Aboard the Pride of the Emperor.
Fulgrim stood rigidly before the grand holographic hololith.
He was clad in his masterfully articulated, ornate purple power armor. Fireblade, the magnificent weapon forged for him by his closest brother Ferrus Manus, rested securely at his hip.
Yet, at this moment, the Phoenician radiated a suffocating, glacial aura.
"Seventh Company casualty report," Fulgrim commanded, his voice unnervingly calm.
Forty-seven dead, fifty-five critical, sixty-three suits of Astartes warplate lost.
Eighth Company casualty report.
Forty-two dead, sixty-eight critical, fifty-one suits of warplate lost.
Eleventh Company...
A cascading scroll of statistics flickered across the hololith, every single digit representing the gruesome demise of an Emperor's Children Astartes.
These were transhuman super-soldiers, engineered through nineteen horrific surgeries, drilled through decades—even centuries—of relentless warfare, and clad in the most exquisite wargear the Imperium could provide. And they were dying on this azure death world at a completely unprecedented, staggering rate.
"Seventy-two hours. Six hundred and ninety-seven total casualties."
Fulgrim turned slowly. His flawless, sculptured eyes swept across the rigid line of Lord Commanders assembled on the bridge.
"And yet, we have barely scratched the outer perimeter of the Laeran central platform. Will someone explain to me..."
His voice suddenly cracked like a localized thunderclap, whipping across the minds of every warrior present.
"Is this perfection?!"
Absolute, deathly silence gripped the Heliopolis of the Pride of the Emperor.
The commanders bowed their heads. It was not fear that gripped them, but a burning, suffocating shame.
Since the very inception of their Legion, the Emperor's Children had never suffered through such a humiliating, disjointed campaign.
The Laeran tactics were simply far too alien, too grotesquely adaptable.
Their defenders were not an army in any conventional sense. They were bespoke, living weapons, genetically hammered into shape to perfectly counter whatever strategy the Legion deployed.
"My Lord."
Captain Marius Vairosean of the Third Company stepped forward.
"The Laeran biological modification technology far exceeds our initial projections."
"Every single one of their combat units is hyper-optimized for specific environments and tactical scenarios."
"We are not facing an army..."
"...but an entire ecosystem bred solely for war."
Fulgrim listened quietly to his Third Captain's assessment before speaking softly.
"And your recommendation is?"
"A shift in tactics."
Marius brought up the tactical hololith, his finger pointing to the Sky Coral, the largest floating city on Laeran.
"Rather than a direct assault on the central platform and pushing through their defensive lines, we should first destroy the twelve energy pillars keeping the city suspended."
"Send the Sky Coral crashing into the ocean."
"Though the Laer are amphibious, those members lacking specific aquatic genetic augmentations will have their mobility severely crippled by the seawater. Once that happens, we can..."
"I refuse."
Fulgrim cut him off.
The Primarch stepped up to the hololith and reached out. A finger, perfect as a masterwork sculpture, lightly tapped the location of the temple atop the central platform.
"Perfection is not found in shortcuts."
"Perfection is achieving one's goal through the most direct, absolutely flawless execution."
"I declared this campaign would end within a single month."
"I declared the Imperial Aquila would be planted in every corner of this world."
"Therefore..."
Fulgrim withdrew his hand, his long white hair flowing gracefully behind him.
"Relay my orders."
"The surviving forces of the Seventh, Eighth, and Eleventh Companies will coordinate with the newly deployed Thirteenth, Fifteenth, and Seventeenth Companies..."
"...and launch a simultaneous assault on all Laeran coral platforms."
His gaze swept across every Captain present.
"Every last one of you is deploying."
"Show these Laer..."
"...what true perfection looks like."
The moment the order was given, the war machine of the 28th Expeditionary Fleet roared into overdrive.
The Emperor's Children had already committed seven thousand Astartes to this meat grinder...
This represented nearly three-quarters of the Legion's entire strength within the 28th Expeditionary Fleet... hurled into the fray all at once.
From high orbit to the crushing depths of the oceans, the onslaught was relentless.
The elite Lord Commanders and Captains of the Emperor's Children finally began to flex their true, terrifying capabilities.
First Captain Julius Kaesoron coordinated the grand strategy with breathtaking tactical acumen. The rhythm of company rotations, supply drops, and redeployments was synchronized down to the exact minute.
Second Captain Solomon Demeter personally led a strike force to storm the underwater city of the Abyssal Crystal. A mere six hours of brutal, claustrophobic combat after planetfall, the deep-sea fortress—home to half a million Laer—fell. Demeter offered the skull of the Laer commander to Fulgrim in orbit, earning the Primarch's public praise.
Third Captain Marius Vairosean demonstrated a completely different flavor of perfection. His company seized an undetected orbital platform with virtually zero casualties, capturing the Laeran cipher codes and allowing the Imperium to decrypt enemy directives in real-time.
Lord Commanders Eidolon and Vespasian were equally active across the sprawling fronts.
Eidolon carved through the coral jungles with flamboyant, arrogant bladework, slaughtering hundreds of Laeran warriors. Vespasian employed flawless, calculated command to systematically dismantle three floating platforms piece by piece.
--
Beneath the energy pillar in the left-central sector of the Deep Blue Coral Platform.
Vance trailed behind Darius Stanton, assisting in the topological mapping of the core structure suspending the entire floating platform.
Over three days, they had bounced between four platforms, mapping seven energy pillars. Darius worked with terrifying efficiency, always managing to gather the necessary telemetry during lulls in the fighting before rapidly relocating.
"Record this."
Darius tapped the data streaming across his auspex. "The energy output frequency on this pillar has a cyclical fluctuation. The peak hits every 10.3 hours."
"If we intend to destroy it, our best window is striking the core node during that peak. The internal stability field is at its weakest then."
"Understood." Vance jotted the data down rapidly.
He stole a glance into the distance...
The colossal energy pillar, over four hundred meters in diameter, pierced the clouds, its summit venting plasma fire burning at thousands of degrees. Visible currents of raw power cascaded down its surface, emitting a bone-rattling hum.
Destroy this thing?
Conventional weapons wouldn't even dent it.
It would probably take a direct hit from a cruiser's macro-cannon, or...
"Teacher," Vance couldn't help but ask, "why are we studying how to destroy the energy pillars?"
"Isn't the Legion's strategy focused on wiping out the Laer's living forces?"
Darius glanced back at him, his eyes deep and unfathomable beneath his grey hair.
"Son, war is never one-dimensional."
He pulled up the holographic hololith, letting the model of Laeran slowly rotate in the air.
"Lord Fulgrim declared the campaign will end in a month."
"But to achieve that goal, merely killing Laeran warriors isn't enough."
"This civilization boasts a population of two to five billion, scattered across hundreds of floating platforms and deep-sea metropolises."
"The most efficient method is to eradicate their foundation of survival."
Darius pointed at the glowing pillar. "These columns keep the platforms afloat, provide energy, and even regulate the climate."
"Destroy them, and the platforms crash into the sea."
"It will shatter their hope."
He paused, his voice dropping an octave. "When a civilization watches its home fall from the sky."
"When they watch their kin drown in the abyss, and see millennia of progress reduced to submerged rubble..."
"...their will to resist will break."
Vance didn't ask anything else.
So this is the grim truth of the Great Crusade...
It's not some glorious clash of knights. It's cold, calculated genocide.
It's a do-or-die struggle for racial survival. The law of the jungle. Survival of the fittest.
The Imperium of Man will annihilate every non-human xenos civilization.
Eradicate their flesh, their culture, their hope, all to ensure humanity remains the undisputed master of the galaxy.
"Think it's cruel?" Darius asked.
"...A little," Vance answered honestly.
He had been in this game for over ten days now. Honestly, he still couldn't completely adapt to this hyper-realistic environment.
The visceral slaughter. The blood-soaked battlefields.
Yet, he had zero desire to quit. Because when he logged out, he discovered that less than three minutes had passed in the real world.
That revelation had left him utterly shell-shocked.
"Then remember this feeling," Darius said, stowing away his auspex and clapping a heavy hand on Vance's shoulder.
"And channel it into motivation."
"Make yourself stronger. Strong enough that one day, you decide how the war is fought, rather than being forced to fight it this way."
"Right now, you lack the standing to defy a single son of the Emperor, let alone an Imperial Primarch..."
"You can only accept and obey. Otherwise, the only things waiting for you are death and absolute purgation."
"Work hard, Stellan."
"Maybe one day, you'll truly hold the reins of the Imperium's future. Then, you can firmly say 'no' to any Primarch."
"Don't be too disheartened. Mortals like that exist in the Imperium right now, and they hold incredibly high stations."
Darius turned and strode toward the waiting Thunderhawk gunship. "Let's move. On to the next platform."
"We still have twenty-one more energy pillars to map."
Vance hurried to catch up, but before stepping onto the ramp, he cast one last glance back at the pillar of light piercing the clouds.
Shatter the hope of a xenos civilization?
He gripped his lasrifle tighter.
Then, in this grim, dark universe, who will bring new hope to humanity?
The great and holy Emperor, seated upon His Golden Throne, enforcing the Imperial Truth?
Or the Imperial Regent, Roboute Guilliman, who still stands guard over the Imperium after so many Primarchs vanished, died, or fell to Chaos...?
Or perhaps... the players who chose the Door of Dawn?
Vance didn't know. But since he was already fully immersed in this game and had thrown his lot in with the Imperial faction...
...he wouldn't abandon the salvation of the Imperium so easily. He would climb, step by step, to the very absolute peak of power.
And then, he would reshape the Imperium of Man with reason.
If the Loyalist players couldn't stop the inevitable tragedies from unfolding...
...then at the absolute least, he would become a man capable of guarding the Imperium of Man for ten thousand years in Guilliman's stead.
Or become The Imperium's Purest Inquisitor.