Chapter 474: Guilliman's Magnificent New Beginning
"Huron is an exceptional commander," Roboute Guilliman remarked within the strategium of the Gloriana-class battleship The Dawnlight.
"He simply requires proper application and management," Romulus replied.
In truth, Romulus possessed a high tolerance for the flaws and errors prevalent among the Imperial elite. He understood that, given the Imperium's catastrophic state and the "special" nature of the Dark Angels, many who erred were rarely granted a second chance or the guidance necessary for correction. This lack of a middle ground inevitably drove them to dangerous extremes.
"Then I find myself once again indebted to you," Guilliman said with a smile. Since his awakening, he realized he had smiled more than he had in the entire era following the Horus Heresy.
By now, the joint expeditionary force—comprised of thirteen Chapters under the aegis of the three First Founding Legions and a massive Imperial Navy contingent—had departed the borders of Ultramar. They were now less than ten thousand light-years from the Maelstrom.
"Incredible speed," Guilliman noted. He pushed aside a stack of processed data-slates and looked out the reinforced viewport.
He watched the patterns of the ship's internal support structures shifting in the artificial light, still marveled by the technology he was witnessing. It was hard to reconcile the Emperor's frantic, near-irrational pace during the Great Crusade with the pursuit of this level of FTL capability.
Having learned that the greatest wound inflicted upon the Imperium during the Heresy was effectively a psychic long-distance call from Magnus, Guilliman's view of his Father had undergone a radical shift.
The Emperor was insane. How was that any different from a gambler's final throw?
"If the Great Crusade was intended to secure this," Guilliman said, "then He was clearly far too impatient."
To put it bluntly, given the Imperium's state—which even in the Crusade era Guilliman would have called "abstract"—attempting such an engineering feat was a fool's errand. While Guilliman had been drafting a sequence of future reforms to elevate human society to a new height, the Emperor had been trying to jump straight to the finish line.
"In truth, even if He had finished it, there would have been a host of problems," Romulus added, sliding another document across the table.
The view beyond the viewport shifted. The white walls of the Webway gave way to the familiar, shifting darkness of the void. Guided by Eldar navigator-craft, the fleet re-entered realspace.
The Warp engines began to hum, drawing power. The Geller fields flickered to life, encasing the navigator-craft as they prepared to dive back into the Empyrean under the terrified yet expectant gazes of the Eldar.
The joint fleet required a short Warp-jump to reach another Webway aperture.
Since the Fall of the Eldar Empire, the Webway had become infested with monsters and anomalies. The density of Chaos and xenos threats within its arteries was no less than that of realspace. With the Eldar now integrated, the Imperium could utilize these high-speed thoroughfares, but fully reclaiming them would require a protracted "cleansing" campaign.
At least until the problems of the material universe were settled, the Imperium could not spare the manpower to pacify the Webway.
"True enough," Guilliman agreed, taking the document.
Following his brief rendezvous with Huron, the Thirteenth Primarch had remained within the strategium with the Dawnbreakers. He was absorbing the systemic knowledge they had compiled for him, familiarizing himself with the current state of the galaxy.
Guilliman's departure from Macragge had been decisive. Plans finalized, fleet launched, transit via the Webway to reinforce the Galactic Core—no hesitation, no delay.
The reconstruction of Greater Ultramar meant that, aside from the absence of a Primarch, the sector had largely returned to its state of ten millennia ago. Even after weathering the Plague Wars launched by the Death Guard, the losses were within manageable parameters.
Even the splinter fleets of Hive Fleet Kraken, attempting to scavenge in the wake of the war, were systematically crushed. They faced Chapters whose numbers now far exceeded the old Astartes limits—organized in multiples of thirteen—operating in perfect synchronization with the Imperial Navy.
Guilliman couldn't help but praise his scion in this era: Marneus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines.
In an age where most Ultramarines viewed the Codex as a sacred, immutable icon, Calgar had maintained the objective clarity of his ancestors. On one hand, he strictly controlled the parent Chapter's adherence to the Codex Astartes to ensure they retained the supreme right of interpretation and maintained their authority.
On the other hand, long before the Dawnbreakers appeared, he had been seeking ways to adapt the Codex to local conditions. He protected Successor Chapters that "bent" the rules for survival. After the return of the Dawnstar Lords, he cooperated fully—recalling fleet-based Chapters, permitting the expansion of Successors, and utilizing the Ultramarines' superior administrative talent to re-forge Greater Ultramar with Macragge as its heart.
This allowed Guilliman to reclaim his realm with seamless ease.
He didn't have to argue with tiers of bureaucrats, nor trek from planet to planet to restore order. Everything followed the contingency plans he had drafted ten thousand years ago. Guilliman only had to provide supplementary orders based on current data, transmitted through the new Astropathic system Ramesses had constructed. Within days, he held the reins of Greater Ultramar once more.
Even ten thousand years after the loss of their Primarch, the Ultramarines and their lineage still constituted 70% of the million Astartes in the galaxy.
It filled Guilliman with pride. Though the total numbers were a point of concern, seeing the diverse responses of the Chapters—such as the dual-leader system of the Argent Consuls or the Black Templar-esque crusade doctrine of the Nemesis Chapter—he realized that the adaptability he had always championed remained in their blood.
Despite the mountain of problems, the knowledge that he had brothers by his side and that the Imperium still possessed a "pulse" made him genuinely happy. He even took the citizens calling him the "Son of God" with a grain of salt, offering only verbal protest without real anger.
Of course, he had firmly vetoed the Ecclesiarchy's proposal to turn Calth into a "Holy Saint-Hive World" following Karna's victory.
He would never agree to such a thing. If he did, he could already imagine a certain fallen brother currently sulking in the Warp rushing to Macragge just to mock him.
"Can't be helped. Faith actually works in this hellscape," Ramesses said, leaning against a bulkhead while acting as a mobile vox-relay.
Tigurius, who had been squeezed until he was nearly translucent before Guilliman's awakening, was finally resting. Now that the "tall ones" were holding up the sky, the Astartes and mortals alike were finally granted a reprieve.
"But faith itself is a double-edged sword," Guilliman noted, flipping through Ramesses' Overview of the Nature of Warp Power (Introductory Course).
The text explained the essence of faith-based power and answered why the Emperor had opposed His own deification during the Crusade, yet permitted the Ecclesiarchy and manifested miracles now.
"Yeah. Aside from the Eldar gods and us, extreme faith can severely warp an individual's psyche. The Golden Geezer's internal mental war is exactly because of that. We're currently working on a fix," Ramesses explained. He found it quite easy to teach Warp theory to "Old Thirteen."
At least when faced with something he didn't understand, Guilliman wouldn't start improvising with his own "stunning wisdom."
"Hm," Guilliman nodded, reading the sections on Lesser Gods and Domains, focusing on the case studies of Corax, Karna, and the Laughing God.
"Is this our true foundation for the counter-offensive against the Empyrean?" he asked.
"It is," Ramesses confirmed. "If we want to actively harm daemons in the future, we must control Daemon Worlds within the Warp or invade the domains of the Dark Gods, as we did in the Plague Garden. In that process, entities defined by the Warp as 'Gods' create a massive advantage. At the very simplest level, it gives humanity its own 'Home Field.' Mortals won't be caught and tortured by daemons after death."
"Is Corax the template? How did he attain such power?" Guilliman asked about his brother's current state.
Ramesses didn't answer directly. He glanced over at Corax, who was crouching in a corner with Karna.
One was focused on eating; the other was focused on being depressed.
"I—" Corax began, noticing Ramesses' gaze. He hesitated, then spoke with a forced grit. "Father helped me see my true essence. It allowed me to harness the power I was born with."
"Enviable," Guilliman smiled, shrugging. Facing a Corax who seemed more introverted and traumatized than he had been ten millennia ago, Guilliman tried to lighten the mood. "I'm the unlucky one. Father seems to have forgotten to include that feature in my design."
"..."
Ramesses fell silent.
Through their brief interactions, he confirmed that Guilliman had some self-awareness, unlike Mortarion's self-deception.
But the man was a genuine psychic muggle.
His mindset was similar to the Emperor constantly elbowing Himself, shouting "I am not a God!" It looked like stubbornness, but it was a deep-seated conviction—a refusal to touch the power he was born with.
Fine, let him be.
Even if Guilliman "awakened," it would only add one more Lesser God to the roster. If he were driven mad by ten thousand years of accumulated faith and turned into a mindless engine of "Strategic Slaughter," it would be a disaster.
Ramesses decided not to push.
It was better this way. Unlike most Primarchs who bordered on being "giant toddlers," Guilliman had a mother and a father; he possessed a mature, realistic worldview. There was no need to shatter it yet. Let him learn the mechanics of the Warp to recognize the enemy; the Imperium wasn't in such dire straits yet that Guilliman needed to start reciting the Lectitio Divinitatus.
Guilliman smiled again. Ramesses' indifferent attitude gave him more hope for the future.
"But it's not everything," Ramesses added, pointing to Arthur, who was huddled with the Lion over a tactical hololith.
Arthur was the "Grand Insurance." If the other three failed, they relied on Master Art to pull them out.
The Lion lectured; Arthur learned.
Infinite Learning, indeed.
Guilliman realized he was still smiling.
The more he questioned the status quo, the more he affirmed it.
His brothers were devoid of that inexplicable arrogance—even the Lion.
None of them were going to part ways over individual flaws. They were on the same ship, charging toward the same enemies. The unified spearhead had punched through every blockade.
Clearly, the Dawnbreakers were actively practicing division of labor and maintaining the bonds of trust between Primarchs.
This was why seven Primarchs were moving with such fanfare to reinforce the Maelstrom. That roster was enough to fight another Rangdan Xenocide; clearing the Maelstrom was just a warmup.
Beyond the strategic value of the Maelstrom, the symbolic weight of seven Primarchs taking the field together was immense.
"We still have much to do."
"Naturally," Romulus said, his face radiant, showing no fear of the obstacles ahead.
Guilliman could sense that since his awakening, this brother—who shared his administrative role—was the happiest of them all.
"Currently, we have moved from passive defense to a stage of strategic stalemate. Our primary goal is to purge the enemies entrenched across the galaxy, maintain human rule, expand the influence of our direct-controlled territories, and further unify Imperial strength into military power."
Guilliman looked up in surprise.
He had thought his "Five Hundred Worlds" were ambitious. He hadn't expected Romulus to intend to use their direct territories as a pump to drain the resources of the entire galaxy.
"Where does that leave the authority of Terra?"
"Terra can wait in the corner," Romulus waved a hand.
In the past, the Tithe was useful—it funded the Golden Throne and the Great Crusade. Now, rather than letting the Tithe rot in warehouse-worlds, it was better utilized by them.
The Dawnbreakers weren't aiming to just kill a fallen Primarch and call it a day. With Guilliman awake alongside him, Romulus knew the material world could usher in exponential growth.
The Dawnbreakers had a clear roadmap for the future:
Retrieve the Primarchs: Especially those with clear trails like the Wolf King and the Khan. While they didn't expect those two to be great statesmen, they were essential additions to humanity's Warp-tier arsenal.
Expand Material Military Might: Respond to the escalating Ork Waaaghs!, Tyranid invasions, and Chaos incursions. Protect the growth of the Five Great Special Zones.
Develop New FTL Technology: This included the Wormhole Project, the Webway Project, and the Navigation through Lesser God Domains. Enhance humanity's strategic mobility.
The distant goals were even loftier. The Dawnbreakers' ultimate objective wasn't just to let humanity struggle a bit better than before.
It was to let Humanity enter the Great Game as a player.
Clear. Transparent.
While many details required Guilliman's logistical touch, the roadmap allowed the leaders to know exactly what they were doing.
That was the most important thing.
Problems were not the issue; the issue was the executor not knowing the objective.
Guilliman felt a surge of confidence in this plan and quickly found his place within it.
"I have much to learn from you," Romulus offered with sincere respect.
In truth, he couldn't imagine himself so eagerly taking on such a massive burden or using every available asset to motivate himself. His past actions were born of a deep distrust of the traditional Imperial "powerhouses"—an expedient measure of necessity.
"I am always available," Guilliman replied, his gratitude obvious.
He truly couldn't imagine sharing his power so openly, even with his own brothers. Making the Lion and the others part of Imperium Secundus back then had felt like a desperate compromise forced by circumstance.
In a brief window of time, the group completed the planning and simulations for the Maelstrom War, along with a thousand other tasks, before parting to return to their personal quarters.
However, even though they had simulated the war's progression and the handover of authority had been seamless thanks to Romulus...
Guilliman did not relax.
In his personal sanctum, he bent over a desk, writing with intense focus.
Ever since learning of the catastrophic implementation of the Codex Astartes and the bloated corruption of the High Lord system—knowing how much his brothers had suffered because of his legacy and the nightmare they stepped into—he had been seeking to correct the error.
He was familiarizing himself with the state of the Imperium, preparing to draft his next world-shaking work to follow the Codex Astartes.
The Codex Imperialis.
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