Emperor's Bane

Chapter 837 Perturabo's Stairway to the Gods

God.

Perturabo ran his fingers lightly over the symbols engraved on the metal plate.

His face was expressionless, but he seemed to be smiling.

What a distant word.

The Primarch stepped forward and casually pushed aside countless reviewed documents, including those from both the legions and the vassal states.

What a vain goal.

But the two letters belonging to Kelly Fanny and Morgan were deliberately taken out and carefully placed in a more conspicuous place.

What a sad dream.

The largest drawing was spread out, and in the upper right corner was the personal mark of Martian Casting General Carl Bohar.

The Primarch raised the corners of his mouth.

"..."

"What a fitting title."

------

For Perturabo, his Great Crusade ended completely the moment Horus wore the Warmaster's Crown and the Emperor announced that he would leave the war front.

None of this shocked him.

The victory of Horus was something that even the dumbest of the Primarchs had realised before they arrived at Ullanor.

Although Perturabo chose to side with Jonson in the contest, he never considered the possibility of the Lion's victory: nor did he think Jonson was worthy of the title.

He is more suitable to be a commander: rather than a commander-in-chief who commands the overall situation.

Without Morgan's advice, the Lord of Iron would have proudly stood against everyone and become a lone third party on the day when the Primarchs confronted each other: this was his true attitude towards the Warmaster issue.

Compared to the meaningless laurel wreath except for the gold powder, it was the news about the Terra Guards that Dorn received that made the Lord of Iron pay a little more attention.

He was not troubled by this: Perturabo's name was among those who recommended him to Dorne.

The seemingly endless rivalry between the Lord of Steel and the Lord of the Imperial Fist came to an end long before Ullanor.

The struggle is over

Its ending was not a spectacular final showdown, but the recognition of each other and pride in themselves as the two brothers looked at each other in silence.

Perturabo and Dorn: They both realized that they might never be able to match each other in some areas, and that in other areas they would never be able to determine who was better. Even if they fought each other ten thousand times, all that would await them would be useless, repetitive numbers.

Instead of continuing to fight in this meaningless competition, it is better to keep this opponent who is equally good as me, just like leaving a mirror that confuses people: If I really lose another me in this world, how boring my life will be in the future.

A friend is hard to find, a confidant is hard to find: but a great opponent can only wait for the gift of fate.

At least that's what Perturabo thought.

As for Dorn: perhaps boredom is the eternal soul of the Lord of the Imperial Fist, but Perturabo can bet his life that under the seemingly unshakable appearance of the Invit, the fire in his heart is also burning.

Others thought he didn't know: but when the Lord of Iron's governance on Olympia began to become famous throughout the galaxy, Dorn, who had been working diligently on Terra, suddenly began to pay attention to his home planet Invert.

Another competition, well: just like the thousands of others going on at the same time.

They are no longer rivals who view each other as sworn enemies; their shared struggle against the Hrud changed them forever, but a gentler rivalry still exists.

Although they never met again, both knew that the other was quietly watching them from the other side of the galaxy, comparing their latest achievements with each other, and using each other's strengths to urge each other to make progress.

They are used to winning and losing, but more often than not, they are just convincingly tied again.

Therefore, for Perturabo, Dorn becoming a Terran guard was just a minor setback in a series of victories and defeats.

He also had the power to trivialize Dorn's victory: all he had to do was prove that Perturabo's name was far more worthy of respect than the so-called Daedric Princes of Terra.

With this idea in mind, the Lord of Steel finally left Nikaea.

Of course, as one of Magnus' only three close friends, Perturabo also cares about the fate of the Scarlet Monarch and the Thousand Sons: but he will not go against the Emperor's will because of this.

Though not a master of psychic powers, the Iron Lord was well aware that humility was not one of Magnus's virtues: Perturabo would not have been surprised if he had committed an offense on Nikaea that would have shocked the Emperor.

He was also present at the time, and although the memory fragments had been erased, Perturabo still clearly remembered: Magnus on Nikaea gave him a very bad first impression, a kind of aversion based on a logical chain.

He must have done something wrong.

Perturabo chose to believe the excuse that Magnus had to serve his sentence for his crime and recuperate from his injuries: time was meaningless to the Primarch, and perhaps a few hundred years in prison would really make his Prospero brother a little more sober.

As for Qianzi?

No one cares about their fate.

Even the Lord of Steel lost several warsmiths on Nikaea who were very useful to him: they stayed on that land to ensure that there would be no problems with their buildings when they were put into use, and this spirit of craftsmanship killed them.

And someone had to be held responsible for the deaths of these Iron Warriors: if not the Thousand Sons, could it have been Magnus?

As for the truth?

A few warsmiths wouldn't be enough to make Perturabo think about such things.

He has more important things to do.

He had a new era to embrace.

A completely different era: with new challenges and new opportunities.

In this era, everyone has to find a new position of their own.

In this era when the Emperor has faded from public view, the military legend brought by the Great Crusade has gradually faded with the passage of time, and the grand triumphs and torchlight processions are no longer majestic, everyone has to find something new to do.

The High Lords were still enthusiastically engaged in the first game of power in the new era. The commanders and captains of the expeditionary fleets fought like hounds for the remaining remnants of the Great Crusade, and the Primarchs received their rewards: titles, status, countless territories, and the lofty crown of the future galactic hegemony.

Some Primarchs were content with this, and threw themselves eagerly into management and expansion: even the Wolf God was no exception.

There are also some Primarchs who have no interest in ruling over billions of subjects, but instead are absorbed in their own little hobbies: Angron is a good example, and his nihilism still deeply troubles him.

Only a very few people can break through the circles of the first two, and in this age when everyone chooses to start working down-to-earth, they still keep a heart that looks up to the stars.

Perturabo was such a man.

He is the one who resolutely chooses to pursue more victories when everyone is intoxicated with the great victory in front of him.

and so.

He firmly believed.

He was the greatest of all the Primarchs.

Not the most perfect one: because he still has flaws.

But he is indeed the greatest one: because he still has dreams and goals.

------

And his goal started with a question.

------

Perturabo realized this problem ten years after the Emperor's departure.

He lacks a goal.

A greater, more macro goal that is worthy of investing countless resources and energy.

It is not a small thing that needs to be completed in ten or a hundred years, but a distant place that requires burning all his energy and gamble on the possibility of his entire life to pursue.

In the past, that goal might have been to escape the gravity of Olympia, or to outdo Dorne in the competition for the Great Crusade, to outdo everyone else, to win the Emperor's attention, and to earn the admiration of the entire Imperium.

These were good dreams: they had sustained him for many years.

But now, a new era has eliminated these ancient dreams.

He needed a new goal.

Naturally, that goal would not be to build Olympia, to make the Iron Warriors the largest and most powerful legion, to command the most rational sanctuary among the Primarchs, or to lead all of humanity to a more logical and rational future and create a second golden age.

It won't be these.

Because these are too easy.
too easy.

He only needed to take an hour to sketch on a piece of rough paper to plan every development goal for the entire Olympia in the next five hundred years.

Then, over the next few days, every territory under the Iron Warriors' jurisdiction was given the same treatment: if the Primarch had not insisted on writing it by hand, his speed would have been much faster.

And it turns out that Perturabo's wisdom is still a miracle that no one can match.

Even though they were just a few plans that the Lord of Iron came up with on a whim, they still amazed every administrative official under the control of Kelly Fanny and the Iron Warriors. Those planners who could only boast bowed down in worship before the work of the Primarch. They spent their entire lives' sweat and energy but could not find even a single mistake in the words.

Kelly Fanny responded to Perturabo's gift with great enthusiasm, and the letters she sent in praise and return gifts almost filled the Primarch's room: but Perturabo was dismissive of this, and he was too lazy to even write back to Kelly Fanny, because such private correspondence would not bring any practical use.

But to be on the safe side, for example, to prevent his bored sister from saying something important in the letter, the Lord of Steel still chose to open each letter, read it carefully several times, and then put it aside in a special stasis force field.

As for Kelly Fanny on Olympia, she seemed to have foreseen this. Although the Primarch never replied, the eldest sister's enthusiasm did not diminish in the slightest: she concentrated on following Perturabo's plan and took all the credit for the Primarch.

It's ridiculous: The Lord of Steel's reputation has never been better.

But this lady is the only one in this land who has such a privilege.

In comparison, the treatment of the Iron Warriors was much worse. Perturabo rarely met with his warsmiths, but he still paid attention to the development of the Fourth Legion: in the Lord of Steel's future plan, the Fourth Legion should take on more positions, and their current strength was too weak.

So, Perturabo set about completely transforming Olympia, and after a new plan for introducing foreign population and a more equitable redistribution of social wealth, it took only ten years after the Emperor's departure for Perturabo to make Olympia look brand new: hundreds of years of siltation were easily wiped out, and the planet was in the best era ever.

With successful cases, in the next decade or more, the same plan will be selectively implemented on certain worlds under the rule of the Primarch, and they will play a greater role as a source of manpower for the Fourth Legion.

In Perturabo's plan, the Fourth Legion should have at least 700,000 troops at the beginning of his construction plan: this is a minimum estimate, and if possible, the Lord of Steel hopes that the actual number can be doubled, and he does not rule out the possibility of more.

This is easy to do.

After only ten years of recuperation, the Iron Warriors Legion has grown to a strength of over 300,000. As long as they continue to develop according to the Primarch's plan, everything will come naturally, whether it is the revival of the Legion or future plans for territory construction.

They aren’t even goals, because they’ve already been accomplished: all that’s left is time.

Too easy: so easy that even Perturabo felt frustrated.

He then refuses to acknowledge that these goals are worthy of his pursuit.

They don’t have the most important attribute of a big goal: difficulty.

He needed a more difficult goal.

One worthy of the most brilliant mind among the Primarchs, worthy of all the practical sciences and metaphysics he had mastered by nature, worthy of his goal of being simultaneously the top expert in ten thousand different fields and an unprecedented prodigy: an idea that mediocre people would never dare to think about.

A word they would never dare to utter with their lips even if they thought of it.

The answer is simple, isn't it?
As soon as he realized this problem, Petrabo had already thought of the answer.

That is: [God].

Become: [God].

It is not worldly concepts such as the god of mathematics or the god of physics.

Nor is it the illusory supreme being described in the scriptures believed by religious fanatics like Rogana.

Rather, he is a god made of flesh and blood, but wanders in imagination; he has materialistic thinking, but can realize idealistic dreams; he stands in one world, but can create another world; he holds the cold reality and logic in his hands, but dares to laugh at how barren fantasy is; he is a true god.

Don't try to challenge issues related to rule or governance anymore. It turns out that these issues are not worth mentioning. In the face of his innate genius and wisdom, it seems that there is nothing worth challenging in the galaxy.

Will the future be so empty?

No.

The primarch laughed.

He still has something to challenge.

he himself.

He can challenge himself.

Challenge yourself from the previous second, challenge your own genius and wisdom, and see to what extent they can reach.

In short, what he wants to do is not to rain fire or make crops grow.
What he has to do is to use possible means to achieve the impossible, to challenge goals that he would not even dare to think of the previous second: to constantly overcome the shackles brought to him by reality, and to constantly surpass the limits of time constraints.

When he is able to do this, God will no longer be the noble title that the Lord of Steel will pursue, but the only word that can be imagined in the pathetic minds of those mediocre people who are left far behind by him, looking up with countless awe, to describe him.

God.

That’s the kind of God he wanted to be.

For the greatest of all the Primarchs: that was a title worthy of Perturabo.

It is a shining pearl worthy of being inlaid in the steel crown.

------

Not

These are not the most important things.

The Lord of Steel laughed.

The so-called honor and title, the respect and admiration of the world are insignificant compared to another award that is more spiritually meaningful.

A reward he had only recently realized: a beauty that kept him up at night.

The Primarch stretched out his hand and dragged the noblest of all the letters before him.

Perturabo opened it: the symbol of Mars was so glaring.

And the writing style of the current Casting General, Carl Bohar, is so humble.

------

I pay my highest respects to you, great Lord Perturabo.

I have to admit that although these words may sound a bit blasphemous and may violate my long-held beliefs, I still have to say it in front of you: I may have witnessed a miracle that only the Pantheon and the Omnissiah can create.

Your details and perspectives on binary coded information are truly astounding, and your every word challenges my values, but they are all so perfect that I can't imagine any reason to refute them.

To be honest, the data and letters you provided have conquered me and my colleagues: they are the most open-minded people on Mars, completely different from those pathetic conservatives. They are willing to accept your conjectures and try to put your ideas into the real world.

I must tell you with joy that the programs you wrote from scratch are great news for the Titan Corps: every Titan and Knight Mech in the experiment has accepted them at an unprecedented speed, and the drivers have never felt so comfortable.

In fact: many Titan machine spirits have begun to learn to rely on this new program.

If possible, we would also like to have in-depth cooperation in this regard.

Of course, we all know that the Titan Legions and the Knight Houses are insignificant compared to the other thing you brought up.

Your idea is really interesting, and I have debated it with my colleagues for a long time.

Finally, we decided we were willing to give it a try.

Mars will fully support your experiments.

If I could, I would be there in person: as your humble assistant.

We can witness and study together.

We will determine one thing: something that will overturn all worldly logic.

In this galaxy, outside the real universe and the subspace.

Does the third world you deduced still exist?

The third space.

------

That's right.

Perturabo's lips curved into a smile.

The third world.

A world that has never been discovered.

A new world free from the constraints of reality and spiritual dreams.

A completely new space based on logic, on infallible calculations and thinking, and beyond both.

A beautiful country that belongs only to numbers, calculations, machinery and rationality.

An electronic kingdom hidden behind the computer screen.

It was waiting for him, waiting for Perturabo to come.

And he will personally prove the existence of this world, and will personally accomplish the great cause that all his brothers can only look up to throughout their lives: while others are still intoxicated by the present pointed out by the Emperor, Perturabo has discovered a brand new future that even the Lord of Mankind has never heard of.

Let them be proud of him.

Let them feel inferior.

Let Dorn...ha...grieve in silence at yet another defeat.

The unfortunate fellow will get used to it.

And he has used his calculations to personally deduce the existence of this world: there should be a third country in the galaxy. This is the result of logic and calculation, and it is an answer that cannot be wrong based on common sense.

He will find it.

And if it doesn't exist: then he will fill the logical gap with his own hands.

He will create this world with his own hands.

He would become the creator: just as a true god would do.

He will discover it.

Open it up.

Acknowledge it.

Rule it.

As the greatest of the Primarchs.

As the true God in the galaxy.

(End of this chapter)