From Titan Corporation to the Empire of Man

Chapter 577 Post-War "Adoptive Mother"

In the meditation hall soon after;

The spiritual energy glow on the golden throne gradually dimmed, Sui Yang slowly opened his eyes, and his golden pupils returned to a deep black.

The morning light from the main universe Earth shone through the stained glass of the meditation hall, casting mottled light and shadows on his stern face.

The consciousness of the Human Emperor had just crossed multiple dimensions and returned from a "tour" of the sanctuary of heaven and the abyss of hell. The incense lingering in the temple condensed into a pale white mist in the air, swaying gently with the Emperor's breathing.

"."

At this moment, a barely perceptible sigh escaped and instantly melted into the silence of the hall.

After all, in a short period of time, a giant portal spanning the galaxy was opened, Athena was possessed and the Chaos puppet Darth Vader was confronted head-on, and at the same time, a psychic barrier covering the entire empire was maintained.

Even this immortal felt a long-lost fatigue.

The veins on his temples were throbbing slightly, which was the aftereffect of excessive use of psychic energy.

Sui Yang moved his neck, which was a little stiff from sitting still for a long time. The black gold armor then emitted a subtle resonance. He could feel that the surging pure spiritual energy in his body was slowly recovering, just like the sea water rising again after the tide receded.

Although consumption far exceeded expectations, the overall situation is still under control.

The holographic projection slowly unfolds in front of the Golden Throne, condensing the vast galaxy of the "Star Wars" universe into a brilliant matrix of light spots.

Sui Yang's fingertips lightly touched the void, and the star map immediately began to flow in response to his will, and the battle conditions in various galaxies were presented in spots of different colors.

Tatooine's coordinates gradually faded from scarlet, which initially represented extreme danger, to orange-red, which symbolized a controllable threat, just like the color change of a wound when it scabs.

When the data stream finally froze, a set of cold numbers flashed before the Emperor's eyes.

"317".

This meant that more than three hundred Astartes from the Imperial Fists led by Sigismund were forever buried in the sands of Tatooine.

Moreover, this number caused an almost imperceptible wrinkle to appear between Sui Yang's brows.

What may seem like a trivial change in expression to an ordinary person is an expression of intense emotion to an immortal.

However, the souls of those who died heroically in battle are now resting in the "Hall of Valor" in the heavenly realm.

There, the warriors, freed from the constraints of power armor, can finally unload the burden of eternal vigilance. Some go fishing in the virtual world beside the coast, while others relive their past glory in the reconstructed arena.

Although these battle-hardened veterans have left their mortal bodies, their "blood ties" and contracts with the Emperor have never been severed.

On the Wall of Oath in the center of Valhalla, Chinese characters of their names are engraved and remain active at all times.

When Chaos demons tear open the veil of reality, or alien civilizations threaten humanity's survival, these runes will become summoning beacons.

At that time, the warriors who have shed the shackles of their mortal bodies will return to the battlefield in a purer psychic form. Their attacks will be accompanied by the living's natural fear of death, and their battle cries will be filled with the purifying power of heavenly fire.

And those auxiliary troops, Hell Paratroopers and elf warriors who fell on Tatooine will also "enjoy a peaceful life" in the heavenly realm. If necessary, they will return to the physical universe with these "Cursed Astartes".

Anakin Skywalker has begun to fulfill his duties as the "gatekeeper" of hell, and Obi-Wan's soul is also teaching the heroes in the heavenly realm.

And, although there were heavy losses, the Imperial Fists led by Sigismund successfully rescued nearly ten million humans and relatively friendly alien civilians.

At the same time, it also bought enough time for the opening of the portal, preventing the desert planet from becoming the second "chaos sanctuary" in the Star Wars universe.

Sui Yang's eyes swept across the suspended casualty report as if it were real. Those cold numbers reflected a faint golden light in his eyes.

The data stream automatically turned pages, showing the latest progress, indicating that the Imperial Fists support forces from Yavin 4 were still traveling through the jump space channel and would take at least a standard Earth day to reach the battlefield on Tatooine.

The Emperor tapped his finger in the air, and the holographic projection immediately switched to a real-time star map of Tatooine.

Although technological means are not yet able to establish instant communication with Sigismund who has lost his fleet, Sui Yang's psychic vision has long penetrated reality. In the deep dimension of consciousness, he can clearly sense that Sigismund's side is "as solid as a rock", as bright as a torch in the dark.

And at the psychic level that ordinary people cannot perceive, he also saw a bright golden beam of light rising into the sky from somewhere on Tatooine.

That was the sign of the Primarch's birth.

Without the assistance of any instrument, its instinct was announcing to Sui Yang that another offspring had safely arrived in the "human world". At the same time, with the nourishment of Hera's divine power, the newborn Primarch was growing at an astonishing speed.

In the psychic vision, the vital signs are as vibrant as the rising sun.

The resonant vibration of psychic energy indicates the unique connection between father and son, which is a million times more reliable than any communication device.

In Sui Yang's perception, this newborn offspring was like a carefully planted seed, taking root and growing in the sand sea of ​​Tatooine, and Hera's divine power was nourishing the seedling like spring rain.

Moreover, without the need for graphic, text or video information, Sui Yang knew that the "newborn" offspring corresponded to the Primarch of the Tenth Legion, the Iron Hands in the Warhammer 40k universe -

Ferrus Marus.

Fei Wutou, Fei Xuejie, etc. are also nicknames of the father of the Iron Hand. After all, the Primarch beheaded by Fulgrim was none other than Ferrus Malus.

The name of the father of Iron Hand is also directly translated into Latin as "Iron Hand".

Ferrus had the same childhood experience as his other brothers. After being swept away by Chaos, his incubator crashed onto a harsh planet called "Medusa".

The planet was as sharp as a tempered blade. The never-ending metal storms tore at the atmosphere. Mechanical monsters roamed in the radioactive desert. Liquid metal gushing from the cracks in the earth's crust formed deadly rivers.

The young Primarch would have to survive alone in this hell, foraging like a wild wolf in the rusty canyons, competing with semi-mechanized predators for every sip of clean water.

There is no warmth of human civilization, only Medusa's eternal whisper of death.

After that, there is the epic duel between the young boy Ferrus and the silver dragon Arcinos.

That giant mechanical dragon had a wingspan of a hundred meters, its scales made of a self-repairing alloy, and its breath could melt the hardest rocks.

In the continuous fight, the Primarch pressed the dragon's head into the boiling magma lake, and the hot liquid metal flowed upstream along the dragon scales and wrapped around Ferrus's bare arms. When the metal cooled, the pair of "iron hands" shining with cold light had become a part of his body -

This is not a curse, but the coronation gift given by Medusa to the strongest.

After obtaining the "Iron Hands", Ferrus finally chose to take the initiative to contact human civilization as if he had obtained a key, and knocked on the closed door of the human clan.

Those tribes that struggled to survive in the mechanical wastes soon succumbed to the power and wisdom of the Primarch.

Ferrus taught them the technology of smelting star iron, reorganized the broken technological heritage, integrated the clans that were fighting each other into the Iron Federation, and encouraged effective internal competition. In a short period of time, Medusa leapt from a barbaric land to an industrial world with an orbital defense network.

In Warhammer 40k, shortly after Ferrus returned to the human empire, he met Fulgrim, the Primarch of the Emperor's Children.

At first, the air between the two giants almost froze into ice.

Fulgrim's purple armor inlaid with mother-of-pearl glowed gorgeously under the lights of the bridge, while Ferrus's rough iron hands shone coldly in the shadows.

The way they looked at each other was like a sword being unsheathed.

In Ferrus's eyes, the other was nothing more than a dandy indulged in pretense; Fulgrim, with a poet's sarcasm, compared the Lord of Iron to the ugly monster with snakes for hair in the legend of Medusa.

After the two sides agreed to have a forging competition to determine the winner, they became close friends and gave each other the giant hammers and swords they had forged.

This contest with no winner or loser actually forged a legendary friendship.

Ferrus seemed to be far from friendly or affectionate towards anyone except Fulgrim.

When faced with a rebellious world, his judgment is always simple and direct, namely the "trilogy" of orbital bombardment, legion suppression, and thorough purification.

When word came of the Warmaster's selection, the Iron Hands were ready to celebrate, for their Primarch was as reliable and deadly as the weapons he had forged.

But after a wrong decision that destroyed a planet that could have become an important city of the human empire, and after being "verbally educated" by Robert Guilliman, Ferrus realized that he was not suitable for the position of Warmaster and chose to withdraw voluntarily.

This was a rare moment when Ferrus acknowledged his flaws. Just as Medusa's metal had to be forged a thousand times to remove impurities, the Lord of Steel was tempering his soul in failure.

When Ferrus Malus received his orders to be transferred to the galaxy as the Heresy spread across the galaxy, his iron hands were already clenched into fists.

The corruption of his dear friend Fulgrim was like a poisoned dagger, piercing deep into the rationality that he was so proud of.

This Primarch, who was always known for his ruthlessness, now had his thought circuits burned with rare rage - he had to end this betrayal with his own hands, and had to wash away this shame with Fulgrim's blood.

Ferrus ignored all dissuasion and led his most elite veterans to forcibly land on Istvan V.

On the battlefield covered in volcanic ash, he advanced like a vengeful mechanical god, and with every blow of his giant hammer, he smashed the traitor's body into a mixture of metal and flesh.

However, this reckless charge completely put him out of the support range of the main force of the legion.

When Ferrus finally broke through the siege and stood before Fulgrim, whose purple-gold armor had long been tainted by Chaos, all that was left were the wreckage of the Iron Hand.

The daemon-possessed Fulgrim let out a twisted laugh, his once elegant voice now filled with echoes from the Warp.

The duel between the two was short and brutal.

As Ferrus's iron hand clamped around Fulgrim's throat, the sword slashed across his neck at an impossible angle.

The Primarch's head flew through the air, and the last sight was of the traitors picking up his head, while the surviving Iron Hands collapsed in flames, and suffered heavy losses in the ensuing battle and were unable to recover.

In fact, the seeds of this tragedy were planted long before the rebellion.

When Fulgrim tentatively revealed his rebellious intentions to Ferrus, the Iron Lord's response was not anger, but cold self-doubt.

"He dared to seduce me?"

"Is my loyalty so fragile in his eyes?" Such doubts, like sand in a machine, wore away at the core of Ferrus's faith day and night.

Istvan's charge to his death was essentially a self-affirmation of the Primarch. Only through the most extreme sacrifice of loyalty could the shame of being doubted be erased.

In this light, Ferrus's stubbornness also directly shows that among the Primarchs, there are very few who are as normal as Guilliman.

Sui Yang gathered his thoughts, and the spiritual glow on the golden throne returned to calm.

The thread of Ferrus' destiny has taken root in the sand sea of ​​Tatooine, and with the nurturing of Hera, his newborn child's initial growth does not require much intervention.

The milk of the Olympian goddesses is far more precious than the nutritional potions prepared by professionals in the biology department, because it is not only nutrients, but also contains the power to transform a mortal body into a divine one.

Athena can also replace Alexia and the Elf Queen Tinas and become Ferrus' "adoptive mother".

The spear of victory will turn into a "teaching stick" under the desert moon.

The goddess of war and wisdom will personally train Ferrus's combat skills. Her teaching method is like forging a holy shield, using Spartan-style rigor to lay the foundation, using the experience of the Trojan War to "temper" it, and finally using the knowledge of Olympus to "sharpen the edge".

When the shadow of Chaos is stirring on the horizon of Tatooine, the grown-up Primarch will be able to understand the "true meaning" of war in actual combat. That is to say, for the Human Empire, the confrontation with the evil of the Warp has never been an elective course, but a compulsory course for eternal survival.

In addition, there are many events in the Star Wars universe that deserve Sui Yang's attention.

The first to be hit was Coruscant, which fell to Chaos.

The wails of trillions of souls still echoed in Coruscant's atmosphere, and the desperate energy that burst out when their souls were torn apart had forged this former galactic core into a blasphemous door to the warp, through which countless daemons could pour out.

The once shining orbital ring is now entangled with wriggling thorns of flesh and blood. Reliefs of painful and distorted human faces appear on every inch of the metal surface. Foul energy from the realm of chaos is seeping through these cracks, like pus and blood gushing out of a festering wound.

Despite losing Darth Vader, the perfect "container" of chaos, the evil gods can still draw "reinforcements" from other dimensions.

This once brilliant beacon of civilization has now become a corrupt dagger stuck in the real universe. The wound continuously oozes out enough subspace pus to contaminate the entire star region, and continues to corrupt and erode the Star Wars universe.

Therefore, it was a very correct move for Magnus to send Lorgar and Curze to solve the problem as soon as he learned of the fall of Coruscant.
(End of this chapter)