"How am I supposed to teach you?"
Caelan carefully laid the sleeping twins onto the bed and tucked the blankets around them.
He had once believed Curze would be the hardest primarch to teach, but that had been nothing more than bias born of preconceived notion. In truth, Curze was surprisingly easy to teach, he simply needed correct guidance.
The other primarchs were much the same. The Emperor had already laid their foundations; with proper guidance and nurturing, they could all become good people.
But now, gazing at this pair angels, Caelan was truly at a loss.
Sanguinius and Fulgrim were simply too perfect, so perfect that Caelan hardly knew where to begin.
Across every possible timeline, they stood as paragons among the primarchs, reaching the pinnacle in every aspect.
In artistic accomplishment, none of the legions could rival them.
In personal valor, they were also among the best.
And yet, they were not without flaws.
Their Legions had fatal genetic flaws. The Third Legion bore the Blight. The Ninth Legion had been curse be the Red Thirst.
The Blight's outbreak was due to the Selenite genecult's poisoning. The Red Thirst was an inherent genetic flaw of the Ninth Legion's gene-seed.
Though not unsolvable, these flaws shackled them their entire lives.
Fulgrim was a true perfectionist, demanding excellence in everything. So he permitted Fabius Bile's gene-seed optimization experiments on the Third Legion.
This obsession with perfection was the direct cause of Fulgrim's, and the Third Legion's, fall.
The Blade of the Laer was merely the catalyst.
Anything taken to its extreme inevitably degenerates. The more Fulgrim pursued perfection, the more ravenous his hunger for it became.
In the end, such excess could only lead him into the embrace of Slaanesh, the god who ruled over perfection itself within the Warp.
Sanguinius, by contrast, was genuinely perfect. In every respect, he reached the utmost extreme, turning ghouls into noble angels.
Yet the Ninth Legion's genetic flaw still remained.
The Red Thirst continued to plague them, leaving Sanguinius in constant dread that the Emperor would one day purge his legion just as the had purged others. He lived in ceaseless anxiety.
During the Horus Heresy, the debauched daemon Ka'Bandha offered Sanguinius immensely tempting bargain:
If Sanguinius would submit to the powers of the Warp, the Ninth Legion would be spared forever from the curse of the Red Thirst.
Sanguinius gave the offer serious consideration. This Primarch famed for perfection concluded, to save his sons, such sacrifice was worth it.
At the time, Sanguinius stood only a single step away from damnation. It was Apothecary Meros' self-sacrifice that finally awakened him.
But this also revealed Sanguinius' greatest flaw, he had once knelt before his sons. His devotion to them bordered on obsession.
He would kneel for his sons, just as Mortarion would.
Fulgrim and Sanguinius were undeniably models of perfection, but their flaws were just as vivid as their virtues.
If Caelan wished to teach them, he would have to begin by compensating for those flaws.
But how?
Should Fulgrim abandon his pursuit of perfection?
Or should Sanguinius abandon his sons?
That was far too extreme. There had to be a middle path.
Let Fulgrim pursue perfection, but require him to accept his own imperfection.
Let Sanguinius devote himself to his sons, but only in moderation.
Balance. The Middle Way.
Yet however sound Caelan's plan appeared, it was unrealistic in practice.
"Perfection is not a state of being, it is a goal we pursue. The process of pursuing perfection, not the goal itself, is what truly matters."
Those were Fulgrim's words.
Fulgrim understood perfectly well that absolute perfection was unattainable. He could rationally accept his own imperfections, yet in practice, he remained unable to free himself from a pathological obsession with perfection.
So even if Caelan made him accept imperfection, it would change nothing.
Sanguinius' perfection was so overwhelming it inspired envy, and that, too, was a flaw.
Jaghatai Khan had been absolutely right.
Sanguinius' devotion to his sons mirrored the Emperor's devotion to humanity. As long as the goal could be achieved, both were willing to sacrifice themselves.
What made it truly terrifying was that they could genuinely see a path to success.
Caelan gazed at the sleeping twins, a rare trace of sorrow appearing between his brows.
He could clearly see their fatal flaws, but those very traits were also what forged their perfection. Like two sides of the same coin, they were inseparable.
"Let's take it one step at a time."
Caelan sighed and gently lay down between the twins.
At this point, sleep would have to do.
Even in their dreams, the twins seemed to share an unspoken bond. The moment Caelan lay down, they instinctively pressed closer, spreading their wings to softly cover his arms, mirroring one another as they enclosed him between them.
…..
"My father is holding someone on both sides."
Curze leaned against the viewing window, staring into the pitch-black void of space.
Leon lowered his gaze to the floor. He was already accustomed to his primarch's sudden mutterings.
But Caelan would never be troubled by lust, and Curze wouldn't fly into a rage just because Caelan had found him two more "mothers." So the ones being held must be two primarchs.
If they weren't primarchs, Curze would never have spoken of them in the same breath.
Adult primarchs wouldn't behave so childishly. Those two must still be infants, only infants could so comfortably enjoy Caelan's embrace.
As for which two… that was unclear.
Ever since meeting Corax, Curze had grown increasingly strange, and increasingly normal.
He hadn't actively sought control over the Fourteenth or Fifth Legions as he had with the Nineteenth, yet his muttering grew more frequent by the day. He might as well have carved jealousy onto his face.
Just earlier he'd been muttering about "Horus, I acknowledge you," and now he was fretting over Caelan holding others.
Emperor only knew what he was seeing.
Leon knew all too well how unsettling his gene-father's neurosis could be. He buried this crushing secret deep within his heart, never speaking of it, not even to his closest brothers in the Night Lords.
If others were to glimpse the Primarch's true state, the Night Lords' reputation would be utterly destroyed.
As First Captain of the Eighth Legion and Curze's equerry, Leon could only bear the burden alone.
"Leon."
He cautiously raised his head. Curze was still gazing into the endless void.
"I'm here, my lord."
"Did the negotiations fail?"
Curze's voice was low and distant. Though phrased as a question, it sounded as though he already knew the answer.
He stared at a dim, gray planet in the void, a lost human colony, a hive world. Its population had plummeted during the Age of Strife, yet it still housed hundreds of billions.
"No report has returned yet, but it's been far too long."
Leon chose his words carefully. As usual, the Administratum had dispatched a diplomatic delegation to negotiate with the planet's rulers, hoping for peaceful compliance. But ten hours had passed since their landing, and no message had come back.
That alone was a sign.
From experience, when Curze personally traveled to a human world, peaceful reunification was almost never an option. War was the only answer.
Though Curze could already foresee the future, the diplomats still wished to try, and Curze respected their choice.
During the Great Crusade, the Imperium had reclaimed tens of thousands of colonies, more than half through peaceful means.
That success owed much to the diplomats' silver tongues, but even more to the silent deterrence of Imperial fleets and Space Marine Legions.
Without force to back it, diplomacy was nothing but a castle in the air.
And when diplomacy failed-
The Imperium taught the arrogant fools with an iron fist.
"Negotiations have collapsed. Prepare the assault."
Curze spoke as lightly as if discussing a dinner menu.
Leon bowed his head. "You may give the order at any time."
The Eighth Legion never fought unprepared wars.
While the diplomatic delegation descended to the planet, Leon had already worked with the Night Lords' commanders to divide the world into countless tactical grids and draft strict battle plans.
The fleet's gun batteries had long since locked onto every hive city's defenses. Thousands of Astartes waited in Stormbirds and Dreadclaws, weapons ready.
At Curze's command, the Night Lords would deploy in full force, and end the war within twenty-four standard Terran hours.
"Proceed. Bring back the diplomats' bodies and bury them with honor, in my name."
Curze's pale finger traced a line through the air, signing this world's death sentence.
Imperial diplomats were often heartbreakingly naive.
Even after Curze had warned them, these idealists stubbornly insisted on trying diplomacy.
They believed wholeheartedly in the justice of the Great Crusade, carried a near-martyr's devotion to the Emperor, and upheld a lofty faith in Imperial Truth as they set foot upon alien soil.
The Imperium's terms were generous: pay the tithe to support humanity's unity, retain local rule, gain access to Imperial trade, and receive the Imperium's military protection.
And yet, some worlds still chose to dash themselves against the rock through their rulers' folly.
….....
Angron asked intently, "Sister Medea, why do the Mechanicum's hive-city construction plans lack automated cyclical purification systems?"
Medea replied, "Although Mars possesses complete hive-city STCs, they place too much emphasis on construction and production efficiency, neglecting the balance between hive cities and the broader ecosystem. During the Age of Strife, the Mechanicum boldly modified the original STCs, removing many modules they deemed redundant."
"From a purely technical efficiency standpoint, this design increases overall productivity by roughly thirty percent, but at the cost of severe pollution and drastically reduced ecological sustainability."
"The original STCs were lost during subsequent technological iterations, though deliberate deletion cannot be ruled out."
"However, removing these modules wasn't solely about efficiency, it was also meant to eliminate artificial intelligence from hive management systems."
"Unable to distinguish which components were AI-related, they simply removed all possibly related modules and replaced them with their own designs."
"The resulting management chaos, resource waste, and environmental degradation ultimately reduced actual productivity far below that of the original STC."
Medea explained everything in meticulous detail, afraid Angron might not understand.
She also cast a subtle glance at Lorgar, her eyes brimming with obvious disdain.
'Look at your brother, and then look at you!'
Claudia and Angron were calling each other "sister" and "brother" so affectionately.
Unlike Lorgar, who always looked at her like she was a thief.
She might be an Men of Iron, bu they could be patriotic too!
Once Caelan returned, she would definitely lodge a serious complaint!
Angron asked worriedly, "Sister Medea, is it still possible to change things now?"
The Mechanicum cared only about production efficiency. Angron cared about Nuceria's environment.
'What if Nuceria became a polluted industrial hell like so many other worlds? What if Father no longer liked it?'
All his brothers were improving their homeworlds, he couldn't afford to regress.
Medea answered, "It's not difficult. Simply restore and integrate the modules removed by the Mechanicum, in accordance with the original STC specifications."
"As for the AI-related modules, I've downgraded all cognitive matrices to control cores compliant with the Mechanicum's Crimson Protocol and isolated them into independent system partitions."
"Though I don't recommend it, if you insist on removing them entirely, servitors with neural degeneration treatments can be used as substitutes."
While the Mechanicum strictly guarded against AI, it did not forbid "lower-tier, well-defined, purpose-limited synthetic life and machine spirits." The most prominent example was the cybernetic legions built around control cortices.
A control cortex was a synthetic "pseudo-brain" built from highly complex bio-organic polymers.
The difference between control legions and Men of Iron lay in their minds: Men of Iron used profane silicon intelligences, while control legions relied on sanctified artificial wetware.
Yet even within standardized protocols, aberrations known as "Pride of Steel" sometimes emerged.
According to Medea's research, these units were nearly identical in cognitive architecture to Men of Iron from the Dark Age of Technology, differing only due to weapon limitations imposed by current tech.
It was even possible that surviving Men of Iron had infiltrated their ranks.
From a technical standpoint, the Mechanicum's code and protocols still followed Dark Age cognitive frameworks, they had merely replaced the hardware with artificial wetware.
Medea fully understood humanity's PTSD over the Iron rebellion. She herself had PTSD toward the Chaos Gods.
Downgrading AI to weak intelligence was sound risk management.
But studying artificial wetware was pointless, raising costs while lowering efficiency.
Lorgar's gaze sharpened. "I don't recall authorizing research into control cores."
Medea lifted her chin. "This is civilian technology."
She wasn't lying, and wouldn't deign to.
The boundary between civilian and military tech constantly shifted. In feudal times, armor and swords were military tech; by M3 they were museum pieces. Some nations even classified firearms as civilian tools.
In the Dark Age of Technology, weak AI was standard civilian tech. Even companion robots were commonplace.
Control cores weren't a Mechanicum invention, their origins traced back to humanity's golden age.
They once had a familiar name:
Men of Stone.
Their architectures were similar, though control cores imposed far stricter limitations.
Men of Stone had humanoid bodies, Men of Iron had steel bodies. Control legions were essentially a castrated fusion of the two.
That was the hallmark of Mechanicum technology, simultaneously advanced and regressive.
"Ah!"
Bang!
Just as Lorgar was about to speak, a cry and a crash came from the inner room.
Russ instantly abandoned his brothers and charged toward the door.
When he smashed it open, a silver-haired girl in a violet dress sat on the floor. Furry wolf ears atop her head twitched uneasily, and a silver tail brushed faint marks across the ground beneath her skirt.
Claudia stood nearby, looking helpless.
Russ scanned the room. "Where's my mother?"
"Russ." The silver-haired girl looked up, arms open, emerald eyes brimming with tears.
"Walking is hard… it hurts."
She looked pitiful enough to soften any heart, but Russ remembered Claudia pulling his mother aside earlier. Now his mother was gone, replaced by this stranger.
And she smelled like Sylvia.
That realization short-circuited his mind.
His instincts screamed this was his mother, but his mother wasn't human!
Where had his big wolf mom gone?!
Lorgar and Angron froze as well, no primarch had slow reflexes.
Russ stiffly turned his head. Claudia unfolded her gilded fan, mischief flashing in her heterochromatic eyes. "Not me. Sylvia suddenly turned into this. I merely helped her straighten her clothes."
"Russ…" The girl's eyes filled with shattered tears. "Don't you want your mother anymore?"
Russ' gaze flickered between her and the floor. "Mom… can you change back?"
He really wasn't used to this version of her.
"Why? Don't you like how I look now?" she asked, blinking in confusion.
"Don't ask. Just… change back, Mom."
"Oh."
Golden and violet psychic ripples spread like water. The girl's slender form blurred, and in moments, the she-wolf stood firmly on all fours, shaking out her thick fur with a satisfied whine.
Russ clenched his jaw, fangs grinding unconsciously.
'This had to be the Emperor's doing.'