Chapter 470: I Have Violated the Codex Astartes
To witness the Lord of Ultramar at work was nothing short of a sublime experience.
Roboute Guilliman paced through the vaulted corridors of the Fortress of Hera, his heavy auramite-and-adamantium plate ringing against the polished marble floor. The sound echoed through the labyrinthine intersections of the citadel, a rhythmic reminder of the Regent's return.
The thunderous cheers of the masses had finally subsided. Below, in the Roman-inspired residential districts of Macragge, the lumen-strips flickered to life in long, glowing ribbons. Citizens returned to their hearths, breaking bread and resting, their minds finally free to dream of a future that felt tangible and close.
Drakus strode at his side, followed by the silent, towering ranks of the Victrix Guard. Their gold-and-azure plate shimmered in the flickering torchlight as they observed the constant stream of Chapter representatives, High Lords' emissaries, and abhuman dignitaries seeking an audience with the Gene-father.
In the brief time since the victory celebration—an event destined to be etched into the records of the sub-sector for eternity—Roboute Guilliman had completed over a thousand tasks.
He consulted with the Prefects on the current state of the realm; he cross-examined Imperial officials from every tier of the bureaucracy; he analyzed the strategic deployment of the fleets and ground assets defending Ultramar; he even provided logistical refinements for the expansion of the 'Way of Triumph' leading into the city core. He held council with battle-brothers from a dozen disparate Chapters, assessing their individual temperaments with the eye of a master strategist. He spoke at length with the Eldar emissaries, meticulously deconstructing the terms of the trade agreement founded upon his resurrection.
Throughout days of grueling discourse, Guilliman operated with the peerless grace of a high-tier statesman. He put every petitioner at ease, drawing out critical intelligence through seemingly casual remarks while maintaining an absolute mask over his own reactions to the data he gathered.
Only those who knew him best—the veterans of the Legion—truly understood the scope of his brilliance. This leader could perceive the minute details of the palace and the entire planet simultaneously. Fed by the reports of his retainers, he could reconstruct a hyper-realistic map of the galaxy in his mind, projecting events light-years beyond the reach of his throne.
It was a miracle of cognition.
The familiar aura of his command infected the old soldiers. They found themselves standing straighter, adjusting their posture to perfectly frame their Gene-father, just as they had ten millennia ago.
In this shattered galaxy, only one other individual possessed the capacity to coordinate affairs on such a scale—and that man had led them during the long wait for the Regent's awakening.
Aeonid Thiel, standing vigil at his father's side with sword in hand, felt a surge of pride. He could not lie to himself: this was the moment he had dreamed of for ten thousand years.
Perhaps there were one or two others who could stand as equals to the Lord of Ultramar.
Thiel's mind flickered to other figures.
One, perhaps two... maybe three. And they stood now, just behind the Lord of Ultramar, observing his work as they waited for him to adapt to the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium.
To be blunt, the four Lords of the Dawnstar—the Dawnbreakers—offered a sense of security far more profound than even the Lion.
The grand military parade they had orchestrated was not a display of dominance or a veiled political threat; it was a simple, magnificent gift for a fellow administrator returning to the material plane.
They had allowed the Lord of Ultramar to reclaim his authority without protest, handing back the sectors and sub-kingdoms they had spent decades reforging with their own hands.
Thiel glanced up at the sky. Several Gloriana-class battleships remained in orbit over Macragge, resupplying and awaiting the next signal to sail.
He remembered the tension after the Battle of Calth, the wariness with which they had met the Lion, and the cold hostility the Lion had returned in kind.
Of course, that suspicion hadn't been misplaced.
Thinking of the farce involving Konrad Curze brought by the Lion, Thiel lowered his head slightly. He felt a pang of sorrow for the brothers lost to the Night Haunter's madness, but also a sense of grim irony at the absurdity of it all.
The petitioners came and went.
They arrived with hearts full of reverence and departed with exactly what they needed.
Guilliman's face remained a mask of approachable nobility.
Only his silent guard could feel the subtle shift in their Gene-father's mood.
"My Lord."
When the final scion knelt before him, Guilliman looked at the familiar face and felt a wave of profound sadness.
He tried not to show favoritism, but before this man, he could not maintain his stoic distance.
Servius, the first Chapter Master of the Obsidian Blades and former dueling champion of the Ultramarines. He was an ancient soul forgotten in the corners of the Imperium, a veteran who had truly lived through every one of the ten thousand years since the Heresy.
Thanks to the proliferation of the Belisarius medical protocols, Dreadnoughts were now largely symbolic relics, their hulls piloted by Tech-marines and Librarians retrained under the Dawnstar doctrine.
But this Champion remained in the flesh, as mighty and stalwart as he had been ten millennia past, his frame even more massive than before.
"Servius," Guilliman whispered.
He silently thanked his brothers for the Dawnstar Crusade. They had revitalized the stagnant waters of the Ultima Segmentum, forcibly reunited the Ultramarines Successors into a cohesive whole, and implemented the Primaris conversion long before his awakening.
He had entrusted Belisarius Cawl with two tasks before his fall. Initially, upon learning ten thousand years had passed, he thought Cawl had arrived far too late. Now, he realized it was perhaps the perfect timing.
The Codex Astartes, the Ecclesiarchy, the High Lords, Chaos, the Tyranids, the Orks...
The endless wars that had eroded Imperial authority, the riots that had dismantled the administration, a rulebook followed blindly for ten millennia, the xenos rampaging across the void, and the unsettling way his modern sons and the common people looked at him as if he were a living god.
Guilliman had so much he wanted to say, but he swallowed the words.
He would not burden his sons with his own despair.
He had brothers now.
Yes, he had multiple brothers by his side. They could speak freely. They had endured worse horrors while he slept. They had never participated in the Great Crusade and bore no responsibility for the state of the Imperium; perhaps they understood his inner turmoil better than anyone.
At the thought of someone being more miserable than himself, Guilliman shook off his dark musings and focused.
"What is your assessment of the current Imperium?" he asked his time-tested son.
"My Lord," Servius began, "I know you harbor deep dissatisfaction with the state of the realm. The mindset of many citizens is antithetical to everything you once sought to achieve. But I hope you understand—the return of the Primarchs began only a hundred years ago. To a Primarch, the time since the War of the Beast is but a moment; to a mortal, it is hundreds of generations."
No one understood this shift better than Servius.
Since the Great Betrayal, they had all been forced to bleed for a broken dream.
Their enemies had changed fundamentally. Their bodies were stronger, their minds more fanatical, thirsting for the "gifts" of the Warp that should have been shunned as venom.
The Loyalists could not afford to remain stagnant.
They could no longer lecture on Unity or the Imperial Truth. They could no longer claim to be the liberators of human civilization, for loyalty to those old virtues had become a logistical impossibility.
Humanity could only pray to the Emperor-turned-God for a sliver of a chance to survive another day.
"And the Imperial Truth..." Servius paused.
Anyone who had witnessed the majesty of the Burning Angel, or the Legion of the Damned summoned through the sacrifice of daemons under Ramesses' tutelage, could no longer cling to a purely secular reality.
"I understand," Guilliman said.
He did not scold his son for this perceived "weakness," nor for choosing a path so divergent from the Great Crusade's ideals.
No—
Perhaps it wasn't a bad path.
He thought of his conversation with Tigurius, the Chief Librarian who carried the Staff of Malcador. Although the Dawnbreakers promoted faith, their deconstruction of Warp power was increasingly scientific.
Many believed in the icons, yet they were not blind zealots. Those who wielded the power of the Empyrean possessed a logically consistent understanding of it, allowing them to channel the "Light of the Emperor" with near-perfect reliability through their fanatical conviction.
If Chaos, feudal superstition, and a perpetual internal war of the mind can be called 'logically consistent', Guilliman thought, then I am at a loss for words.
At the very least, after reviewing the current Ultramarines military structure, he could no longer look at the灵能 (psyker) Titans and Primaris Dreadnoughts the same way.
The changes brought by his "strange" brothers were numerous.
Divergent thinking again, Guilliman noted. The Lion's old criticism of his wandering mind was still accurate.
It was time to conclude this.
Thinking of his brothers waiting patiently, he turned to Servius with solemn purpose.
"Servius."
"My Lord." The Dueling Champion dropped to one knee instantly.
"I appoint you Commander of my Victrix Guard. You shall be my right hand, leading Cerantes and his honored brothers. You shall wield your blade in my name, and I shall rely on the wisdom you have gathered over these ten thousand years."
Guilliman gripped the Sword of the Primarch with both hands. The Sword of the Emperor now belonged to Karna—a fact witnessed by millions. Though he felt a flicker of envy at the Emperor's choice, he offered Karna his sincere blessing.
"As you command, My Lord!" Servius bowed his head, accepting the honor.
For a veteran who had held the line for ten millennia, it was a well-earned reward.
He was fortunate; he served Roboute Guilliman. He would not be like Bjorn the Fell-Handed, who sat in the Obscurus Segmentum fighting Orks and Chaos while trying to "earn" his Chapter's expansion through his own sheer grit.
"Aeonid Thiel," Guilliman added.
The red-helmed sergeant snapped to attention, chest out.
"I appoint you Chief of my War Council. You shall be my left hand, drafting my strategies. I shall rely on your constant, sharp ingenuity."
"I accept the charge, My Lord." Thiel knelt beside his brother.
The eyes of every scion present were fixed on their Gene-father.
To look upon these familiar faces after ten thousand years brought Guilliman a comfort no words could match. It soothed the ache in his soul.
He skipped over Drakus and his existing Victrix Guard.
That man required no further titles.
With the appointments made, Guilliman strode quickly away.
"It seems they will get along well," Drakus remarked, showing no disappointment at being passed over. He looked relieved.
The surrounding Victrix Guard relaxed their stances. At least for now, they didn't have to choose between two "fathers."
"Of course they will," Thiel agreed, watching Guilliman's retreating back.
"I really want to be in that room," Thiel added.
Unlike Drakus and the other "serious" types who had heard too many Primarch jokes, Thiel had never worried about politics. He was already imagining the look on Lord Guilliman's face when he realized his new brothers were ready to tear his logic apart.
His mind was always active.
You don't survive the Great Crusade by being 'normal', he thought. He was the man who suggested the Ultramarines should learn to fight other Legions just in case.
Drakus shook his head at Thiel's mischief and departed with Servius to begin the briefing.
"Chief of the War Council, eh? You're in for a long night, brother."
Creak...
The afternoon sun poured through the gaps in the tall windows as Guilliman pushed open the heavy doors.
A Roman-style long table, carved from solid stone, dominated the room.
Around it were twenty-four chairs, each unique in design and scaled for a Primarch's frame.
A purple carpet ran the length of the table. Behind the chairs hung the banners of twenty-one Legions. Eleven remained uncolored; the rest belonged to the ten Chapters that now functioned as Legions.
This was the hall Guilliman had prepared for his brothers ten thousand years ago.
He had spent countless hours staring at this table, dreaming of the Great Crusade's victory, sketching a bright future with hope. But no guests had ever come—only the battle-worn Lion had ever stood here with him, amidst a sequence of disasters.
Now, it looked exactly as it did in the dreams he had considered dead.
The Primarchs were seated. Some had abandoned protocol, dragging their chairs together to talk. The table was laden with delicacies, left for the brothers to sample at their leisure.
He looked at the four members of the Dawnbreakers. Their eyes met his, and he offered a solemn nod of acknowledgment.
Guilliman knew their stories now.
Each possessed a unique, surprisingly "sane" temperament. Each felt instinctively familiar.
He could find no unacceptable flaws in them, unlike Lorgar, the Lion, or Angron.
His gaze swept the room: the wise Romulus, the serene Arthur, the sun-bright Karna. Finally, his eyes moved past Ramesses—who was currently trying to force a "socialization training" session on a very uncomfortable Corax.
He looked at the Lion, the Guardian of Greater Ultramar.
"..."
This man... this man had "wholesaled" twenty-six Exterminatus orders across his Ultramar.
But the awakened Guilliman had filtered the facts. He had cast aside his old biases. Though hard to believe, the Lion had become a true protector.
He acknowledged each brother with a look, taking a deep breath, trying to imprint this moment into his memory.
The lively atmosphere, the brotherly chatter, the peaceful exchange... it was something Guilliman had never dared to hope for.
During the Great Crusade, he hadn't been the most popular among his brothers.
And it wasn't just because he had a mother figure—though that was a frequent point of jest.
He smiled and stepped forward, intending to offer his host's gratitude.
"Old Thirteen," Romulus said, breaking the silence.
Romulus was, for once, not reviewing a document.
His seat was directly beside Guilliman's, allowing him to easily slide a file onto the table before the Regent.
Guilliman swallowed his prepared speech.
"I must apologize to you," Romulus said.
"There is no need," Guilliman said, waving a hand dismissively. To have such a leader step in and reunite the Ultramarines after his fall was a blessing. Moreover, Romulus had shown zero attachment to power, handing back the reunited realm without hesitation.
And honestly—
The idea of a "Two Emperors" diarchy didn't bother Guilliman as much as it should have.
"You speak too harshly, my brother. What fault could you possibly have committed?"
A smile, one that could only be described as "relieved," touched Romulus's lips.
"I violated the Codex Astartes," Romulus said. "I've been secretly expanding the army the whole time."
Guilliman's face went flat.
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