For Selene, this seemed once again like a journey to refine her mood.
Only this time, halfway through her travels, she happened to expand her territories again.
"I shall eradicate rebellion and all acts of betrayal, allowing reason, science, and the spirit of perseverance and enterprise to once again envelop human nature!"
The distant chime of bells echoed across the entire Throne World. Billions of gazes fixed upon that resplendent, sacred silhouette as it moved; billions of gasps mixed with awe and reverence swept through the gathered masses.
Along the Pilgrims' Causeway leading directly to the Eternity Gate of the Imperial Palace on Terra, Selene walked alone, passing beneath magnificent arches and through halls filled with endless wonders.
The colonnades, the exquisite murals, the gilded decorations, and the sculptures and paintings that represented the masters' greatest works—all of it formed a splendor that made even the presence of Emperor-class Titans seem small. Yet Selene's presence was impossible to overlook.
Resting her hand upon the railing, she spoke with a tone of composed grace, her regal posture so commanding that it left the observant momentarily dazed.
Her demeanor was almost identical to that of the Emperor when he had proclaimed the beginning of the Great Crusade from Terra—but even more exalted, more aloof, more queenly. Elegant and majestic, she possessed a nobility and grandeur utterly unlike the Emperor's cold simplicity.
All eyes widened in disbelief as they stared at that figure—clear and radiant, yet veiled in sacred light.
Especially among those distant crowds beyond the suspended bridges of the Causeway, whose positions in space did not even align—people suddenly realized that despite the immense distance, even those without bionic eyes, even half-blind zealots, could clearly see every detail of the Causeway and its reliefs.
You look at me, I look at you—faces filled with astonishment, joy, and confusion. It wasn't an isolated occurrence. Billions of rational beings across the Throne World were simultaneously blessed.
This was a miracle.
A miracle recognized by the Emperor himself!
The cheers erupted—thunderous and endless!
Selene accepted them with faint satisfaction.
"I shall bear the hope that rests within your hearts. I shall reunite all of humanity scattered across the galaxy under a single, rightful authority. I shall lead you to grasp the power to claim victory."
The vanity of this monarch, who alone savored the sweetness of success, was well pleased.
Her decisive, unwavering voice resounded amidst the cries, prayers, cheers, and hymns that filled the noisy surface of Terra.
"Not only when victory lies within our grasp, but also when it seems distant—when misfortune and the shadow of death shroud all like a burial cloth. In that darkest hour, I shall grant you the courage and hope to grasp the dawn and tear through the veil of despair."
Her voice was not loud, but each word seemed to imprint itself upon the minds of all who heard it.
From the Pilgrims' Causeway to the entirety of Terra, then to Mars, Luna, Neptune, and Pluto—throughout the heart of the human empire: the Tech-Priests of Mars, the Battlefleet Solar at Luna's spaceports, the Imperial Guard stationed upon the Throne World…
At this moment, the Mechanicum adepts, the Emperor's Space Marine gene-sons, the noble officers of the Imperial Navy, the rank-and-file soldiers of the Imperial Guard, the stubborn inquisitors of the Inquisition, and the billions of bureaucrats of Terra—all were drawn by Selene into a vast, interwoven mental network.
"The Eye of Terror, the healing of the Great Rift, the ceasing of Warp storms—these are my gifts to humanity. The Traitor Legions shall be destroyed, their Primarchs brought to justice…!"
"I shall rewrite the laws and political doctrines of Terra with the blood of heretics and traitors."
"Now, I command you—follow the Emperor, follow the Primarchs, and offer me your loyalty!"
Under this 'peaceful' transition of banners—where the violence was mild, yet the aura of absolute domination unmistakable—such words, if spoken in another world, would have drawn countless curses and protests.
Too authoritarian, too undemocratic.
Even if people echoed her cry, most would not take it to heart—and many would secretly harbor dissent or rebellion.
But for the people of Terra, and indeed all humanity accustomed to the Imperium's ways, this was perfectly normal—exactly as it should be!
Orthodox! It was orthodoxy itself!
Replace it with the delicate talk of "votes" and "democracy," and the people of Terra would look at you as if you were mad—then promptly drag you to the Department of Justice to be made into a servitor or a wetware core.
"For Selene—!"
It was one of the Thousand Sons warriors—tasked with maintaining order and hunting down the traitorous High Lords' families and factions—who could no longer contain his excitement and roared aloud.
He had intended to shout "For the Emperor!", but realizing the inappropriateness of it and not knowing what else to cry, countless Terran officials and officers immediately followed his lead.
"For Selene! We swear undying loyalty—!"
In an instant, it became a chain reaction.
"For Selene—!"
Countless people shouted with frenzied devotion—men, women, youths, and elders alike, all prostrating themselves upon the ground.
Though the barriers and physical structures still prevented them from approaching closely, forcing them to view only Selene's departing back from afar, none could restrain the flood of cheers and tears that followed her. A tidal wave of jubilation and emotion swept over Terra's people.
"The key to public speeches... hmm, I still lack powerful gestures and more vivid, multidimensional emotional projection..."
Selene, ever self-reflective and prone to runaway trains of thought, murmured softly to herself. It was one of her few virtues—to constantly summarize and refine her own methods—even as she subtly adjusted the emotional fluctuations of the masses without them realizing.
Revision, however, was out of the question.
Her speech concluded. After briefly greeting the small children—apparently orphans of loyalists studying at the Ecclesiarchal Academy of Devotion—Selene decided not to prolong the ceremony.
If she were to personally touch and bless each child, she would never finish this month. After all, the population of Terra was staggering—just the total number of administrative employees under the Imperial Department of Internal Affairs exceeded ten billion!
With one hand resting upon the railing of the sacred causeway, Selene waved and nodded gracefully to the crowd, while simultaneously processing the streams of documents and reports from the various Astartes Legion commanders within her mind.
After approving Budo's request to begin local recruitment—integrating select regiments of the Imperial Guard into the auxiliary ranks of the Sacred Selene Empire's army—Selene couldn't help but smile.
"So, you couldn't resist any longer, could you?"
Say what you will about the old Imperium of Man, but when it came to producing qualified cannon fodder... ahem, exceptional soldiers—it had no equal.
This could well be seen as yet another valuable contribution from the human Imperium to the Sacred Selene Empire.
True, the Imperial Guard suffered extremely—extremely—high casualty rates. Their casualty reports were always in the hundreds of millions. Entire regiments could be wiped out within mere hours of deployment.
But then again, look at the foes they faced—nightmarish monsters, hellish aberrations, and ancient horrors of every kind.
If not soulless killing machines, then highly evolved space locusts—or worse, those proud and terrible noble species of the galaxy's elder races.
By modern standards, the lasguns, plasteel armor, and ceramite breastplates issued to Imperial Guardsmen were already more than respectable.
Yet compared to the weapons of other galactic powers—phased, gauss, shuriken, toxin crystal weaponry—or claws tipped with disintegration fields and relics steeped in ancient sorcery—the Guardsmen's tools were little more than flashlights and plastic vests.
And yet these mortals marched to war with nothing more than "hard plastic vests," "flashlights," "toilet paper," and courage as unyielding as adamantine—their manly spirit soaring, their bodies as robust as wild beasts.
Weapons and armor could be supplied by the Imperial Forge. Their physiques could be trained.
But their death-defying spirit—the sheer, overwhelming vigor and unshakable discipline, the iron sense of obedience that bordered on fanaticism—these were rare qualities indeed. Qualities that Selene deeply valued.
Perhaps, by some measures, relying on mortal troops was an outdated notion. Implementing full mechanization—standardizing machine armies and supernatural forces—would not be difficult for Selene or her Empire.
But Selene had no intention of becoming a pig farmer.
It was vital that the colonies and civilian worlds maintained their martial virtue and vitality. The vast and complex hierarchy of military merit and noble titles remained one of the key pillars that sustained the cohesion of the Sacred Selene Empire.
Thus, the auxiliary and vassal armies could never be abolished!
They must exist—and in great numbers!
Machine legions, supernatural divisions, and alien auxiliary forces would also have their place—but never at the expense of humanity's primacy.
Selene's willingness to appear personally before Terra's people stemmed from this very principle.
She needed the human Imperium's indomitable spirit.
Perhaps in earlier days, during the raw and impatient phase of her Empire's growth, Selene would have resorted immediately to psychic domination, mental conditioning, and the triple combo of Mental Seal manipulation—for efficiency, convenience, and peace of mind.
As the initial stage of accumulation came to an end and the Sacred Selene Empire reached a vast enough scale to enter its snowballing phase, Selene's attitude shifted dramatically. Her once-frequent use of psychic domination and brainwashing techniques now bored her.
Those who wished to submit, could. Those who did not—too bad.
Now, she preferred to win through virtue, to make others yield willingly, to make them fight for her with their hearts aflame and voices hoarse.
Of course, a bit of emotional fine-tuning was still necessary.
If the atmosphere went cold, wouldn't that hurt her image?
Whether diplomacy preceded war or followed it didn't matter. She laid out the logic clearly, stated the terms plainly, made the rewards and prospects transparent... She loved nothing more than watching those proud, stubborn worlds—unwilling, resistant, yet slowly bending—twist into submission before her overwhelming might.
Until they were conquered by the immense markets and boundless opportunities of the Sacred Selene Empire—tamed, as it were, into loyal and adoring subjects, the staunchest supporters of Selene and the central government of the Imperial Capital.
As for those who failed to be reformed, or who betrayed her after swearing fealty—there were many. Their fates spoke for themselves.
Who did they think they were, to deserve her wasting even a few seconds of sleep for a personal psychic override?
"The purge of the Chaos traitors roaming the Maelstrom—the region second only to the Eye of Terror—has also been completed."
Selene murmured.
Speaking of the Maelstrom, one could not omit a name of infamy—
Lufgt Huron, once Chapter Master of the Astral Claws, now the Red Corsairs' Warlord—Huron Blackheart, the Tyrant of Badab, the Blood Reaver, great traitor, arch-heretic, and Chaos warlord second only to Abaddon of the Black Legion.
The region had been handled by Selene's XX Alpha Legion.
In the darkness, light flared, slowly devouring the blasphemous shadows.
A crimson tempest of blood and steel swept through. A monstrous figure, its armor warped and slick with gore, emerged from the gloom. Several alien greatswords pierced through Huron Blackheart's chest, shattering his twin hearts and triple lungs.
He was slain—by his own Red Corsair honor guard... or was he?
As the confrontation unfolded, the mutated crimson armor writhed, and upon it appeared faint serpentine scales—green-blue patterns shifting across the plates.
"I am Alpharius."
Then came a second.
"I am Alpharius."
A third. A fourth.
"We are all Alpharius!"
"We are the Alpha Legion! We are one!"
The air itself seemed to pause—then, bang! bang bang bang—! gunfire erupted. Half the Alpha Legionnaires turned their weapons on their own, bolters and plasma fire merging in a storm of melting ceramite and flesh.
Selene couldn't help but click her tongue in amusement.
A counterfeit had met the real thing.
The Blackheart's forces had been so thoroughly infiltrated they might as well have been a sieve. After a strike by the Alpha Legion fleet, the Red Corsairs—already a patchwork of renegades—scattered immediately. Huron fled with his guards, never realizing how many impostors had already slipped among them. In the end, he was slain.
And when Selene's Alpha Legion cleared the battlefield, one of the customary identifications even revealed a true Alpha Legionnaire among Huron's men—a genuine traitor of the Emperor's gene-sons.
Her Twentieth Legion commander reported by vox: they might have killed one of the Imperium's traitor Primarchs—but confirmation was uncertain.
Selene chuckled.
Ever since she had torn open the walls of reality and nurtured the Imaginary Tree from the fires of creation, she no longer cared much for the souls of the gene-Primarchs—though she had consumed most of them.
The Ten Traitor Primarchs.
Fulgrim, Perturabo, Mortarion, Magnus, and Lorgar—those who dwelled within the Eye of Terror—had been sacrificed as offerings to Selene. The maddened daemon-Primarch Angron of Khorne's realm had been torn apart by Selene herself within the Blood God's domain.
The Arch-Traitor Horus had been slain by the Emperor, body and soul destroyed. Konrad Curze, the Lord of Nostramo, driven insane by prophecy, had welcomed death from an Imperial assassin long ago, his soul shards dissolved in the warp.
The twin brothers of the Alpha Legion—Alpharius confirmed slain by Rogal Dorn, while Omegon was rumored to have died by Guilliman's hand. Now her Twentieth Legion claimed to have killed another—perhaps one more piece of the puzzle.
"No matter. Whether true or not, send the corpse to the Emperor for verification."
Selene halted and turned her gaze back.
"Before that, though—come, all of you. Terra's chapter is finished. Follow me—to the Imperial Capital."
"The Wolf King of Fenris and the Raven Lord of Lycaeus are already on their way ahead of us."
In an instant, Selene appeared beside the Emperor, following his line of sight.
Below them stretched vast steps and sweeping vistas. From near the highest point of Terra, Selene's eyes traveled through the endless web of streets and transit lines, from the administrative zones to the preacher camps, from local parishes to the sprawling slums.
There, the poor and crippled crawled feebly among ramshackle huts, pitiful and desperate like swarms of maggots clustered around an open wound.
"It will change."
Sensing the Emperor's sorrow, she placed a hand on the railing and said softly, "And you—you will be its executor."
"I will send you beyond the realm. There, my true self will escort you to the Imperial Capital to complete all the necessary appointments. If you encounter any obstacles or require aid, you'll just have to rely on your eloquence before the Imperial Council of Internal Affairs."
Her lips curved faintly. "Your colleague, after all, has already grown impatient."
The Emperor glanced at her curiously. "Who?"
"The Necron—the Silent King."
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