The being in blue armor was a monument to conviction. Jin-Woo could feel it, a psychic resonance entirely different from the Orks' chaotic rage or the humans' fleeting terror. This one was a fortress of absolute, unshakeable belief. His soul was a neatly organized catechism of hate, duty, and sacrifice, all directed toward the 'Emperor' he spoke of. It was… fascinatingly rigid.
"Judgment," Jin-Woo echoed, the word feeling alien on his tongue. "You are not the first to offer it."
The giant, this 'Ultramarine,' did not wait for a further response. His weapon, the masterfully crafted rifle, came up with practiced, fluid grace. There was a deafening roar, far sharper and more violent than the crude slug-throwers of the Orks. A projectile, a miniature rocket trailing faint smoke, tore through the space between them. It was designed not just to pierce but to detonate within its target. A brutally effective piece of engineering.
And utterly insignificant.
Jin-Woo's eyes followed its trajectory. Time seemed to stretch, his perception operating on a level the warrior couldn't comprehend. He saw the spinning gyrostabilizers, the diamantine tip, the explosive core mere inches from his face.
He did not move. He simply… was.
The shell impacted his forehead with a metallic clang, the sound absurdly loud in the sudden quiet. Its explosive charge failed to trigger. Its momentum was absorbed without effect. It dropped to the scorched earth at his feet, a useless piece of spent metal.
Through the lenses of his helmet, the Sergeant felt a hairline crack form in the fortress of his conviction. His training, his entire existence, had not prepared him for a being that could treat a bolter round as a minor inconvenience. This was not a daemon of the warp; its presence was too cold, too silent. It was something else entirely, something outside the known catalogues of Imperial foes.
"My turn to ask a question," the Monarch said, his voice calm. "You mentioned an Emperor. Is he the ruler of this world?"
The Ultramarine recovered with commendable speed, his shock replaced by a renewed wave of righteous fury. "Blasphemer! You will not speak the God-Emperor's holy name with your profane tongue! He is the Master of Mankind, and you are nothing but filth to be purged in His name!"
He discarded the rifle, which clattered against his armored leg, and drew a sword from his hip. With a hiss and a crackle, a field of brilliant blue energy enveloped the blade. It hummed with contained power, slicing through the very air.
'So, negotiation is off the table,' Jin-Woo noted to himself. This being was a weapon, not a statesman. Information would have to be taken, not requested.
While the blue giant postured, he reached out with a sliver of his consciousness, not to him, but to the dead. The officer he had been approaching earlier lay nearby, his mind a rapidly cooling ember. It was a simple thing for a being like him to dip into the man's last, fading memories.
Flickering images, concepts, and emotions flooded his mind. Imperium. Terra. Astra Militarum. Xenos. The Green Menace. Heresy. And above it all, the blinding, golden image of a skeletal figure upon a throne of immense, intricate machinery. The God-Emperor. A psychic lighthouse screaming in agony and power across a vast, dark galaxy.
He had the lexicon he needed. This universe was vaster, and its master far more significant, than he had initially thought.
"You have allies," he stated, pulling his focus back to the present. As he spoke, the other four drop pods vented their occupants. Four more giants in cobalt armor, their weapons leveled, began to advance in a perfect, disciplined formation. They ignored the cowering Guardsmen and focused their fire on his nascent legion.
Explosive bolts ripped through his shadow soldiers. Where a body of flesh and bone would have been torn to shreds, his soldiers merely dissipated into black smoke before reforming moments later, their violet eyes burning with cold fury. The Ultramarines were efficient, their shots precise, targeting the heads and torsos of the shadows, but it was like trying to shoot the tide. For every shadow they momentarily dispersed, two more rose from the Ork and human corpses that littered the field.
His first creation, the Shadow Ork Warboss, met the charge of one of the Marines. The Marine's crackling power sword sliced through the shadow's arm, but the Ork's massive shadow axe swung around, crashing into the Marine's chest plate with enough force to send him stumbling back, sparks flying from the impact. The legion was learning, adapting.
The lead Ultramarine, his power sword held in a two-handed grip, finally charged. "For Macragge!" he bellowed, his voice amplified into a war cry.
He was fast, unnaturally so for a being his size. But to the Monarch, he was moving through thick syrup.
Jin-Woo let him come. As the humming blade descended, aimed to cleave him in two, he manifested his own weapons. Two daggers, forged from pure shadow and solidified will, appeared in his hands. They were extensions of his being, darker than the void and sharper than a dying star's light.
He didn't block. He parried.
The sound of his dagger meeting the power sword was not metal on energy, but silence consuming noise. The blue field on the blade flickered violently as he deflected the blow with an almost lazy twist of his wrist. He flowed around the attack, stepping inside the Marine's guard. The giant's size was a weakness, his movements powerful but ponderous.
Jin-Woo's left dagger shot out, not to kill, but to disarm. The tip struck the knuckle guard of the gauntlet. The ceramite, a material the officer's memories had shown was designed to withstand tank shells, shattered like cheap pottery. The Marine's grip broke, and the power sword flew from his grasp, deactivating as it clattered to the ground.
His right dagger flickered upwards. He tapped the side of the helmet. A web of cracks instantly spread across the cobalt-blue faceplate, and the glowing red eye lenses went dark.
The entire exchange had taken less than a second.
The Ultramarine froze, disarmed and half-blinded, his invulnerable armor proving to be anything but. The crack in his conviction widened into a chasm of disbelief and, for the first time, a flicker of true fear. This was not a fight; it was a lesson, and he was the student being effortlessly dismantled.
Jin-Woo stepped back, dismissing his daggers into nothingness. His shadow soldiers had now fully engaged the other four Marines, swarming them in a tireless, regenerating wave of black claws and shadowy weapons. They couldn't kill the giants, not yet, but they could hold them.
His attention was solely on their leader. He walked forward and placed his hand on the cracked helmet of the stunned warrior.
"You are a vessel of faith," he said, his voice quiet. "Your Emperor has filled you with his story. Now, you will share it with me."
[Command: Unveil]
It was not a request. It was an absolute decree.
The psychic fortitude of the Space Marine was astounding. Mental walls built of hypnotic conditioning, psycho-surgery, and a lifetime of fanatical prayer stood against the intrusion. They were formidable barriers that would have annihilated a lesser mind.
To the Monarch, they were sandcastles.
His will washed over them, and they crumbled into dust. He poured into the Marine's mind, not as a thief, but as a monarch surveying his new domain. He saw everything. The azure skies of his homeworld, Macragge. The grueling trials to become a Space Marine. The faces of his brothers, the dogma of the Codex Astartes, the endless, brutal galactic war. He saw his unwavering faith in the Emperor, a being he both worshipped as a god and served as a son.
And through his memories, he saw the psychic map of the galaxy. He saw the blazing North Star that was the Astronomican, the psychic beacon emanating from the God-Emperor on His Golden Throne.
He pulled his consciousness back, the process complete. The giant in blue armor crumpled to his knees, his mind scoured, his spirit broken. He was alive, but the fortress within was now a hollow ruin.
Jin-Woo looked up at the sickly, rust-colored sky. He now had a destination. The center of this 'Imperium.' A place called 'Terra.'
There resided a being of immense psychic power, a self-proclaimed 'Master of Mankind.' A being who sat on a throne and held the souls of trillions in his decaying grasp.
A rival king.
"Interesting," Jin-Woo murmured, as his shadow legion finally overwhelmed and pinned the remaining four Ultramarines. "This journey may be more amusing than I thought."