Emperor's Bane

Chapter 764: The King of Ruins

Chapter 764: The King of Ruins
"What did you say?"

"Guilliman and Terra are fighting!"

"You still lost the fight?"

"And it spit out the big whirlpool?"

"..."

After being stunned for a while, Sanguinius subconsciously raised his hand and touched his forehead: Well, normal temperature.

But cold sweat has already appeared.

The Archangel of Baal maintained this somewhat funny posture and remained silent for nearly two minutes before he completely digested the few short words he had just heard.

Then, his eyes drifted to the other side.

"Guilliman and Badab: when did all this happen, Raldoron?"

"Three weeks after you set out to conquer the Gildar Rift, Lord Guilliman announced that he would send troops to defend his allies in Badab, and within the next month it quickly escalated into an armed standoff with Terra."

Radon, the most trusted captain of the 1st Company of the 9th Legion of Sanguinius and the relatively low-key member of the Three Great Crusades, was standing in front of his favorite desk in recent months, wearing his extremely simple Mark IV power armor as always.

There were no ornate shoulder pads, silk capes, or winged armlets, nor were there any symbols of honor that could indicate the identity of a captain of a company: if anything, the only piece of equipment worthy of praise on the body of this great crusade hero was the crown on his head.

Its name is the Le Fay Crown, and it was originally a fine piece made by the Queen of Avalon for the Dawnbreaker. However, during the meeting in Ullanor, it was placed on the Archangel's desk as a gift, and was later awarded to his most beloved son.

Since then, Radon always wore the Le Fay Crown on his head: not only because it was a reward from the Primarch, but also because this crown could really keep his mind clear and unaffected by void radiation and the Warp.

Even his originally calm personality has become more stable.

Naturally, the Archangel of Baal noticed all these advantages.

So, after the Archangel finally got rid of the mess of Nikea and returned to his equally terrible home planet, he couldn't wait to issue two orders in succession.

The first was to go on an expedition: he would lead the main force of the Blood Angels Legion to quell the unstable factors near Baal as quickly as possible.

The second is personnel appointments: long before Ullanor divided the kings, the archangel had been careful to find high-quality seeds among his offspring who were calm, rigorous in their work, and patient and empathetic even towards mortal matters.

After the Legion returned to Baal, these people were left on the home planet and did not participate in the subsequent expedition: Sanguinius had more important tasks for them to complete.

For example, inspect and take inventory of the actual situation in the Baal enclave, notify the governors of various worlds of the Primarch's enfeoffment, summarize and classify the problems that exist under Sanguinius' rule: if possible, come up with effective ways to solve these problems.

In short: The Archangel hopes that when he returns from his expedition, he will see an interstellar nation that has taken shape and an administrative system that only requires him, the Primarch, to sit in a chair, smile and sign.

It would be even better if he could have a secretary to help him sign as well.

Thus, with the great fantasy that the Blood Angels, led by Radolon, might be able to dig out a wild Morgan or Malcador in the land of Baal, the Archangel plunged headlong into the Warp.

But when he returned victoriously, he was greeted with two pieces of bad news.

One was that the work of the newly appointed Blood Angels was not successful, and they failed to dig out the wild Morgan that he had been thinking about.

This is not surprising: the land of Barr does not look like the kind that would support endangered species like Morgan.

It was the second bad news that was really hard for the Principal to accept.

"I was only away for a few months, wasn't I?"

"These guys are going to start a world war?"

"and……"

"And: No one has informed me yet?"

Sanguinius sat on his throne, head bowed, face covered, suddenly with an inexplicable feeling of being bullied.

So, in the eyes of others, he and the Blood Angels Legion were a force that did not need to be won over in advance even if a civil war broke out?
Should he be happy or annoyed?

The Primarch didn't know that the only sound in his ears was the report of Radlon: the captain of the first company was diligently reporting all the intelligence he had collected about Badab to the Primarch.

"In other words, Guilliman signed the treaty with Malcador on the Bucephalus and formally admitted defeat. And this armistice treaty was also announced to the public? Let everyone know that Guilliman officially admitted defeat?"

"Not at all, my Lord."

Radolon glanced at the document.

"No one is sure whether the Treaty of Bucephalus actually existed, but rumors about it have been circulating: Guilliman and the Sigillite did disappear for a while, and when they reappeared, the Five Hundred Worlds had completely retreated from the Maelstrom."

"Then it seems to be true."

The Primarch sighed.

"That's not a good sign."

He was silent for a while.

"Do you know what this means?"

"Not sure, sir."

Radolon bent down slightly.

"This means that the deterrence and residual power left by the Emperor is weaker than we thought: less than a year after his departure, Terra and the Primarch need to sign a separate treaty to engrave a new quota between each other."

"Really..."

The Archangel sighed and leaned back on his throne.

“I always feel like I missed a crucial moment.”

"That guy Horus was the same. He left without informing me."

"Lord Wolf Shepherd God did communicate."

Radolon flipped through the documents.

"Before he set out, he wanted to invite you to go with him to Badab, but you were in the Gilda Abyss at the time, where communications with the outside world were completely cut off. We had no way to contact you accurately."

"I know: I never expected the Maelstrom mine to explode so soon."

The angel muttered something.

"Everyone knows that Guilliman will fail sooner or later. He has been so recklessly expanding into the core of the Empire that the High Lords of Terra, unless they are fools, will sooner or later draw their swords to chop off his restless claws."

"I really don't know what he was thinking..."

As the Primarch muttered to himself, Radolon blinked beside him.

"Actually, sir..."

Radolon hesitated to speak.

"As early as when the crisis in Badab just began to show signs, some rumors had already spread on the ship: most people were willing to believe that the crisis in Badab was a manifestation of the Lord of Five Hundred Worlds' ambition expanding to the extreme, and he couldn't wait to challenge the order left by the Emperor."

"Who? Guilliman?"

The angel looked up.

Then laughed.

"Ah? Guilliman fighting the Emperor?"

"Hahahahaha..."

The holy white wings turned into white wings that rolled left and right with laughter.

"Radolon...Radolon..."

"Why didn't I realize before that you have such a talent for telling jokes?"

The angel wiped away the tears from his eyes before looking seriously at his son.

"Tell me: you do not really believe Guilliman's ambitious claims?"

"I……"

The captain hesitated.

"It's just that other than that, it's hard for us to explain his expansion into the Maelstrom."

"Because he's stupid~"

Sanguinius replied as a matter of course.

"Because he's a fool."

"Because he doesn't use his brain."

"Because he has no spirituality at all, and his mind is empty except for that unchanging rigidity and orderliness, but he also has a bad temper and does things without thinking: it is normal for such a person to do stupid things." "Whether it is expanding into the Maelstrom, or drawing swords against Terra in a fit of rage."

"The former proves his stupidity, and the latter proves that he is just an irritable and reckless man."

"As for ambition?"

"Hi!"

"Don't disparage Guilliman: he is not worthy of such bad reviews."

Your review isn't much better.

Radon grumbled in his heart, but he dared not deny the Primarch's evaluation.

"Besides, Radolon."

"Guilliman is my brother after all."

Thinking of this, the Archangel's eyes softened, and his sight slowly moved to the corner of the room, which was filled with information from five hundred worlds and a list of free aid materials.

The number is huge enough to benefit every land under Sanguinius' rule.

That was a kindness from Guilliman.

"I am almost in love with Guilliman."

"Well...almost..."

The archangel smiled.

Whether in Morgan's mind or in Sanguinius' eyes, the idea of building a large-scale space living station in the Baal Star District is actually still at the stage of paper talk.

The Spider Queen had never much cared for her brother's tiny lands, and the same could be said of Sanguinius himself: he had never dreamed of turning Baal, or even the entire Baal enclave, into a paradise like Avalon, Macragge, or Terra.

He has no such talent.

And let’s be honest: the initial conditions in the Baal Enclave were really bad.

So bad that Sanguinius considered himself to be the Primarch most hated by the Emperor.

Otherwise, look at what kind of treasure land his genetic father gave him.

Sanguinius's kingdom may be the smallest of all the Primarchs: judging from the area of the universe alone, it is not even one twentieth the size of the Five Hundred Worlds. Even the Badab region fought over by Guilliman and Terra is more vast than the territory of the Archangels.

From a geographical point of view, sandwiched between the two giants, Morgan and Horus, the Archangel felt that he was just a buffer zone.

Of course, his territory was not completely surrounded by these two dear brothers and sisters. To the south of Baal was the almost impassable area of the Heart of the Galaxy in the great whirlpool: the only ones who could rush out from there were aliens and pirates.

As for the last neighbor.

It was Perturabo.

So desperate.

Even more desperate than Perturabo was the extreme barrenness of the Baal sector itself: this entire area seemed to be an ancient battlefield of a brutal war in lost history, leaving behind ruins spanning hundreds of worlds.

Traces of heavenly worlds had been found on both Baal and Baal, but they were brutally destroyed by atomic weapons: tens of millions of subspace rifts and chaotic time flows spread across the Archangels' territory, and dangerous asteroid belts blocked the immigration fleet, not to mention the enemies of the Empire hidden therein.

As early as on Ullanor, Baal was recognized by the Primarchs as the most desolate land. The only land that could be compared to it was the Storm Segmentum occupied by Corax and Mortarion.

This was a land that even Morgan admitted she could barely manage, a land that even Conrad would feel his Nostramo was pretty good: Sanguinius had no confidence in managing this place, and he never thought he had the talent to do so.

So, when Morgan tentatively proposed a large-scale space living station, the archangel only agreed nonchalantly: compared with the desert and giant scorpions on Baal, a little warp radiation and weightlessness were nothing to his people.

As for whether these harsh elements will affect the recruitment of the Ninth Legion?
Don't worry, on the Blood Angels' glorious Great Crusade Wall of Honor, the Legion's first battle in the galaxy was the capture of Neptune and its nearby orbital space stations: more than 10,000 casualties were paid for this, and the Ninth Legion at the time was almost destroyed.

In order to revive, the descendants of Sanguinius directly forcibly recruited soldiers from the mutant tribes in the orbital space station: these mutants were so corrupt that they were judged to be enemies of the Empire, but at the same time, they could also be soldiers of the 9th Legion.

In this light, it is not difficult to understand why the Ninth Legion was excluded and alienated by the mainstream of the Empire before the Archangel of Baal returned.

And this question still troubles the archangel's heart until now.

Especially after Guilliman's Badab crisis had served as a wake-up call to him.

"Radolon."

Thinking of this, the angel put away his smile.

"How's [that research] I asked you to do before we left going?"

"No results yet, sir."

The company commander lowered his head.

"We have tried to recruit new soldiers on hundreds of different worlds, but all of them, without exception, have the invisible gene of bloodthirst: but this is only a very small part of the entire Baal enclave, and we still have enough experimental cases to compare."

"Um……"

The archangel nodded.

"Remember, keep a low profile."

"All new recruits who participated in the experiment will have all documents related to the experiment destroyed after they pass the experiment, and they will be treated as normal new recruits."

"They are also members of the Ninth Legion, and have made their own contributions since they first joined the Legion."

"I understand, Father."

Radolon nodded.

"You are worried about the conflict between Guilliman and Badab..."

"That's not what I'm worried about."

Sanguinius shook his head.

"It's Nikea I'm worried about."

"Radolon, you said..."

"How did Magnus and his legion fall to this point?"

The captain looked at his father.

"Sir, haven't we already come to this conclusion?"

"Yes."