Chapter 159: From Afar, the Imperial Double-Headed Eagle; Up Close, Kairos (Patreon)

So Heydrich didn't mind gathering up scattered Imperium forces, or Chapters whose founding fathers nobody could name.

Thanks to the Mechanicus's chaotic record-keeping, nobody even knew how many loyalists descended from the rebel Legions there actually were. Once Guilliman returned to Holy Terra and launched his sweeping founding of new Chapters, things would get truly absurd.

Belisarius Cawl, for one, had casually cooked up the Sons of the Phoenix Chapter, the Covenant of Fire Chapter, and the like.

It had reached the point where even Guilliman had given up caring, so there was no use agonizing over it.

Take the Blood Ravens, who looked like a blend of the Luna Wolves and the Thousand Sons. Their gene-seed wasn't actually mixed. They simply carried two complete lineages, and so drew the attention of both Abaddon the Despoiler and Ahriman.

Of course, now that they'd thrown in with Heydrich, there was nothing to worry about. Abaddon or Ahriman, neither amounted to much in front of him.

If Ahriman ever dared show his face again, Heydrich would wipe him out. The bastard was just slippery and hard to catch.

…

Meanwhile, as Heydrich pondered all this, war broke out elsewhere.

As Guilliman headed back to Holy Terra, the Red Corsairs, egged on by Tzeentch's chief Greater Daemon Kairos, flew the Blackstone Fortress straight into his path.

In the original timeline, Kairos had successfully captured Guilliman. It wasn't that Guilliman hadn't brought enough men. The real problem was that the oaf embarrassed himself. Once Kairos caught him with Warp sorcery, he forced the entire fleet to surrender.

Guilliman had the same old problem. It was as if he'd been slammed into a wall by Kor Phaeron, one of Lorgar's foster fathers and one of those two great brutes.

Kairos pulled off a whole routine too. It did no damage, but it left Guilliman pinned.

Honestly, Magnus botched his own plan when he fought Guilliman. Had he aimed to capture Guilliman instead of kill him, Guilliman would probably have suffered badly. But who knew the idiot would go straight for the kill? He opened with the ultimate attack he'd prepared for ages, and all it did was give your Uncle Guilliman a nice cupping session.

You can't say Magnus is no match for Kairos, but judging by results, it's absolutely hilarious.

Kairos capturing Guilliman was actually quite an achievement. A chief Greater Daemon's combat power is easily on par with an average Primarch, provided these things bring their brains along.

But that was the original history. This time, the situation was completely different.

Last time Kairos had taken Guilliman easily, and he'd done it personally. This time he'd brought a full eight Lords of Change.

He also had an elite Thousand Sons warband, so he figured the advantage was his.

But very soon…

"Hm?"

Kairos was a little startled to find that the future he could see was flickering.

Meanwhile, aboard Macragge's Honour, the Harlequin at Guilliman's side also felt his brow twitch.

He'd sensed that Tzeentch's chief Greater Daemon Kairos had appeared. The fellow might not be strong in a head-on fight, but paired with Warp sorcery and his scheming, he was still a hard nut to crack. Then again, Tzeentch's faction always had a slip somewhere.

Take the Chaos sorcerer in Space Marine 2. Every plan went off without a hitch, but the final step failed. His raw strength fell short, and he got blown apart head-on.

So the Harlequin, sensing that some immensely powerful force might be here, acted at once. Now that they'd left the Warp, the tavern was usable again.

Once inside the Warp, the tavern was out of reach, even in the webway. But once in the physical universe, there was almost no way to block it. After all, the Star Rail could be contaminated by things like the Stellaron, but the tavern was unaffected.

It was like on Jarilo-VI, where the moment the train stepped outside, they ran into Sampo posing as a Masked Fool.

This Harlequin now counted as one of Heydrich's followers, after all, and some of his habits had rubbed off. Namely, calling for backup.

Forget the schemes and plots. Just roll right over them head-on. And he happened to know exactly who could do the rolling, so he soon vanished from Macragge's Honour.

Guilliman himself watched it all calmly. He had no intention of stopping him.

"Everyone, prepare. This time the enemy is Tzeentch's chief Greater Daemon, Kairos."

Guilliman looked toward the army that had been waiting in the distance, and then the enormous Terran expedition fleet slowly drew closer.

"Cato Sicarius, take the Victrix Guard and prepare to board with me."

Guilliman's face was grim as he studied the massive Blackstone Fortress ahead. He knew of one that had blown open the Great Rift at Cadia, tearing across the entire galaxy.

But that environment had been special, and the Dark Gods had been secretly pushing things along. That was why it had such terrifying power. An ordinary Blackstone Fortress was nowhere near that fearsome.

Guilliman also knew something else: Dragon Emperor had never gotten over the space Necron Blackstone Fortresses. Now that there was one right in front of them, Guilliman meant to seize it.

As a creation and legacy of the Old Ones, probably only humanity's own ancient one could truly unleash its power.

"Father, isn't this a bit… not great?"

Watching Guilliman ready to board at the drop of a hat, Cato Sicarius shuddered for no reason at all.

"It's fine. The Harlequin has gone to notify Dragon Emperor. If he arrives, there won't be much of a problem."

Beside them, the Imperium's Living Saint Celestine spoke up. Heydrich had kicked her over here because she was turning into a social shut-in. She pointed out that Guilliman had no psychic power, so his ceiling couldn't be very high, but that other person was a different story.

She had mooched off Irena for so long, shamelessly, that she knew a bit about what he could do.

As for talk of psychic muggles and the like, she'd already treated it as hot air. With someone guaranteeing the floor, what was there to agonize over? Just fight. Besides, the army they'd brought out this time really was sizable.

Unlike the amateur outfit of the original timeline, this force had the Grey Knights, plus a large number of troops Heydrich had kindly lent them, and a whole pile of other peculiar things.

Only…

"That's Abaddon's Blackstone Fortress, but why is there an Imperial Aquila on it?"

Just then, a battle-brother who served as Heydrich's representative pointed at the Blackstone Fortress in some confusion. He seemed to see an Imperial Aquila up there.

"…"

Hearing this, Guilliman wore the look of a man badly constipated. Then he handed over a high-powered telescope, and the battle-brother raised it to his eye.

"That's not an Imperial Aquila. That's Tzeentch's chief Greater Daemon, Fateweaver Kairos."

Guilliman was used to Heydrich's people by now. The only explanation was that Cathay's Dragon Emperor sheltered his subjects far too well. Few of them were rich, and almost none could rival the Imperium's nobles.

Their ceiling couldn't compete with those decadent nobles, but Heydrich had padded their floor beautifully. Guilliman had never once seen a starving child among them, let alone the muddle of lunatic cults and endless wars.

In Guilliman's eyes, life in the Cathay Empire was what humanity ought to have, not the Imperium before him. The price was that Heydrich's people had a certain charm of natural airheadedness and goofy silliness.

Of course, anyone who took them for fools was the real fool. When these people got serious, even Guilliman felt a little uneasy watching.

So he said nothing about this man mistaking Kairos for the Imperial Aquila. Had anyone else made that mistake, it would have meant a flogging at the very least.

"No wonder the great Dragon Emperor always says: from afar, the Imperial Aquila; up close, Fateweaver Kairos."

The battle-brother stared at Kairos standing atop the Blackstone Fortress and muttered, speechless.

"Prepare to move out."

Guilliman led his Victrix Guard straight at the Blackstone Fortress, and everyone fell into Boarding Action formation.

…

Meanwhile, on the Netherworld Star, the war was now completely over.

At least the main forces no longer needed to act together, and Heydrich had begun sorting out his spoils. But he had one problem.

"Look, these are yours from now on."

Heydrich regarded Titus and Leandros, who looked so thoroughly weary of life they might drop to their knees. Before them stood a dense, teeming Tyranid swarm.

The lowest grade were Tyranid Warriors, but there were also Tyranid Carnifexes, Lictors and the like, and even three Hive Tyrants.

Heydrich only had eyes for the few Norn Emissaries. The rest were nothing special to him. Besides, he'd poured most of Destruction's energy into dealing with the warships in the sky, so he'd barely lifted a finger against the ground units.

Which meant this entire swarm was now Ultra-Tyranids, and the sight left Titus numb.

"My lord, please rein in your divine powers! Any more of this and we might get an Exterminatus!!!"

At that moment a mortal threw his arms around Heydrich's leg and wept. He wasn't a Space Marine but Macragge's chancellor, effectively the Ultramarines' head steward. His family descended directly from King Konor, ten thousand years ago, which in a sense made it Guilliman's maternal family.

Even Calgar was constantly called away on campaigns, so to keep Macragge running smoothly, this post was the real power behind the throne. As for how the other Space Marine reacted when they saw him…

His family had produced the most Ultramarines, and many had fallen on Calth ten thousand years ago.

But this young man, newly installed, took one look at the scene before him and felt his heart stop. He no longer cared about his dignity.

Anyway, Heydrich was of the same generation as the Emperor, and Malcador was a snot-nosed brat before him, so there was no shame in it.

"Try to look on the bright side. Remember the Lord of Plague's Stars of Calamity? We need every hand we can get right now, and this is a very powerful fresh force."

Heydrich pulled him to his feet and patted him on the shoulder.

Roar!!!

Just then, low growls rumbled beside the chancellor's ears. Several Norn Emissaries that Heydrich had juiced up—sorry, converted—stepped forward, hoisted the man by the back of his collar and carried him off.

Facing those things, even Titus felt a tremor run through his soul. It was the instinct of a veteran of a hundred years. If he fought one, he would almost certainly die.

A Norn Emissary's combat power could cut through an entire Custodes squad, and it had taken a collision with Trajann to bring one down. These were basically enhanced versions. Because of transport limits, Heydrich didn't chase numbers, but he demanded the highest quality.

Take the auxiliary army now being withdrawn. Their numbers had always been limited.

Of course, his forces still fell far short of humanity's military might in the Dark Age of Technology. Ordinary humans hardly ever went to war in that era.

When battle came, warships carried vast numbers of Men of Iron to the target, dropped them in a flood and simply rolled over the enemy.

Men of Iron were only cannon fodder, after all. The real main force was the Annihilation Relic-Machines. The Great Crusade had run into them. If a few hadn't run out of power, Konrad Curze would have been in serious trouble.

Though he was one of the weakest Primarchs in a head-on fight, he was still a Primarch. The security robots that nearly wiped out Vulkan were stronger than ordinary Men of Iron, but still far short of the Annihilation Relic-Machines.

It wasn't that Heydrich lacked the technology now. It was like with blackstone: he simply couldn't find the materials.

After tens of thousands of years of humanity's frantic mining, the base materials for these machines had become far too hard to find.

Since Men of Iron couldn't be built at scale, he needed soldiers.

"Your mission from here on is simple. Go to this region and watch for the plague army's movements. I've already had them guided toward T'au territory, but be careful anyway."

After sending Macragge's head steward on his way, Heydrich pulled out the star chart.

Over these past dozen or so years, he and Guilliman had joined forces to wipe out every last Tyranid force remaining in the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar. What remained now were the Plague Wars.

Heydrich had had a defensive line built. Whenever Typhus's and Mortarion's armies slammed into it and got bloodied, they instinctively swung around to hunt for another way through.

That steered them toward the T'au Empire, so for the moment the threat to Ultramar was limited.

From what Heydrich had learned, Mortarion seemed to be pinning the T'au Empire's hero to the ground and grinding him into it.

"Hm?"

Just then, Heydrich's brow twitched. The Harlequin who had been with Guilliman had come rushing to find him in a frantic hurry.