Half an hour later.
"I'm deeply sorry, sir. Rena didn't mean it—she's just... she's a good kid, just a bit too outspoken. Please accept my apologies."
Lion El'Jonson was no longer at the edge of the forest.
He had halted his steps. Before him, that giant Knight mecha had long ceased its march, standing silently upon the overturned, fertile black soil like an ancient armored giant taking a rest.
The Knight mecha's cockpit opened, and a nimble figure leaped down.
It was a female Knight.
Her movements upon landing were crisp and clean, bearing the instincts of long, rigorous training.
Then, the female Knight immediately held down the reckless young girl's head firmly with one hand while bowing slightly herself to express her apologies to Lion.
The young girl shrank her neck under the pressure, muttering something like "If you come out of the forest, aren't you just a wild man anyway?", but she quickly went quiet after the strength in the female Knight's hand increased.
Lion cast his gaze upon this female Knight.
"Where is this place?"
Lion inquired.
At this moment, his memories returned like a rushing tide.
A planet falling apart, a blade with long wings, bat-winged and sharp-fanged beasts pouncing at him, a figure radiating blinding golden light, and a planet that had perished under his own orders.
His mind was in utter chaos, causing this Primarch—renowned for war—to blurt out a somewhat foolish question, one that might even expose his own origins.
Sure enough, the female Knight immediately cast a puzzled look at him.
"This is Segmentum Obscurus, the Caliban Sector, the Imperial World of Cadison. You don't even know where this is—how did you arrive here?"
Caliban.
A bolt of lightning seemed to suddenly strike across Lion's consciousness.
That was his homeworld, his birthplace.
But—
The female Knight examined this tall uninvited guest meticulously.
Just now, sitting in the Knight mecha's cockpit, she hadn't been able to see him clearly, thinking from a distance that he was merely an exceptionally tall Space Marine.
However, examining him closely now, her expression quickly turned to one of utter astonishment.
The aura surrounding this lord was so profound, so powerful.
That sense of pressure wasn't flashy—it was like a lion slowly pacing through the depths of a dense forest. It didn't need to utter a sound; its mere presence alone plunged the entire forest into silence.
This was only natural.
Every Primarch was a masterpiece created by the Emperor, and the Lion could arguably be called the absolute exemplar among them.
This majesty, originating from the deepest depths of his genetics, was something even the most dull-witted mortal would instinctively tremble before when looking directly at him.
The astonishment in the female Knight's eyes grew stronger and stronger.
Lion pondered for a moment under her gaze, ultimately choosing to be direct.
"I am a Primarch, Lord of the Dark Angels, Lion El'Jonson."
His voice echoed across the open fields, steady and unquestionable.
"I have awakened from a long slumber, and upon waking, I found myself here. I need to return to Terra as soon as possible."
Countless thoughts raced through Lion's mind.
He recalled his previous experience—that figure sitting by the lake, fishing. That should have been Father's manifestation.
What was it Father had said to him?
"The first one. The most reliable one. My child. The exemplar."
And... "Please."
Were those really words that would come out of Father's mouth?
Lion found it unbelievable.
However, since Father had said so, what else was there to be said?
Lion would unhesitatingly become the sharp blade in His hands once more, just as he had always done.
Yet, deducing from his own logic, for Father to assume such a stance meant that whatever the Imperium had to face next was definitely not an enemy that could be easily vanquished.
Still, Lion never hesitated when it came to his duty.
However, the female Knight's response brought his train of thought to a screeching halt.
She muttered to herself, "So that's how it is... Is the next Primarch to be restored you, Lord Lion?"
She just believed it like that?
Without a shred of suspicion?
Lion froze.
He had prepared himself for every possible reaction—whether it was flying into a rage and attacking him, questioning his identity with a face full of suspicion, or even bursting out laughing afterward, all of which he would have considered reasonable mortal responses.
But her simply believing it outright was something he had never expected.
Furthermore, what did her words mean?
What did she mean by "the next Primarch to awaken"?
Still, questions had to be addressed one by one.
"I thought you would be a bit suspicious," Lion said in a deep voice. "Judging by my experience, you should be a battle-hardened Knight."
As he spoke, he shifted his gaze away, landing on that slightly rusty Knight mecha.
"However, I didn't expect you to accept all this so quickly. And what are you doing here? Using a Knight mecha to till land? Since when have Imperial military units been so idle?"
Moreover, according to Lion's judgment, judging by the scale of this Knight frame, it was clearly a priceless Dominus-class Knight mecha.
The red-robes of the Adeptus Mechanicus would actually allow a war engine of this caliber to be modified into a mundane land-tilling machine?
For real?
The female Knight smiled faintly.
"I am merely living here in seclusion."
She paused and looked up.
"Forgive me, it might surprise you to hear this, but nowadays there are no wars across the galaxy that require Knights to participate in anymore. Battles of a somewhat suitable scale are basically all domains handled by the Adeptus Astartes. We Knights are essentially..."
She weighed her words carefully, "...retired."
"So, I'm just living in seclusion here, helping neighboring folks till their land. It's actually quite nice—a way of... beating swords into plowshares."
Lion El'Jonson fell silent.
"What?"
The sheer volume of information embedded in that statement, along with her naturally earnest yet completely justified attitude, was mind-boggling.
Those Knight Houses that viewed honor as life itself and battle achievements as the most precious inheritance in their bloodline would willingly lay down their weapons and till soil in farmlands?
Could it be that during the time he was asleep, his brothers had actually done a pretty good job?
Finally, Lion couldn't help but ask the most crucial question.
"So, how many years have passed since the Horus Heresy?"
Hearing this, the female Knight froze slightly before a look of realization dawned on her face. She seemed to understand why this Primarch appeared so unfamiliar with everything.
"Ah, you don't know yet?"
She said, "It has been ten thousand years, Lord Primarch."
The wind over the field seemed to freeze at this moment.
The Primarch fell into a brief silence.
Ten thousand years.
It had actually been such a vast span of time.
He had just thought he had merely slept for a few months—at most a year or two—never expecting that the outside world had turned through such an immense stretch of ages.
However, as the Lion slowly raised his eyes and swept them across everything before him once more, an indescribable emotion gently expanded within his chest.
Far off lay a serene vista.
An azure, crystal-clear sky; the air filled with the scent of freshly overturned earth, mingled with a faint, fresh fragrance of vegetation.
That reckless girl was no longer having her head held down. Standing behind the female Knight, she quietly peeked half her head out, secretly stealing curious glances with her eyes at this giant who seemed to have walked straight out of myth.
And on the female Knight's face hung a genuine, heartfelt smile.
Lion El'Jonson let out a smile.
That smile could be said to have lasted only a fleeting instant, but it had indeed existed.
It seemed that even after his departure, the Imperium continued to march forward in giant strides.
The peaceful life that Father and all the loyalist Primarchs had collectively hoped for had ultimately arrived after all.
Whether it was the warriors who raised their weapons to slash through xenos and evil during the Great Crusade, or the loyalists who fought with all their might against those abominable traitors during the Heresy—their sacrifices had all been worth it.
The meaning of fighting was truly displayed before his eyes at this moment.
In that case, I can rest easy.
—Can I?
—Can I?!
Barely five minutes later.
"Huh?!"
The Lion let out a short, powerful, and utterly shell-shocked exhale.
To put it simply, he gasped.
In those deep eyes of his, a rare blankness surfaced—because such absurd amounts of unbelievable information had rushed in within a single instant that even a Primarch's superhuman mental processing speed required time to digest it all.
He completely couldn't bring himself to believe it.
Facing the historical records and things that looked more like promotional brochures that the female Knight, Maria Calissa, pulled up from her portable terminal, Lion El'Jonson fell into a profound state of bewilderment and confusion.
In that brief instant, his excess paranoia welled up once more.
He even began to seriously consider whether everything before his eyes might be another illusion crafted by the forces of Chaos.
An elaborately woven lie, specifically crafted to deceive him, lure him into dropping his guard, and then stab him in the back at a critical moment.
What did she mean by the Imperial Truth no longer existed during these ten thousand years? A belief system called the "Ecclesiarchy" had taken its place, dragging the entire Imperium into a fanatical atmosphere of religious supremacy?
The Emperor Himself—the very man who had personally repudiated the existence of all gods—had actually become the central object of worship for this Ecclesiarchy?!
What did she mean by Guilliman broke apart my Legion with a piece of paper? I knew that overly ambitious guy couldn't be trusted!
What did she mean by after ten thousand years, the Primarchs vanished one after another—some dead, some missing—until only recently returning one after another?
What did she mean by Sanguinius was resurrected? And Ferrus—the brother cut down by Fulgrim on Isstvan V—was resurrected as well?! Was he still dreaming?!
What did she mean by a new god appeared in the Imperium—a presence just as powerful as the Emperor of the past, quite likely an avatar of the Emperor or His ally, who directly spawned right inside the Imperium of Man?
And then, in a short span of time, He had forcibly pulled the decayed, fallen Imperium straight out of the cesspool, and casually spun those four things inside the cesspool like spinning tops?!
With such a vast and utterly ridiculous amount of information, even Lion El'Jonson felt his brain overloading at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Although he had already received and memorized all this information in his brain within that short time, digesting these mythical contents would clearly require far more time.
In his bewilderment, Lion slowly turned his gaze toward the two mortals.
The female Knight merely shrugged her shoulders.
"Indeed. The Imperium has truly changed a lot compared to the past."
Her tone carried the calm detachment of someone who had seen all the vicissitudes of life, yet also held a subtly hidden trace of pride. "Though it's all moving upward, developing in a good direction, but how should I put it..."
"For some of us, things have become quite relaxed."
"Take me, for example—Maria Calissa. I was originally a legendary Freeblade, piloting this Knight mecha, scattering my own flames upon the enemy across countless battles."
When the female Knight said this, her tone held both the pride of past glory and a sense of relief toward those bygone years. "But clearly, I'm out of a job now."
She raised her hand, pointing her thumb behind her at the Knight mecha currently tilling the land, as well as the massive plowshare thrust into the ground.
"So, I had no choice but to be an ordinary farmer here."
Lion could hear it.
Although this female Knight spoke in a tone akin to self-deprecation, her words were filled with flexing and happiness.
To her, this in itself was a victory.
Lion fell silent.
After a brief lapse of composure, he finally snapped back.
His expression turned cool and solemn once more, those fleetingly exposed emotions re-wrapped under layers of rigid armor as the Lion transformed back into the First Primarch, the exemplar of ten thousand armies.
This shift in aura was completed silently, yet felt so real.
The two mortals present felt that atmosphere akin to a physical, heavy pressure almost simultaneously.
The young girl standing behind the female Knight subconsciously shrank her neck.
"I need to head to Terra immediately to meet with Father and my brothers," Lion stated, his voice having regained that steady, unquestionable weight. "So, how should we proceed? What suggestions do you have regarding this?"
"I imagine someone will arrive here very soon," the female Knight blinked, then answered. "You might not have much of a physical feel for the Imperium's current technological development and communications tech. But all I can say is, on this planet, basically every move cannot be hidden from that Planetary Governor. He collects all information, categorizes all data into his superhuman brain, and then uses his heart to assemble and judge it."
She extended her hand, drawing an arc in the air as if depicting some invisible, massive system. "Ultimately creating a happy life for the entire populace."
"And your arrival should also be within his scope of observation. I think he should be arriving here very soon to welcome you..."
"There's even such a thing?"
Lion's eyebrow twitched slightly. He couldn't help but think of his brother, Roboute Guilliman.
"Is there actually such a powerful Planetary Governor?"
Hearing this, one could tell that reaching such a formidable degree—monitoring the flow of information across an entire planet in real-time—was simply not a level a mortal could achieve.
Even those heavily augmented Senior Archmagi of the Adeptus Mechanicus would likely find it difficult to be so comprehensive in all aspects.
And right at this moment, relying on the Primarch's razor-sharp hearing, the roar of an engine gradually drifted over from the horizon.
Lion raised his head.
He saw a transport vessel heading toward him.
Soon, the ship touched down right before him.
The hatch slowly lowered.
Lion clearly saw the figure standing at the hatchway.
So that's how it is.
To be honest, the Lion truly hadn't expected it.
So that's what kind of "Planetary Governor" it was.
He understood everything.
"Long time no see, Endymion," Lion greeted. "I truly didn't expect you to still be alive."
"Yes, long time no see, Lord Lion."
The Custodes Tribune, Ra Endymion, nodded slowly.
His voice was calm and direct, without any superfluous pleasantries.
"Board the ship. You need to fulfill the duty my Master has entrusted to you."