Tax Bro was the first to charge forward.
His towering, over-two-meter-tall Imperial Fists power armor moved like a humanoid tank. He slammed heavily into Paul, throwing his arms around him and slapping him hard on the back. "Fuck! Paul! You're finally back!"
Paul laughed, patting him on the shoulder.
Then came Schrödinger Bro.
Crimson Dawn's chief strategist wasn't as overly emotional as Tax Bro. He just gripped Paul's hand firmly and said two words: "Welcome back."
Then Blood Angel.
He stood in front of Paul, looking him up and down before a smirk tugged at his mouth. "Not missing any arms or legs. Not bad."
White Scars stepped up. He didn't say anything, just gave Paul's hand a firm squeeze.
Then came [I'm Not the Regent I'm Just Passing By Guilliman], [Execute Old Man the War Criminal], [Father Nurgle Loves All Living Creatures]...
One after another. Some hugged him, some shook his hand, some just waved from a distance.
The dozens of players who had returned from Laeran stood off to the side, watching the scene.
[Selling Flatbreads at the Terra Palace Gates] leaned against the landing gear of a Thunderhawk, grinning widely. "It really is good to be home."
[Selling Cola at the Terra Palace Gates] nodded. "Dal is great and all, but I just feel like Aurelian is our real home."
[Dragon Bro Never Yields]: "No shit. We built the houses there with our own hands, planted the potatoes with our own hands, and rescued the people with our own hands."
[Shinnosuke Eating Lemons]: "And interrogated corrupt officials with our own hands, executed the parasites with our own hands."
The group shared a knowing laugh.
--
Black Rock Citadel, top-floor conference room.
Inside this chamber, which once belonged to Bancal Darwin, seventy or eighty people sat around the central round table.
Almost the entirety of Crimson Dawn's upper echelon was present.
Paul sat at the head of the table. After listening to Schrödinger Bro's report, he picked up a glass of vodka and took a sip.
The 96-proof liquid burned a trail down his throat. He set the glass down and slowly began to speak, recounting everything that had happened on Laeran from start to finish.
From disguising themselves as Iron Hands to infiltrate the Tenth Company's camp.
To Lucius bringing men to surround the camp, and Fabius vivisecting Flatbread Bro.
Fulgrim's arrival, the duel with Lucius.
The theatrical performance by the Chaos players, leading up to the sword in the temple.
Vespasian begging on his knees, and Paul's two attempts to intervene being blasted back.
The conference room was completely silent.
When he mentioned the single tear Fulgrim shed the instant he grasped the sword, Tax Bro slammed his fist brutally against the table.
"Fuck. What does that prove? It proves that Fulgrim wasn't entirely dead-set on turning to Chaos!" His voice was squeezed through gritted teeth.
Schrödinger Bro remained silent for a few seconds before slowly speaking.
His voice was calm, yet carried a heavy weight. "Not necessarily. I've looked into the lore! Back when the Emperor created the twenty Primarchs, the four Chaos Gods had already subjected them to irreversible interference. Their very genes were tampered with by Chaos. Fulgrim's obsession with perfection, Magnus's thirst for knowledge... these traits were firmly controlled by Slaanesh and Tzeentch from the very beginning, like a preordained fate."
"Looking at it that way, it all comes down to the fact that we simply aren't strong enough." He looked up at Paul. "If even your power as a five-trait Champion couldn't stop or change it, I'm guessing that other than the Emperor Himself, no one can stop a Primarch from falling. But the Emperor is acting like he's under some kind of hex..." Schrödinger Bro tapped his fingers lightly on the table. "He's holed up in the Imperial Palace on Terra working on his Webway Project, absolutely refusing to come out and deal with any of this. And the Four Gods won't allow the Emperor to step foot off Terra again anyway. It seems the outbreak of the Horus Heresy is completely unavoidable. We have to do absolutely everything in our power to grow stronger before it hits."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over everyone present.
"As for the Imperial and Chaos player factions, judging from their performance this time, they might actually pose a bigger threat to us in the future than the actual Imperium or Chaos."
"That is an issue, but we don't need to worry about them at all right now," Blood Angel interjected, his voice steady. "As long as we focus on developing the two planets we currently control, their short-term growth definitely won't outpace ours."
Blood Angel paused for a moment before continuing.
"Speaking of which, Paul," he looked at Paul, a smile in his eyes. "Before you left Aurelian, you said we would find an unexpected harvest here on Dal. Looks like you were dead on."
Paul raised an eyebrow, a glint flashing in his dark golden pupils.
"Oh?" He set down his glass, looking at Blood Angel with interest. "What did you find? Tell me."
He simply tapped his datapad a few times, bringing up a holographic projection.
A 3D map of ore vein distributions materialized in the center of the conference room. Dense clusters of red markers dotted the projection, covering almost the entire southern hemisphere of Planet Dal.
"The Dal xenos managed to survive on this rock for three hundred years," Blood Angel said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "They developed that crude energy shield technology, and sustained a civilization of billions without any outside help... all because of this. The energy crystals of the Dal xenos."
Though his voice was calm, his words made everyone in the room sit up straight. "This entire planet is brimming with these energy crystal veins. And the game store's recycle price for them is even higher than Promethium."
Tax Bro's eyes went wide. "Higher than Promethium?!"
Schrödinger Bro's fingers flew across his datapad. He looked up a few seconds later. "Blood Angel is telling the truth. If we calculate this based on the store's recycle rate... the subterranean energy crystal deposits on this planet are insane. Just the surface-level crystals—the ones sitting in the top twenty meters of dirt—are worth more in exchange value than twenty years of mining output on Aurelian IV."
A collective gasp echoed through the conference room.
Blood Angel smiled, continuing his presentation. "The store calls it... Axiomite. But that's not even the most important part." He turned to look at Paul, an irrepressible excitement flashing in his eyes. "Paul, do you remember that first Monthly Wonder we got when we first dropped in? The fragmented tech data for something called 'Psionic Energy'?"
Paul's pupils constricted slightly.
Psionic Energy.
Of course he remembered. They had acquired that data back in the Crimson Dawn base. During the twenty-three years he had spent alone in this universe, he had constantly refreshed the store's Monthly Wonders, buying up various fragmented technological schematics. Many of them had been related to this so-called "Psionic Energy." Every single file was marked as having an unknown origin and severe data corruption, yet the descriptions were too powerful to ignore. He had hoarded them all, handing everything over to the Crimson Dawn Tech Academy for research. Unfortunately, they had always lacked the necessary raw materials and a complete, functional tech tree.
"Are you saying..." Paul's voice rose slightly.
Blood Angel nodded. "The Tech-Priest players gathered a ton of data on how the Dal xenos utilized this energy. Then, they abused the game system's digitized learning function, burned through a mountain of Imperial Coins... and they discovered that these crystals share a fundamental connection with the Psionic Energy mentioned in those files. After some research, they actually figured out a way to refine Axiomite into a substance incredibly similar to Psionic Energy."
Pin-drop silence descended on the conference room.
"Which means," Blood Angel said, his gaze sweeping across every face present, "all those tech schematics you've been stashing in the Tech Academy might actually see the light of day."
Paul tapped his finger rhythmically against the tabletop. He didn't say a word, but deep within his dark gold irises, the rotation of the five stars subtly accelerated.
"Cogboy gave me a heads-up," Blood Angel continued. "He found an incredibly broken tech blueprint hidden among your collection."
He pulled up another holographic projection. It was a battered, tattered schematic covered in a chaotic mess of annotations. Right in the center of the blueprint sat a highly complex structure. Beneath the diagram was a single line of text:
[Psionic Engine]
Blood Angel's voice echoed through the room. "If we install a Psionic Engine on a warship, we won't ever need to travel through the Warp. We can execute jumps of tens of light-years—or even higher-tier leaps—straight through the realspace. And the best part? Once the Psionic Engine finishes its cooldown cycle, it can immediately jump again. Zero risk of Warp contamination."
Tax Bro was the first to break the silence, his voice trembling with barely suppressed shock. "Holy shit. Tens of light-years in a single jump? Doesn't that mean we could hop from a sub-sector entirely into another sector? If we actually manage to develop this thing, Crimson Dawn's fleets will be able to do whatever the hell they want in the Ultima Segmentum! This is way more convenient than the Webway! The Webway still forces you onto fixed routes, but this... with this, we can go wherever the fuck we want!"
White Scars leaned back in his chair, a smirk creeping onto his lips. "Man, I'd love to take one of those warships out for a drag race."
Tax Bro rolled his eyes at him. "Drag racing is literally all you think about."
"You just don't get it," White Scars replied with a shrug.
Blood Angel raised a hand, cutting off their banter. "Don't celebrate just yet." His expression turned dead serious. "That damn blueprint has absolutely nothing on it besides a name and a basic introduction. We're going to need the Tech Academy and all the Mechanicus players to bust their asses on this. Even if we successfully refine a substance similar to Psionic Energy, we still need to figure out the operational logic, build a physical engine chassis, and ensure the warship's armor, structural integrity, Void Shields, and weapon batteries can withstand the sheer stress of the jump. Did you guys seriously think building a ship that can teleport anywhere was going to be easy?"
Instantly, a chorus of groans filled the room.
[I'm Not the Regent I'm Just Passing By Guilliman] slumped back in his chair, clutching his head. "I knew it. Nothing good ever comes for free."
[Execute Old Man the War Criminal] let out a heavy sigh. "So this whole thing is just a pipe dream for now?"
[Grandfather Nurgle Loves All] muttered gloomily. "A pipe dream is still better than no dream at all. At least we have a direction now."
Paul watched the groaning players, a faint smile touching his lips. He picked up his glass, took a small sip, and set it back down before speaking slowly. "It's normal," he said. His voice wasn't loud, but it instantly commanded the room's attention. "Nothing worth doing is ever easy. If it was, the Emperor wouldn't have broken his back trying to build the Webway. Let Cogboy worry about the technological side of things. Our mission... is to strip-mine this entire planet and rip every last chunk of Axiomite out of the ground."
Tax Bro grinned toothily. "Now that's easy."
Schrödinger Bro nodded in agreement. "I'm already plotting out the excavation sites."
Blood Angel opened his mouth to add something, but abruptly froze.
At that exact moment, a crimson holographic screen materialized directly in front of everyone in the conference room. Flame-like patterns licked at the edges of the display, framing several lines of brilliant golden text right in the center:
[Mission Name: Dawn Crusade - Planet Dal Annihilation - Heroic]
[Type: Epic]
[Mission Completion: 100%]
[Mission Status: Completed]
Dead silence fell over the conference room.
Everyone stared blankly at the crimson screens. Three seconds later, the text slowly dissolved, replaced by three distinct reward tiers:
[Faction Mission Reward I]
[All players in the Crimson Dawn faction are awarded 1,000,000 Imperial Coins each.]
[Faction Mission Reward II]
[Half-price purchase rights for: Two Warhound-class Titans, One Dire Wolf-class Titan, One Reaver-class Titan, and Two Medium Titan Transport Ships.]
[(All rights of interpretation belong to the Game Store.)]
[Faction Mission Reward III]
[Crimson Drake Starflame Primarch Augmentation (Complete) x 1]
[500 Exclusive Crimson Drake Starflame Astartes Augmentations]
[20% Discount on Augmentation Purchases]
[(All rights of interpretation belong to the Game Store.)]
It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Tax Bro's eyes were as wide as saucers. Schrödinger Bro's fingers hovered motionless above his datapad. Blood Angel opened his mouth, but no sound came out. White Scars, who had been lazily leaning back, slowly sat up straight. [I'm Not the Regent I'm Just Passing By Guilliman]'s jaw simply hit the floor.
[Execute Old Man the War Criminal] swallowed hard. "Fuck me... Titans?! Two Warhounds! A Dire Wolf! A Reaver! Holy shit! Are we building our own Titan Legion?! Crimson Dawn is finally getting its own Titans!"
Tax Bro practically leaped out of his chair in excitement. "Warhounds! Those things can blast right through a Hive City's outer walls with a single shot!"
"And a Reaver!" White Scars yelled, equally hyped. "The main gun's caliber on that bad boy is literally wider than a grown man!"
Blood Angel was relatively calm, though the fingers gripping his datapad were visibly trembling. Four Titans and two Medium Titan Transports, all at half price. What did that actually mean? It meant that Crimson Dawn was about to possess genuine planetary-level strike capabilities. It meant that the next time they encountered a xenos civilization on the scale of Planet Dal, they wouldn't have to throw a meat grinder of human lives at the problem. It meant they were taking one massive step closer to becoming a true elite faction in the Warhammer universe.
But none of that was the core takeaway. The real prize was the third reward.
"Primarch... augmentation..." [I'm Not the Regent I'm Just Passing By Guilliman] muttered to himself.
[Have You Been Loyal Today?] took a deep breath, his voice coming out completely hoarse. "Are we... are we getting our very own Primarch?"
They had looked up the Primarch Augmentation in the store before. The requirements were ludicrous: a player needed to acquire Warp Origin Essence, Pureblood Perpetual DNA, and an Exclusive Power Gene-Seed. The Game Store only provided the forbidden Dark Age of Technology gene-forging techniques and forbidden arcana required to actually perform the surgery. Those absurd prerequisites had left everyone in total despair. Just to get their hands on the Warp Origin Essence, they would need an insanely powerful Alpha-Plus Psyker at minimum. As for Pureblood Perpetual DNA? They'd have to hunt down the Perpetuals hiding out in the Cabal. What, were they going to waltz up to the Emperor and ask for a blood sample? Or Malcador?
The Exclusive Power Essence might have been slightly easier to find, but even that was a stretch.
Yet now, a fully packaged opportunity to ascend to a Primarch had simply been dropped right into Crimson Dawn's lap. It was the ultimate, mind-blowing jackpot.
Sitting at the head of the table, Paul stared intently at the crimson hologram. He read through the three tiers of rewards, his eyes lingering on the blindingly bright numbers and a name he had never seen before... Crimson Drake Starflame.
Crimson Drake Starflame.
Crimson Dawn.
The Crimson Dragon.
Even a tiny spark of starflame was enough to bring the dawn to this dark, unforgiving universe.