It took a while for the ancient human Captain to start believing the universe was not only logic and science.

Examples from other races, like the Orks didn't seem too convincing to him.

Only when I began re-telling the story of the Garden of Nurgle, did his eyes gain a bit of clarity.

"I did see Orks split out cultists and dig inside their guts, but I never realized they were actually looking for gold and gems. You did that?" the man asked a bit horrified. While it was a mean joke on the silly Ork gods, I doubted they understood it was a joke.

"...I would guess it only works on Nurgulite cultists and Sorcerers, even if Khornate cultists would eat up more humans in their rituals, thus have a higher chance to ingest jewelry and gold from teeth and implants. Then again, with Orks anything is possible. Their Waaagh field can even make Ork guns fire without ammo, so finding rare loot inside their kills wouldn't be too hard." I commented with a evil grin. If Orks were already hunting down Chaos guys to search their guts for gold, it would mean they sought out Chaos first. Less work for me...so, nice? The Emperor would surely have a laugh when he found out.

"Anyways, the point of the story was not the Orks. I saw the Emperor in the Warp, and his Afterlife domain filled with angels and other stuff. Human souls do have a place to go after death, and fight again at the side of the Emperor.

With this very Fortress, I fired on Nurgle and destroyed 151 shards, more than 15% of his entire Warp domain. If I can gather 7 of them, I will try again." I declared in a confident voice.

The Imperial Inquisitor turned to measure me with a hot look, before smiling prettily. "Husband, there should be a limit to your bravery. Remember, you barely came out alive from your poorly planned Crusade."

I shrugged with an innocent smile. "We need to decide what to do about this poor planet..." I began to say when another fleet Warped into the system, using old Warp drives instead of my nice inertial drives I used for my own ships.

Not enemies, I would guess. There were Mechanicus ships, and some Knight transport ships, half of which were from House Terryn. The others were from House Oebbern, House Griffith, and House Firehame.

I measured their pitiful numbers and outdated equipment, finding them worth less than a single percent of my deployed forces.

Only the Mechanicus had some decent stuff, including battle-automata, battle servitors and several maniples of Skitarii, and a strange device carried on an anti-grav platform, kept in a sealed vault.

Could it be? It did look similar to the original device that Trazyn had to repair and create my awesome Planetary Reality Cage. Still, it was only powered by a pathetic plasma generator, so it wouldn't have much effect.

"Mechanicus Fleet, this is Pef Lancefire with the Halo Crusade. Be advised, there is a major Chaos incursion in progress here. Personnel lacking Blank genes or hexagrammic wards are forbidden to approach, while cleansing is taking place." I proclaimed on a single Vox channel, and a second later the vox machine burst into green vapors and had to be ejected.

Sister Dessima shook her head and pressed her hands together, gathering the Chaos emanations into a green ball, after which she took a satisfied bite from it. Energy was energy, no point thinking too hard how it was made.

"Doubling the wards on the remaining vox casters, my Lord." my Forge Master said with a displeased voice, and began inscribing even more wards on the poor vox machines.

I worried they would not be enough even so. The Dark Mechanicum always found ways to subvert or destroy our vox channels, in a constant race for noosphere dominance.

"Quantum-entangled communicators would be safe from these etheric incursions." the Infinity's Captain observed with a superior tone.

"The newer Chaos Omen Arks also use quantum-comms. Also neutron shields and various predictive and temporal weapons. Unlike the Imperials, they are not banned from researching new weapons." my Forge Master replied with an irate voice.

Disregarding my warning, the new fleet kept coming closer to the infested planet. even while Sister Stern and the Silent Sisters were battling Bloodthirsters and other types of daemons.

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I stored the misbehaving Reclamation Fleet into my tesseract, and brought out their leader, alongside his special device.

"I think my warning was quite clear, Magos." I observed with a cold voice.

"What? By the might of the Machine God! You have God-walkers on the surface?" the techpriest shouted in near-outrage.

"Nevermind my forces, Magos. Is that device a Venatoria Reality Cage?" I asked a bit curious.

The red-robed cyborg turned towards the device, and tried to hide it behind his back. "This is a Varlian_Device . My Order, the Teeth of the Cog believed it can block the Warp. Much like your own Blank genes can, Lord Lancefire." he explained in a more respectful voice.

Then again, there were hundreds of Thallax suits all around, plus some Astartes, Silent Sisters and two giant wolves.

'Not even a Null Matrix.' Zath commented with an amused voice.

I ignored the C'tan and recalled my entire army from the surface, leaving the few surviving hereteks and Daemons looking around in stupor.

"There is a Warp core inside the planet, aimed to gather a Warp Rift and send it towards Terra. Is this why you are here, Magos?" I demanded as I focused the nearest spy satellite on the shaft drilled towards the core.

Blanks were human and still died sometimes, but their heads could still function as scribe-skulls, or in this case orbital scribe-skulls used for reconnaissance. Call it what you want, but Blanks were too valuable to waste, even after death.

"Towards Terra and Holy Mars? This absolutely requires the harshest sanction, Lord Lancefire!" the Magos spoke with a determined voice, and stepped beside his device in a clear offer.

I smiled sadly, and gestured towards my other guest to take a look. Like I would use a dubious Mechanicus device they didn't even know how it worked.

The examination took a few minutes, as the man used some device that was certainly a tricorder with another name. "The Immaterium nega-pulse would stop after 330 kilometers, Lord Lancefire. However, that's not the worst part. This device is also calibrated to disperse mnemonic engrams, or Machine Spirits. Any Imperial vehicle in range will lose combat efficiency and tactical targeting, if it doesn't fry on the spot."

"Wait! Who is this man? And his archeo-tech devices... Only the Mechanicus is allowed access!" the Magus claimed with a greedy voice, and vanished.

He could cool his heels in stasis for now.

"That was a great use of dimensional transport, Lord Lancefire..." the Captain allowed with a thin smile.

"Ever watched an Exterminatus from up close?" I asked instead, and the man shuddered.

"I would prefer not to, but I did come here exactly for this purpose. Terra must not fall." he spoke with a pained voice.

Running on tiny feet, Purity appeared on the bridge, doing an expert glide between the feet of her Battle-Brothers, than ended up with her smashing into Canis's fur like a giant pillow. "Me, me! I want to fire the red button!"

Purity yelled with an entitled voice. Likely she's been warned mentally, by someone in this room. Too large a pool of suspects though. They all adored the little minx.

I scratched my cheek and glanced at her mother, who sat at the side like a pure maiden covered in blessed light. "Your daughter too." Sister Stern muttered with an innocent tone.

Fine! It would be a pure planetary explosion then.

Soon after, Purity pressed the big red button, howling in joy like it was Children's Day or something. Of course, she only fired a regular torpedo, as I would deploy the Cyclonic one directly inside the core shaft.

Everyone on the bridge applauded her great heroism, and then she was sent back to lessons, with Canis as a pony ride.

The Black Lament and the Eternal Lament both fired the Immaterium beam at the cursed planet, vaporizing whatever daemons or souls still remained, and we called it a day.

The only thing left was dealing with the new Knights that wanted to join my Crusade. One hundred Knights would be slightly helpful, especially with some upgrades.

As for Children's Day, the Knights were led by a nice Baroness called Sordhen , so we could have a few kids on the way. I did find a use for all those gems, after all. Dowry sounded better too.