The Singularity and the Eternal Lament Fortress arrived a week later at Forge Retribution with a cargo of criminals for new servitors, as well as 40 PDF regiments to be stationed on this Forge World and become Auxilia units for a new Astartes Chapter I was cooking right now.

Those criminals with murder charges would become Kataphron servitors, but floating on anti-grav platforms instead of cute triangular threads. Not that the old model was useless, but threads and tracks were great for maneuver warfare in open field, not close combat in urban areas and tunnels.

Custode Valerian wasn't very happy with me, since I left him on the ship and went to battle a Phoenix Lord by myself. Even told me so, in those words.

"I get it, Valerian. But do you think you could take on a Primarch?" I asked in a mild voice.

The Custode was great, and could probably butcher an entire Company of my Blank Astartes by himself, if he got to melee range, but Primarchs were in a different league.

"I suspect the Custodes-General can fight one of those mutants...maybe even win." Valerian answered in a lower tone.

"I can fight at least 5 Primarchs by myself and win. Maybe a few more, if I have surprise on my side. And I'm never by myself, as I have the Thalax Legions and a few Silent Sisters always with me. It is not direct conflict that you need to guard me from, but treason and poison and sneaky stuff, like those Simulacra." I said and patted his shoulder.

"You know the Eldar won't take this well, Lord Lancefire. Even if you were defending your Domain from these corsairs, you didn't take them captive, like you easily could." the Custode warned me in a stern voice.

"They skinned my people alive, Valerian. I only killed the xenos, fast and clean. Except for the leader." I pointed with a nod at the bleached Eldar skull on my wall. Fuegan's skull. I guess now we can be friends.

"I'm just telling you it won't end here. Fuegan has entire temples of Aspect Warriors dedicated to him. A billion followers at least." my bodyguard warned me again.

I just shrugged. "That is quite irrelevant, too. I can probably fight them all and once and win. But you're saying they will lie, and try to bring in other Eldar factions. In which case, I can bring in my other friends." I commented with a casual voice, and held my palm out just as Lash appeared under it, so I could pet his head.

"Nightbringer and Kali would join a War of Retribution for sure. Maybe Zath as well." the C'tan spoke out loud, mostly to inform the Custode of his allegiance.

'I located the Webway Gate, Lord Lancefire. Deep into the comet cloud, like you expected.' the C'tan Shard sent to my mind, along with the location of the next battle.

I moved Sister Dessima on the Blackstone Fortress and sent the fort towards the Webway Gate, just in case things moved faster.

'Want me to gather more asteroids and comets?' Lash asked with a helpful voice.

'Methane comets and metal asteroids for now. Then fill up two more Sunfire bottles. My head hurts already.' I accepted with a tired mind.

'Sleep more! And stop using time compression that much. Your metal wife is already happy.' the C'tan advised me with a cheeky tone, then vanished again.

I walked to the giant armaglass window to look upon my works, and found a Forge World as powerful as Forge Machina, if less populated. More immigrants will come, but ships took time to travel, and training new tech acolytes took more time as well. Not to mention tech-priests and tech-marines, who needed a thousand years of straight learning to become competent.

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Some may complain the Imperial technology is backwards or less advanced than the Federation or such, but I doubted the human scientists of the Federation were as learned as a Magos Dominus with a dozen specialities. They had the AIs do the hard work for them, and simulated experiments instead of real, dangerous ones.

A lot of the Federation knowledge was lost, but what remained could still fill a planetary data-core to the brim. Which is what the Speranza was doing constantly. Updating the database, and try to save whatever we could, in case another Fall happened.

The Blade of Infinity had travelled to the end of time and back, and all she saw was only Chaos. Maybe I could change that, but just in case. Take precautions.

The other Warhammer died in an apocalyptic Fall too, and humans became scattered in various dimensions as Sigmar rescued those he could.

Psykers were the problem, just like during the Age of Strife. Too many psykers, and eventually they couldn't be found and controlled before they turned into Warp Portals or got possessed by daemons. And with the Eldar being all psykers, and without the threat of Slaanesh eating their souls...they returned to the old ways.

'Captain, you should sleep. I'm reading worrying biosigns...' the Blade told me as well, so I went to do just that.

I did not sleep for long, as my extras senses tingled in warning. Valerian was already fighting a shadow shape, when I skipped into the tesseract to wear my armor, then returned to fire my orange beam at another shadow. It started to disintegrate and scream, so I saw it for what it was: a mandrake.

I shot the other one to give Valerian some respite, while the alarms started blaring on the ship. "Attention, intruders on board, most likely mandrakes. Flamethrowers and melta guns will work best." the Blade spoke with an authoritarian voice, while I began spreading the Thalax suits all over.

Farther in the comet cloud, the Blackstone Fortress was fighting with another Eldar fleet, who just emerged by surprise from the Webway Gate.

"I did warn you, Lord Lancefire! The Eldar...ah. They took the skull!" Valerian noticed as we emerged from my bedroom into my study.

Right, the Eldar did have Isha now. With the skull in her hand, she might reconstruct his body, like she did for my mother. Not too sure about the soul though.

A blur of shadow and claw ran towards me and avoided the shots of my Thalax escort, so I drew Drach again and ate the faster mandrake.

"Pretty useful gift, from the Emperor." I told Valerian who wasn't very happy with my daemon lance. Even told me so.

"Just be careful where you point that thing, Lord Lancefire. The End of Empires doesn't care what empire it ends." the Custode said with a colder voice.

I petted my lance, who purred in my hand. "You hear that, Drach? You are famous!" I told the daemon who was quite happy to be praised. And told me so.

"The salvation of mankind...what an idiot." I heard Valerian grumble as he bisected another shadow.

"He who fights at my side shall be my brother!" I yelled instead, as the ship's hallways filled with flames and melta blasts, and my occasional disintegration beam.

A ghostly shape appeared beside me and patted my shoulder. "You always get in trouble, Pef. Rejoice people, for Peffy is here!" my twin yelled and joined the fight as well.

"And now there are two of them." Valerian grumbled while ducking lazily under a shadow claw and shooting it with a Disintegration pistol he hid somewhere.

"Hey! Adrastite weapons are forbidden!" Peffy commented in outrage, just as I shot another mandrake with my own orange beam.

Lash jumped on my other side and swiped his eye beams to clear an entire corridor. "Don't look at me like that. My eye beams are different. Annihilation beams, completely different. Totally legal!"

"Cheaters! I will report you to higher authorities!" Peffy threatened half-seriously, while taking out a twin-linked Ion Beamer which worked pretty well on the mandrakes.

Then three dozen wolves arrived at once, and began massacring the poor mandrakes shadows. With legally owned eye beams. They were red, not orange.

Yggra himself didn't bother to fight, and just measured my archeotech glove with a wolfish frown. "I can't make that kind of weapon yet. Need to eat one first." he told Peffy in a bored voice.

"Let him eat it!" Peffy yelled at me.

"I want to eat something too!" Drach yelled in mind.

My stomach growled, which sounded a bit awkward right now. "I just woke up and haven't eaten anything..." I excused myself and went back to my study to tap the replicator for something to eat.

Of course, I made some for Peffy as well, then another plate for Valerian. Fighting consumes energy, you know?