Five months later, Franc Prime was dying.
Mass conscription had slowed the rebel advance—but at a terrible cost. Millions were pressed into service with barely a lasgun and a few days of training.
Entire hab-blocks were emptied overnight. The manufactorums never stopped running, yet food production collapsed under the strain.
Every day, millions were dead.
Some fell on the frontlines, crushed beneath traitor armor and warp-twisted monstrosities.
Others starved quietly in the lower hives, bodies piling up faster than servitors could clear them away.
Riots that broke out were put down, only to be erupted again somewhere else.
Hope became something Franc Prime could no longer afford.
Governor Erik Gussman aged years in those five months. His hair had begun to gray. His hands shook when he wasn't gripping something. He had ordered things no man should ever have to order—and yet it still wasn't enough.
"My lord, the priest have come to pray with you."
After sending his men away, a priest arrived.
Claysius Tan, a minor cleric of the Franc Ecclesiarchy was escorted into the Governor's Spire.
He wore simple robes, unadorned save for a small Aquila pendant. His face was calm—too calm for a world on the brink.
"I have come to pray with you, my lord," Claysius said gently. "In these dark times."
Erik almost laughed.
Prayer hadn't stopped Chaos. It hadn't fed the people. But he didn't refuse.
They spoke briefly. Claysius spoke of endurance. Of faith. Of miracles that emerged in mankind's darkest hours.
"...Thus, the son of the Emperor shall rise once again to bring a new dawn to humanity."
Claysius observes the face of the governor carefully.
"My lord. It's best that we submit to the Emperor's will and pray to his son, our savior."
Erik stiffened. "That's heresy."
"—Or hope," Claysius replied. "They call it Gaia. The world where the air is fresher than a newborn in Holy Terra."
Erik did not say a word.
After Claysius left, he sat alone for a long time.
He told himself it was nonsense.
But the idea lingered.
Unbeknownst to him, Claysius Tan had arrived months earlier—quietly embedded among refugees and priests.
He wasn't here by coincidence. He was a messenger, planted long before the famine peaked.
He was a spy, sent by Kaiser months prior to spread the words.
The Imperium was built from mytisicm. Therefore he planned to spread his tale as a new Primarch that would lead humanity to greatness through prayer.
The stories weren't lies—not entirely.
He had met the Emperor before, and his body was also re-crafted by Him.
The story about the Land of Salvation?
Compared to Franc, Gaia was indeed paradise.
Kaiser did not set all the purges and xenophobes traits for no reason.
He had created the perfect utopia for Gaia.
As for the reason he did this?
Submission.
Only when they truly submit to his rule, could Kaiser act without restraints.
---
Kaiser stood inside a laboratory complex on Martian, a red, airless world that existed solely for one purpose—science.
It wasn't a habitable planet by any sane definition. No oceans. No breathable atmosphere. No open cities.
The surface was dotted with sealed research arcologies, orbital elevators, and deep-core facilities drilled straight into the crust.
The population barely reached a few million, and nearly all of them were scientists, engineers, or technicians.
If the Imperium called a world like this a Forge World, Kaiser would call it a dedicated research node.
Right now, he was standing at the center of its most secure chamber.
Before him loomed a suit of power armor.
"Well?" Kaiser asked. "Is it going to explode?"
Tanaka didn't look up from his data slate. "Only if you overload the psychic feedback loop, misalign the grav-stabilizers, or decide to channel warp energy like a lunatic."
Kaiser didn't bother the lack of reverence on his tone. He encourage it, after all.
Making his researcher keep bowing and under-pressured with his presence was not helping with the success of their future projects.
"…Comforting."
The armor itself was massive—built for Kaiser's ten-and-a-half-foot frame. Its silhouette was unmistakably inspired by Roboute Guilliman's Armor of Fate, though heavily modified.
Where Guilliman's armor relied on arcane life-support and Imperial relic tech, this one used Stellaris late-game technology principles: modular plates, self-repairing nanolattices, and redundant power cores.
Void-hardened ceramite layered with adaptive ablative plating.
Integrated kinetic dampeners.
A compact reactor that could power a city block.
It was the results of millions of heads poured into the same bowl.
"And the psychic interface?" Kaiser asked.
Tanaka finally looked up, adjusting his glasses. "That part was… tricky."
After Kaiser's awakening, the science division had begun noticing things they previously dismissed—anomalous energy patterns, non-physical pressure gradients, distortions that didn't obey realspace physics.
He hadn't explained the Warp outright. He didn't need to. He simply nudged them in the right direction.
Naturally, patterns emerged, then hypotheses formed.
The word Chaos hadn't been said aloud—but they were close enough.
"The armor won't amplify warp exposure," Tanaka continued. "Instead, it isolates and stabilizes it. Think of it as… psychic shielding rather than enhancement."
"Good," Kaiser said. "Last thing I need is daemons knocking on my head."
The fitting process began.
Mechanical arms descended from the ceiling, locking each section into place with precise clicks.
Greaves first. Then the torso. The armor adjusted automatically, tightening and reshaping to match his frame.
When the chest-plate was sealed, Kaiser could feel it.
Weight—then nothing.
The armor moved as naturally as his own body.
Power levels stabilized. Psychic readings flatlined.
Tanaka exhaled slowly. "It works."
Kaiser flexed his fingers, faint energy fields shimmering around the gauntlets.
"This will do," he said.