I never expected to be so hated!

Sure, I was a Blank and thus all sorts of disturbed looks or other signs of not being liked were common. Maybe it was why I avoid normal humans when possible.

While the reclamation of the Holdfast domain continues, with some ease, I also tally my loses and lament, feeling my heart bleed inside.

Of course, I won the battle even when ambushed by a gigantic coalition of Chaos Warbands and Traitor Legions, even Titans. Outnumbered a thousand to one, and won with a snap of my fingers.

Yet at the same time, I lost. I still had to use the tesseract offensively. That brought a host of potential problems, just like it did before: at Fenris and Terra and Cadia.

No enemy will simply wait for death, and thus they would search for a method to resist or disrupt the tesseract, even if they didn't know exactly what I had. Chaos had not only the Mechanicum tech-priests, but also hundreds of xenos races with their own advanced tech, which made the development of anti-transport devices only a matter of urgency and resources.

Necrons were also awakening in larger numbers, thus bringing out examples of their technology, which would inevitably also fall into the heretek hooks of the Dark Mechanicum.

These were not the apex Necrons that won the War in Heaven, but mere shadows of themselves, with cogitating and memory engrams scattered or destroyed by their long sleep. Someone like that Vashtorr could make use of the Necron tech, and create scary weapons.

It took only a single day in the time accelerated labyrinth to recover all injured or lost Astartes, even creating Primaris replacements for those who died, using my stock of newly born children accelerated to induction age. I did impregnate 200 women every week on average, thus 10000 children in a year. I would never run out of Astartes, not even with such battles every month. Building new techsorcist wards for the new Astartes took much longer than the mere decade to upgrade their bodies. Gene-seed was also quick to collect as decades flew by in the tesseract.

I even started a third successor Chapter, the Grieving. I was indeed grieving for the loss of half my Space Marines, but I also knew this wasn't the end. Just another minor battle against endless Chaos Traitors.

Even if I killed a million traitors a day ago, more Space Marines, even the new Primaris would defect and join the traitor ranks soon, it was inevitable.

The last Chaos God, Tzeentch was left all alone now, free to plot and infect any human he could reach. And obviously he did. Perhaps...No it couldn't work. Not by myself. I failed with Nurgle too, and I did have quite a lot of help from divine-level entities. Even Ahriman was strong enough to escape or ambush me, not to mention his patron Dark God.

And now, what was left of Nurgle was being hunted and used as a leashed beast by Chaos Sorcerers. Almost like a dark, Chaos mockery of the Necron's use of the broken C'tan shards.

Sister Dessima rapped her knuckles on my head, lifting my mood. 'We continue!' I spoke in her mind.

'Of course we do. Another Ork safari?' she asked jokingly on the implant data-link.

Truth to be told, once Dessima came out and enveloped the system with her immense Pariah aura, any Ork Waaagh would lose its potency and make the Orks decay into axe-running cucumbers, and simple practice targets even for the Auxilia.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

'Probably not. Orks can be fought by any Imperial forces. Necrons and Tyranids, not so much.' I answered with a sigh. Duty before pleasure.

'I am not of use against Necrons.' Dessima said as she walked away.

Click. Amberly Vail appeared before me, eyes dark from lack of sleep.

"I am not happy, my dear." I spoke in a sad voice.

"..." she declined to answer. Her Miss Friendly Fire nickname had turned against her, and me as well. It was worrisome to know she could flare out with powers able to devastate my troops so easily.

Almost 100000 Sentinels and their pilots were fried to slag by unleashed lightning, as well as some Blank Astartes that were too close. Almost 100 of my sons, including many of her own bodyguards.

"You realize I can't allow you to deploy with my troops again. You almost matched that Chaos Titan Legion in effective damage. Against my troops!" I growled a little.

"I'll leave." she spoke in a soft voice.

"You will travel with the Mourners to Terra. I do have some artifacts to send to the Emperor, and your credentials will grant them faster approval." I explained in a mild voice.

"As you say, Lord Lancefire." she muttered in a subdued tone, eyes cast down.

"As for your own problem, I think Titan will have a way. All their Grey Knights are powerful psykers, after all." I added in a tired voice.

"A low chance." she spoke in a dishearten tone.

"And don't send the C++ report by Warp. It's stupid to hope the Enemy doesn't read your mail. I suspect it's how they prepared the ambush as well." I concluded with a glance at Lash, and sent the Inquisitor back to her locked room for now.

'I can always eat her. Or let Canis do it.' the C'tan said with a hungry tone.

'A million Chaos Marines for a thousand of my sons. It was a decent trade. The Emperor will forgive her. Maybe even promote her.' I answered with a sad smile.

The C'tan watched me for a minute, then nodded his giant wolf head. 'You're starting to learn how gods actually think. Is not very different from your Rogue Trader methods, just the scale is larger. You've grown a bit too.'

Hmmm. A few more centimeters, another few more women on my bed. A few minutes each, and duty was done. I could taste poison now, and be fine. Slowly, everything about me became better. More.

'A million years would make me a Primarch.' I mused softly. A giant Blank Primarch able to fuck non-stop. Unceasing duty to populate the galaxy with my direct descendants.

'Still thinking small, young human. Try a few billion years.' the old C'tan proposed with a wry tone.

'My life span would end way sooner. I am not a C'tan.' I replied with an amused head-shake.

'Think of Canis as well. He is now soul-bound to you. The more you grow...' Lash said with a glance at my wary wolf.

"Woooof. Wooo. Auuuu!" Canis howled, possibly stealing my thoughts. I could make a myth come true. A Wolf God eating suns as snacks.

'It would take a hundred years. You think the universe will let me just Ascend, without throwing more problems at me?' I asked in a cynical tone.

The alien wolf just stared at me. No words, letting me reach the obvious conclusion by myself.

I didn't have to get involved. The Emperor and his Primarchs were now back. Patrocles and his tesseract could solve many problems for the Imperium. Victor could keep the Dynasty safe of the other side.

As for the Lamenters, I could spare my good tesseract. Maybe give it to Valerian.

'We'll see. There are other things to prepare first.' I said in a careless tone.

But I already knew I will do it. Not in one go, but in week long vacations. Train more Astartes as well. I could train many many Astartes in a million years.

I could also speed up the cloneskeins. Create trillions of Warp-occluded clones, and send them forth to colonize and explore the Fringe, guarded by Blank Astartes.Even more Blank Tech-marines and Tech-priests.

There could be a billion livable planets out there.

Still. I did have a smarter partner in crime, waiting for me at Forge Machine. The Speranza would know how to proceed.

As the Goth Mechanicus Fleet arrived to take charge of the desiccated corpse of the C++ Holdfast, I gathered my own ships and departed for Forge Mezoa.

The Mourners left for Terra with Inquisitor Vail on board, as well as tons of artifacts and some new STCs, including real fragments recovered and cleaned by the Techsorcists. What a useful clade, these strange tech-priests.

I could make them more popular wherever I went. It only took a week to train thousands of them after all.

Maybe I did have to learn how to think on a larger scale.