I could say I was disappointed with the Imperium, and their waste of opportunity. I thought my intervention in the Rust_Fields_War would allow Forge Graia to mine out the place and become stronger. But they likely never finished the Orks, allowing them to germinate more spores and call out reinforcements from distant Ork clans, leading to this new Green Kroosade and hundreds of Ork Bosses gathering at Krieg.

Then again, it's been almost 700 years since my last visit, and Orks multiply fast, like fungi.

Zath finished his Space Hulk vegetable bowl first, and returned to the Singularity's bridge licking his snout. 'I'm such a good brother, I even left the other metal hulks untouched for them. What will you do on the planet?' he asked inside my mind.

I did have the Void Spinner virus available, but lacked psykers to use it properly, and Lady Valyene was kinda indisposed right now with her pregnancy. Then again, maybe the Kriegers will want a respawning Ork army to train their troops in perpetuity. I should ask.

Also, I should collect more Orks for the Xeno Auxilia, since the next goal was fighting Chaos forces.

"Glad you asked, Zath. I guess I should replenish the Ork Auxilia numbers, with the greenskins already present on the ground." I answered out-loud, mostly to let my wife know what was going to happen.

In a minute, the massive Ork Waaagh on Krieg was collected and stored in my newest tesseract, then I walked inside the tesseract to implant the Ork Bosses with scarab-shackles, as to more easily direct them on a specific target instead of rampaging randomly.

Then I grabbed Custode Valerian and went to visit the Krieg's HQ, a battered bunker filled with gas-masked staff officers and dozens of Commissars that kept them from launching human wave attacks too often. Quite the opposite task a Commissar usually had.

"By the Emperor! A real Custodian!" the main Krieg General exclaimed in fervor as we were noticed.

I just took out my Mortalis Crusade scroll and rolled it down the table. The man titled his head at the lack of gun fire, and recognized me from old descriptions.

"Lord Lancefire? We thought you were long dead...hundreds of years ago." A Krieg Colonel with some ancient history background asked in surprise.

"Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated. I was just stuck in the Warp, nothing more." I answered with a shrug. Mostly truth, too.

The nearest Commissar read the Crusade orders first, then passed the scroll to the General. "The orders are authentic, General. Signed by the Emperor Himself. Although his Holy Custode here is the best proof we could ask."

"My Crusade Fleet is heading for Cadia, where the Sons of Malice traitors are gathering for another Black Crusade. I will need to requisition 4000 Krieg Regiments to secure the planets around Cadia." I spoke in a gentle voice.

The General glanced at the Custode, then at the situation map holoscreen, showing my lone battleship in orbit. "Even with a Glorianna-class battleship, so many Guardsmen and their equipment will not fit, my Lord." he noticed with a small voice. Pretty sure I could fit a million regiments in my tesseracts, but let's not shatter the illusion yet.

"Don't worry about that, General. The Emperor provides." the Custode spoke in a grave voice, solving the issue without much explanation.

A coven of Graia Tech-priests ran inside the room next. "By the Omnissiah! It's the Holy Emissary, alive and well! And a Sacred Custodian from Holy Mars itself?"

I sighed inward. More religious fanaticism. Well, except this time it was useful.

"Well met, Magos. Now let's go see those clone crucibles and speed up the Guardsmen decanting. I can't stay too long." I concluded while displacing the Crusade scroll back in my hand. Likewise, I wasn't very happy with the Emperor's treatment of my mother, but I did accept he provided quite a substantial help with this Crusade orders and his Custodian's support.

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The tech-priests were very curious about things on the other side of the Zone, and especially how Mars managed. "I've only been on Mars for three weeks, before being sent on the new Mortalis Crusade. Custode Valerian can answer all you need, since he's been there for hundreds of years." I passed the buck onwards, so I could focus on the task at hand.

Like making 4 billion Krieg clones, and equipping them for war from the Adeptus Munitorum's vast depots here. Since the Kriegers were still Imperial Guard regiments, their equipment was quite lacking, mostly shovels, gas masks and Lucius-pattern lasguns. Which was still better than the regular Imperial Guard's line infantry regiments, that lacked shovels and gas masks.

My mind calculated the regiment's stats, finding them good enough on entrenchment, defense and soft attack, but lacking hard attack, piercing and breakthrough modifiers. Oh well. I could provide krak grenades and some Tarantula turrets to beef their stats once en route. No need for artillery, since these units will not need to assault cities, just defend.

I drew a short Breath to speed up time for my work, and released the solar heat onto the empty Space Hulks, melting them into hot balls of metal. I guess I could even drop these balls onto someone, and test the C'tan theory of balls reaching the target at the same time.

No, it was not Spaceballs! Go away, stupid ideas.

By the next week, I concluded my visit to Krieg and even left them one giant metal ball to mine metal from, while I also collected the Ork ships and 5 more metal balls for a science test. It probably wouldn't bother Malice too much, even if I dropped them on his head, but I had to try.

The wolves were purring in satisfaction as we chased after the Crusade Fleet, and Lady Valyene burst open to give birth to another special daughter. Sergeant Semnai seemed quite mesmerized by the little girl, but he wasn't the only one.

Lash and Zath seemed quite interested in Joan, staring at her tiny crib with wonder. 'So small, and already passed through death once. Are you going to give little Joan to your Emperor?' Lash asked in a worried voice.

Maybe? Probably not. I didn't like how Janice turned out in the end. Strong, very strong, but not humane anymore. Warped by the Emperor's goals and vision, for certain.

'I'm not sure, my friend. She will need training, but the Emperor is not a good teacher either.' I mused in a lamenting tone.

'That Necron Lord has a billion magic books now. Joan could learn a lot...' Zath proposed with a sneaky voice.

'I thought you hated Necrons?' I asked in surprise.

'Trazyn is not like the rest, just like you aren't like the other humans. He did release the Nightreaper Shard after the battle in the Labyrinth. Not the Trancendant Deceiver Shard though, but that's probably better. We would need to kill that freak if he was free.' Zath answered with a glance at our own Nightreaper Shard sleeping in a corner.

'Is this another play, a move in the Great Game?' I wondered with suspicion.

'We shall see, Pef Lancefire. The Nightwolf has called his big brother to help, so we may have another Transcendant join us for Malice. I thought you should know.' Zath whispered in my mind in a secretive tone.

Hmmm. The Nightreaper Transcendant did help with both Nurgle and Tzeentch, so why not against Malice? I didn't mind more help, even with other problems that might arise. The Eldar might not like it, but fuck them. Let the Phoenix Lord stare the Nightreaper in the face and insult him too. I could enjoy betting on that fight.