While he consolidated his own empire, Julius Braveheart observed, like a hawk in the shadows, the titanic deployment of the Great Crusade. Everything seemed to be unfolding as fate had decreed.
The Emperor had resolved His most pressing problem: He had found His sons, one by one, the Primarchs, scattered across the galaxy. The first to be found was Horus, who quickly became His favorite, the Warmaster of the Imperial armies. Then came the others: the strategist Roboute Guilliman, the wolf-warrior Leman Russ, the unyielding Rogal Dorn, the magnificent angel Sanguinius, and many more.
Each Primarch, upon taking command of his Legion of Astartes, became a weaponized arm of the Imperial will, a hammer forged for a specific type of warfare. The Imperium was now a blade with twenty teeth, and it set out to reclaim the scattered human worlds after the Age of Strife. Some worlds joined peacefully, dazzled by the Emperor's vision or intimidated by the displayed power. Others had to be subdued by war.
Great battles, whose echoes reached even Julius's ears, marked this inexorable expansion:
· Vast human empires that had become tyrannical were shattered, their despots overthrown by the overwhelming force of the Legions.
· Entire xenos civilizations were annihilated. Ork hordes were hunted and purged, the treacherous Fallen Eldar were tracked to their lairs, and the terrible Rangdan threat was confronted in conflicts of unspeakable brutality.
· The cursed remnants of forbidden Artificial Intelligences, the Men of Iron, were exhumed and destroyed without mercy, in accordance with the Emperor's decree.
It was an age of fire and glory, where humanity seemed destined to reclaim its place as master of the galaxy under the guidance of a near-divine being.
Yet, amidst this frenzy of conquest and reunification, a persistent thought, like a tiny pebble in a divine boot, occupied the Emperor's mind.
While He planned stellar campaigns from the bridge of the Bucephalus or oversaw the construction of the Imperial Palace on Terra, a part of His superhuman consciousness remained turned towards the galactic rim. He perceived not a flame, but a golden and blue sun, a psychic presence of disconcerting intensity and stability. It was not the changing fire of Chaos, nor the familiar glow of a human Psyker, however powerful. It was an ordered, cold, and sovereign entity.
This "new sun," as He sometimes thought of it, did not oppose the Crusade. It did not meddle in the affairs of the Imperium. It did not even seem to pay attention to the Astartes Legions. It simply shone, immutable, extending its own sphere of influence with a method and discretion that commanded respect – and wariness.
The Emperor did not have the time or resources to confront this enigma. The work of the Crusade was too vast, the urgency too great. Horus, Sanguinius, Guilliman... all were perfect tools for the immediate task. But within the sanctuary of His thoughts, a file remained open, a dossier marked with the seal of the unknown and future contingency.
Julius Braveheart.
The small blue flame had become a rival beacon. And although the Master of Mankind had to first complete His own great work, He had not forgotten. He kept an eye on the blue and gold sun, waiting to see what light it would truly cast when the shadow of Chaos inevitably rose. The game was not over; it had merely been delayed.