Chapter 67: The Beginning of the Perfect City
Most importantly, their legion's casualties would not be excessive, thus preserving their strength. When other legions joined the war against the Ork Empire, the pressure on Omega would be reduced.
The Emperor enjoyed witnessing his armies conquer more and more worlds.
Omega was willing to conquer more planets on his behalf, though not all would necessarily belong to the Ork Empire.
Omega would never reveal this strategy.
Even the company commanders and Magos would be somewhat taken aback by its deployment in the years that followed.
...
3 years later!
In the 964th year of the 30th Millennium, the wars fought by the Alpha Legion in recent years were merely ordinary data among countless star fleets in the Emperor's estimation.
The Emperor, preoccupied with countless official matters, was absorbed with the affairs of the Perfect City of Monarchia.
Over the past few decades, Lorgar's Legion of Word Bearers had been preaching on various worlds, building temples and shrines in devotion to the Emperor himself. The Emperor's faith had grown among the lower classes over decades through aggressive missionary work.
If Lorgar's initial religious devotion had been merely a personal hobby in the Perfect City of Monarchia, then over the decades the entire human empire's faith in the Emperor gradually took organized form.
This directly contradicted the Imperial Truth that the Emperor promoted. He repeatedly urged Lorgar to focus on military action, but the Primarch remained unenthusiastic about the expedition.
Finally, this year, the Emperor's patience reached its limit.
At this moment, aboard the massive flagship of the Ultramarines fighting on the empire's frontier, Roboute Guilliman, clad in blue power armor, received an astonishing message from the Emperor himself.
The company commanders beside him regarded the Primarch with puzzlement as he fell into deep thought, while Guilliman himself was equally confused.
The handling of warnings and reprimands to other Legions was typically done by Leman Russ of the Space Wolves or Lion El'Jonson of the First Legion Dark Angels. Leman Russ was the Emperor's known executioner.
The Dark Angels conducted many operations that couldn't be brought to light, and Guilliman understood some of them.
Guilliman couldn't comprehend why the Emperor would send the Ultramarines, who were meant to represent honor, to perform the Space Wolves' brutal work.
He understood fully that doing so would create deep-seated enmity with Lorgar and the Word Bearers.
While Guilliman wasn't as diplomatically gifted as Horus, he always maintained the minimum expectation of avoiding direct conflict with his brothers.
Puzzled and deeply uneasy, Guilliman reasoned that perhaps the Emperor wanted the Ultramarines' rationality to clash with the Word Bearers' religious zeal, to prove objectively who held truth and who clung to error, though even this felt like a dangerous justification for what he was about to do.
Roboute Guilliman, clearing his mind of distractions, opened his eyes coldly and issued his command.
"Our target is the Perfect City of Monarchia. The Emperor orders its destruction."
"What!? Why would the Ultramarines undertake such a task?" The nearby company commanders were incredulous.
They had offended no one. Why perform such hateful work? The very concept was incomprehensible.
"This is the Emperor's direct order."
At those words, silence fell across the bridge. The entire Ultramarines leadership forced themselves into cold rationality as the Ultramarines fleet of thousands of warships leaped from the warp toward Monarchia.
In the dim space of a star system in the eastern reaches of the Milky Way.
Thousands of warships engaged in a space battle against three hundred alien vessels on the opposing side. Countless fighter squadrons could be seen bombarding the nearby planet's surface, missiles filling the sky.
In an alien city on the ground, the aliens were fluid-bodied humanoids with advanced technology.
They possessed only three fingers on each hand and foot, and their entire civilization was physically fragile. All wore streamlined, high-tech gray light armor.
In the alien city, vast numbers of gray, lightly armored aliens armed with laser weapons, ion cannons, and various electromagnetic vehicle platforms clashed with the advancing human army.
The city's energy shields had been breached long ago. Countless explosions echoed as smoke and ash filled the air.
Outside, the Alpha Legion, commanding millions of troops, launched a massive offensive against various cities across the planet. Laser fire filled the chaotic battlefield.
At this moment, Omega, sitting in a chair aboard the space warship's flagship, was somewhat surprised when Alpharius arrived after several decades of absence.
Alpharius, his bearing even more composed than before, glanced at the three-dimensional war simulation data displayed before them and smiled.
"You're really only focused on the war, completely oblivious to what's happening beyond these battles?"
"With the great Emperor overseeing all, what could possibly go wrong?" Omega said casually.
The Imperium of Man had been embroiled in endless troubles for nearly two hundred years, with war raging everywhere. What else could there be but war?
Alpharius sighed and sat down in a nearby seat, speaking beneath the brightly illuminated mechanical dome.
"You're still the same as ever, indifferent to many things. You know perfectly well the empire has numerous problems, yet you act as if you don't care at all."
Omega wasn't someone who couldn't tolerate flaws.
He spoke calmly. "The Alpha Legion doesn't manage corruption within Imperial government. Can we truly address the problems of other legions? Focusing on the war is what the Emperor most desires from us."
"Focus on the war...exactly right," Alpharius murmured to himself.
For decades, he had traveled between Terra and various star sectors, quietly conducting intelligence operations and infiltration work. His thinking had always been oriented toward information gathering, but witnessing Omega's success and the impending events at Monarchia made him reconsider his approach.
Alpharius laughed. "He..Ha-Haa"
"Being with you always allows me to see beyond the immediate. What the Emperor desires most is a grand crusade, not endless intelligence reports."
"Brother, leave the intelligence work to your subordinates. Sometimes, leading the legion into battle alongside your warriors is simpler if you don't burden yourself with too many concerns," Omega advised, understanding his situation.
"Ha-Ha-Ha, Good!" Alpharius responded with hearty laughter. Being with Omega always brought a rare liveliness and significantly improved his mood.
When asked about the reason, Alpharius explained that the Emperor had sent the Ultramarines to destroy Lorgar's Perfect City of Monarchia.
Although this was the Emperor's method of resolving Lorgar's religious doctrine, it was essentially a high-intensity internal conflict among the Astartes Legions, one that would sow seeds of resentment that might bloom into something far darker.
"Isn't this Leman Russ's responsibility? Why is Roboute Guilliman being tasked with this?" Omega asked, puzzled.
Alpharius remained silent for a moment.
"Leman Russ has advised Lorgar countless times over the past few decades, demonstrating more than sufficient brotherly loyalty. To require him to destroy the Perfect City would be too cruel. Leman Russ is human, too; he has limits, and the Emperor perhaps understood that asking him to shatter another Primarch's faith would break something in him."
Alpharius had already placed operatives within both the Ultramarines and Word Bearers, so he was well aware of all parties' movements. He had long anticipated that something would happen to Monarchia, though he could not have foreseen how bitterly Lorgar would interpret the act.
Right now, he wanted Omega to return to Terra with him to witness the changes and the hidden problems emerging within the Empire.
Omega agreed. The two transferred the legion's command to Captain Skol, instructing him to lead the forces in campaigns and to continue conquering planets in accordance with their established strategy.
Ten warships sailed through subspace. The two became increasingly wary of the warp's dangers during the voyage, but this passage proceeded without incident.
Having returned to the solar system and emerged from the warp gates, the entire galaxy had undergone earth-shattering transformations.
Each planet had been converted into a sturdy military fortress. Spaceships in the sky ranged from civilian vessels a few hundred meters in diameter to military behemoths ten kilometers in length.
The entire system resembled a vast, bustling metropolis. The occasional flashes of light drifting across the dim starry sky were the illumination of passing warships.
Omega was in good spirits at the sight of the magnificent solar system, but he immediately noticed the military defense fortresses were extraordinary structures.
Upon inquiring, he learned they were personally designed and constructed by Rogal Dorn, the Praetorian of Terra and Primarch of the Imperial Fists.
Despite his name suggesting brutality, the Imperial Fist was extraordinarily skilled in defensive warfare. Yet in this, the Great Crusade, the human empire's warships were always on the offensive.
Therefore, the Imperial Fist's defensive philosophy had been hotly debated among other legions, each maintaining slightly different combat doctrines.
For example, Angron led his warriors in desperate assaults, relying on a philosophy that embraced death and fought to the end. Perturabo's Iron Warriors relied on vast quantities of high-tech mechanical equipment for their attacks and were renowned for their invincibility.
The Night Lords, the Raven Guard, and the Alpha Legion all excelled at infiltrating enemy lines to decapitate enemy command structures, but their methodologies differed fundamentally.
The Night Lords excelled at creating terror using enemy corpses, while the Raven Guard and Alpha Legion eliminated their targets and departed with clinical precision.
However, over the past few decades, the combat doctrine of the Alpha Legion under Omega had gradually diverged from the traditional Alpha Legion approach of infiltration and decapitation.
Omega's Space Marines operated more like elite special forces units, focusing on eliminating high-value enemy targets with maximum efficiency and minimal collateral casualties.
Precision over shadow, efficiency over enigma, though few beyond Alpharius understood how profoundly this pragmatic philosophy differed from Hydra doctrine.
[End of Chapter]
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