Chapter 476: Your Planning is Impeccable, But Now I Shall Introduce Hallowed Numerology
"You said it yourself, brother."
Seeing that Arthur had already dug the pit, Romulus did not hesitate. He gestured for Drakus and Thiel to approach.
Under the witness of the gathered transhuman elite, he took up a stylus and pressed his hand upon Guilliman's original manuscript. He began to write, adding a heavy addendum to the very first page.
Guilliman leaned over the table, watching the ink flow. He was curious to see what "clarification" his brother intended to impose upon his life's work.
[Following a plenary session of the Primarchs, and by the consensus of Romulus, Regent of the Dawnstar, and Roboute Guilliman, the Dawnbreakers shall participate in the drafting of the Codex Imperialis. We recognize and uphold the authority of the Codex Imperialis as authored by Roboute Guilliman. However, in all circumstances, Roboute Guilliman must guarantee that the 'Updating and Iteration' of the Codex remains his absolute highest priority—]
[Any member of the Ultramarines lineage, and indeed any Imperial officer, has the duty to forcibly compel the Primarch to fulfill this administrative obligation in extreme circumstances.]
As Romulus finished the script, a collective sigh of relief swept through the room. Thiel and Drakus looked as if a crushing weight had been lifted from their pauldrons.
"I offer my highest commendation to this amendment," Drakus said immediately.
He now served Romulus; he had zero psychological burden in supporting a move that would keep his "old" father pinned to a desk and away from suicidal duels.
"Agreed!" Thiel added instantly. Having witnessed the disaster where the entire Victrix Guard failed to stop Guilliman from jumping onto the Pride of the Emperor to fight Fulgrim, he viewed this "administrative detention" as a military necessity.
With the Dawnbreakers fielding so many high-tier combatants—Karna alone could likely solo most of the Traitor Primarchs except Horus—there was simply no logical reason for Guilliman to ever see the front lines again.
Only Servius, Guilliman's ancient chamberlain, remained silent. He simply looked at Guilliman with a pair of large, pleading eyes.
Just how much trauma did I inflict on you all with the Codex Astartes? Guilliman thought, caught between laughter and a headache.
Fine. He had lost to Fulgrim while wielding the Emperor's Sword. It was a failure of the highest order. He knew he could not repeat that mistake. He could not allow personal vendettas to turn him into a "trapped insect" while the galaxy burned.
As a Primarch, he understood that their will decided the fate of more than just Ultramar. He would not allow his vision to be narrowed by the bitterness of the past.
"Old Thirteen, promise us one thing, alright? In the face of a crisis, do not lose your head! No 'suicide charges.' As long as you don't go running off to get beheaded or captured, we can handle the rest."
Ramesses entered the room, carrying a stack of specialized files from other Segmentums.
Information on the specialized corps—the Grey Knights, the Vindicare, the Silent Sisterhood—had to be mastered. Guilliman didn't have to be "unconventional" like the Lion, but he had to be informed.
Guilliman's face went flat. The last traces of his post-resurrection excitement evaporated.
I see how it is. My own brothers think I'm a combat liability. They're afraid I'll get knocked out again.
Do you all truly see me as the type of man who just rushes in to die?
And why is the assumption always that I will lose? Can I not be assumed to achieve a sweeping victory over a fallen brother?
Every eye in the room turned toward him in a silent, collective answer: 'The Practical says... probably not.'
Ramesses wouldn't joke about the casualties of Calth or the Shadow Crusade, but honestly, while the Regent's 2-on-1 performance on Nuceria was legendary, his history of solo duels was... a mess.
In fact, Lorgar had essentially been Guilliman's savior back then. When Angron had Guilliman pinned, Lorgar's sorcery had triggered at the exact moment needed to complete Angron's ascension to a Daemon Prince, forcing the Red Angel to stop the killing blow. It was a bizarre twist of fate that allowed the Ultramarines to retrieve their broken Sire.
"I... agree," Guilliman replied awkwardly, yielding to the weight of historical data.
"Excellent." Romulus patted him on the shoulder, then began sorting through the files by their index numbers.
Guilliman truly was a master of detail. Romulus mused that his brother's desire for "retirement to a farm" was fundamentally different from the other Primarchs.
Russ just wanted to drink and eat. Vulkan just wanted to hammer iron—a traditionalist at heart.
But if you sent Guilliman to a farm, he would calculate the soil composition, monitor the micro-climate, run selective breeding programs for the crops, and determine the precise chemical balance of the fertilizer.
Then, to optimize the farm, he would organize a global survey team, a meteorological research wing, and a chemical manufactorum. Eventually, to secure the logistical foundation for his crops, he would intervene in local politics, initiate reforms, and wake up one day as the ruler of a star system, wondering how he ended up in an office again.
It is the pride of a king, Romulus thought. He believes that under his plan, everything—be it wheat or human souls—will grow better.
And he was right.
Romulus felt the Emperor should have just granted every Primarch a fiefdom to manage back in the day. Let them all taste the "bitterness of governance." Perhaps then they wouldn't have spent the Crusade complaining about Guilliman's ambition while their own homeworlds remained stagnant hellholes.
Instead, they all ran away the moment Guilliman fell into stasis. It was infuriating.
Soon, Romulus pulled out a series of documents numbered 6, 7, 8, and 9.
Guilliman frowned, reviewing the contents in his mind. He found no strategic errors in those specific files. They were accurate reports on the galaxy. But why were the numbers so specific? Why was everything either a multiple of 99 or 999?
He looked to Romulus for a "theoretical" explanation.
Romulus picked up document number 9.
"Based on Hallowed Numerology—"
Guilliman's composure broke. "Brother. Stop."
"What in the name of the Throne is 'Numerology'?"
Please, don't tell me this is the same superstitious toilet paper Mortarion used to write.
"It is exactly what it sounds like," Romulus explained. He walked to a slate and drew five symbols. They glowed with the colors of the Warp: Pink, Green, Red, Blue, and Gold.
"These numbers represent the frequencies of the five primary entities of the Warp. By aligning data with these numbers, they can more easily exert influence, corrupting or blessing those who follow the decrees. Therefore, we must 'sanitize' the indexing of our laws."
Guilliman, the quintessential rationalist, felt a phantom pain in his skull.
"For example," Romulus continued, "with Number 6, we avoid anything related to psychological welfare or mental conditioning. Number 7 requires content involving frequent change. Number 9 is the opposite—it must represent cycles and stagnation. And Number 8? Never use it for military recruitment or martial law."
"And 13?" Guilliman asked, his voice tight.
"That is the Emperor's Sacred Number. The most critical, foundational laws are indexed under 13. The Emperor can more easily shield that data from Warp-based alteration."
Romulus delivered this with the absolute conviction of a scholar.
"Brother... is this not... too much?" Guilliman struggled for the words. "Is this not pure superstition?"
"It is empiricism based on trauma, Roboute."
"My number is 13!" Guilliman countered. "Are you telling me that despite my rejection of Warp sorcery, I am receiving the 'divine aid' of the Emperor simply because of a numeral?"
He couldn't accept it. To him, using a filing system to gauge the safety of a law was the height of madness.
Yet, he felt a small sense of relief at the explanation of 13.
He had noticed the Ultramarines' new organization. From the Victrix Guard to the sub-companies, everything was organized around the number 13. The Librarians and Tech-marines were even more obsessed, timing their steps in multiples of thirteen as if it were a physical instinct. He had thought they were either mocking him or that he had been deified so much that his number had become a holy fetish.
"..."
The room fell silent.
It wasn't that they were speechless at his logic; it was that they knew—without their intervention—how many times the Emperor had "manifested" to save Guilliman's life over the last century.
Desperate to prove the absurdity of numerology, Guilliman pulled document Number 13 from the pile and slapped it onto the table.
"Look. This is the 13th document, compiled by the 13th Son. If a simple digit can truly manifest power, then—"
Guilliman froze.
The sound of the paper rustling was joined by a low, psychic hum. A faint golden light began to bleed from the edges of the parchment.
Across the mundane text of the report, glowing, fire-etched script began to manifest.
Guilliman felt it. He felt the cold, blinding presence of the Emperor.
He forced himself to look up, to stare directly into the vision blooming from the page: the screaming souls, the empty-eyed skull, the cold god-king, the old man, the savior of yesterday.
"MY SON."
"THIRTEEN."
"LORD OF ULTRAMAR."
"SAVIOR."
"HOPE."
"FAILURE."
"DISAPPOINTMENT."
"LIAR!"
"THIEF!"
"TRAITOR!"
"DO NOT LOSE YOUR HEAD!"
"GUILLIMAN!"
"..."
Everyone stared.
Arthur looked at Ramesses, his eyes asking if this was one of his pranks.
Ramesses shook his head quickly. Even he hadn't expected the Emperor to be this eager to prove a point.
Guilliman fell into a heavy silence.
"Need a translation?" Ramesses offered helpfully, breaking the tension. "Don't mind the cursing. The part at the end wasn't directed at you."
"I know," Guilliman replied, rubbing his face.
"I can hear Him. The end was directed at you four. He told me to 'watch out' for you. And—"
He looked at the lingering words: DO NOT LOSE YOUR HEAD!
Even Father sees me that way!
Still, it was a good sign. The Emperor was lucid enough to string words together and offer tactical advice, rather than just PUA-ing Guilliman into another millennium of overtime.
Ramesses glanced at Arthur.
Ah, right. Master Art is here. The Emperor's "Bastard" personality can't get close to him.
Creak.
"What's the noise?"
Karna entered the room, carrying the Emperor's Sword. He had been spending his time manifesting across the sector to "recharge" his divinity.
"What happened? The Emperor told me to bring the Sword over here."
"It's nothing," Guilliman sighed, looking up at the icon of his father.
"Let us discuss the amendment of the Codex regarding Metaphysical Arithmetic. We shall integrate it into the Constitutional Framework."
He believed it now. It wasn't superstition. It was an objective reality of the 41st Millennium.
It was science.
"Oh, while you're at it, handle this for me too."
Finding his trip redundant, Karna tossed a pile of unorganized grassroots data onto the table.
Names, ID numbers, genders, ages, ethnicities, education levels.
It went deeper: employment status, income levels, social security data, housing conditions, and expenditure structures. It tracked migration patterns and the shifting labor demographics of the sectors. It even contained "Petitions and Policy Feedback" from the common citizens.
It wasn't just data from the five Special Zones of the Ultima Segmentum; it stretched all the way to the borders of the Macharian Crusade. The data was so fresh and detailed that one could easily reconstruct the actual living conditions of a planet thousands of light-years away.
It was a hyper-scale census, conducted in real-time.
Guilliman was baffled. Dawnstar had an AI, fine. The other zones had Astartes administrators, acceptable. But where did this level of granular, bottom-up data come from?
As he had judged, the Dawnbreakers' operations were "extreme," but they were held in check by their character. They hadn't replaced every governor with an AI or turned every system into an Astartes junta.
Guilliman's political instincts screamed to question the accuracy of the data, but his experience told him it was genuine.
The level of control over the "grassroots" was terrifying.
"Oh, that?"
Karna, the only one not currently "working," was slurping a strawberry cream ice cream. He noticed Guilliman's confusion and spoke up.
"You know my role in the team is a Warp-tier Lesser God, right? And that I'm one of the only three 'legally sanctioned' deities in the Imperium?"
"I am aware," Guilliman nodded, his mind already converting the data into supplementary clauses for the Codex Imperialis.
Romulus and Arthur were assisting him, looking over his shoulder.
"Because of the Warp," Karna explained, "if the citizens are 'pious' enough—meaning their emotions are extreme enough—their voices are actually received by the 'God' they believe in. That's how the Four Gods stir up trouble in the material world."
"I understand the mechanics," Guilliman said.
So how does that help the census?
"During the promotion of the 'Angelic Creed,' we added a requirement to the prayers: they must include Name, Occupation, Age, and Address."
"The bottom tier of the Imperium is basically a living hell, right? Since I can actually manifest and 'back-pay' their wages for their labor, the believers are incredibly honest and precise. The creed encourages labor for a better life, which promotes productivity. I don't have to worry about them spending all day kowtowing and letting the fields go fallow."
When it came to his actual job, Karna wasn't stupid. It was just that the others were so much smarter that he rarely had to think.
"The information travels with the prayer to my domain. Then, professional scribes organize it to ensure we have a finger on the pulse of the Imperium's foundation."
Guilliman's face went stiff again.
How many times now? His worldview was being dragged into the dirt and reassembled.
These brothers were...
They are geniuses.
But why is it that the Codex Astartes is a relic, while the Ecclesiarchy's Liturgy and Chaos Numerology are the engines of Imperial progress?
Who are the "Loyalists" here, anyway?
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