Deep within the Warp.
Inside the hidden Divine Realm, in a massive villa.
Lucian lay sprawled across an absolutely gigantic bed—one big enough for ten people to roll around on comfortably. He held a bucket of popcorn in his hands, his eyes locked onto twelve golden holographic screens floating in front of him.
On the screens, the conference room inside the Black Rock Castle on Planet Dal had completely erupted. (TL/N: Black Rock Citadel to Black Rock Castle)
Tax Bro shot up from his chair, the servo-motors in his power armor letting out a loud screech.
G Bro's jaw was hanging open so wide you could probably stuff a bolt round inside.
[Execute Old Man the War Criminal] cursed three times in rapid succession.
But most of the players were simply shell-shocked.
A Primarch Augmentation.
And a complete Primarch Augmentation, no less.
Every single Alpha Test veteran who had crawled through the mud and blood of the Warhammer universe knew exactly what those words meant when put together.
It meant they were about to have a genuine demigod.
An ultimate combat asset capable of going toe-to-toe with a Chaos Primarch on a battlefield, and under the right conditions, maybe even kill one.
Lucian watched the players losing their minds on the screens, a faint smile curling his lips. A soft chuckle escaped him.
"A bunch of country bumpkins who've never seen the world."
His voice echoed through the empty villa, carrying a hint of laziness, and just a touch of... smugness.
It's just a Primarch Augmentation, is it really that big of a deal?
Okay, yeah, it was a pretty big deal.
Lucian tossed a handful of popcorn into his mouth, crunching loudly. "I spent a long time digging through the store for this. I went through over a hundred Primarch gene templates, one by one, before carefully deciding on this."
"Not to mention it burned through a massive chunk of the physical energy Aurelian IV has been stockpiling all these years."
Honestly, at first, he had considered just copying one of the Emperor's Primarchs to create a fake-but-real clone.
He could have spawned a second Horus and watched him fight the traitor Horus for custody of the Luna Wolves.
Or spawned two Guillimans to take over the Five Hundred Worlds, turning that eternally stagnant 250,000 Astartes into five million Astartes.
But then he thought better of it. It would be way too easy for the four Chaos Gods and the Emperor to notice and double-team him.
Lucian had scoured the store, going through the options one by one, until he finally stopped on a single name.
Crimson Drake Starflame.
A name that did not exist within the established Primarch sequence.
An artificial Primarch, forged by the System using [A Certain Perpetual's DNA] + [Fragment of the Warp Origin Fire Authority] + [Forbidden Draconic Genetics from the Dark Age of Technology].
"In terms of pure attack power, this guy ranks in the top three among all twenty Primarchs. He can go head-to-head with anyone without backing down."
"But the most important part is..."
Lucian paused, his eyes lingering on the small text at the very bottom of the genetic data sheet. The smile on his lips deepened.
"Loyalty lock."
"Using Hope, Compassion, Resolve, Pioneering, and Wisdom as anchors, a fundamental belief in the dawn of humanity is hardcoded into his genetic baseline."
"As long as Crimson Dawn does not betray humanity, he will never betray Crimson Dawn."
He raised his right hand, tracing a line in the air with his index finger.
The golden screens instantly shifted. A highly detailed holographic model—rendered down to every glowing hair—materialized in front of him.
It was a figure standing 3.79 meters tall.
Among the Primarchs, this was on the taller end of the spectrum. Slightly shorter than a walking tank like Horus, but a good half-head taller than Lion El'Jonson.
His muscles were tight and defined, like tempered dragon-scale steel. Every single muscle group was packed with explosive power, but he didn't have that bulky, brute-force physique.
How to describe it?
Like a dormant dragon. The muscles flowed beneath the skin, every fiber coiled and ready to unleash devastating power at a moment's notice.
Tight. Fluid. Explosively powerful.
His warm, copper-toned skin gave off a reddish metallic sheen under harsh lighting.
Natural, keratinous dragon-scale patterns covered his shoulders, neck, arms, and jawline. Faint, crimson-gold light pulsed within the grooves of the scales.
That was a biological indicator of elevated emotional states.
Looking at the Primarch's physique, even Lucian, who had been heavily exposed to the cultural aesthetics of his past life, couldn't help but sigh in admiration.
"Damn, I've got good taste. It's kind of perfect."
Even though he had already reviewed this data, seeing it again still left him thoroughly impressed.
He continued reading down the list.
The Crimson Drake Starflame had short, crimson-red hair. The texture was short and stiff, the tips perpetually sparking like burning steel needles.
Protruding from the top of his head was a pair of two-inch, draconic bone horns, their surfaces etched with magma-like veins.
That was the physical manifestation of his genetic divinity. The core realization of the [Draconic Divine Manifestation] built into the Primarch template.
The scale patterns extended from the corners of his mouth down to his jaw, and his canines were sharper than a normal Primarch's, resembling dragon teeth.
Just looking at the model, Lucian could easily imagine the guy breathing out faint traces of sulfur and scorching heat whenever he spoke.
His molten gold irises looked like the cores of stars. In complete darkness, they could illuminate his immediate surroundings. For mortals, or even standard Astartes, looking directly into his eyes would induce hallucinations of being scorched by intense flames.
Lucian read the description off the data panel: "When engaged in full combat, flowing sparks will bleed from his eyes."
"Nice, nice. That's exactly the vibe."
He kept scrolling.
The knuckles of his hands were covered in a dragon-scale keratin layer. His semi-transparent, crimson-gold fingernails could effortlessly tear through Space Marine power armor, and he could hold an active plasma core barehanded without sustaining any damage.
Lucian laughed out loud looking at the model.
"Crimson Drake Starflame."
"That's not a human."
"That's literally a humanoid dragon."