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"Behold — the fruits of my transcendent genius!!!"
Watching everything he had set in motion, Zhou Ye declared this with tremendous satisfaction.
Inquisitor Chris held his silence. Transcendent was debatable. Genius he had genuine reservations about. But transcendent — that part he couldn't argue with for a single second.
The White Scars Astartes nearby also gave slow, wordless nods. They at least agreed with the first half. This was absolutely, unquestionably transcendent.
But right at that moment, Zhou Ye suddenly froze.
And then, like a quail spotting a hawk, he shrank into himself — because...
"Oh no. I've provoked the Golden Fiend!!!"
The moment he sensed that consciousness descending, Zhou Ye transformed into a quail on the spot. He folded himself as small as possible. As long as he didn't jump around, the Golden Fiend fundamentally couldn't lock onto him. As for why the Blood God's and Tzeentch's attention hadn't reached him earlier — it was mainly because he hadn't been anywhere near the cultist camps at that point, with no faithful in his immediate vicinity.
But now every direction around him was packed with believers, so Zhou Ye made the decisive call: go quiet, pull back the golden lights he had been projecting, and behave.
Sure enough, in that very moment, the gathered crowd all felt a vast energy descend. And Zhou Ye watched with clarity as that energy caught sight of the golden skeleton nearby — and immediately fell into a state of pained, stomach-turning conflict.
But it moved past quickly. The consciousness swept down to the Grand Free-for-All raging below.
Then Zhou Ye felt it — a wave of furious emotion crashing outward from that presence. Something along the lines of: these two insolent curs, showing up in my territory to beg for scraps again. Then the consciousness began to retract.
But on its way out, it paused. Something had caught its notice — the golden skeleton.
Zhou Ye broke out in a cold sweat. He had a feeling he might have overplayed this hand. Surely that one wouldn't just slap it dead outright? He recalled distinctly that the old man was rather famously hostile toward xenos.
And sure enough — in the very next moment, the golden skeleton blazed. The Necron Phaeron's formidable metal body flickered and shuddered under cascades of psychic light, and Zhou Ye's teeth ached just watching it.
One. Two. Three... thirteen slaps landed.
The Necron Phaeron had been reshaped somewhat by the experience.
But it was not destroyed. Instead, it raised its head — tears streaming down its deathless metallic face — and cried out:
"God-Emperor — thank you for your forgiveness. I will spend every last moment of my remaining existence protecting Aestia and guarding this world."
THE GOD-EMPEROR WILLS IT!!!
At that, every single person present — Astartes, Inquisitor, and mortal soldiers alike — stared at the Archbishop of Aestia with pure, undisguised envy. It was official now. He was a real Archbishop. God-Emperor certified. You couldn't fake that.
"What kind of absolutely unhinged Necron is this."
Zhou Ye had already pressed a hand over his eyes.
His best guess: the old man had surveyed the battlefield, determined that he couldn't see Zhou Ye — couldn't even lock onto his three Kastelan Robots in the chaos — and arrived at one conclusion. This world needed these deranged Necrons. So he'd stamped their papers and made them official.
You had to hand it to the old man. He had truly mastered the art of getting results for free.
But at the very last moment, that consciousness produced a faint thread of puzzlement — searching for something, finding nothing, and then withdrawing entirely.
The presence vanished completely. And in its wake, wave after wave of extraordinary energy radiated outward from the God-Emperor's idol in the Ecclesiarchy shrine.
In the next instant, several Genestealers who had been hiding in the shadows were incinerated where they crouched, along with a handful of cultists who'd been trying to keep low. At the same time, every vehicle on the field — every weapon — rang out with a deep, resonant roar.
That wasn't Zhou Ye's A.I. at work.
It was the Machine Spirits. The loyal Machine Spirits, hungering for glory.
"God-Emperor......"
The Governor had made his way to the front line. He stood there with tears running freely down his face, settling the Commissar's cap onto his head, the Star of Terra blazing on his chest.
To everyone present except Zhou Ye, a vast golden figure slowly manifested in the air above — and extended one hand toward the cultists below.
The gesture said everything: Stop moping around and get on with it. Smash them.
And then, as one of the few psykers present, Inquisitor Chris heard something — just barely, just audible — carried on the edge of that retreating presence.
"...Malcador. Is that you, Malcador."
The words carried grief. Longing. And the faintest trace of desperate hope — enough that a single tear slipped down Chris's cheek before he could stop it.
Ten thousand years, and still — the bond between the God-Emperor and his faithful Sigillite Malcador remained exactly that pure.
"For the God-Emperor — for the Imperium of Man — CHARGE!!!"
At that, the Planetary Governor stepped forward to the very front line. Flanking him were a dozen white-haired nobles — some former administrative ministers, others retired directors of the water-purification guilds...
But they all shared one identity: veterans of the Astra Militarum. This world had been their reward from the Ministorum and the War Office after their service ended. And in this moment, they felt themselves pulled back to that time — to who they had been.
Three whistle blasts rang out. The Planetary General surged forward at the head of the charge.
"For the God-Emperor!!!"
"For the Imperium of Man!!!"
"For Big E!!!"
The final battle had begun.
The Genestealers had already been finished off under the combined attentions of Tzeentchian and Khornate cultists. The enemy's strength had been bled heavily by that point. And when the God-Emperor's descent disrupted the vision of both Chaos Gods — cutting off the blessings flowing from the Warp to their respective cults — the fraying edges of their forces began to crack.
Every voice on the field was calling the moment. It was time to deliver the finishing blow.
And so, under covering fire from the Archbishop of Aestia's Deathmark Snipers, the final assault was launched.
Zhou Ye charged in without a moment's hesitation.
No Greater Daemon had manifested — but there were still plenty of Chaos Space Marine tin cans in the field, and right now he had exactly one objective: harvest their dignity. Their Gene-seeds.
He plunged in at the front of the charge, a large hailer in hand, and as he ran he broadcast:
"Iron Corrodes, Stone Endures."
"Perturabo is a pathetic, sniveling clown."
"Imperial Fists guard Terra. The Iron Warriors belong at the front digging trenches and serving as cannon fodder — that is their purpose and their ceiling."
"Ahriman needs his brothers. I will mail them to him, payment on delivery. You ask where his brothers are? Look around you — they're absolutely everywhere on this field."
And so, beneath the respectful — and somewhat bewildered — gazes of Inquisitor Chris and the assembled White Scars, Zhou Ye single-handedly seized the attention of virtually every high-tier combat asset on the enemy side.
And then, exactly as Chris had speculated, the three Kastelan Robots began to earn their keep.
One discharged lightning. One discharged flame. Both poured outward in relentless torrents.
Where Necron gauss weapons stripped a target apart atom by atom in a slow, dissolving disintegration — the lightning simply reduced whatever it touched to individual molecules in one instant. So there Zhou Ye stood, three Kastelan Robots at his back, running an open slugging match against both the Iron Warriors and the Thousand Sons sorcerer simultaneously.
And he was winning.
Routing them. Sending them scrambling.