Following a relatively brief sub-orbital transit, the shuttle arrived safely at its designated destination: Baal Secundus.
"This is the precise celestial mass where my Primarch crashed during his infancy," Herriman explained, gesturing toward the horizon as he guided Yuki and Yuno through the disembarkation terminal. "The satellite anchors the vast majority of our lineage's historic landmarks—most notably, the Place of the Angel's Descent."
Herriman continuously unspooled historical data and lore centering on his founding Chapter and Sanguinius. Naturally, these narrative logs were already flawlessly archived within Yuki's memory core; Sanguinius and the Blood Angels represented foundational pillars within the broader galactic tapestry, leaving zero room for informational gaps.
By contrast, Yuki's processing nodes were monumentally more intrigued by the enigmatic nature of Herriman's own faction, the Angels of Midnight.
"My Chapter? Our definitive Founding chronology remains entirely uncataloged," Herriman shrugged. "We navigate realspace utilizing a massive fleet-fortress as our mobile monastery. Beyond our black-and-red armor lacquer and the baseline reality that we harvest the gene-seed of Sanguinius, our broader history records as a complete variable."
An absolute textbook template for an obscure background Chapter, Yuki thought. In fact, most standard background factions command a monumentally higher index of historical data than these guys.
"Regardless, our echelons operate with minimal divergence from standard Chapters," Herriman continued. "To analyze the variable objectively, I personally compute that the systemic distinctions between various Space Marine brotherhoods are heavily overstated—the variance typically restricts itself strictly to localized combat doctrines."
"What specific strategic methodology do your companies prioritize, then?"
"We engage in total, unyielding death-matches—holding the line at any material cost."
The microsecond after unspooling that remarkably bloodthirsty tactical baseline, Herriman casually modulated his vocal processors to insert a supplementary query.
"Naturally, the precise matrix of our combat style commands a multitude of auxiliary sub-routines, but our contemporary schedule is far too tight to parse them. Changing vectors—I have yet to query: what specific variable brings your two units to Baal Secundus?"
"A holiday tour. Our primary ambition is to personally witness the various holy landmarks commemorating the Primarch."
"Remarkable dedication. Even tracking my status as an active Astartes, this deployment marks my definitive initial arrival at these coordinates. Provided my life systems endure the impending campaign, I heavily desire to transition to the Realm of Ultramar to personally evaluate Roboute Guilliman. Assuming the timeline permits."
Herriman's optical sensors drifted back toward the starport perimeters. "I presume your nodes have fully parsed that Baal is currently locking coordinates with an unprecedentedly powerful xenos threat vector? Strategy dictates that you accelerate your holiday itinerary and execute an immediate extraction vector from the system."
The shuttle's hydraulic ramps fully extended. Yuki unspooled a long structural sigh; this tense, heavily restricted transit loop had finally achieved terminal execution.
Stepping onto the platform, his tracking nodes immediately flagged a formation of heavily armored Adeptus Astartes waiting directly at the base of the ramp.
Had he failed to establish a friendly baseline with Herriman during the transit, Yuki likely would have calculated that these assets were deploying to enforce his immediate neutralization. Analyzing the active variables, however, the detachment had clearly materialized to retrieve their displaced officer.
Predictably, the moment Herriman cleared the final step, his battle-brothers systematically closed ranks around his physical frame. The gathered Angels of Midnight maintained an absolute, unyielding formation until Herriman, radiating a clear expression of complete helplessness, manually surrendered half the volume of his purchased civilian rations into their gauntlets.
"Those units... their behavioral patterns project an exceptionally high index of triviality."
Yuno's optical lenses slowly unclouded as she emerged from her semi-lethargic processing state. Rubbing her facial panels, her gaze intersected the armored Space Marines, and her defensive algorithms transiently spiked, dangerously close to initializing an active combat routine.
However, extracting the archived telemetry of the preceding conversation straight from Yuki's memory network, her internal systems rapidly stabilized.
"Identify our subsequent coordinates."
"Let's proceed to evaluate the Place of the Angel's Descent."
Just as Yuki initiated a calculation to determine their optimal transit vector, Herriman broke away from his squad and marched straight back to their position.
"A sudden thought materialized: your nodes deployed to these coordinates explicitly to perform a pilgrimage to Sanguinius, correct? My battle-brothers have just flagged a priority security update: the entirety of the historic landmarks has been placed under absolute military lockdown, restricting entry exclusively to active Astartes and verified martial personnel. However, our intersection across realspace registers as a distinct twist of fate—would your units care to integrate into our vanguard?"
Yuki and Yuno exchanged a rapid, silent glance.
"The privilege is entirely ours," Yuki responded smoothly.
Thus, to secure seamless access to Baal's premier historic coordinates, the supreme avatars of the Great Devourer seamlessly embedded themselves into the formal touring contingent of the Angels of Midnight's First Company.
This legendary geographical grid similarly served as the definitive terminal milestone for the Blood Angels' primary aspirant selection trials.
The mortal candidate assets harvested from disparate nomadic tribes across Baal were forced to navigate the absolute, radioactive horrors of the Great Desert, ultimately consolidating their remaining numbers at these coordinates to breach the subsequent tier of genetic trials.
A colossal, sky-spanning marble monument of Sanguinius dominated the focal point of the canyon.
Hundreds of Space Marines stood in absolute, reverent silence beneath the canyon walls, locking their optical sensors onto the sculpted visage of their genetic father to internally register the monumental historical node where his capsule had punctured the crust, violently re-shaping the baseline trajectory of the planet's destiny.
The gathered executioners rejected any singular factional identity. The Flesh Tearers, the Blood Wings, the Blood Drinkers—an uncataloged multitude of Successor Chapters stood shoulder-to-shoulder alongside their respective mortal Auxilia, flanked by massed echelons of the Adepta Sororitas and the Astra Militarum who had deployed to reinforce the system.
This grand assembly represented an intentional morale-boosting algorithm authored by Dante. If orchestrating a synchronized pilgrimage across these holy landmarks could successfully spark a massive surge in baseline martial fervor, the operational dividends would maximize their defensive efficiency.
Furthermore, the analytical models concerning the impending conflict confirmed that the threshold of assets destined to maintain biological longevity was severely low; the more individual minds that fully absorbed these historical narratives, the lower the probability that these legends would be permanently buried beneath the ash of war.
Yuki and Yuno maintained a stable, integrated position within the mass, navigating the terrain under the direct diplomatic cover of the Angels of Midnight. True to Herriman's intelligence, the perimeter was entirely cleared of civilian assets.
The Angels of Midnight had deployed alongside their dedicated Chapter serfs and a specialized detachment of Battle Sisters who shared their deployment vectors.
"Our Chapter successfully intercepted an extermination event targeting a minor Adepta Sororitas Order several centuries ago," Herriman noted casually, providing a brief data breakdown. "Ever since that strategic synchronization, their companies have continuously deployed alongside our fleets."
A diminutive human adolescent tracked directly alongside Herriman's massive lower chassis. This asset operated as Herriman's personal personal serf, executing mundane, recursive logistical loops such as clearing his quarters and performing maintenance protocols across his ballistic weapons arrays.
This marked Yuki's definitive initial exposure to the standard, non-combat routines governing an active Astartes. It registered as a highly ironic variable; despite navigating the Warhammer universe across a vast chronological span, his data files concerning internal Space Marine culture remained remarkably sparse—every prior intersection had initialized and terminated purely within the parameters of absolute warfare.
"That monument... is that specific sovereign the historical entity whose name dictates the macro-holiday our colonies execute every cycle?"
"Indubitably," Herriman responded, his voice resonant. "The Feast of Sanguinius. A magnificent celebration; a timeline saturated with righteous fury."
Yuki tracked the immense scale of the sculpture, his gaze drifting down to analyze the horizon-spanning impact crater engineered by the Primarch's incubation capsule ten millennia ago.
Ten thousand standard cycles in the past, Sanguinius had materialized at this exact spatial coordinate.
Yuno's internal processors were similarly executing a hyper-focused scan. Had her sensors successfully localized a residual trace of Sanguinius's original, unadulterated biomass preserved within the geological strata, the evolutionary dividend would have performed at an exceptional tier.
Ultimately, her diagnostic routines returned a baseline null, prompting a subtle resonance of absolute disappointment to filter across her neural lines.
"How truly magnificent, our genetic father."
"Praise Sanguinius, the supreme paragon."
Yuki redirected his tracking nodes toward the source of the acoustic input. A massive cadre of Sanguinius's bloodlines had consolidated beneath the statue, unspooling an immense, synchronized martial hymn. At this chronological juncture, all Chapter boundaries were entirely suppressed; they existed exclusively as unified battle-brothers.
To compute that within a few standard cycles, these exact same lineages will engage in severe, volatile diplomatic friction concerning unified command authority is exceptionally ironic, Yuki thought.
Ultimately, the structural scanning loop across the Place of the Angel's Descent achieved total completion, and Yuki and Yuno gracefully retreated from the sector alongside the Angels of Midnight.
A brief chronological interval after their departure, a fresh echelon of pilgrims materialized within the canyon perimeters.
Saint Hopper's sensory nodes abruptly flagged an anomalous reading, her cognitive processors experiencing a sudden wave of severe, unexplained irritation.
This localized atmospheric weight... is my physical shell finally approaching its terminal structural degradation point?
Sensing the shift, Hopper's internal frustration scaled up. Her remaining operational timeline was tracking toward absolute zero.
Gazing upward at the monumental statue of Sanguinius, Hopper synchronized her consciousness to deliver a profoundly devout prayer algorithm—a spiritual replication of the exact baseline she had executed cycles ago during her pilgrimage to Roboute Guilliman.
A pilgrimage to Guilliman?
Hopper's memory files unspooled an abrupt tracking record: during that historic junction within the Hall of Truth, the xenos anomaly known as Yuki had successfully counterfeited his identity parameters to infiltrate the holy sector.
Is it mathematically possible that his node was actively occupying this system as well?
Hopper aggressively swept her tracking arrays across the entire geographical grid, yet her sensors filtered nothing save for the massed formations of the Adeptus Astartes and the fiercely loyal human thralls of the Imperium.
A highly improbable calculation, she concluded, dampening her sensors. What rational variable could possibly drive that monster to infiltrate this holy ground?