Silas projected the intercepted communication onto a simple light screen.
The signal was intermittent, filled with static mixed with standard Adeptus Mechanicus frequency call signs.
The message was very brief—Waste Treatment Area, southwest, 110 kilometers, surrounded by Nurgle Walking Corpses, requesting any form of assistance.
The transmission time was forty minutes ago.
“Magos Hades.” Silas read out the sender’s identification code and looked up at Roya.
Roya pushed the light screen to the side and looked back at the mob grinder blueprint he was designing in his mind.
“A Magos.” He softly repeated the word, his tone carrying a hint of meaningful intrigue.
“He must have some good stuff on hand.” Silas didn’t ask further, simply waiting for instructions.
“Wrap things up here first.” Roya slapped the workbench onto the metal floor in front of him, its 3×3 grid glowing softly.
“We’ll go pull him out once we finish cleaning up.” No matter how fast Nurgle’s Plague Zombies crawled, they were still slower than a tide of Orks.
Silas acknowledged the command and turned to arrange for communications soldiers to monitor the frequency.
…
The situation on the distant battlefield was even smoother than Roya had anticipated.
Foros led eighty Terminators and over three hundred re-equipped Lamenters, acting like a moving dam of steel that completely crushed the last wave of returning Orks inside the corridor.
The sound of Bolters had ceased.
Only the footsteps of the cleanup crew and the occasional ringing of a finishing blade stroke remained on the battlefield.
Just as the Lamenters’ spearhead turned past a collapsed industrial partition wall, Karn was the first to spot that squad.
Seven people, all in black bodysuits beneath blood-stained light armor, wearing cast-iron crosses and candlestick-like waist ornaments, carrying pyreguns on their backs and holding crusade swords in their hands.
Battle Sisters.
One of them was kneeling on one knee beside the corpse of an Ork Boy, bandaging a fallen comrade beside her.
Her movements were swift, and her eyes never left her surroundings.
Karn raised his hand, signaling the troops to halt.
The Sister who was bandaging reacted even faster, springing up directly with her crusade sword held horizontally across her chest.
“Ultramarines?” She glanced at the blue paint on Karn’s armor, then looked past him at the massive yellow figures behind him, her gaze stopping on the entire line of off-white Terminator armor, her brow furrowing slightly.
What kind of combination was this?
Foros stepped forward out of the rank and removed his helmet.
“Lamenters Chapter, Chapter Master Foros.” His voice was steady, free of the tension typical in such situations.
“Which order do you belong to?” The Sister officer stared at him for two seconds, then glanced back at the line of Terminators.
“Order of the Martyred Lady, Sister Superior Ilia.” She spoke, her tone carrying a well-controlled hesitation.
“Chapter Master Foros…
Lamenters, correct?” “Correct.” “…How many sets of Terminator armor do you have?” “Eighty sets.” Ilia pressed her lips together and remained silent.
Foros caught the meaning behind her eyes, but wasn’t offended.
He simply explained calmly, “We encountered an Emperor’s Chosen.
All of this equipment was provided by that lord.” The Sister Superior stared at him, falling silent for three seconds.
“…Are you certain he is an Emperor’s Chosen, and not corruption from Chaos?” “Our Chapter’s Chief Librarian verified it personally,” a Lamenters company commander chimed in from the side, his tone carrying a bluntness born from being doubted.
“There is no scent of the Warp.” Ilia withdrew her gaze, sheathed her crusade sword, turned to her squad, and gestured.
“Please take us to see him.” …
Roya was squatting on the ground, measuring the width of a corridor.
Beside him stood ten newly converted “Villagers.” They had already moved out according to the grids he marked, split into two groups separated by 128 meters, each tending to a water-driven mob grinder taking shape.
Materials were continuously hauled out from nearby shipping containers, turning into neat cobblestone blocks the moment they touched the ground—piling up, channeling water, leaving drop pits.
Most of the Orks had been cleared out, making this area strangely quiet.
…
At that moment, Foros approached Roya’s side.
Walking at the lead, Foros said, “My Lord, this is a Sister Superior from the Order of the Martyred Lady.
They were trapped in an encirclement while we were clearing the battlefield.” Only then did Roya turn around.
Seven Battle Sisters stood behind Foros.
Several of them froze instantly upon sensing the faint residual aura of the Emperor on Roya.
It wasn’t the kind of freeze caused by oppression, but a pause as if struck by something profound.
A second later, all seven neatly dropped to one knee, striking their right fists against their chests.
“The Emperor Protects!” Roya glanced over them, a polite curve touching the corners of his mouth as he nodded for them to rise.
“Order of the Martyred Lady.” He repeated the name, quickly scanning his memory for fragments about this order, before asking directly, “Do you know Celestine?” The seven Sisters looked at each other in utter confusion.
“Celestine?” Ilia frowned slightly.
“My Lord, I have never heard of this name in our order.” Roya gave a simple “Mhm” and didn’t press further.
He calculated the timeline; that Living Saint, who would later become famous throughout the entire Imperium, probably hadn’t even been born yet, nor was there even a sign of her emergence.
The folks at GW glossed over this entirely—her backstory?
None!
Specific years?
Even less!
It really gave zero reference value.
“You will know in the future.” Roya casually brushed the topic aside, his gaze already shifting elsewhere.
Foros leaned in: “My Lord, who is this Celestine—” “We’ll talk about it later.” Everyone exchanged glances.
His words clearly implied something deeper, but no one dared to pry further.
Roya’s gaze fixed on Ilia’s collar area.
A small metal pendant, round, embedded with a small transparent sealed disk containing a few tiny, pale-yellow grains.
“Is that wheat inside your necklace?” Ilia was startled.
She reflexively looked down at her collar, then raised her head, a bit unable to follow the logic of the question: “Yes…
these are wheat seeds from my hometown that I carry with me—” “Could you lend them to me for a moment?” “…”: The Sister Superior paused for a second, then directly unclasped the pendant and handed it over with both hands.
Roya took it, opened the sealed disk, and poured a few wheat seeds into his palm.
He glanced around and found a crack in the soil squeezed between metal support pillars, holding a thin layer of silt leaked down from the spire levels above.
Good enough.
He pulled out the workbench from his inventory and rapidly arranged sticks and planks in the 3×3 grid.
*Clack.* A square wooden hoe landed in his hand.
He walked up to the silt, swung the wooden hoe, and dragged it three times across the ground.
Black grid-like cracks spread along the outline of the dirt, and the silt was tilled, turning into soft farmland blocks.
He squatted down, pressing the wheat seeds one by one into the tilled soil, firming them down with his fingers.
A few paces away, he breached a rusty connection on a wastewater pipe and placed an iron bucket beneath the outlet.
Once filled with clean water, he walked back carrying the bucket, poured it beside the farmland blocks, and dug a shallow ditch to channel the water.
Throughout the entire process, Ilia didn’t say a word.
The six Sisters behind her also remained dead silent, though their expressions became increasingly indescribable.
“My Lord, what are you…” “Farming,” Roya answered tersely without looking up.
Capetown-3’s mechanical eyes emitted two scanning beams from the side.
He said nothing, merely recording at high speed.
What he did next left everyone truly speechless.
Roya walked over to the collection chest of the nearby mob grinder, reached inside to scoop a hand full, and came out with a pile of white powder in his palm—bone meal, crafted from bones harvested from skeletons.
He scattered the bone meal evenly over the freshly planted wheat plot.
The area that had just been bare, tilled soil sprouted green wheat shoots the instant it touched the bone meal.
The stalks unfolded, headed, filled out, and in just a few short seconds, transformed into a full, plump patch of mature wheat gently swaying in an unseen breeze.
Amidst the industrial corrosion and oil stench of the Underhive ruins, a single square meter of wheat field had grown out of thin air.
Roya smiled with satisfaction.
Now that he had food, he wondered if eating bread made from wheat would restore health for those injured Lamenters?