Traveling through the Warp was mind-numbingly boring.
Every day, Axis could do little more than train inside his ship, hone his ki, and cultivate his psychic power.
The only solace was his learning time with Kasha, which usually ended up with a session of cardio, after which they both ended up in each other's arms.
"Kasha," Axis began, "When I meet the Lion and the others, I can use ki, that's a power something your father knows about. But as for psychic powers, I'd better keep those hidden, right?"
Kasha nodded, taking a spoonful of the caramel pudding. "Exactly. My father knows about ki, but psychic powers are another matter. You must never reveal them. Keep them completely concealed."
Axis nodded. "I know. My psychic abilities are already well-controlled, unless I deliberately expose them, no one would notice I have them."
The truth was, his not-quite-real dad, Russ, also possessed psychic abilities, and he was extremely good at hiding them.
Axis had learned from him, and even picked up a few tricks about masking his presence entirely.
Russ had taught him that sometimes, acting boisterous and carefree could win people over more easily.
There was no denying it, Russ was the best at hiding his true self among all the Primarchs, a master of disguise in a perfect sense.
"One more thing," Kasha added. "You'd better talk to Russ about the Librarius project ahead of time. The Rune Priests shouldn't be exposed to the First or Fifth Legions, at least not yet."
Axis grinned. "Don't worry, Kasha. With Russ, there are things I don't even need to explain. He'll know to keep them under wraps.
"Never underestimate the man, he's not as simple as you think.
"…How's the pudding?"
Kasha, her cheeks now suspiciously puffed, replied without swallowing, "It's good, it's really, really good. The texture, the sweetness, everything's just perfect."
Kasha voice was a bit muffled as she spoke.
"..."
Axis stared at her with narrowed eyes, intensely scrutinising her.
Kasha, visibly squirming at her man's gaze, could only pray to her father and swallow.
"Hmmm, it's so good, I like this recipe better and better."
"..."
"How about this, honey? You teach me the recipe, and I'll make this for you next time? A wife ought to cook her husband something!" For all the power he wielded, her man was terrible at cooking. It was an omlet last time. How do you mess up an omelet?
"..." Axis didn't relax his narrowed eyes. It was only after Kasha took another spoonful of the pudding did he relax. It seems his cooking wasn't bad at all. It was just his legendary Saiyan physique rejecting the taste of normal food.
…
Over two months later, Axis's fleet finally arrived at the eastern edge of the Imperium, on the same battlefield where Axis had first carried out a mission years before.
Back then, Axis had unleashed a hemisphere-wide attack here, wiping out tens of thousands of Astartes in a single blow.
Now, decades later, his mastery over ki was even greater, his control absolute.
If he transformed into a Super Saiyan now, he could probably wipe out all life on the planet in one go.
Waiting for them in this strangely familiar star system was a fleet belonging to the Dark Angels.
This time, the main offensive would be handled by the Space Wolves and the Dark Angels.
The Fifth Legion, led by Jaghatai Khan, was deployed in a different Imperial sector and had not arrived with the Lion.
Their primary job was to provide fire support and logistics for the other two Legions.
This war was shaping up to be a brutal one.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have summoned both the Space Wolves and the Dark Angels, the two most ferocious Legions in the Great Crusade.
The Dark Angels boasted over 200,000 warriors, more than three times the number of Space Wolves.
The Dark Angels had been a Legion since the Unification Wars on Holy Terra, with a long and storied history.
Before the return of the Primarchs, they had even been the main force of the Great Crusade.
Their fleet outnumbered the Space Wolves' by more than three to one, with vast numbers of human auxiliaries in addition to the Astartes.
When the Dark Angels detected the Space Wolves' fleet emerging from the Warp, they immediately sent a psychic message, inviting Leman Russ, lord of the Sixth Legion, and Axis, commander of the 14th Great Company, to board the Lion's flagship, the Invincible Reason.
Russ promptly responded via psychic link.
This time, Axis did not bring Kasha with him; instead, he boarded Russ's flagship and then travelled together with Russ in a shuttle to the Lion's ship.
"Welcome!" greeted a Dark Angels captain as soon as they stepped aboard. "Lord Lion, Master of the First Legion, has been expecting you. Please follow me."
Russ nodded, following the captain down a long corridor until they reached the bridge of the Invincible Reason.
There, standing in the command hall, was a towering, broad-shouldered blond man in green armor, easily 3.8 meters tall.
"It's been a long time, Lion. I never thought we'd fight side by side again," Russ called out enthusiastically, opening his arms as if to embrace his long-lost brother.
The Lion, however, simply nodded coldly, showing no interest in embracing Russ and ignoring him completely.
Russ felt a little awkward.
Truthfully, among all the Primarchs, he was the least skilled at dealing with the Lion.
Everyone had always thought the two of them would get along, but reality was the opposite.
The truth was, the Lion was a beast in disguise. Russ could feel that raw, wild savagery deep in his bones.
"This mission is critical," the Lion said curtly.
"This is only the frontline, we're about to face a Xenos threat that poses grave danger to the Imperium. I hope you won't hold us back, Russ. This war is vital for the Imperium, and it will be hard-fought."
Russ's Space Wolves only numbered about 95,000, while the Dark Angels had 240,000.
The Fifth Legion had even fewer at the moment.
It was obvious who was the main force here.
"Relax, Lion!" Russ replied, waving his hand dismissively, "Victory is already in the bag. We're not going to lose. Just sit back and watch the show."
After all, the Emperor had already sent Axis, the secret weapon of imperium.
No enemy could stand against this kid. If Axis couldn't handle it, then not even two Primarchs could.
Axis's ability to seize a planet was simply unparalleled, and he understood the importance of making examples.
Before every battle, Axis would send an envoy to offer the enemy a chance to surrender.
If they accepted and joined the Great Crusade, paid their tithes, and contributed troops, they'd be left to govern themselves.
If they refused, the fiercer their resistance, the harsher the retribution.
Once a planet was taken, no matter how weak their resistance, all nobles and leaders, regardless of age or gender, were executed without mercy.
If their resistance caused significant human losses, all the planet's soldiers would be put to death.
What? You say soldiers were just following orders? Sorry, they could've chosen to surrender. Surrendered ones were indeed, left alive.
In the Warhammer universe, human life was cheap.
The imperium could always afford bring in settlers from other worlds, and in just a few decades, the population would recover.
Before every battle, Axis would always start with a show of force, maybe by destroying a satellite, blasting an entire city to rubble with a ki attack, or wiping out one of the enemy's mining worlds.
With tactics like these, anyone with even a bit of sense would choose to surrender.
Those who didn't, who were either foolish or insane, would be wiped out soon enough.
As for xenos species, the Imperium's policy was always total extermination.
In those cases, Axis would simply descend onto the planet and break through all resistance within a single day, utterly shattering the planet's defences before unleashing a cleansing bombardment across the surface.
The human auxiliary troops and the Space Marines had only one job most of the time: mop up whatever was left.
Every planet Axis conquered became a byword for brutality, even the notoriously fierce Space Wolves found his methods shockingly ruthless.
Some even went to Russ, suggesting that if the target was a human world, the Wolves should handle it themselves, and only send in Axis when fighting particularly powerful xenos.
In recent years, Axis was rarely dispatched against human colonies anymore.
He had to reign in his savegary a bit more to let the wolfs gain some merit and accumulate experience.
"Arrogance is never a good thing, my brother.
"I've brought a Gloriana-class battleship, one that I'm awarding to your most capable subordinate.
"Axis, Captain of the 14th Company, this Gloriana-class battleship is the Emperor's reward to you." The Lion finished speaking and glanced at Axis, who stood beside Russ in a simple inner armor.
To be honest, this kid didn't look anything like a Primarch.
He was barely 2.1 meters tall, 2.4 at most if he wore power armour.
That would be normal for a Space Marine, but for a Primarch? Not even close.
The true Primarchs stood at least 3.5 meters tall. The more robust ones, like Russ and Horus, were around 3.8 meters, and with power armor, could reach 4 meters. Vulkan was even taller, over 4 meters.
So compared to them, Axis was downright puny.
Was he really as powerful as the Emperor claimed?
After being assigned by the Emperor, the Lion had received part of Axis's dossier: at first, he'd been adopted by Russ, then later discovered by the Emperor and brought back to Terra.
There, he'd undergone surgical enhancements supposedly for the Custodes, but in reality, they were Primarch-level augmentations, and it involved everything except for the Emperor's own genetic material.
At this point, the Lion and others still had no idea about the true nature of the Primarchs and the Warp.
Axis's first mission was to capture the Second Primarch.
Originally, that Primarch had been corrupted and mind-controlled by xenos, and the Emperor had already given the order for extermination.
But Axis not only destroyed the corrupted Second Legion, he managed to capture the Primarch alive and heal his wounds, allowing the Second Legion to be rebuilt.
There weren't many official records of Axis's combat performance.
All anyone knew was that, before the battle began, he and Russ had gone to that world together, and within a single day, wiped out tens of thousands of corrupted Second Legion warriors.
Axis's greatest power was a superhuman ability called ki.
Unlike Warp energy, it was a force rooted entirely in the material universe.
It was utterly destructive, able to dramatically enhance the body, and even granted Axis the ability to fly.
"It's an honour," Axis replied with a smile.
"Haha, I never thought Father would actually give you a Gloriana-class battleship, and this quickly at that!" Russ laughed, clapping him on the shoulder.
"Now we Space Wolves have two Gloriana-class battleships!"
That was genuinely good news.
He'd never expected it to happen, but apparently, all those years Axis had spent fighting had paid off.
His father wasn't as stingy as he'd thought.
"The Gloriana-class battleship comes loaded with military hardware," the Lion continued. "There are 200,000 Navy personnel aboard, plus over 300,000 sailors, a senior Navigator, three astropathic communicators, and four escort frigates.
"Use it well."
"I will, Lord Lion. When do we move out to deal with the xenos?" Axis asked.
He wasn't really in the mood to spend his time talking.
Already, his muscles were twitching with the excitement to just smash through and wipe out those xenos. He'd been restrained for far too long.
"We've already detected enemy movement. Their fleet is about equal to ours. This will be a hard-fought space battle," the Lion said, gesturing to the radar screens in the command center.
His Legion had arrived more than ten days earlier, so they'd already scouted the nearby star systems.
This time, the Rangda were well-prepared, bringing in more than a thousand battleships and a huge allied force of xenos auxiliaries to confront the Imperium.
Their numbers outmatched humanity's fleet by at least half again.
"In that case, our strategy is simple," Axis said, "We'll reveal the position of our main fleet, lure them in, and then annihilate them."
As long as they entered the same star system as Axis. their fate was sealed.
Their lives and deaths no longer their own at that point..
"You seem quite confident," the Lion couldn't help but find it odd, Where was this confidence coming from? "But our fleet is only half the size of the enemy's. I was planning to hide and wait for a chance to strike at their rear."
Russ laughed. "Brother, since Father sent you, and also sent Axis, it's time you saw what Axis can do."
"Father did mention a few things… Axis, come with me to the training chamber. I want to see your abilities," the Lion said.
Russ immediately coughed and shot the Lion a warning look, signalling that this was a very bad idea.
Having spent so long around Axis, Russ knew exactly how terrifying his strength could be. Especially right now.
He'd heard that son his whining at Kasha saying his muscles were twitching to fight.
And that was just before they took the shuttle toward the Invincible Reason
...
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Here's your bonus chapter!!! Powerstones!! gimme!!
Also, my original Pa-treon's back!!!! wohoo!!