[Battle Mission Issued: Stabilize the territory of Sanguinius.]
[Reward: Restore 1/3 of Sanguinius's primordial essence, unlock new sub-realm abilities and traits. You will become a true immortal.]
[Reward 2: Gaia Planet Technology — capable of terraforming dead worlds into paradise planets, evolving surface environments suitable for human habitation.]
[Terraforming duration: 10 years. After 10 years, the planet will become a Gaia World.]
As the chessboard let out a series of deep rumbles, Caleb's vision had already locked onto the territories under Sanguinius's dominion.
This was a domain vastly larger than the five hundred worlds of Macragge combined.
At the same time, compared to the raging sub-realm energies elsewhere, the Warp energy here was far calmer.
"Worthy of ancient saint-level technology indeed."
"At its peak, it could match a Star God in battle."
After all this time, Caleb had come to understand what this Divine Fabrication Art truly was.
It could forge divine beings similar to the Eldar gods — and at critical moments, could channel faith to summon those gods into battle.
During the Eldar's most glorious age, this technique had helped them dominate the galaxy.
Among all the inheritances left by the ancient saints, the Divine Fabrication Art was undeniably one of the most significant.
Through his will, Caleb transmitted the current mission to Sanguinius.
Upon learning of this daunting task, even Sanguinius — who prided himself on his martial prowess — couldn't help but furrow his brow.
[Sanguinius: Father, I've barely got any men left — I genuinely can't push forward!]
[The total count of Blood Angels right now is only around 43,000, and casualties have been heavy lately. I'm literally bleeding myself every day just to replenish the ranks!]
[Your daughter has even started selling body pillow merchandise to boost morale!]
[If you keep pushing me like this, I'll really have no choice but to adopt certain unruly sons' ideas and release my own fan-service pillows to gather faith!]
Still locked in brutal combat on the battlefield, Sanguinius suddenly felt the urge to cry.
He was currently leading his sons in reclaiming worlds that had once again fallen to Chaos.
The servants of the Chaos Gods were constantly stirring up trouble, leaving him utterly frazzled.
One day a planet would descend into frenzied slaughter — off he'd go to suppress it. The next day somewhere else would erupt in plague, followed by rebellion.
A few days later, someone would desecrate his idol and throw a depraved celebration in its honor!
And then when he finally arrived, he'd find the whole thing was a diversion — a trap laid by Tzeentch!
For the sake of keeping Baal at peace, Sanguinius had nearly run his legs off.
Thank the Emperor he had wings and could fly — otherwise, the sheer exhaustion would have killed him.
"Lord Sanguinius!"
"Several more Chapter Masters say they don't want your reward — they only want your body pillow!"
"They say they can suppress the thirst for blood, and that as long as they have your pillow, they can achieve self-mastery and be reborn!"
Dante knelt before his Primarch with a sheepish look.
A couple of days ago, his bad luck had caught up with him — his body pillow scheme had been discovered.
It happened because the pillows he'd gifted to several Chapter Masters were found by the Primarch, who had immediately tracked him down.
Dante knew full well there was no hiding it — his beloved Primarch-mother had long since caught wind of the whole affair.
But Dante swore upon his soul: every pillow he had made depicted only the noble and sacred image of his Primarch!
"You…"
Sanguinius rose and regarded this slightly treasonous child with weary resignation.
Executing him would be pointless — Dante would only welcome death, since dying meant retirement, and his soul would probably end up enshrined in Sanguinius's divine realm anyway.
Punishing him for any of this would genuinely make Dante happy.
Besides, right now Sanguinius truly needed someone to pull extra shifts — some things couldn't be pushed too hard.
Waving a hand, Sanguinius said with exasperation: "I'll let your little side business of selling my merchandise slide."
"But — remember this. It's a method for rallying the Blood Angels. Don't take it too far."
"And — stop drawing me so seductive and coquettish. I'm actually starting to wonder if Emperor's Children have infiltrated the Blood Angels."
"Eh?" Dante broke into a cold sweat.
Was his Primarch warning him?
Because — truly — one of the Emperor's Children really had infiltrated the Chapter.
The warband in question was called the Phoenix Guard, originally from the Ultramarines successors — but recently, through recruitment drives, Dante had shamelessly poached them over.
Their artistic skills were genuinely exceptional. However, recent intelligence suggested this warband was quite possibly not of Roboute Guilliman's lineage.
Dante had investigated — and it seemed increasingly likely they were indeed connected to the Emperor's Children.
But his Primarch shouldn't know any of that yet.
"Enough."
"Go. Get back to holding off those accursed daemons."
"And — though it's a little unorthodox — we really do need to build more shrines to crowd out Chaos's hold on the faithful."
"Oh, and — Guilliman has recently promised to send us a massive shipment of supplies!"
"Once a hundred billion units' worth of subsidies clear, we'll reward all the faithful, drop the agricultural tax into the negatives, and the resource problem will sort itself out!"
Dante blinked. Huh?
He hadn't thought his Primarch had any way to contact Guilliman — the man had been missing for decades.
How had contact suddenly been re-established?
"My lord, who told you this?"
Sanguinius shrugged casually. "Malcador."
"…Hmm."
At that, Dante was already bracing himself for the Inquisition to come knocking.
Any faction that so much as uttered Malcador's name these days risked being investigated.
The Holy Ordos had the First Legion under extremely tight surveillance — any intelligence about them could trigger the prying senses of those wretched psyker-witches.
Sure enough, the moment Dante stepped out of the Primarch's sanctuary, he felt a sensation — as if something had fixed its gaze upon him.
But the feeling lasted only a single instant, then vanished entirely.
"Whatever. Just get on with it. The Blood Angels have a mother watching over us now — what's there to fear?"
"If the sky falls, the Primarch will hold it up. I can finally stop carrying so much of this alone."
Dante's expression relaxed somewhat. He was still furiously busy — but at least now, if the sky truly caved in, there was someone above him to shoulder it.
Any problem beyond his capacity to handle, he could now bring to his Primarch. As long as the Primarch gave him a direction, he had something to work with.
Meanwhile, in a certain ritual chamber — twelve psykers had just burst into flames.
These twelve had been deployed to scry for information on the First Legion.
The moment they activated their Psychic Augury, they gazed directly into sacred divine fire — and were half-incinerated on the spot.
"Put it out! Put it out!"
"Damn them — the First Legion must have deployed countermeasures!"
"Those treacherous wretches are utterly shameless!"
The Inquisition had already internally designated the First Legion as traitors, and the Officio Assassinorum had opened active assassination operations against them.
Yet so far, the Assassinorum's results amounted to nothing but a handful of unlucky participants in the Penitent Crusade.
As for anything related to the Black Stone — they were completely in the dark.
"Let us try."
Twelve new psykers entered the chamber.
These were no ordinary human psykers — they were Grey Knights of the Inquisition.
Their current mission, alongside slaying daemons, was to uncover the secrets of the First Legion.
The Adeptus Mechanicus had activated execution rigs: every use of these strange arts carried extreme danger. Should control be lost, the rigs would immediately terminate the caster.
There was no other way — the Imperium's caution around psyker arts was absolute.
"Do not worry. This time the new Grand Master will personally lead the working — there will be no failure."
"This time we will lock on to the location of the Black Stone with precision."
"Let us hope he gives us a pleasant surprise."
The twelve Grey Knights assumed they were tracking someone connected to the Dark Angels.
But when they peered into the scrying orb — they saw the face of Dante.
"How can it be him?" several Grey Knights exclaimed in shock.
Even the Grand Master was caught completely off guard.
Yet somehow, everything unexpected felt entirely logical. Of course — the Dark Angels operated with such extreme secrecy. If they handled everything themselves, that would be far too conspicuous, wouldn't it?
And so, the assembled Knights began wildly spinning theories, concluding that Dante must be an agent of the Dark Angels — that they had stumbled upon the innermost secrets of that Legion.
Dante of the Blood Angels, they decided, was likely connected to the Fallen they had recently learned of.
"Achoo!"
Dante had no idea why — ever since leaving his Primarch's chambers, he had felt a nagging unease.
He had the distinct sense that some particularly powerful idiots had locked onto him.
But he had no evidence. The only thing he could do right now was go kill the daemons.
Kill the daemons first. Deal with everything else after.
"By the blood of Sanguinius!"
This battle cry was no longer merely a slogan — for the blood flowing in their veins was genuinely Sanguinius's own.
Every swing of a chainsword was accompanied by a surge of vitality through the body.
Every blood-fueled strike delivered significantly amplified damage.
Some had even grown bold enough to face Greater Daemons of Khorne head-on — despite the enormous gap in raw power.
But with Sanguinius's debuffing aura weakening the daemons, several Greater Daemons had found themselves unable to best certain Chapter Masters in single combat.
[Khorne: This SSR is impossible to pull! What's wrong with the lot of you? Not a single Greater Daemon getting through? I've already thrown out eight Greater Daemons!]
[What are you all doing?!]
[Tzeentch: Patience, patience. Everything is proceeding according to the plan. The perfect moment has not yet arrived — it is not yet time to act.]
[Slaanesh: For what it's worth, I've already sent six Greater Daemons. It's just that those six seem to have gotten… a little carried away.]
[Nurgle: Oh, how precious. Your six have all fallen head over heels for Sanguinius — quite literally enchanted, utterly beyond saving!]
[Now MY children, on the other hand — one of them has actually established a foothold! I can already feel a breath of life stirring on that desolate planet.]
[This is quite good. Quite good indeed.]
Nurgle went to check which of his children had performed so impressively — establishing a base behind enemy lines.
And what he found was a blue figure, dancing in the middle of a forest — waving a bell as though conducting a symphony of life.
Beside him sat a willowy Eldar goddess, watching the somewhat absurd display with bright, attentive eyes.
[Nurgle: WHAT THE — how is it HIM?!]
[By all rights, in the state he's in, shouldn't he have been banished immediately?]
[How has he ended up tending a garden with my wife?!]
"Ku'gath," said the figure warmly. "I'm truly grateful you came out here with me."
"But I really do need to bring some children back."
"I can sense their presence — I cannot bring myself to abandon them."
The enormous Ku'gath Plaguefather scratched his back absently, and vast quantities of seed-like spores tumbled to the ground — taking root and sprouting instantly.
Imbued with the essence of life, these fallen seeds transformed the surroundings into a lush forest of towering trees and blooming gardens.
Green megaliths rose from the earth, forming altars — and the plague that periodically erupted across this land had somehow become part of the local cycle of renewal.
"How wondrous — to accept withering and death."
"Perhaps I should use this method to rebuild my homeland."
"Birth and death are both part of life."
Ku'gath reached down with one enormous hand and uprooted a plague-ravaged ancient tree. Rather than cleansing it with the life-force as Isha would have done, he chose to let the tree fully embrace death — whereupon it bore fruit, and that fruit carried immunity to the very plague that had killed it.
This was the truth he had arrived at through countless cycles of Isha's plagues and his own cures:
In a multitude of dying offspring, there would always be one or two survivors to carry life forward.
Within endless decay and death, new life would always be found. This was his understanding of what life truly meant.
He planted the enormous seed, and before long — accelerated by his domain — a new tree erupted from the soil, hardier and more tenacious than any before it.
Now, amid the relentless assaults of all four Chaos Gods, it was Ku'gath — under Nurgle's banner — who had been first to secure a foothold on Baal.
"You are remarkable, child."
"I have dwelt beside your father-god for countless ages, and his conception of life's laws is one I could never accept."
"But you are different. In you, I feel the possibility of new birth."
"If only you could represent that domain of Chaos — things would be so different."
The Eldar goddess Isha looked out over the faith-filled garden with quiet wonder.
Every blade of grass, every tree venerated Ku'gath as their father-god.
In essence it was still a garden — but now this garden could sustain itself without any psychic power at all.
To appreciate how remarkable this was: most of Nurgle's creations could not survive apart from him. Yet Ku'gath had shattered that dependency entirely.
[Nurgle: So be it. Merciful child. A little strange, yes — tainted by Isha's influence — but he is still my child. How could I possibly be angry with him?]
[He simply has his own game to play. Let him be. Let him be.]
The benevolent Grandfather found himself at a loss when it came to this particular child.
Could he call him treasonous? The boy just spent his days singing in a garden, which had infuriated the other Great Unclean Ones into filing complaints.
Could he call him useless? He'd somehow secured the initiative in this vanguard campaign.
Without the self-sustaining anchor point of his ever-flourishing garden, Nurgle's influence couldn't even reach this far.
As things stood, the other Chaos Gods might even need to petition Nurgle for passage through his sub-realm to reach Baal.
Observing all of this, Tzeentch had a sudden flash of inspiration.
Seeing how warmly Ku'gath and the Eldar goddess got along, it slid over to Slaanesh and whispered its scheme.
Slaanesh — who had long coveted Isha — broke into a slow smile upon hearing the plan.
[Slaanesh: Ha! I hope you'll keep your promise. This is delicious — truly delightfully indulgent.]
[I'll intervene when the moment is right. But are you certain your Changeling can actually deceive Isha?]
[Tzeentch: I shall handle it personally. All is proceeding according to the plan.]
Nurgle had no idea that he was about to be outmaneuvered by those two.
He simply kept his gaze fixed on his child and his little wife chatting away — a contented Father of Plagues, too fond of the scene before him to worry about anything else.
"Chapter Master, this forest has resisted every assault. Daemons keep pouring out of it at all hours — it's maddening."
"This place is the daemon's main stronghold."
"If we cannot purge this forest and seal the rifts within it, the daemons will keep coming without end."
The Blood Angels' strategic council had long since discerned the true nature of this place.
Once they identified the forest's connection to the Warp, they had been determined to scour it completely.
But purging this strange forest had proven agonizingly difficult.
Several hundred of Sanguinius's sons had already fallen here —