Fulgrim still stood right where he was.
His gaze shifted away from Demeter, slowly sweeping over the Emperor's Children warriors who were currently clearing the battlefield.
Feeling their father's eyes on them, the legionaries instinctively straightened their backs.
But a complicated light flickered in their eyes.
Some looked at Demeter with clear admiration.
Some looked at Fulgrim, their eyes filled with worry.
Others just lowered their heads, not daring to meet their Primarch's gaze.
Fulgrim took it all in. He saw exactly what was shining in his sons' eyes.
His right hand slowly clenched around the hilt of the Blade of the Laer at his waist.
The sword vibrated gently in his grip, its violent magenta light pulsing frantically through the seams of its scabbard.
The whispers echoed relentlessly inside his head:
Look at them...
Your sons admire Demeter more than you...
Your glory, stolen right from under you...
This perfect victory... it doesn't belong to you...
Aren't you angry?
Don't you hate it?
Fulgrim's eyes bled into a pure, vibrant magenta.
Yet, he remained perfectly still.
Because he was the Phoenician.
He was a son of the Emperor.
The absolute incarnation of perfection.
He couldn't just throw a tantrum in public. He couldn't steal glory from his own son.
He had to keep his composure.
Slowly, the corners of Fulgrim's mouth curled into a smile.
That smile looked incredibly unsettling on a face that was already beginning to contort with repressed emotion.
He finally spoke.
His voice was terrifyingly calm—so calm that it sent a bone-chilling shiver down the spine of every Emperor's Children warrior in the room.
"Well done, Demeter."
"Very well done."
He paused, his eyes sweeping over the Astartes cleaning up the bridge once more.
"Once you have cataloged the spoils, report to me."
He turned on his heel and strode out of the bridge.
His purple cape snapped sharply behind him.
Demeter stood rooted to the spot, watching his father's retreating back.
He frowned slightly.
That smile...
It was too bizarre.
But he didn't dwell on it.
Instead, he turned back around and went back to directing the cleanup operation.
Meanwhile, deep in the corridor outside the bridge.
Fulgrim halted his steps.
He leaned his back against the freezing metal bulkhead and closed his eyes.
The Blade of the Laer shuddered violently at his side.
The whispers kept right on going:
Ferrus...
It's all Ferrus's fault...
If he hadn't parked the Ferrum right in your way, you wouldn't have wasted time...
If he hadn't deployed the Iron Hands to board the ship, you wouldn't have been bogged down by those ambushes...
If it wasn't for him...
You wouldn't have lost this glory.
Fulgrim opened his eyes.
A mess of complicated emotions flashed through his magenta gaze.
He thought of Ferrus's perpetually hardened, unyielding face.
He thought of the battle barge Ferrum blocking his own vessel, the Firebird.
He thought of those Iron Hands legionaries lying dead in pools of their own blood.
They had done it for him.
They had done it to help him.
But what was the result?
He lost his glory.
He lost his perfection.
He lost everything that rightfully belonged to him.
Fulgrim's fists slowly clenched at his sides.
The whispers pushed on, every single syllable injecting pure venom right into his heart.
Ferrus...
Does he actually trust you?
If he truly believed in you, why did he send the Iron Hands to board?
Was he afraid you couldn't get the job done?
Or did he just want to...
Steal the glory?
Fulgrim's pupils contracted slightly.
He didn't say a word.
But those whispers had already taken root and started to sprout deep within his soul.
Watching this unfold, Lance felt a chaotic mix of emotions.
He suddenly remembered that incredibly popular Warhammer quote floating around the fandom...
"Fulgrim never envies; he only pursues perfection."
Pursuing perfection, my ass.
This was straight-up jealousy.
And the kind of jealousy that made you grind your teeth to dust.
--
With the Diasporex Alliance's flagship seized, their entire command network completely collapsed.
The remaining enemy ships that were still trying to put up a fight were quickly picked off one by one by the 52nd and 28th Expeditionary Fleets now that they had no unified leadership.
The deafening roar of the macro-cannons slowly died down, and the chaotic flurry of lance beams thinned out.
When the final Diasporex warship lost power and went dead in the void...
The months-long Carollis Campaign finally came to a close.
Shards of teal crystalline armor drifted lazily through the vacuum of space.
The moment the fighting ended, the Tech-Priests of the 28th Expeditionary Fleet eagerly swarmed aboard the Tear of the Diasporex and the rest of the surviving enemy vessels.
Ancient starship tech dating back to the Dark Age of Technology.
Electronic warfare suites capable of hacking right into Imperial systems, ridiculously smooth aerodynamic designs, and completely novel crystalline armor forging methods...
To the Adeptus Mechanicus, the value of this haul was worth more than a hundred conquered worlds combined.
"Praise the Machine God! Praise the Omnissiah!"
A crimson-robed Magos practically caressed the control console of a Diasporex warship, his voice trembling with sheer ecstasy.
"This xenos STC tech... it's enough to birth an entirely new era within the foundries of Mars!"
The prisoners of the Diasporex Alliance met a vastly different fate.
The four-legged, eyeless xenos were immediately condemned as unacceptable.
They were dragged up to execution blocks and, amid chanted prayers of "Loyalty to the Emperor," gunned down by bolter fire one after another.
As for the human prisoners, they were shipped off to the Carollis system, which the Imperial fleet had just subjugated.
Specifically, to a planet the Imperium had creatively rebranded as Carollis Prime.
This planet already housed a human population in the billions.
They were the descendants of the people the Diasporex Alliance had taken with them to wander the stars ever since the Age of Strife.
Now, every single one of them had just been reduced to slave labor for the Imperium's newly appointed Planetary Governor of Carollis.
"We just wanted to be left alone to survive."
Those were the final words of the xenos leader, Karu Atlee, before Fulgrim tortured him to death.
Even in death, his eyeless sensory organs remained fixated on the direction of the bridge.
Looking toward the ruins of the civilization he had protected for three hundred years.
Nobody answered him.
And nobody cared.
In this brutal galaxy, the dying words and unyielding spine of the weak were never remembered.