"The Armor of Redemption cost us a fortune. We must finish forging it on schedule…"
Eden stared at the holo-link, nerves tight as a bowstring.
There was no helping it. The Emperor's corruption kept deepening; He could no longer wield His full might with impunity.
Otherwise, one especially vicious fight might just crack the Golden Throne.
That golden commode is one of the most critical defensive lines in the entire galaxy.
If it actually collapsed, the splash zone would be… extensive. Even the Chaos Gods wouldn't be spared.
Unless it truly came to the Imperium's last stand, the Emperor would not risk using His power to intervene personally in galactic warfare.
But without the Emperor's help, it was hard for the Imperium to counter the Chaos Gods' might, and their odds of victory plummeted.
Given that, Eden chose a compromise.
He would draw upon the Sacred Sun, bolster the inner warp-sun of his essence, then project it into realspace—and use the Emperor as a living power bank.
That way, he wouldn't be ground into the dust by the baleful energies the Chaos Gods projected.
But channeling the Sacred Sun into realspace wasn't easy. Besides his own inner sun, he needed an external medium.
Hence the Armor of Redemption—fitted with a Warp Extraction Engine, and forged using the Emperor's ashes as material.
Of course, this had the Emperor's consent. He didn't object, which amounted to approval.
Still, for the Imperium at large, this was blasphemous and heretical in the extreme. Best done quietly, not trumpeted abroad.
"We can't keep shaving more off, or the Custodians won't stand for it…"
Eeden sighed.
The Tech-priests harvesting 'materials' had practically pared the Emperor down to the bone, taking ribs and other tissues besides.
The Lord Commander of the Custodian Guard and the Throne guardians who witnessed it nearly fainted from grief.
And all that for barely forty catties of sacred remains.
Take much more and the Emperor's holy bones would barely resemble a person. It'd be a cosmic joke.
How would that be any different from hoisting the Emperor out as a literal meat-shield?
Eden grimaced, then steeled himself. "For Humanity and the Imperium, we'll have to wrong you a little, Your Majesty."
If the sacred bone-powder still wasn't enough, then better to do it in one go—harvest a bit more at once, then fit a mold to disguise the loss.
That way, when Primarchs and other high personages came to the Throne for audience, it wouldn't look so shabby. Dress it up with better lighting.
With the Emperor's undying nature, as long as some tissue remained, there was a fair chance He could be restored someday.
In fact, even his own body—if he lost an arm or a leg—would slowly regrow over time.
Just avoid plasma and melta. Then it's mostly fine.
Archmagos Belisarius Cawl, seeing the Savior's expression cloud, hurried to report:
"By the Machine-Goddess, the sacred bone-powder is sufficient. We are, however, short 9.8% of Blackstone. Otherwise the Armor of Redemption's silhouette won't meet your desired level of 'imposing,' Your Majesty."
"So it's Blackstone we lack? That's fine. Tear some from anywhere you like—just don't touch the core nexus."
Eeden exhaled in relief.
As long as it wasn't sacred bone-powder. Many structures and facilities in his domains used Blackstone. Borrowing a bit was manageable.
Besides, by Cawl's account, the Armor of Redemption was already functional; the outer plates merely needed decorative finishing.
As the personal panoply of the Emperor of the Imperium, it couldn't look cheap. Appearances drive awe—and morale.
"Hold up. What in the warp is that?!"
As the Archmagos moved, Eden glanced up at the chest of the armor—and went numb.
Cawl followed his gaze and intoned devoutly,
"By the Machine-Goddess. That is our proudest reliquary adornment. It will strike endless terror into the foe on any battlefield!"
"I can see it's an adornment. But to replicate that reliquary—don't you think it's a bit…"
Eeden's brows knotted. He couldn't even find words for the sheer audacity.
The armor's breastplate was hollowed into a brutal golden mechanism. At its heart crouched a most intimidating figure.
For Throne's sake—an almost one-to-one Golden Throne with the Emperor's skull and bones?
That giant reliquary might even include actual imperial relics mixed in. It could pass for the real thing.
The Emperor's imperious seated posture, the skull's empty sockets casting an all-seeing glare—as if He looked down on every living thing ahead.
The shock value was undeniable.
"Tell me—whose 'little genius' idea was this?"
Eden asked, half helpless.
The Imperium did have a tradition of mounting bones upon armour and shields as relics. But that was the Emperor. This felt… disrespectful.
Effective? Oh, absolutely.
But wasn't he asking for trouble—especially if he ran into the Emperor's harsher moods later? He'd get thrashed.
"Your Majesty the Savior, this design was derived from calculations by the Machine-Goddess herself as the optimal solution for maximum intimidation."
Cawl straightened, brimming with pride.
"Mm…"
Eden propped his chin, mood notably improved. "If it's Webby's design, then splendid. Proceed. Make it as imposing as possible."
If others did such a thing it would be risky. But if it came from his dearest 'little cotton-padded jacket,' the Machine-Goddess Webby—then no problem.
The Emperor doted on Webby more than anyone. As long as she didn't dismantle the Throne outright, He'd hardly get angry.
With Webby as his pretext, Eden's shameless dad-courage doubled. Let the cog-boys go wild.
The more realistic, the more terrifying—the better.
He really would be carrying the Golden Throne—and the Emperor's bones—into battle.
With a reliquary that outrageous, wouldn't the Chaos Daemons piss themselves on sight?
And the sacred psychic energies would conduct better through it. After he culled a mountain of abominations, the Emperor might even be pleased.
Indirect kills still count.
"Finish the Armor of Redemption," Eden ordered after absorbing the details. "Deliver it to the Vostonia war-theatre within ten Terran days—no later."
He couldn't wait to don that absurdly explosive panoply.
"Brother, what's that?"
At some point, Roboute Guilliman had wandered over, curiosity piqued.
He hadn't heard the conversation, but the holo had shown a hulking, shadowed engine.
"A secret weapon. You'll see."
Eden casually cut the link and gave a smile that revealed exactly nothing.
Revealing it now would only invite bickering and hassle. Better to unveil it amid the gunsmoke.
Seeing his brother unwilling to share, Guilliman didn't press. Still, his mood brightened.
The more weapons the Savior prepared, the higher their odds, and the fewer the dead.
Undeniably a good thing.
Just then, above the warehouse dome, the void shuddered. Ships slammed out of the warp one after another.
A vast fleet.
"The Khan's here too. Time we planned the operation."
Eden's gaze found the White Scars' flagship on the far side—the New Swordstorm.
During the Horus Heresy, the White Scars' Gloriana-class flagship, the Swordstorm, had been used as bait to trap the fallen Primarch Mortarion and scuttled by overloading its engines.
Unfortunately, at the last moment, the void shields failed—and Mortarion escaped.
For a long time afterward, the White Scars had no flagship of their own.
This new flagship—a Gloriana-class battleship—had been a gift from their newly adopted father, the Hope-Primarch, the Savior.
Eden hadn't really wanted to give it away. But the yearning in his sons' eyes had made him wave the matter off as a trifle.
Flesh and blood stay in the family pot.
Such extravagant largesse only deepened the White Scars' devotion to the Savior.
Even the Khan himself had nearly blurted out "father" to his dearest brother.
Guilliman stared at the White Scars' gleaming flagship, silent.
Some faint jealousy pinched his heart. His best brother had never gifted him such an heirloom.
It wasn't the value of a Gloriana that gnawed at him, but what it symbolized—brotherhood.
Surely his bond with the Savior ran deeper.
He did not know—it symbolized father and sons.
"What are you looking at, Old Roboute? We've a war-room to attend."
Eden clapped a big hand on his brother's shoulder and strode out of the warehouse district.
Guilliman tore his eyes from the starship and followed.
…
Dreamweaver.
Small operations chamber.
A starchart of the Vostonia Pan-Sector hung in the air, nearly all of it raging red—its heart marred by a striped, dark-crimson scar.
The foe had infested the entire region.
World after civilized world was being fed into the furnace of annihilation.
"This is the field we face. A Chaos rift spans the sector, covering almost every civilized world.
"Those worlds form a monstrous ritual array.
"If we fail to retake them and shatter the array, the rift will keep swelling—spilling into ever more of the Nebulous Region.
"And our Old One artifact will be utterly destroyed!"
Eden's face was iron as he studied the chart.
That rift was essentially a mega-portal—an endless pipeline for Chaos hosts.
It had to be contained.
He zoomed the map, pointing to a ring of dark red on the Vostonian outskirts.
"The Chaos powers have already eroded the rim and keep pressing in. The rift is on the cusp of its final phase.
"Soon it will become a stabilized conduit for the Dark Gods' power. We must seal the rim and break the array before the rift completes."
"Can the Lion still hold? Won't the outer worlds of Vostonia be doomed?" the Khan asked, frowning at the display.
From the look of it, Vostonia's garrisons couldn't even blunt the Chaos vanguard. It looked like a rout.
If the Lion perished under that avalanche of abominations, the Imperium would suffer a grievous wound.
"The Imperium can't afford to lose another Primarch," Guilliman murmured.
Whether for love or for the Imperium, he wanted the Lion alive.
But men are not daemons—and this was realspace.
Even a Primarch could not stem an endless tide forever. Fatigue would win eventually.
"For now, the Lion will endure," Eden said, catching the doubt in his brothers' eyes. He elaborated:
"I've dispatched special vanguards into Vostonia. They should sow chaos and buy us time.
"Beyond that, no promises. The enemy's numbers swell by the hour—vaster than ever before."
He highlighted several mustering zones, and both Primarchs blinked.
"The Terror Legion, Ork greenskins, Tyranid fleets, the Drukhari, and the Necrons—these are our vanguards?!"
"Strictly speaking, they aren't ours. But the enemy of my enemy…" Eden spread his hands.
They weren't his armies—at least not all of them. Half were Humanity's foes.
The Terror Legion were the exception—he'd sent them.
Those who worshipped his darker persona—Diablo the Destroyer—loved war, slaughter, and the manufacture of fear.
Even without orders, they'd have run here on their own, hot-blooded counterparts to Khorne's slaughter-cultists.
Where there's war, there they are—happy to pay for the privilege of hacking apart xenos and heretics.
As for the Orks—besides his own Ironfang empire, two or three other big empires were involved.
Why had they shown up? Because his Ironfangs had set up a massive waaagh! grudge-match with them—to decide once and for all which boss, Rog, Gog, or Mog, was strongest.
The chosen venue? The Vostonia Pan-Sector. Once they arrived they naturally collided with the daemons—and started krumpin'.
The Tyranids came thanks to his handiwork—a warp beacon cobbled from carrion of the sly Chigei splinter and the wreckage of Hive Fleet Leviathan, which lured in a Hydra splinter.
That Hydra splinter bred at insane speed—and fed upon the carcasses of other hive fleets to evolve.
The remains of Leviathan defeated by Humanity made for a delicious inheritance.
Hydra raced to Vostonia—and dropped straight into a Chaos hornet's nest.
Rift interference would foul their course, too.
To devour the planetary wreckage, Hydra would inevitably clash with the daemons.
The Drukhari—heirs to a fallen galactic hegemony—came to poach Tyranid ova and specimens.
They meant to breed stronger Tyranid gladiators.
They'd taken their Pokémon-style pit-beast obsession to pathological extremes; some had even weaned themselves off soul-elixirs for a time.
Hardened as they were, they'd still be able to blunt Chaos incursions on the edges of several worlds.
The Necrons? Even Eden was surprised.
He'd made no arrangements there—and couldn't order those ancient tyrants of the stars around.
Most likely, a tomb world under Vostonia had stirred at the rift's disturbance and started its harvest. Then the metal legions rose—and joined the opening brawl.
That was the galaxy's normal. Nothing strange.
Once, they'd ruled the stars. Their tomb worlds were like cockroach nests—one might pop out anywhere, anytime—
—and then an army of living metal would scuttle out to rampage.
"Shame. Even with all those xenos and heretics, it's not enough. They can't stop the united Chaos host—won't even last long."
Eden's tone was rueful.
At best, those disparate forces would clog the Chaos advance for a while.
Once the main body of the united host arrived, the distraction would end.
For victory, he would rely on the armies of the Imperium.
A steel deluge to drown the abominations of Chaos.
As for the scattered warbands massing in the outer dark, he ignored them. Against this armada, they were gnats.
He marked more than a dozen axes of advance across the entire Vostonia Pan-Sector.
"Three days from now, our assembled hosts will make translation to the Vostonian rim and form a ring, pressing inward.
"You two will remain aboard the Dreamweaver with me.
"We'll form a strike group to spear the Chaos core—and meet whatever nameless horror waits within."
The strike group he spoke of was the First Redemption Fleet—a mass of warships and warriors.
Three Primarchs. Three thousand Custodians. One hundred thousand Space Marines. A million powered-armour troopers. Titan and Knight households.
Plus several Void Whale-class carriers packed with long-range automata and swarms of servo-drones.
Independent of the larger host, the strike group—led by the Emperor of the Imperium, the Hope-Primarch, the Savior—would maneuver inside the encirclement, piercing through to the enemy's heart.
And deal a killing blow to the united Chaos host.
"Our musters are nearly complete. Departure will follow shortly."
Even as he spoke, the void outside rippled.
Eden flicked the starchart off and irised open the war-room dome. Triple suns flooded the chamber with harsh light.
Bright enough to sting the eyes.
Whoom-whoom-whoom—
Star-cold flashes pebbled the dark as fleet after fleet tore out of the warp into the battlespace.
They massed around the Dreamweaver, line upon line disappearing to the edge of sight—seemingly endless.
Gradually, the chamber dimmed—not just here, but across the system.
Starlight surrendered to the cold gleam of void-ships…
(End of Chapter)
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