On Illevar, most of the current locals have never seen me, new generations replacing the old and only my extended family benefiting from life extension gifts.
Even so, the use of the rare chronophage blades was restricted to Blanks and Pariahs. The rich nobles and merchant had sufficient fortunes to prolong their lives with rejuvenate treatments, while my soldiers and scribes supporting the Lancefire Dynasty received better food and medication, which gave them a fairly long service time of about a century.
Construction of new Hive Cities had progressed quite nicely, with three new cities dug underground and the Zero Hive formed of Blanks had grown to encompass the whole valley, with suburbs sprawling outward already.
Granted, every single Blank man had a large harem of his own, with hundreds of concubines pumping babies out as fast as humanly possible.
It was time for phase two, unleashing most of these Blank men into the colonies and mixing the genes with the Catachans once more. Most of them were rather useless to the Astartes training, since only my bloodline had a fair chance of surviving the gene-seed implantation.
Instead, I could provide them with administrative and commanding positions in the local governments, especially in Hive Cities of Illevar and Natale, and on Salvation my own Cardinal World.
A million such men, and I could be fairly sure there will be no Warp corruption and a rather more skilled leadership, since the Zero Hive had a formidable schooling system.
The influx of immigrants had continued as well, the vast majority being young women imported as reparations and tithes for my ships and troops actions to rescue their home worlds, or as indentured servants bartered by various Forge Worlds in exchange for STC templates and again military aid.
The rest of the immigrants were PDF and Guard regiments, or skilled technicians and scribes provided as colonization support.
Veteran troops made the best colonists, because this has always worked, since the days of the Roman Empire.
Catachan regiments were ever better, but I was reaching the limit of possible requisition there, after stealing away more than half of that planet's trading stock. But Cadian and Valhallan regiments weren't that bad either, and the dangers of a new colony were sometimes equal with those of a battlefield. From predators and hostile natives, to harsh environments and poor infrastructure, colonizing and exploiting a new world was never easy.
It sounds far fetched, but even the Catachans sometimes had problems with Titan-sized saurians and swarms of flesh-eating locusts.
I had to visit a dozen of problem causing worlds and help out, either by eradicating certain species or using them as target practice for the Lamenters and the techmarines.
As the year had passed, a whole new army had been recruited and trained, 20 armor regiments, 10 artillery and air support and 70 heavy infantry, with a couple of special Auxilia regiments with better gear to provide screening for our Knights and Titans.
Less than 1 percent of the original troops had stayed as non-coms and officers, while the former troops were given large areas of land and a dozen women each as reward for their service.
In 100 years I could expect to raise five times more troops without affecting the productivity, simply due to population growth and better education.
Already, scouting expeditions were mapping out the nearby stars for the next expansion sphere, the one which would take us from a mere 400-planet kingdom to a 4000-world star empire.
By the third phase in 400 years time, there should be a sizable power in this area, over 40 thousand worlds home to a quadrillion people. And by the next phase...well. We shall see if we reach that far.
First I had to make sure the Imperium of Man stayed safe (somewhat) and kept the attention of the galactic enemies onto itself, mainly by defending the Forge Worlds and cleaning up more Hive Worlds.
That part already seemed to work fine, as the Primarchs were all glory hounds and genetically predisposed to stir trouble for themselves wherever they went.
Thousands of cults and cabals were forming against them, gathering xenos and traitors into giant conspiracies aimed at placing them in power, restoring the status quo or destroy the Imperium or other combinations.
Everything and everyone, from rogue psykers, disgruntled Navigators, heretek techpriests and genestealer cults, to crazy Eldar and Dark Eldar elements, bloodthirsty Necrons and demons, failed Inquisitors and corrupted priests and bishops, renegade Guard officers and space marines, pirates and corsairs, slavers and mutants, up to entire Navy Fleets and Sector Governors, all opposed the Angel Reborn and the Indomitus Crusade of his Brother Guilliman.
Much less so wherever I had reach, with my Obsidian Auguries and the network of Rogue Traders, Ordo Xenos and the Pharos itself.
I spent an entire month in the Pharos, scanning the Ultima Segmentum for new opponents and deploying various types of countermeasures, from homemade Tyranid Eversors to plasma warheads and various canisters of nerve gas or glass-transmuting viruses.
The Tau received another dose of 40k ugly truth, a dozen Sept Worlds being invaded by demons via new Warp Rifts, while a couple of new allied xenos worlds burst into Exterminatus flames.
That invasion was the last drop, since a couple of Tau Septs deployed new weapons against demons, from suppressive forcefields of the Earth caste, similar to the Bastion psychic fields I recovered from Vigilus, to blue-flame pyroweapons by the Fire caste, probably some type of enhanced promethium like the Sisters of Battle used. Some Tau battlesuits even had energy blades, crackling with electric arcs as they fought the demonic invaders.
They were starting to develop working strategies against this new enemy, but it was far from what I needed. Give them a decade or two and try again.
The Tau had also began expanding vertically, both by enlarging their cities and by exploring towards the upper side of the galaxy, trying to maintain a small print on the planar map while still growing in volume.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Smart play, and one I could allow for now, except when heading towards human planets. They had settled a couple of Necron Tomb Worlds though, which should provide them plenty of high level technology to study, if they survived.
As for the Tyranids, the Segmentum was mostly clear right now, except for two: Hive Fleet Kronos advancing from south-east and Hive Fleet Ouroboros in the north-east.
Splinters and small Hive fleets still roamed at random, and Hive Fleet Tiamet stood watch in the Eastern Fringe over the seven lush worlds of the Tiamet system, without devouring them. I would have to deal with them soon, before the Hive Mind changed its stance.
And after that, I would have to head to Fenris and acquire my last piece of the puzzle.
Decision made, I gathered my ships and troops at Forge Machine and sent an astropathic call to a couple of important women to meet me at Fenris in a few months.
However, things rarely go as planned. The Tyranid Hive at Tiamet was a strange breed, able to use massive psychic waves and resist most Imperial weapons, including lasers and bolters due to a diamond-hard chitin covering both their ground troops and the bioships. It took me two months of hard work using the Blackstone Fortress and the Immaterium beam to reduce the Hive fleet and collect their corpses for later use.
On the other hand, their Bio-Titans that I managed to capture and mind-control were amazingly durable, and their bone claws so sharp they could slice tank armor without any difficulty.
Tens of thousands of tech-priests and enginseers aboard the Black Lament began the painstaking work of repurposing that unique chitin into extra armor for my units, using Power Weapons and their cutting fields as impromptu tools.
Luckily I did have a giant store of such weapons in my tesseract, since I had been collecting relics for a century.
However, by the time my fleet arrived at Fenris it was almost too late. A giant fleet of Dark Angels and other Chapters, aided by the Imperial Navy and also Knights and Titans were preparing the Siege_of_the_Fenris_System, and the eradication of the Space Wolves Astartes Chapter.
"Hello there!" I spoke on the Vox caster, not really impressed by the Rock and all the potential enemies.
They had a giant fortress, but so did I. They had a giant Glorianna Battleship, but so did I. Knights and Titans, warships and army regiments, I had all of them as well.
"Lord Lancefire, have you come to help us rid the Imperium of these mutated marines?" a familiar voice asked in return. The Lion Primarch himself, and not wearing the Null Rod I gifted him.
Even worse, his Vox officer was a demon in disguise, the Changeling. Any warning I would try to give him over Vox would arrive subtly distorted.
"Of course, Primarch. I will arrive on the Rock momentarily." I replied and immediately teleported along the vox beam inside the bridge.
Say whatever about the man, but damn he was big. He made even normal Astartes look small, and I wasn't yet at that size anyway. Still growing, but very slow.
"I imagined you'd be taller, Lamenter." the Lion uttered with faint amusement.
I just smiled kindly, and placed a Null Wand in the hand he offered. "And I imagined you'd be smarter, Lion. Since you are handicapped by a lack of Blank genes, it should be obvious to protect yourself and your Captains with Warp-resistant artifacts. Case in point, this demon right here, influencing you and your crew with lies and deceit." I explained pointing at the disguised demon and firing a single phase-iron bolt into its knee from my shoulder bolter.
The creature distorted and screamed in agony, as the disguise fell apart and a creature of Warp and nightmare appeared instead, beaks and wings fluttering about as it tried to flee.
In a flash, the Primarch swung his Wolf_Blade and sliced the demon into a dozen bits, which then began to evaporate back into the Warp. But I wasn't going to let the Changeling escape.
My own weapon struck without having to display any dueling talent, the Demon Lance meandering about to impale and drain each fragment of the enemy, then reverted back to its normal shape and vanished back into its tesseract prison.
"Handicapped, you say?" Lion El'Johnson muttered while holding the Null Wand like a poisonous toothpick.
"I do remember gifting you a Null Rod as well. No doubt lying unsed in Armory 7 along with those STC templates. Then again, you never learned how to read, did you?" I grumbled in disappointment as I retrived the unsed gifts from the same armory, and held them in my hands as proof.
His Dark Angels growled in response to my insults, standing around their Primarch like guard dogs.
"...I did read the schematics for those devices, Lord Lancefire. There just hasn't been any time to make use of them, with constant battles everywhere. I don't have a private Forge World either." the Lion said in a softer voice, possibly a bit sad to lose those gifts.
I shrugged and scanned the Rock for more hidden treasures. The Dark Angels were certainly rich, if they afforded to keep a dozen vaults under lock, filled with amazing archeotech relics. They will need them soon enough.
"Magnus will arrive soon, with his thousands of sons. Stop murdering Imperial citizens and focus on the real enemy, Primarch. My patience is limited, unlike my authority." I said and vanished from his home without any sign of Warp teleport.
Time to deal with the Space Wolves and their Canis Helix problem. And perhaps find some she-wolves mates for Canis.