Emperor's Bane

Chapter 637: Poison King Guilliman

"What did you say?"

"A planetary rebellion that was secretly manipulated by Alpharius?"

This brief message made the Lord of Five Hundred Worlds, who was busy with document affairs, temporarily stop writing. He quickly raised his head, and his right hand, which had lost the guidance of his eyes, did not forget to fluently complete the signature on the paper, while the other hand took the opportunity to touch the teacup, so that he could replenish one or two liters of much-needed liquid caffeine while listening to the news.

The Macragge people are accustomed to keeping themselves in a multi-threaded state, so as to squeeze out more time to take care of more details: even when talking with his blood brothers, Guilliman will specifically clear out part of his brain capacity to think about things that are completely unrelated to the topic. This obvious perfunctory attitude is also one of the reasons why his reputation has become so bad.

But the Lord of Five Hundred Worlds never cares about these trivial matters that do not affect his interests in the real world: even if a million angry mouths throughout the empire curse the name of Guilliman at the same time, Macragge's growing wealth and national strength will not be affected in the slightest.

Guilliman despised them: even if those mouths belonged to his brothers.

But from another perspective, if the development of things will actually affect the interests and future of the Five Hundred Worlds, the Macragge people will definitely take the highest vigilance to put aside everything at hand and pay attention to the progress of a small matter beyond tens of millions of stars: and if it is related to his mysterious brother, then this matter is even more worthy of frowning and thinking for a while.

Such is the situation now.

"Alpharius..."

The Primarch whispered the name, his majestic voice drowned in the sound of running water, and the boiling liquid caffeine moistened Guilliman's throat. Although their taste was not pure and could even be said to be very bad, the Primarch was never a person who indulged in pleasure: the reason why he chose this drink as his work companion was purely because it had the best refreshing effect.

Guilliman had also tried to recommend this secret weapon to his brothers, such as Morgan and Crade, with whom he had a close personal relationship: especially Konrad. After learning a little about what kind of dark enemy Midnight Haunter and his Eighth Legion were facing, Guilliman wanted his Nostramo brothers to stay awake and vigilant at all times more than anyone else.

But Conrad obviously couldn't afford this kindness.

This survival expert, who used to have afternoon tea parties with rats and rotten meat in his childhood, fell to the ground immediately after taking a sip of the "Work Companion" highly recommended by Guilliman. He vomited and had diarrhea for several minutes, which made Sevatar and others present almost draw their swords on Guilliman.

Fortunately, the extremely resilient Midnight Haunter recovered in time and stopped the possible legion conflict, but for the next half month, Conrad the Wizard always had an extremely melancholy look in his eyes, which made his brother's scalp tingle: whenever he looked at the gaze of Midnight Haunter, Guilliman would have a very real illusion.

The look that Midnight Haunter gave the Macragge people was so resentful: it was as if Guilliman had killed Sevatar with his own hands.

The intention of promoting caffeine naturally failed, but Guilliman did not give up afterwards. During the Ullanor Crusade, he recommended his caffeine to Jagatai Khan, Jonson, Fulgrim and others who fought alongside him: he always believed that sharing gifts was a good way to bring brothers closer together.

Before leaving, Ms. Yuton specifically asked him to build good relationships with his brothers.

But the Lord of Macragge wisely did not go to Morgan, because when he took out his precious caffeine in front of the Spider Queen, a flash of coldness clearly flashed across Morgan's face for a moment. It was obvious that Conrad had already complained.

At that moment, all Guilliman could do was quickly touch his neck to make sure it was there.

The recommendation to Zhuang Sen and Chagatai Khan did not go smoothly. The two children who came out of the wilderness just smelled the scent of what Guilliman was holding, and then said goodbye with respect on their faces. Even when facing Ran Dan, Zhuang Sen's steps had never been so fearful.

On the contrary, when Fulgrim, who was traveling with him, heard the news, he came over excitedly to take a look.

He was the only one who had the guts to drink Guilliman's work mate.

And Phoenix is worthy of being Phoenix, his performance is much better than Conrad.

Fulgrim at least managed to reach his own room, closing the door behind him. But for the rest of the Ullanor Crusade, the Phoenix never came near his Macragge brothers again, and at the same time, rumors began to spread that Guilliman had attempted to poison his fellow Primarchs with a powerful toxin.

"..."

Ms. Euton, it's really hard to get along well with your brothers.

The Lords of the Five Hundred Worlds, who appeared to be indifferent on the surface, were wailing in their hearts.

The only beneficial follow-up effect of these events for Guilliman might be that, on the eve of the end of the Ullanor Crusade, the Macragge people suddenly received an invitation: Mortarion, who had never had any contact with him, suddenly felt like visiting Guilliman on his Endurance one day.

Guilliman readily agreed, but did not set a date immediately, because he still felt a little unfamiliar with this kind of tea party between blood brothers: it might be better to wait until his sister of Avalon had time and go with him.

Morgan and Mortarion...

Hmm...there shouldn't be any problem, right?

In the second when his most trusted hero unfolded the intelligence information, Lord Macragge blinked, thinking about so many ideas in his mind, and also conveniently formulated a series of follow-up plans to invite Morgan and visit the Endurance: After doing all this, the hero's voice came at the right time.

The time is just right.

"According to the intelligence we received before, the incident happened in the southern part of the Great Vortex, on a civilized world called Viania. This world has always maintained a semi-independent state with the Human Empire for more than a hundred years. However, because it is located in the chaotic Great Vortex, the Empire has never had the energy to deal with it."

"Vianya."

The name stirred a familiar ripple in Guilliman's heart. He had heard of the name, and with the Lord of Macragge's photographic memory, he was certain that he had dealt with matters related to this name: but it would take a few seconds to think about it.

Then, Guilliman paused for three seconds.

"I remembered."

The Primarch nodded quickly.

"Is this civilized world close to our overseas territory in the Great Vortex Region?"

"Yes."

"It's next to Badab."

"Yes, Badab..."

The Primarch chewed on the name, a hint of nostalgia twitching at the corners of his mouth. The last time he thought about Badab was at least seventy or eighty years ago: but that place was undoubtedly part of the Five Hundred Worlds, and should have nothing to do with the Alpha Legion.

"Tell me, what did Alpharius do in Viania?"

"Hmm...weird."

Yingjie scratched his head in confusion.

"What we can confirm is that Lord Alpharius did lead his entire legion to the front line of Ullanor, but when the Ullanor War was halfway through, he suddenly split off several companies and ordered them to advance towards the Great Vortex area, while receiving the order to pacify the world of Vianya."

"Pacification order?"

"Yes, do you remember that the Terran government would put those missions that were not so important or that the mortal expedition fleet was unable to undertake on the mission list of the Great Crusade? If the Primarchs and Legions were interested, they could take the initiative to undertake the missions given on the list. This behavior of undertaking missions was entirely voluntary and based on the actual situation of each Legion. For example, we Ultramarines have never done this."

"Same with Dawnbreakers: we're too busy even to handle our own work."

"Generally speaking, the Iron Warriors are the ones who most often take on missions on this list. They have maintained this habit in recent years, but they only take on the most important missions that are related to the progress of the entire Great Crusade. Instead of taking on all the tasks at once like before, regardless of whether they were doing the dirty work or not."

"That's a good thing."

The Primarch was stunned for a moment, but soon felt relieved for his Olympian brother.

"Perturabo's brain is finally starting to work a little harder."

"But I heard that the High Lords of Holy Terra don't like this change: many tasks are thankless but must be done, so they have been left vacant for a long time. It is said that the High Lords Council on Terra is discussing the possibility of forcibly assigning these tasks, but the final decision on this order lies with the Emperor."

"I have many reasons to hate them."

The Primarch remained noncommittal. He expressed his dissatisfaction with the High Lord with a snort, but soon stopped: because from a rational point of view, Guilliman could actually understand the behavior of these Terra officials, although from the perspective of the Legion, he was also very resistant to this kind of forced apportionment.

"So, this is the kind of assignment that Alpharius takes on."

"Not really. The mission to pacify Viania is not difficult at all, but it is not glorious at all. We also cannot understand why Lord Alpharius suddenly took on this mission, and the methods he used to pacify this civilized world were also...extreme." "What do you mean?"

"He first spent several months to start a full-scale civil war between the two major factions in this world. This civil war destroyed most of the infrastructure and productivity of Viania. Until the two major factions were both defeated, the Alpha Legion suddenly supported a third faction to conduct a comprehensive liquidation of them, killing a large number of leading figures in the two civil war factions and occupying the entire Viania for the Empire."

"He wants to master it completely?"

"It's not just that. After just a dozen days, two civil war factions that should have been annihilated suddenly launched a counterattack and wiped out the third faction. Then the two factions united and stood together under the banner of the Alpha Legion, pledging allegiance to the Empire and Terra. In any case, the High Lords' Council finally accepted this result, but Viania was indeed reduced to ruins."

"..."

“Unbelievable…”

Guilliman held his teacup and sat there in a daze for several seconds. He reached out his hand in disbelief and took the thin piece of letter from Yingjie: the signature and seal at the bottom of the paper pointed to his most trusted subordinate, but the content on it was so ridiculous, as if it was a deliberate deception.

"What's in it for him?"

The Primarch frowned and drank the caffeine in the cup in confusion: he had never seen this brother named Alpharius before, and had no in-depth understanding of the 20th Legion.

He had indeed heard of their tendency toward mysterious fighting styles.

But this kind of behavior can’t be described as mysterious, right?
"We don't know either."

The hero who had followed the Primarch for at least a hundred years could only shake his head helplessly.

"But one thing is certain. Vianya is very close to our enclave Badab in the Maelstrom region. Command is worried that the chaos in Vianya will affect our territory. The Maelstrom region is already chaotic enough. The chaotic situation there should not be further jeopardized by the Alpharius Legion."

"Let them pay attention."

The Primarch just nodded, he was not too worried about the impact of this matter.

"No matter what, Alpharius is my blood brother. We are all warriors and descendants of the Lord of Mankind. There is no reason to harm each other's interests. Just don't let Vianya affect our land. There is no need to worry about anything else."

"I'll give the order."

"Besides, my Lord."

Yingjie did not leave immediately, he seemed a little hesitant.

"Go ahead."

"That's right. You should know that there are many Badab warriors in the legion, right?"

"Of course I know."

Guilliman raised an eyebrow in displeasure.

"Have you forgotten? Can I remember every member of the five hundred worlds?"

"I can tell you right now that Badab was the Imperial world that surrendered to me during the Second Osiris War. At that time, we had just joined forces with Morgan's Dawnbreaker Legion to defeat the Osiris aliens and dispel the old nightmare that had plagued the Legion for many years. On the way back, we received a letter from Badab asking for help."

"This world has been tortured by the greenskins for thirty years. They asked for my help at the cost of surrender. After we helped them drive away the greenskins, the people of Badab were grateful for our help. In the following hundred years, they loyally provided wealth and military service to Macragge. To reward their loyalty, I promoted them to the main star-level administrative district of the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar thirty years ago. In other words, Badab is one of the Five Hundred Worlds."

“It’s our core territory.”

"We should shed our last drop of blood to protect them."

"In addition, I have at least two thousand Ultramarines from various colonized worlds in and around Badab. The best of them have become company commanders: most of the members of the company ordered to garrison the world of Badab are native Badabians."

"So: what's the problem?"

Facing the Primarch's gaze, Yingjie did not have the courage to be submissive.

"Well, the people of Badab expressed their concerns to me through the battle brothers stationed there, because they heard rumors that the Emperor would divide the Primarchs, and they were worried that they would not be divided into the area of the Five Hundred Worlds. After all, they are closer to Holy Terra than Macragge."

"indeed so."

Guilliman thought of the map of the Five Hundred Worlds that he had remeasured not long ago.

"Badabu is the world closest to the western end of my core territory."

"Are they worried about that?"

"That's right. You know, because our taxes have never been heavy, and we have always adopted a supportive policy towards Badab, Badab is the richest world in the southern part of the Great Vortex. There are rumors that Holy Terra intends to increase the tithe tax in the entire Great Vortex, and Badab, the richest and most prominent, is likely to be used as a model."

"impossible."

Guilliman denied it without a second thought.

"You go tell them."

"Just say what I said."

"Badab has been an integral part of the Five Hundred Worlds since ancient times. For the past one hundred years, their people have shed blood and sweat for our cause. I will never abandon this world: as I told you before, the Ultramarines will shed their last drop of blood for their land."

"As long as we are here, they don't have to worry about any external threats."

"Even... Terra?"

The Primarch turned his head and gave his hero a quizzical glance: the implication of these words should have angered him, but because the possibility he was suggesting was so absurd, Guilliman found it somewhat ridiculous.

"You are really worrying too much."

He cursed with a smile, was stunned for a moment, and then nodded in agreement nonchalantly.

"Yes: even Terra."

"..."

"Don't worry, my child."

After a while, Lord Macragge's words seemed to be comforting the hero, and also seemed to be comforting himself.

"Terra is not going to make things difficult for the five hundred worlds just for a little tax."

"Besides, even if it's just collecting taxes, how serious can it be?"

"Can people still starve to death?"

Guilliman smiled again.

"Anyway, now it seems that my father is not a spendthrift person."

"Don't worry: a few tax issues won't disrupt an empire that spans the galaxy."