Chapter 111: Immortal Path (Patreon)

"We shall conquer our audience with a magnificent performance! Our performance will never disappoint you, Ora!!!"

Amid rolls of stirring drumbeats, the Flower Sprouts seemed touched by some blessing. One after another they turned fervent, as if drugged, ready to declare to the people of this universe what immortality truly meant, and what the Dragon Emperor truly was!!!

Meanwhile, deep within the Warp, an azure-blue figure flashed past.

"Hahaha, good, very good. Tremble, humans — this very moment marks the beginning of your fracture!!!"

Ahriman let out peal after peal of sinister laughter, then turned and walked away.

I'm not done yet — this isn't enough. I need to find that person's family, that person's bloodline. Only then can I unleash the curse upon it.

Amid flickers of light, Ahriman resumed his work.

Time slipped by slowly. Heydrich, meanwhile, stayed extremely busy — as the days passed, more and more matters piled up in his hands.

Between steadily expanding his forces, recruiting more Astartes, and building an entirely new forge world, there was plenty to keep him occupied — even with a complete set of STC templates already in hand.

But STC templates mainly covered production lines, and production lines were only one part of the picture. He still needed living quarters — though of course, Heydrich could always take the beastly, corner-cutting approach if he wanted.

If this were a standard Imperium forge world, cost wouldn't even be an issue — after all, the core of an Imperium forge world was nothing but those production lines.

As for the workforce, they were all just servitors-in-waiting on the assembly line. Feed them a bit of water, food, air — whatever kept them from starving — and that was enough.

Some forge worlds even deliberately saddled their workers with debts they could never hope to repay, giving themselves a perfectly legitimate excuse to convert a portion of them into permanent servitors.

Even Heydrich had to admit it — servitors really were useful things. Thanks to the Imperium's borderline-nonsensical technology, a servitor could run for an entire year on the energy equivalent of a few steamed buns.

Which said quite a lot about how little the Imperium actually spent on ordinary supplies day to day.

But Heydrich would never allow that sort of thing. Which meant he was staring down a genuinely massive supply shortfall.

Fortunately, thanks to the Harlequins' movements, the number of worlds Heydrich's tavern could connect to kept growing.

Dozens of worlds, large and small, now dotted the entire galaxy — giving Heydrich plenty of room to maneuver.

That bought him some real breathing room, enough at least to get the forge world up and running. Even the first production line had started operating.

"How's the second wave of immigration coming along? All three of my planets need a lot more people right now."

Heydrich still would have preferred to grow things slowly, but that clearly wasn't realistic anymore. The population gap was simply too large, so he had to keep shipping people in.

Imperium Nihilus especially was in dire shape. The patrol force Heydrich kept stationed there included a full company of Astartes.

Of course, those were troops he'd raised after his later expansion, then sent back through the tavern.

"The population base has reached five hundred million. Forge World No. 1 has finished basic setup, with a hundred million people so far. The Garden World has another hundred million. Almost everyone else is still inside the ecosystem-Ark. Astartes numbers have grown to three thousand," Pearl said, flipping through the documents in her hands.

"The numbers are still a bit thin. Try to gather more people before I head to Baal in Imperium Nihilus. We can't let the bugs get their hands on Sanguinius's flesh and blood — that would be a disaster for us."

By now Heydrich had started turning his thoughts toward Imperium Nihilus. Everyone called Imperium Nihilus a wasteland of suffering, but the truly major events still tended to unfold in the Imperium's holy domain — the notorious Plague Wars, the chaos at Vigilus, and now the newly erupted Armageddon War.

But if those bugs ever actually got their hands on Sanguinius's flesh and blood, it really would be a catastrophe.

After all, a single Norn Emissary was already enough to one-shot an ordinary Custodes. Who knew what kind of new high-tier Tyranid unit something like that could spawn.

"Oh, right — let Guilliman know too. I want to borrow that Titus of his. The man's practically on his way to becoming a Watch Master of the Deathwatch."

After thinking it over, Heydrich still decided he wanted Titus brought in — the man's combat experience was simply too rich, and his strength more than sufficient. If Heydrich's memory served, the last bit of new lore he'd caught before crossing over had mentioned that this Titus once led a squad of Space Marines to kill a Norn Emissary.

Just hearing that sounded almost unbelievable. Forget a Norn Emissary — a single Hive Tyrant had nearly reduced Calgar to a limbless torso.

Heydrich had no idea how this absolute unit of a Titus had pulled it off, but as someone doubly blessed by fortune — or, more truthfully, a genuine golden child of GW itself — Heydrich figured bringing him along would do far more good than harm.

Besides, Guilliman probably wouldn't refuse — or rather, he had no real room to refuse at all.

After all, over these past few years Heydrich had churned out at least ten thousand-odd Space Marines for him. And that wasn't even counting the mountains of vehicles, weapons, and power armor that came with them — including a full thousand suits of Terminator armor and ten sets of Centurion armor.

Even for the notoriously well-off Ultramarines, that kind of wealth was nothing to sneeze at.

"Mm." Pearl nodded at Heydrich's words. She'd been handling most of the back-and-forth communication lately, and mobilizing a squad of Tyranid-war veterans wasn't exactly a tall order.

"Never mind, I'll just go in person. No telling where the Lion's gotten off to these days — counting on him would take too long."

After a moment's thought, Heydrich decided to go find Guilliman himself. It really was simple enough — just one line about his brother's flesh and blood being chewed up by bugs would be more than enough to shatter Guilliman's composure.

"Hm?"

But just then, Heydrich froze for a moment. His expression turned deeply strange — because a new Path had just unlocked in his hands.

It was, unmistakably…

Immortality.

"What the hell is the Path of Immortality? That's a Path only those dragons can walk. It's a Path ordinary people can never tread — and on top of that, it's broken, incomplete."

Staring slack-jawed at his own Path, Heydrich scratched his head.

None of this made any sense. When had he even unlocked this Path? And what exactly was its driving force supposed to be? If his memory wasn't off, this Path — just like the Path of Voracity — was incomplete.

"What in the hell…"