I have seen Holy Terra myself. It was...a pit of squalor and misery, turned up to 11 and left there to stew for 10000 years.

The total population of the Sol System was probably 20 quadrillion people, give or take 10%. With numbers as large as those, counting everyone was kinda futile.

So when my Crusade Fleet reached Forge World Lucius in the Segmentum Obscurus, I wasn't really surprised finding Terran immigrants hauled on Universe-class conveyers in the billions. Probably a billion colonists sent to every world in the Imperium, and maybe more if they were intended to colonize new worlds.

The scale of this new Exodus was quite on par with the capability of the Imperium. And long overdue, as Terra could use the population reduction, most of which was wasted in underhives, gang warfare or industrial-grade starvation and macro-cannibalism via corpse starch and necro-gruel. Off world imports of food never reached the poor masses living under the ground level.

The Fabricator-General of Forge Lucius was a bit annoyed at the extra work imposed by the Imperium to absorb and settle new colonists on existing or new planets, but he seemed capable of achieving the task without much help. Sure, a few percents of the immigrants might die in transit, and more while adapting to their new worlds and roles, but when compared to the holy order of the Omnissiah, sacrifice was a noble goal in itself.

We spent an entire month at Forge Lucius, partly upgrading the Forge World with new asteroids, ice comets and Space Hulk fragments to mine while the more important part was repairing the ancient STCs library and the titanic 3D constructors. I had almost 2000 new STC templates to trade, plus to ability to create artifacts with my willpower alone. Even rare artifacts, considered unique relics in the Imperium.

In this aspect, my workload was more about finding out which items would be valauble to the Mechanicus, and how many I should produce before their value decreased too much.

Obviously, brand-new cogitator cores and personal shields were ranked at the top, followed by weapons and armor. Stasis fields and cells I obtained from Forge Belecane were next due to their sheer utility, as were Macharius-pattern ship engines, which took an absurdly long time to construct otherwise, even for a Tier 1 Forge World like Lucius.

Some old and damaged automata from Lucius were brought out to receive my blessing, gaining upgraded armor, cogitators and weapons, and then were sprikled with holy oils and sent back into their Stasis cells. But this was only a taste of what we achieved here.

Remember my million Thalax Lorica cyborgs, that I received from Forge Graia?

At Lucius, I gained another million Thalax suits, in exchange for helping Forge Lucius receive a million of their own, plus the manufacturing ability to create more suits and repair damaged ones.

The Lucius Lorica Legion were armed primarily with Heavy Arc Rifles, plus some specialist squads sporting Transuranium Arquebuses and Lightning Locks.

Instead, my own Lucius-pattern Thalax suits were armed with Ion Beamers and Lascannons, with a few percents sporting Heavy Flamers and chainswords instead, to aid with melee range fighting.

For their power armor, we used an auramite-based exoskeleton plated with Necron-grade blackstone, thus giving the Lorica suits similar defense abilities to the Adeptus Custodes. Not their skill and genetic resilience, but not too bad either, if I say so myself. And I do.

The Fabricator of Lucius was kind enough to gift me the templates for the Torsion_Cannon and the Neutron_Laser, which I installed as secondary weapons on our Titans and replaced some of the damaged Knight and Baneblade primary weapons. Only a few squads of my Space Marines received Torsion Cannons for now, until field tests could prove their worth, in real combat.

"This encounter was proven exciting/glorious, Rogue Trader. The gift of Omnissiah flows through you." the Fabricator began to speak, when both of us received a Manifold warning about incoming graviton waves and a possible Tyranid incursion.

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Must be my luck. "The Emperor has granted us fortune, Fabricator. I was just considering where to test my new troops in combat." I said with a cheeky voice.

The Fabricator turned his head towards me, his only human eye frowning. "Your aid is quite welcome, Lord Lancefire. I could not safeguard all the Terran menials in only 3 months until the fleshbeasts arrive. There isn't any place to put them, or enough lift capacity to send them elsewhere."

I raised a finger up, and stored 80 billion immigrants and their universe conveyors as well. I could use 84 giant bulk haulers myself. Plus my own Dominion in the Eastern Fringe could use more colonists. The Emperor was quite generous.

"Minefields and new starforts next?" the Fabricator asked in a calm voice.

"And after that, we should power up the planetary Gellar field. The Shadow in the Warp would create too much disruption to the factory schedule otherwise." I added with a tiny shrug.

We nodded at each other in sincronicity, then we both teleported to our jobs to begin preparing.

I mean, I went to take a shower and then impregnate a dozen women with my blessed seed, but otherwise it was almost the same.

Admiral Margos was then extracted from the tesseract to help with fleet preparations, while General Spartan took over the Lorica Legion and our future ground defenses.

"How long do I have to stay dead?" a huge Primarch muttered as he oversaw the preparations from his hololith screens.

"You could help, by acting like you're Anzion, Vulkan. But only from inside the tesseract." I answered with a grimace. Truly, the poor Primarch was kinda wasted in this prison, despite numerous advances in STC development.

He would need much more time to recreate the ancient tech to make new STCs, since the Men of Gold has reached technological singularity before they could create these wonders. A single man, no matter how brilliant, could not remake the entire technological steps of a galactic-size Federation ruled by god-like AIs. Still, I was hoping it would only take a long time, and provide that time via temporal dilation. Maybe the Speranza and the Blade could also help, when we returned home. Or maybe the Votanns had some clues.

Anyways. Tyranid invasion. My bane and purpose in this universe. Start by cruiser skirmish and Nova shells to thin out the Hive Fleet, then use Nova Mines when they entered the Lucius star System. Afterwards, thin then out more with my forts and battleships, and lastly crush them on the ground.

Luckily, Forge World Lucius was a dead planet, so the Tyranids would starve. The forges and manufactoriums were hidden deep inside the hollow planet, since Lucius had an empty interior lit up by an artificial sun. Some kind of whacky planetary engineering by the Federation in its days of glory. Not the only hollow planet in the galaxy, but they were quite rare.

By the time the Leviathan Hive Fleet arrived with its hungry maws, the sun had decreased in mass by a full trilionth, mostly due to exagerated use of my Divine Breath to speed up minefield preparations, plus new forts, bunkers and new weapons.

The new Reality Cage turned on, deep under the surface of Lucius, and pressed against the Shadow in the Warp. Nova Shells and Mines exploded like fireworks among the million bioships, while lances and macro-cannons fired non-stop at the closest Tyranid invaders.

My Singularity battleship fired a single beam on concentrated gravity directly at the largest Hive Ship, crushing it alongside thousands other bioships. And yet, desant spores launched from the Hive Fleet towards the Forge World and its bases on the nearest moons and asteroids, filled with feeding elements of the Tyranid species.

My Crusade fleet drew back behind the fort lines, and the Lucius Basilikon ships joined us. Things weren't looking too good.