Battles similar to the one at the Baker Machining Plant were playing out across the hive in countless locations.
With the advantage of a surprise strike, most noble strongholds in the Mid-hive were pierced through in a single thrust, secured before a proper firefight could even erupt.
The combat in the Upper Hive and the Spire, however, was significantly more difficult.
Although these areas were the primary targets of the Astartes, the nobles there had a few nasty tricks up their sleeves.
Faced with total annihilation, many families chose to take their enemies down with them.
Mutants, xenos mercenaries, battle-automata, bio-augmented thralls, psykers…
Even the Astartes had to proceed with caution against such foes.
Fortunately, the Chapter fleet had already secured the airspace over Badab.
The entire sky and the void above were under the absolute control of the Astral Claws.
Fighter and bomber wings flew high-intensity sorties, providing relentless fire support for the Astartes.
Even some void-capable craft descended into the atmosphere to conduct strafing runs.
These massive, powerful, and terrifyingly aggressive craft carried tons of ordnance, blasting every enemy of mankind into oblivion.
If not for the difficulty of future reconstruction and the risk of massive civilian casualties, Huron would have preferred to order the fleet to commence an orbital bombardment.
He would have wiped everything to dust, leaving the world “white and clean,” as the saying went.
Huron stood on the viewing balcony of the Vatt family estate, watching as the Upper Hive and the Spire were consumed by pillars of fire.
His expression remained unreadable.
Corien and a squad of Terminators stood guard around him.
Glancing at Corien—who was staring intently at the spreading fires of war, clearly itching for a fight—Huron decided to let him loose.
“Corien, take half the Terminator company.
Take command of the Second Company’s assault on the Spire nobles’ estates.
Those who resist are to be shown no mercy.
Those who surrender are to be imprisoned.”
“By your command, Chapter Master!” Corien said, his excitement palpable.
Then, a hint of confusion crossed his face.
“Why keep any alive?
Shouldn’t these nobles all be put to the sword?”
“Because they don’t deserve to die as nobles,” Huron said, his voice laced with venom.
“I want to nail them to the pillar of shame.
I want them to die as heretics, as anti-human monsters, and as anti-social scum.”
“Understood, Chapter Master.” Corien raised his power sword and led half the Terminator company out of the Vatt estate.
Huron looked up at the sky.
A massive, rotating nebula—shaped like a colossal eye—dominated his vision.
That was the Maelstrom, the second-largest warp rift in the galaxy, surpassed only by the Eye of Terror.
The nebula, which looked like an eye, was actually the visual manifestation of matter being sucked into the Warp.
Since his transmigration, this was the first time Huron had seen the true starry sky.
Previously, he had been holed up in the Chapter Monastery, dragging the Chapter leadership through his various construction projects.
“How did they dare…” Huron murmured to himself.
How did Vallen dare to treat human beings as mere ingredients so brazenly?
Judging by how practiced his operations were, it wasn’t a method he had come up with on a whim.
This process must have been going on for a very, very long time—so long that Vallen considered it entirely natural.
Where were the Arbites?
The Inquisition?
The Ecarchy?
The Officio Assassinorum?
Weren’t they usually so eager to purge heresy?
How could a heresy as massive as the Vatt family go completely unnoticed, without even a pretense of concealment?
They had even served as Planetary Governors for centuries!
If Huron hadn’t transmigrated, he might have found some dark amusement in it.
He would have called it the “grimdark gothic aesthetic” of Warhammer, the “flavor” of the Imperium of Man.
If he were just an ordinary transmigrator without a “cheat,” he could have numbed his conscience, telling himself he couldn’t do anything about it and that it wasn’t his responsibility anyway.
But he *did* have a cheat, and a powerful one at that.
He had started as the Chapter Master of the Astral Claws; he had the means to rise to greatness easily.
That was why he had tried to reform everything using gentle methods, trying to make everyone happy and gain their approval.
Whether it was using [Decisions] to bring the success rate of neophyte gene-seed implantation to nearly 100%, using military industry to produce Astartes wargear, using civilian labor for infrastructure, or using the [Training] function to rapidly produce literate Auxilia—it was all intended to ensure everyone received tangible benefits.
He didn’t want anyone to become a sacrificial lamb on his road to power.
Even for the nobility, he had intended to leave them a way out.
That was why he hadn’t minded partnering with Vallen to eliminate the other nobles.
As long as the Vatt family and the other surviving nobles didn’t lose their minds, he wouldn’t have minded letting them live and getting rich together.
And why?
Simply because he had a system.
He had the power to do it.
As he’d thought before, you couldn’t expect a guy who played Paradox games only with the console enabled to suddenly become a cold-blooded, decisive conqueror.
And then reality had slapped him hard in the face.
“A mirror will not shine unless it is scoured; a noble will not reform unless he is culled…” Huron whispered.
Of course, he didn’t intend to carry out an indiscriminate massacre; that would make him no different from the nobles.
However, from now on, the noble class could forget about getting rich.
They would have to survive the public trials first.
On a level invisible to Huron, the System was maintaining the balance of his gene-seed, preventing him from falling into total madness.
The progenitor of the Astral Claws was unknown, as they were the product of a Cursed Founding—a chimera of the Ultramarines, World Eaters, Raven Guard, and Night Lords.
They were a relatively successful creation of the Mechanicus Magos.
While they lacked any outstanding positive mutations, the flaws of their component lineages—the bloodthirsty rage of the World Eaters, the genetic degradation of the Raven Guard, and the epileptic visions of the Night Lords—had all been suppressed.
Their gene-seed purity and stability were astonishing.
This was also why the Astral Claws had been able to produce three successor Chapters.
The Tiger Claws, however, had spent too long in the Warp, which had caused the World Eaters’ genetic traits to express themselves more strongly, making them extremely bellicose.
Fortunately, the Chapter had always used strict discipline to curb this innate aggression, making the Tiger Claws more like the original War Hounds than the fallen World Eaters.
Without the System’s balancing influence, Huron would likely have fallen into the Night Lords’ nihilistic “no hope for the future” prophecies by now, descending into madness.
But even though he wasn’t insane, he wasn’t exactly in a good state of mind either.
Huron’s head was currently filled with visions of various punishments and tortures, and he fantasized about how those nobles would wail and weep when subjected to them.
Then, he felt a wave of discouragement.
Satisfying his anger would do nothing for the Sister of Battle who was already dead.
That was right—Huron didn’t even know her name.
Neither in her own memories nor from Vallen’s records was her name mentioned.
“A noble will not reform unless he is culled…” he muttered again.