, the "Lord of the Sentinels" of the 3rd Brotherhood, asked in disbelief.
"Yes, that's it. Is something else needed?"
Zhou Ye shot him a quizzical look. He had already made up his mind. He planned to give this man, one of the eight Grand Masters of the Grey Knights, a serious overhaul.
Besides washing his psychic powers into Imaginary energy, he planned to try implanting his own custom-made Honkai factor into him. In the future, he could use the Grand Master's body as a vessel for a divine descent. While it might not be on the level of the Golden Fiend, it would be more than enough for many situations.
But they were clearly overthinking things…
"I'm not one of those cog-boys, stacking up countless failures with abysmal success rates just to produce a single success story."
Zhou Ye scoffed and waved his hand. The Trailblaze Grey Knights led the Imperial ones away. In truth, you couldn't blame the Imperials for reacting this way.
Come to think of it, his own Grey Knights were a direct upgrade. The ability to permanently kill daemons and restore their own energy—that alone made them far more valuable than the better part of the entire Grey Knights Chapter.
If his version of the Grey Knights became widespread, the Imperial version would inevitably be phased out.
Modifying them here served a purpose. Just as the Golden Fiend tried every possible way to plant spies in his territory, Zhou Ye could also plant a spy in the Golden Fiend's nest.
After all, Zhou Ye was all too familiar with just how disgusting those vermin on Terra could be.
---o---
Now, with the last daemon utterly vanquished, peace had returned to Macragge.
The main forces from Trailblaze had already begun their journey home. Having so many troops massed at Macragge was an intimidating sight. And just like the Imperium, which was constantly putting out fires everywhere by robbing Peter to pay Paul, Zhou Ye's Trailblaze Sector was in a similar state.
Chaos was erupting everywhere. As for the Grey Knights, they were all heading to the Imaginary Prison within the "Hogwarts Monastery" that Zhou Ye had prepared for his own knights, where they would undergo a period of seclusion to adapt to Imaginary energy.
As for the name? It was purely Zhou Ye's wicked sense of humor. There was a corner of his palace where the upper level was a normal monastery—the one his Grey Knights used, which also housed a large number of captured psykers who hadn't been corrupted or driven insane.
He named it Hogwarts. As for the lower level, which imprisoned all manner of monsters and fiends, Zhou Ye called it Azkaban.
One by one, the warships departed. Aside from a contingent of Space Marines left behind to assist Macragge with the remaining corruption cleanup, the ships carrying over forty thousand tin cans set a course for home.
As for why there were an extra ten thousand cans, they had Belisarius Cawl to thank for that.
His stock of "frozen meat" contained a large number of marines from traitor legions, especially the Word Bearers and World Eaters, who were abundant on Macragge.
There was no doubt that Cawl had used the vast gene-seed stocks Guilliman had collected during the Scouring. While Guilliman had tasked the Archmagos with preparing a large reserve force and had even given him vials of his own primarch blood, he had never imagined the man's collector-hoarder instincts would kick in, compelling him to create marines from all the legions.
This was why many later Chapters, while nominally listed under loyalist successors, looked suspiciously like they belonged to traitor stock.
The most classic example was the Sons of the Phoenix, a successor of the Imperial Fists who looked for all the world like the Emperor's Children.
So, while Guilliman was pleased to see the roughly thirty thousand suits of "frozen meat," the fact that nearly half of them were from traitor legions almost made him scratch his scalp raw.
Among all the traitor legions, every single one was present except for the Alpha Legion and the Thousand Sons. The former was too bizarre, and the latter would just turn into Rubric Marines upon creation—a feat beyond Cawl's ability.
He truly didn't dare to use them. Then, he saw Zhou Ye's Trailblaze Legions. So, deciding to go all in, he dumped the entire lot on Zhou Ye after a brief discussion. Of course, Zhou Ye welcomed this "frozen meat." He just gave them all a thorough Imaginary wash.
They were indeed blank slates. Although Cawl had used traitor primarch gene-seed, he hadn't forgotten to wipe their memories clean.
Now, Zhou Ye could take them back for a proper education; they were perfectly usable. After all, aside from a few fanatical Chapters or those with special secrets, the acceptance rate for these new Primaris Marines was quite high throughout the Imperium. Even the Dark Angels and Blood Angels had accepted them, especially after discovering that the Primaris were also susceptible to the Black Rage and Red Thirst.
This time, even Curze had taken five hundred "bat cubs" with him. Those recruits had all been thrown into the Law Academy to study and would be assigned to the new Knights of the Night.
Zhou Ye didn't mind at all. They were just troops. With proper training, they would be fine. He wasn't concerned.
"Say, why do I feel like something's not quite right?"
Zhou Ye couldn't help but scratch his head. He looked at the Iron Hands, who were repeatedly watching the footage of him beheading Fulgrim. He saw the Dark Angels helping the Word Bearers deal with potential corruption. He saw the Black Templars and Imperial Fists jerking around, and the Space Wolves running amok everywhere. Zhou Ye felt like something was missing.
"That's right… Icefang. Where did he go?"
Zhou Ye muttered to himself, but then quickly shook his head. Forget it, it's an unimportant detail. Guilliman won't make a fuss over a ten-thousand-year-old Dreadnought. So, he quickly dismissed the thought.
"Guilliman has requested that I leave a portion of my troops and that Emperor Titan behind for a victory parade. He really understands the basic operations of a Western politician. Fine, I'll play along."
Zhou Ye was unconcerned. At Guilliman's request, his Honor Guard and the decorated Emperor Titan would remain temporarily for a parade before departing.
---o---
In orbit above Macragge, inside a battle barge.
"Venerable Elder, is this really a good idea…?"
A Space Wolf from the Vlka Great Company asked with some concern. They were currently inside one of Trailblaze's battle barges.
Getting aboard had been simple. Zhou Ye hadn't deleted Lemont Icefang's identification code. So, the Dreadnought had easily boarded a Thunderhawk sent to pick up personnel. The new recruits flying it had no idea about this particular Dreadnought.
They saw he still bore the Trailblaze livery, which was a great symbol of honor representing his ten millennia of service. Although he had returned to his home Chapter, no one in the entire Space Wolves Chapter dared to change his paint job without permission.
So, seeing the Trailblaze colors and having a valid identification code, they let them on. The problem was…
"Isn't it a bad idea for us to be on a Thousand Sons battle barge?" the Wolf Guard asked worriedly. The Venerable Elder had insisted on coming here. Considering he had spent what amounted to ten thousand years in the material realm alongside Lord Phanes deep in the warp, no one dared to question him.
But the ship they had snuck onto belonged to the Trailblaze Thousand Sons. They weren't surprised to see Thousand Sons, but the issue was that they were Space Wolves.
"Not a problem. There aren't many of them. They won't find us."
Lemont replied nonchalantly, which only made the Wolf Guard's expression turn more constipated. There were only about a dozen of them in the group. They were sneaking away, so they couldn't bring the main force of the Great Company with them.
His primary role was to act as the Elder's bodyguard and ensure his safety.
"But…"
The Space Wolf scratched his head, but then he remembered the Elder's history. He hadn't been present for the Burning of Prospero, and he had been gone for ten thousand years. So, he held no particular grudge against the Thousand Sons. They, on the other hand, felt differently.
Fortunately, these Thousand Sons had all adopted the Trailblaze livery. Plus, they were all normal humans, neither Rubricae nor sorcerers, which helped calm their nerves. Besides, they had encountered proper Thousand Sons in a webway tunnel before. After comparing notes, those Thousand Sons had joined them in furiously cursing Magnus.
"Hide. This room looks good."
The massive Dreadnought tiptoed into a room that was clearly a dark cell or a brig. Once inside, the Space Wolf Dreadnought let out a sigh of relief.
But…
Bzzzt.
A series of electric crackles echoed, and then…
"Ahriman?"
A figure slowly emerged from the darkness. It was none other than the Chosen of Tzeentch, Ahriman, "Professor Ah."
Although he had now surrendered to Zhou Ye and was in the process of cutting away the blessings of Chaos from himself—a difficult task for others, but not impossible for him—he was at the very bottom of the Thousand Sons' hierarchy.
The entire Legion held no goodwill towards the man who had turned them to dust and become Tzeentch's greatest champion. Especially after learning the truth of Prospero, they now cursed both Ahriman and Magnus in the same breath.
Originally, Zhou Ye had intended to keep Ahriman by his side. After all, he was the Chosen of Tzeentch. If he wasn't under direct supervision, Zhou Ye worried he might use that vast intellect, which was so lacking in wisdom, to cook up some strange scheme.
However, Ahriman had insisted on staying with his brothers. But because of his extremely low status, he was at the bottom of the food chain, bullied by the entire Legion and confined to the brig.
He was mainly afraid that Zhou Ye would throw his brothers away as cannon fodder. After all, they were a traitor legion, even if they had surrendered again. That's just how the Imperium was. But the result was obvious.
While the Imperium was a piece of shit, Zhou Ye's character was truly good. He didn't deliberately expend them, though Ahriman had still secretly tagged along.
"What are you doing here?"
Ahriman stared at the group of Space Wolves, his face a mask of confusion.
"Even you have pledged allegiance to that Lord!!!"