"Let's hear it — everyone report your situation."
Before the Eternity Gate, Perturabo and the Emperor sat on the steps, looking down at the assembled Primarchs, Astartes, Custodians, and a portion of the mortal commanders and officials.
Among the Primarchs, with the exception of Horus — whose death had been confirmed — everyone had returned to Terra.
Perturabo's voice carried a thread of exhaustion, but nobody spoke. If the Primarchs wouldn't open their mouths, how could the mortals presume to go first? The gathering froze.
"Robert — you start."
Looking at Guilliman, who had become somewhat withdrawn, Perturabo felt he needed to have a word with this younger brother.
"The population of Ultramar's Five Hundred Worlds was taken entirely. Seventy percent of my Legion was either corrupted or killed. We currently number around one hundred and fifty thousand. He didn't take the remainder."
Guilliman reported the losses in a voice that grew increasingly subdued. This wasn't just a question of population losses and a severely damaged Legion — his mother had been taken by that 'Robert.'
Unforgivable.
In the moment he had regained consciousness, Guilliman had felt fury ready to pour out of him. His reason ignited in that instant.
But just as he was on the verge of complete collapse, he remembered his adoptive father Konor's lifelong example, his adoptive mother's patient counsel given day after day, the confused sons relying on him, the Chapter Masters who had placed their trust in him, and Ultramar itself — which still needed him right now—
He pressed down the fury and darkness in his heart once more. Even if he was going to seek revenge, he should first be a human being.
He should seek revenge as a human being — not become a monster entirely.
That was the fundamental reason Guilliman had been able to resist 'Robert's' corruption.
"You, Lion?"
"I was attacked by 'Night Lords.' 'Konrad' is currently held on the Nightfall, along with some of his sons."
Konrad immediately turned his head sharply. What did that mean — his other self was being held captive?
No wonder he couldn't find himself. So he'd already been captured.
"The rest of you?"
Perturabo looked at the others. The brothers began sharing their encounters with various enemy fleets and corrupted counterparts.
Magnus had eliminated 'Russ.' Russ had banished the 'Corvus' he'd happened to run into. 'Mortarion' had been killed by the Khan during a chance encounter. The Grey Knights' Supreme Grand Master Aldrak had run into 'Magnus' who was preparing to exact revenge — and between a stroke of fortune and three hundred Grey Knights, had banished 'Magnus' by force—
"And what about 'Horus?' Nobody ran into him?"
"No. We swept the Solar Segmentum thoroughly and never saw them. They never showed themselves from start to finish."
"Their fleet only appeared when destroying those worlds — and almost none of us could detect them. They stayed concealed all along. Their aim was clear — direct assault on Terra. Everyone else was just a sacrificial pawn to distract us. They were the real main force."
Perturabo fell silent. Before the Eternity Gate, you could have heard a pin drop.
"All right. These traitors have fled. The Solar Segmentum has been left in a terrible state. The Ghoul Stars and Halo Stars regions have suffered considerable losses."
"The Ghoul Stars have seen all manner of opportunistic forces return — Death Watch has already gone to clear them out. The Solar Segmentum needs reconstruction. The Halo Stars and Ultramar have sustained the worst damage — in the early stages we'll need to transfer at minimum hundreds of trillions of population from other worlds, and furthermore—"
A dataslate appeared in Perturabo's hands. The losses displayed on it were staggering.
These traitors hadn't managed to cause catastrophic damage — but the losses they had dealt to the Imperium were very real. The Solar Segmentum would take decades to recover.
"Now — we're going to restore Imperial civilian life first. I'll also be distributing the Resentment Intelligence technology and the Webway technology to all of you, along with some additional Astartes surgical modification procedures. Do with them as you see fit."
"Malcador — these are some surgical modifications for the mortal auxilia. You oversee their rollout."
"Take time to recover properly. Then reassemble your Legions. Your retirement plans have fallen through."
"If we don't resolve these bastards, none of us will ever retire. Prepare properly — and then I'll lead you in a counter-attack against those sons of filth."
Perturabo produced several hard drives and distributed them. He had been researching these technologies for a long time, and had assumed they wouldn't be needed — that humanity could develop on its own in due course. It hadn't occurred to him that Chaos would pull something like this, or that Horus would be lost.
Counter-attack. It had to be a counter-attack.
Perturabo's eyes reddened. This time he was absolutely not letting it go.
He wasn't going to rest until he had shattered those traitors' home universe.
You want to play a war game with him? You enjoy underhanded methods? Fine. Let's see exactly what you're made of — daring to play these games with the Iron Lord of the Warp.
Perturabo stood up. His large iron frame at that moment looked precisely like a true god.
"These filth — they invaded our world, killed our brothers, and had the audacity to steal our people."
Perturabo stepped sharply forward. The iron yellow-and-black markings on his armour blazed with brilliant light. The pressure radiating off him made the air feel thick.
"I, Perturabo, swear here and now — in the name of the Iron Lord, and on my loyalty to the Imperium—"
"I will take every last one of their heads. I will mount them on the Eternity Wall, to be cursed by all people for generation upon generation."
"Until those traitors' home universe is utterly destroyed. Until their power is torn out by the root. I, Perturabo, will never cease."
"We will never cease!"
Guilliman was the first to respond — his voice hoarse but without any wavering, right hand pressed to his chest, eyes full of bloodshot determination.
Of everyone here, he and the Sons of Horus carried the deepest hatred for the traitors.
The Lion drew his black sword. The absolute black of the blade shimmered in the sunlight.
Magnus and Russ erupted with psychic radiance — crimson and deep blue blazing against each other.
More and more voices joined. Nobody liked a humiliating war. Especially for people with the particular psychological makeup of Imperials, what they had suffered this time was a profound and extraordinary disgrace.
Before the Eternity Gate, the combined oath became a roar that seemed to shake the sky itself. Terra's sky and orbital dockyards appeared to tremble.
Perturabo looked at all of this. The fury in his eyes gradually transformed into something steady and hard. The black flames that had been rising on his body pulled back inward.
The horn of the counter-attack had sounded. But recovery came first. The moment wasn't ready. Once the internal problems of the Imperium were fully resolved — the true counter-attack would begin immediately.
Perturabo watched the crowd gradually disperse. The Emperor still sat on the steps of the Eternity Gate, his deep gaze fixed on the sky above Terra, saying nothing.
Horus's death had struck him deeply — but the Master of Humanity was not fragile. The things that had happened throughout this journey were, from his perspective, merely a short period of suffering.
"Malcador, myself, and the brothers will clean up the aftermath. You can go look for Horus — or continue working on the Second and Eleventh. Your call, specifically how you go about it."
Perturabo's voice still carried the remnants of his fury, but steadiness had settled over it — a quality that left no room for argument.
The Solar Segmentum had been ravaged. These traitors had struck with vicious precision, seemingly determined to achieve complete destruction. The Imperium needed rebuilding, internal purging, and Legion resupply. Without pulling these problems out by the root, the counter-attack was nothing but empty words.
Perturabo was not going to do something that foolish. At any time, militarism without a foundation was a grave mistake for any state.
The Emperor slowly turned his head. The golden eyes carried no visible emotion, and yet they seemed to see through every plan in Perturabo's mind.
At this moment, he had none of the casual banter he usually had with Perturabo. He had returned to the form he had shown when he first came to Olympia.
Silent. Mysterious. Strong and composed.
"You are considerably more thorough than I expected. You haven't let the fury consume your will entirely."
"Humanity's survival has never been secured through a moment's anger — it comes from enduring over a long time. You're sharp and decisive, and your killing intent is, if anything, stronger than mine. I had originally expected you would disregard everything and launch the counter-attack immediately."
The Emperor looked at Perturabo the way he had once looked at him in the palace on Olympia.
"Every debt — Horus's death, Ultramar's fall, the Solar Segmentum's ruin — I've made note of every one. But right now I'll press down the anger, and see the Imperium's wounds healed. Only when the Imperium is solid do we have the foundation to level these creatures."
"It seems you've already earned the right to take up this burden. I originally had Guilliman and Sanguinius in mind as my replacements — but looking at things now, you're more suitable than either of them."
But Perturabo didn't respond to the Emperor this time. He turned and walked away. The yellow-and-black markings on his armour caught the sunlight with a cold, hard gleam.
Perturabo didn't return to his fortress. He went directly to Terra's Supreme Governance Hall. The reorganisation and reconstruction that would sweep through the entire human Imperium had begun.
During the traitor invasion, communication disruption had sent the Imperial high command into brief chaos.
Administrative officials and military officers across Terra and throughout the stellar regions — some had fled their posts at the critical moment, some had profiteered during the crisis, some had hoarded supplies for personal gain, and some had covertly made contact with heretic and xenos forces, intending to exploit the war for personal benefit.
When the crisis temporarily abated, their ugly conduct was fully exposed — and they became the first targets Perturabo moved against.
He acted without any hesitation. Iron Warriors were deployed immediately, working alongside the Custodians and the Silent Sisterhood, to conduct comprehensive audits of the entire Imperium's administrative systems and military departments.
Battle casualty data on dataplates, resource expenditure records, population loss reports — all were laid out in sequence. Every account that didn't reconcile, every official who had failed in their duty, every unit that had withdrawn at the critical moment — nothing escaped.
The Iron Warriors' and Custodians' execution capacity was nothing short of terrifying. Squads of warriors in black power armour swept into official bureaus and residences, arresting the implicated one by one.
The logic engine was formidable. And Perturabo's methods were sufficiently ruthless.
These people were not killed. They were directly converted into Servitors — without loss of their self-awareness, without prefrontal lobotomisation. What awaited them was endless mining work and roles as interchangeable components on industrial-world production lines.
The thunder of bolt weapons echoed across Imperial skies as those who resisted were executed on the spot.
The length of the list surprised even Perturabo and Malcador.
The traitors had brought direct destruction. These internal traitors had brought something more concealed and more lethal to the Imperium — a slow-acting poison.
Even the Emperor, seeing the extent of it, found his resolution about Astartes non-involvement in politics wavering.
The desires of ordinary humans were genuinely terrifying — the Emperor had to acknowledge this.
He thought back to the madmen he had encountered during the three centuries of the Unification Wars. If not for the intimidating effect of those techno-barbarians' unusual weaponry and their psychic capabilities, there was genuinely no saying what some of these people would have produced in a genuine breakdown of order.
The Emperor had always been cautious not to push too hard, afraid Terra couldn't withstand it. And Terra really couldn't.
And now these ordinary humans had again shown the Emperor what genuine wickedness looked like.
In the exploitation and oppression of humanity, even xenos had to yield to these nobles and officials.
After rapidly managing the relocation of Ultramar's survivors, Guilliman came to Terra's Governance Hall to assist Perturabo.
After all, what 'Robert' had taken was population — he hadn't pushed things to an absolute conclusion. Filling the population deficit, revising the legal codes — those things were manageable. The remaining Ultramarines would handle the rest themselves.
Guilliman was considerably more proficient than Perturabo in Imperial administrative governance. Looking at the chaotic governing apparatus, he pressed down his grief and fury and set about restructuring the administrative framework.
Perturabo had killed very aggressively — even Malcador and the Emperor had intervened to moderate things somewhat afterward, and even that hadn't changed Perturabo's determination.
He genuinely despised these parasites who harmed their own people.
Guilliman abolished the redundant war-time official posts, streamlined administrative processes, elevated loyal and capable officials to critical positions, and simultaneously established strict administrative performance criteria — using war-time performance as the primary standard for promotion and dismissal.
For officials who had made genuine errors rather than malicious ones, but simply lacked capability, Guilliman didn't push for total elimination. He reassigned them from core positions to participate in reconstruction work in various stellar regions — a chance to earn redemption through service.
For those whose crimes were severe, he showed no mercy, cooperating fully with Perturabo's purge.
Together, within barely half a month, the corruption and dereliction that had previously required great effort from Perturabo and Malcador to manage was completely eradicated from within the Solar Segmentum and Halo Stars administration. The chaotic internal governance structure returned to proper function.
Simultaneously, Perturabo ordered a blockade of the stellar regions around Terra — strict inspection of all vessels coming and going, closing every pathway for heretics and Chaos worshippers to infiltrate Terra.
The Custodians and Silent Sisterhood took responsibility for guarding the Palace and the Eternity Gate. Iron Warriors, Imperial Fists, and Death Watch went deep into the underhives of various worlds, purging heretic cults and mutant forces that had flourished during the disruption.
The Imperium that had been engulfed in war and chaos gradually recovered its former order.
The Solar Segmentum reconstruction was the most troublesome undertaking.
Perturabo and Guilliman developed a tiered reconstruction plan based on each world's level of damage, designating certain stellar regions as core reconstruction zones, mobilising every available Imperial resource for comprehensive repair work.
Most Solar Segmentum worlds had been reduced to ruins by the traitors — populations entirely taken or killed, planetary ecosystems destroyed, formerly prosperous Imperial worlds reduced to dead silence.
Countless planets had been shattered by the fighting. Shipyards, forge worlds, and defensive fortresses were nearly entirely destroyed. System-defence networks had collapsed completely.
Perturabo personally oversaw the Solar Segmentum, putting every aspect of his talent into reconstruction and defensive fortification work.
First — mobilising the Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists, with Terra as the core, to rebuild the Solar Segmentum's defensive network from the ground up.
At critical Mandeville Points around the Solar System, enormous orbital defence platforms, torpedo silos, and psychic jamming towers were constructed — a replica and upgrade of the Great Crusade-era defensive lines.
Simultaneously, certain forge world production facilities were repaired, tank, warship, and power armour production lines were restarted, and Imperial military stockpiles were comprehensively replenished.
The Resentment Intelligence forces were extensively occupied throughout the Solar Segmentum. Engineering teams cast defensive lines across the entire Solar Segmentum that were longer and heavier than anything that had existed before. Planetary shield technology was significantly enhanced.
Guilliman and Malcador were progressively repairing civilian infrastructure and policy — distributing food, water, medicine, and daily supplies to mortals on damaged worlds, settling populations frightened by the war.
They simultaneously ordered tax reductions for Solar Segmentum civilians for several years, activating the positive energy of ordinary people and encouraging them to participate in rebuilding their homes.
The Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists were as expert in construction and repair as they were in assault and siege work. Under their efforts combined with the Resentment Intelligence forces, ruined city after ruined city rose again from the ground, abandoned mining zones and farms resumed production, and the Solar Segmentum's vitality was gradually restored.
The Ghoul Stars had always been the most chaotic region within Imperial territory — xenos, heretics, and pirates had thrived there, and the traitor invasion had caused these forces to resurge and mutually reinforce each other, freely raiding Imperial worlds and slaughtering humans. Certain Chaos cults had also quietly risen.
Death Watch had been dispatched to clear them out, but faced with the sheer volume of heretic and xenos forces, even they were finding it difficult.
Perturabo dispatched additional Legion forces to various stellar regions to begin combat operations. The various Legions also began detaching their own fleet elements to execute assignments.
Raven Guard and Night Lords took responsibility for guerrilla operations — clearing small force concentrations concealed in nebulae and abandoned space stations.
The White Scars, leveraging their extraordinary mobility, patrolled stellar region shipping lanes, striking Dark Eldar and other pirate fleets.
Iron Hands and Salamanders were responsible for constructing frontier defensive fortresses, building defensive lines, and blocking heretic forces from expanding outward.
The Lion and Russ led the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves in heavy operations focused primarily on the Ghoul Stars, methodically beating the opportunistic elements who had exploited the confusion into submission.
Simultaneously, Perturabo ordered the establishment of multiple military outposts throughout the Ghoul Stars, garrisoned by permanently-stationed Legion commanders, to prevent heretic forces from proliferating again and thoroughly stabilise the Imperial frontier.
Perturabo and Magnus jointly mobilised every senior psyker the Imperium could field, guided by the Emperor's quiet direction, to progressively repair and expand the Webway entry points on Terra — and simultaneously began establishing secure Webway nodes on core worlds in each stellar region.
As a high-speed transit network free from Warp corruption, once fully opened, the Webway would completely resolve the Imperium's chronic problems of slow inter-stellar transit and vulnerability to ambush.
Whether troop movements, supply transport, or population migration — everything would become efficient and secure.
At minimum, if communications were ever severed again, the Webway would provide a fast means to determine what was actually happening.
This was what the Imperium should have been doing after the Great Crusade ended anyway. The traitors had simply delayed it by force.
Magnus led the Thousand Sons' psykers in round-the-clock study of the Webway's operational patterns, surveying Warp-space hazards within the passages, and ensuring transit safety.
Vulkan led a portion of the Salamanders and Iron Warriors-Imperial Fists forces in constructing defensive works around the Webway entry points, establishing layered blockades and security measures to absolutely prevent any Chaos forces from infiltrating the Webway.
Within mere months, the core Webway routes from Terra to the Solar Segmentum and the Halo Stars were opened. Imperial supplies and military forces could now reach various reconstruction zones through the Webway with speed, greatly accelerating reconstruction progress.
Every Legion adopted the latest modification technologies, simultaneously optimising existing warriors and recruits. Legion overall combat capability advanced steadily.
The Imperium recruited large numbers of young mortals from various stellar regions — after basic training and enhancement modifications, these were organised into auxilia forces, supporting Astartes Legions in combat operations, frontier garrison duty, and maintaining stellar region order, becoming an important supplement to Imperial military strength.
Continuous streams of weapons, ammunition, equipment, and vehicles were transported from Olympia and the major forge worlds. Production lines were running at absolute capacity.
Time passed swiftly.
Twenty years came and went in a moment.
Perturabo stood at the highest point of the Eternity Wall, looking down at the prosperous hive city below, watching the constant flow of Imperial vessels coming and going in the distant star-field. The exhaustion that had once been in his eyes had long since cleared. Only hard, determined readiness for war remained.
Now — the moment had come. Those traitors had been living comfortably for a full twenty years.
The Imperium's retributive fury was about to come down on them.
Perturabo had been waiting for this moment for a very long time. The firepower in his hands was ready. He was going to personally blast those traitors into ash.
Take their skulls back and mount them on the highest eagle-banner on Terra.
One traitor's head to christen the campaign — Perturabo's gaze moved upward.
Aboard the Nightfall, the long-imprisoned 'Konrad' suddenly shuddered.