Emperor's Bane

Chapter 842 Boborian
It had been some time since Mortarion had studied his numerology.

Ten years, or twenty years: for a technology that needs to be reviewed every few months, such a long period of neglect is enough to make all the previous accumulation of the original body go to waste.

In the dark, it seemed that the deep voice that had guided him forward many times was gradually fading away in his mind: although the Lord of Death was sure that it had not left, but was just lurking quietly under the thick fog.

The former guide seemed to be a little displeased with the Primarch's laziness.

Or perhaps: this is the will of Barbaryus protesting against its master.

This made Mortarion feel a little aggrieved.

He admitted that it had been a while since he had perfected the traditional art of Babarus.

But it’s not that I don’t want to: it’s that I can’t.

He is too busy.

The truth is: too busy.

He was so busy that he even began to doubt: Is he fit to sit on the throne?
Is he really suitable to be the ruler of this world and even more worlds?

------

Of course: it certainly wasn't his fault.

------

Mortarion knew who had brought him to this point.

The Emperor, Master of Mankind, of course: his admirable yet pathetic cowardly father.

It was he who had shirked his responsibilities, broken their promises, and left the mess of the galaxy and the Great Crusade behind to live out his days in his palace: Mortarion was merely the unluckiest of a dozen men forced to clean up his mess.

He is also the one who is more unwilling.

Because the Primarch did not get the best share of the spoils of the Great Crusade.

In other words: he did not get a piece of land worthy of him, nor the corresponding honor.

In the future system of the human empire, Mortarion was not very satisfied with the position he was assigned to.

Of course, he knew that he would not be the first or second among his brothers: Horus's honor was unquestionable, and his fiefdom was larger than all others, almost twice the size of the Far Eastern Frontier, but no one had ever disputed this.

Because they knew that what the Wolf God had received was the remnant of the Great Crusade: while other brothers could sit on the throne safely and other legions could relax and enjoy themselves, the Shadow Moon Wolves would continue to bleed on the territory of their future Wolf Kingdom.

It is not difficult to understand that Morgan and Guilliman, who are second under the Warmaster, are both capable, after all, and Mortarion will not deny that. What's more, their power comes from self-reliance, and the Lord of Death will never deny the value of labor.

But going forward, only humiliation greeted the Lord of the Fourteenth Legion. He did not understand why the Emperor gave more land to those incompetent charlatans, and he also could not tolerate that Perturabo's kingdom was as big as his: but Conrad's side was understandable.

Mortarion did not dislike his brother Konrad. He admired the scope of Night Haunter's growth and the noble qualities he cultivated in this harsh environment: and the vast territory that included the Ghoul Stars was not something to be envied.

But, Barbarus is above.

Perturabo: Why should he?
While the Death Guard marched aggressively on the front lines of the Great Crusade, carving out the hardest-won victories, the Lord of Iron wasted the lives of his own soldiers like sand: he did not deserve the accolades, he received so little.

If he is given so much, then Mortarion should get more!

He should be the one after Horus, Morgan and Guilliman!
But the compensation he received was not even a barely offset to the glory he gained in his Great Crusade. Although the Emperor seemed to have allocated him a large piece of territory, in fact most of it was poor and barren like Barbarus, remote and desolate, far from comparable to the center of the galaxy under Perturabo's rule.

And Luo Jia: What qualifications does that bastard have to occupy an entire star field alone!

Taiping Star should be given to him! At least one third of the southern part should be given to him. He will only do better than Luo Jia!
The Lord of Death always believed this.

The reason is obvious: when Perturabo completely abandoned his own country, when Lorgar indulged in worship and allowed the beautiful land of the Pacific Segmentum to become barren, only Mortarion was doing the right thing and doing what a ruler should do.

Although the troubles and hardships involved were far beyond what the Primarch had initially imagined, he did not escape.

Not like the Emperor.

But Mortarion had to admit that this was not the life he wanted.

This is far different from what the Lord of Death originally envisioned on Ullanor.

After the Emperor evaded his responsibilities, left behind his lies, and once again deceived everyone who had fought for the Great Crusade, the Lord of Death hoped to take the opportunity to break away from his influence and live the life he had originally sought: but he never expected that reality would be more difficult than he had imagined.

He once thought that everything he had experienced on Barbarus was the most noteworthy suffering in the entire galaxy, but when he returned to Barbarus again, he found that new sufferings and problems were waiting for him.

While the Death Guard Legion and their Primarch reaped glory among the stars, the condition of their home planet did not improve as their reputation suggested: Barbarus was still the closed, impoverished, and savage world shrouded in poisonous miasma that it had been a hundred years ago.

This poisonous fog is everywhere, forever shrouding the land in black smoke. It is his home, but also his inescapable nightmare.

Whenever he thought of this, Mortarion would fall into silence.

The Lord of Death has always been a man of few words: of course, this does not conflict with the fact that he always spews vicious words.

But there is a difference between silence and silence: those who know the Primarch best can tell by the differences in details and the heaviness of his breathing whether Mortarion's silence is a sign of good mood, pretentious arrogance, or a death broadcast that does not want anyone to get too close.

According to statistics, after he led the 14th Legion back to Barbarus, the frequency of both types of silence increased significantly: the Primarch became less and less willing to speak, and silence became his way of treating everyone in the outside world.

In silence, he ordered the demolition of the gray castle built by his alien adoptive father, where he spent his childhood, and ordered the construction of a dark green castle on the original site. The Primarch would use this as the foundation to rule the XJ domain of Barbaros and the Death Guard.

The only thing the Emperor did right before he left for the Great Crusade was to grant this land to the Lord of Death.

The newly established Barbarus Autonomous Region is centered on Mortarion's home planet and spreads almost evenly in all directions, occupying more than one-third of the entire Storm Segmentum: the number of worlds and governors who obey the Fourteenth Legion is more than twice that of the Nineteenth Legion next door.

The Death Guard and Raven Guard, plus the Imperial Fists to their north who occupied a narrow strip of territory from Tallarn to Krieg: these three legions divided the entire sector and jointly guarded the southern border of Terra.

And in this star field alone, the Death Guard is undoubtedly the strongest one: Dorne's focus has never been on his fiefdom, and Corax is just a pitiful little guy among the brothers: Mortarion is the uncrowned king of the Storm Field and the guardian of the southern border that Holy Terra must rely on.

Apart from him, who can suppress this backward, remote, stubborn land filled with aliens and wizards?
It took the Lord of Death more than twenty years to prove that his words were true: in the great crusade, the Empire's expeditionary fleet only glanced over this place, obtained some false peace, victory and submission, and then contentedly focused its attention on those broader stages.

This dereliction of duty has left the Tempest Segmentum host to a large number of unstable factors and pirate dens, just like other remote corners of the Empire: while the Warmaster enjoys his honor on Ullanor, large tracts of land in the south of the Empire are still facing dangers and turmoil comparable to the Age of Strife.

It was Mortarion who saved them.

After Mortarion returned victorious from the Congress of Nikaea, he carefully swept the land granted to him by the Emperor for more than 20 years, like an old farmer harvesting wheat. With slow but firm steps, he forced one rampant pirate fleet after another into a dead end and wiped out every hidden alien nation.

It is he who brings silence, a season that symbolizes a sense of security and reassurance.

Compared with this, silence is just a cost that can be ignored.

At least, when the victorious Death Guard piled the corpses of the aliens into a hill, burned them in front of everyone, and raised the double-headed eagle and the banner of Mortarion from the ashes, the Primarch could see the silent, admiring gazes of the mortals below the platform.

This is enough to make him proud.

So, when Horus was still immersed in his art of diplomacy, when Guilliman was eager to cut ties with the main body of the Empire, and when Lorgar had already plunged into the Eye of Terror and had not replied for three years, Mortarion had already completed the most important mission as a ruler: to give his people security and tranquility.

The Primarch temporarily ended his conquest and proudly returned to the Green Peak of Barbarus: this was the name he gave to his palace. He liked to stand on the balcony outside and overlook Barbarus at the foot of the mountain, which had remained almost unchanged for a thousand years.

A poisonous fog would cloud his vision.

Just as he requested when he left this world in the Great Crusade, even after he became the king of Barbarus, the Lord of Death did not think of changing the environment here: poison and suffering are precious treasures, and without them, the people of Barbarus will lose their nobility.

Of course, Mortarion was not an old stubborn man, he knew the benefits of technological products: under the promotion of the Primarch, Barbarus built a star port, a more convenient transportation network was gradually completed, and more and more new technologies and new products were constantly pouring in from the starry sky that people had never looked up at.

The Barbarus people can replace their sickles with more advanced harvesters and sow seeds with better yields. New gas masks and medicines have also greatly increased their life expectancy: no one will starve to death anymore, and the newly built hospitals and schools have dispelled the thousand-year nightmare that was once written by plague and ignorance.

But that's all.

If we ask whether Mortarion has brought earth-shaking changes to his home planet, the answer is of course yes. Barbarus has never enjoyed such a peaceful era. There are no more alien castles hanging over people's heads, there have never been as many newborns as there are now, and everyone has expectations and smiles for the future on their faces.

But if we ask whether the Lord of Death has brought actual changes to his hometown, the result seems uncertain: after all, the Barbarus people are still just a group of self-employed farmers working in the foggy fields. They hold more advanced equipment, but have never thought that they will have more destiny.

The Lord of Death forbids the appearance of places like the Hive City in his hometown. He can only tolerate towns and small cities at most. He does not want people to escape from the poisonous fog. On the contrary, the Primarch encourages newborns to accept the poisonous fog and uses the most primitive means to screen out seeds worthy of cultivation. The losers do not deserve more pity.

He also used a half-forced, half-encouraging method to push people to open up wasteland: young people should leave the village that protected them, form a team and head towards the mountains shrouded in poisonous fog, tear down those alien fortresses and rebuild them, and build their own villages on the fertile land.

There will certainly be casualties, and there have been tragedies of total annihilation, but this is exactly what the Lord of Death wants to see: comfort and decadence are the culprits for the loss of tenacity. He will certainly bring a better life to Barbarus, but he is unwilling to let the people of Barbarus lose the strength that they are proud of.

He was unwilling to let his proud home planet become a weakling outside the galaxy. During his conquest, Mortarion had also seen those comfortable and prosperous worlds, which would only tremble under the iron hoofs of the aliens, waiting for the silent warriors of Barbarus to save them: perhaps the people there would live better, but the prosperity that could not protect itself was nothing.

Yes, they were richer and had more material and spiritual enjoyment, but when Mortarion slowly wiped the alien blood off his scythe and demanded submission, taxes and more troops from these fat, comfortable people, they did not show any more admirable qualities except kneeling down and kissing the toes of the Primarch's boots.

At first, Mortarion did not even want to recruit soldiers from this world.

These cowards who grew up in comfort only serve to tarnish the reputation of the Death Guard: only the noble Barbarus, and a few, rare individuals of equal nobility, are worthy of standing under the banner of the Fourteenth Legion.

But Typhon's words changed his mind.

The captain of the first company, whom he trusted most, made him a suggestion.

A very interesting suggestion.

------

“We can promote it.”

"Promote the Barbarus model: nobility cultivated in hardship."

Few people could walk into the dead and empty palace of Mortarion and speak loudly.

Not even the Death Guard.

Mortarion's castle was even larger and more magnificent than that of his alien adoptive father. It was not an independent palace, but a complete complex of buildings: the mortal servants of the Fourteenth Legion hollowed out the entire mountain and built the Death Guard's headquarters and main base on Barbarus in the mountain.

The Primarch's castle is the crown jewel of the legion's headquarters.

Lifeless pearl.

Because of his personality, Mortarion did not want the place where he lived to be too noisy: that is to say, except for the servitors, the Death Guards and a few servants of Barbarus, there were no living people in the castle. The empty halls and the corridors without any decoration were the residence that the Lord of the Southern Border of the Empire really wanted.

Here, he can meditate to his heart's content.

Only when Mortarion's thinking got so stuck that the Primarch had to admit that he needed some outside wisdom - this situation was often extremely rare, would the captains be summoned. Otherwise, they could only passively wait for the Primarch to return to base or flagship.

But in general, these minor problems are not enough to make the Death Guard feel a sense of crisis: because Mortari does not like to stay in this castle that belongs only to him. In comparison, he prefers to lead the legion out to conquer and defeat endless pirates and aliens.

Whenever he summoned his subordinates in the castle, it often meant that something very important was going to happen.

Generally speaking, Captain Typhon of the First Company and Captain Garro of the Seventh Company are the two captains most often summoned by Mortarion, while the other captains are more likely to be on expeditions or stationed outside: there are rumors that this situation may become the norm.

After all, it is an open secret that the Lord of Death despises and ignores territories other than Barbarus. Although he will protect their safety like a king, he will not take care of them like a father in daily life: he hates the comfort of these worlds and the weakness they show.

So, some rumors prevail: Some say that the Primarch is tired of ruling the vast territory outside Barbarus, and he plans to grant part of the land to his captains, dividing the entire country into seven equal parts, and each captain he trusts can get one of them.

Typhon had heard this: he thought it was most likely true.

Because he had heard too many complaints in the past twenty years, Mortarion seemed to have only endless complaints and contempt for the other worlds under his rule, and he never showed any desire to further understand and manage these names that only existed on the star map.

And for Typhon: this might be an opportunity for him to benefit from it.

So when Mortarion once again complained about the problems he now faced, the First Captain provided a solution at just the right time.

"I understand, my lord."

Typhon nodded first.

"We do face this problem. If we want to better rule and defend the vast lands bestowed upon us by the Emperor, we must have a larger legion. The 14th Legion currently has 130,000 soldiers, and has shown itself stretched more than once in the past 20 years of war and conflict."

"But the problem is that the population of Barbarus is always a big problem, and waiting for the next generation of newborns takes time, but time is what we lack: if we want to recruit troops on a large scale on other worlds, there will be no better recruits in these lands full of ease and weakness."

"Those barbarians from the wild world are indeed worthy of consideration, but they are no match for the real Barbarus."

"They are still lacking in training: they are far from being true Barbarus, and they will never be true Death Guard."

After saying this, Typhon sneered in his heart at Gala who was not present.

"But there is a solution."

"..."

The Primarch looked to his First Captain.

"Then tell me what you think."

"In the short term, we can first obtain new recruits from other worlds, and then transport them to Barbarus, allowing them to be tempered in the wilds of Barbarus, and cultivate true nobility in the poisonous environment, just like the Space Wolves Lodge."

"The savage?"

The Primarch snorted disdainfully.

"Well, that's one way: Russ always has some barbarian tricks up his sleeve."

"But this is only a temporary solution, Typhon: the weakness and complacency they have been educated in cannot be erased."

"Then we can only..."

Typhon drawled his words deliberately.

"The world they were born into was also made into a place of suffering like Barbarus, which would cultivate true nobility and warriors."

"..."

"You mean..."

"That's right, my lord."

Typhon laughed warmly.

"We can first select certain worlds that have not been completely eroded by culture and comfort, and then conduct preliminary experiments on them. We can tear down the cities and walls that make people addicted, and through environmental transformation, make them like Barbarus, filled with poisonous fog that is beneficial for training toughness, and let them return to primitive agricultural life."

"In this way, the recruits from other worlds will go through the same training as Barbarus after they are born. Although they are still not true Barbarus people, they will also develop toughness in the poisonous fog and become simple in agricultural life, and they can be considered barely qualified recruits."

“And if the experiment is successful: there’s no reason why we couldn’t scale it up further.”

"Of course, some industries, agriculture, and foundries should be retained. They have their own unique roles, but other worlds may not necessarily be unable to accept the Barbarus model. After all, reality has proven that even in difficult conditions, the people of Barbarus can live well. They still have a culture that has been passed down to this day and can still support your great legion."

"If Barbarus can do it, there's no reason why humans in other worlds can't do it."

"As long as we can hold out for a few generations, we won't have to worry about the problem of recruiting soldiers anymore."

"At the same time, we will bring the value of perseverance and suffering to those who have fallen."

"And all this is because of: your kindness."

"..."

Mortarion fell silent.

He was silent for a long time.

The Primarch bit his lip, his face instantly twisted, then turned into joy, there was a hint of instinctive disgust in his pupils, but it did not gather into a flame of opposition: he did not think this was a suitable suggestion, his instinctive conscience was tormenting him.

but……

It seems, maybe: Typhon's words do have their merits?
The voice in his heart responded: The Primarch should at least listen a little longer.

That’s right: at least listen to it.

Mortarion took a deep breath.

"You... continue."

(End of this chapter)