Calgar finally managed to pull himself out of the shock of “stealing the throne,” but upon hearing this command, he could not help hesitating again.
“Father… doing this… won’t the mortality rate…”
“The mortality rate will certainly be somewhat higher than with carefully selected children, but it won’t be completely unreasonable!”
Guilliman spoke full of confidence.
“Don’t forget, we now have the holy power of Living Saint Celestine, along with the pinnacle technology of Archmagos Belisarius Cawl!
“With the two of them jointly overseeing it, the surgical success rate might even be higher than it was ten thousand years ago!”
“But…
since time immemorial, all Space Marines have been selected and raised from childhood.
“Undergoing implantation before the age of ten is the most orthodox and lowest-risk way.”
Calgar was still somewhat bewildered; the weight of tradition ran deep.
“You lot have simply been brainwashed by those stories!”
Guilliman extended his index finger and wagged it loosely at Calgar.
“Back when your father first swore allegiance to the Emperor and formed the Legion, weren’t the men under me all twenty- or thirty-something adults in their prime?
“And didn’t most of them undergo successful implantation as well!
“An occasional failure or two is down to fate—there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
“To become a demigod, one has to take some risks, doesn’t one?”
He explained patiently, “The reason it was later stipulated to start selection around ten years old was twofold.
“On one hand, it ensured the children’s minds were like blank slates, making them easier to mold into the shapes we needed and cultivating absolute loyalty.
“On the other hand, a younger body possesses greater physiological plasticity, which indeed lowers the difficulty and risk of the implantation process.
“At its core, this was designed to produce warriors more efficiently and conservatively in times of peace or steady expansion.”
His voice turned resonant and forceful.
“But what is our situation now?
The Imperium is in dire peril!
Are we still going to fret over ‘saving’ a bit of manpower and material resources?
“If we don’t make full use of them now, then when?
“While they’re still here, implant as many as we possibly can!
“Work them to the bone!”
Listening to Guilliman’s incisive analysis and bold decision-making, Calgar’s eyes grew brighter and brighter, until they burned like twin shining stars.
He stared at his gene-sire, his eyes filled with unprecedented fervor and conviction.
(So that’s how it is! The Primarch is not only unmatched in combat prowess, but his intellect and foresight truly far surpass us mere mortals!)
Following this line of thought, in the coming month, drawing upon the Primarch’s prestige and the premium resources at hand, Calgar felt absolute confidence that he could add at least ten to twenty thousand fresh aspirants to the reborn Ultramarines Legion!
“Yes, Father! I understand! I will see to it at once!” Calgar straightened his posture and roared his agreement, brimming with zeal.
The ancient dogmas were thoroughly shattered in that moment.
A new, more aggressive, and pragmatic model of Legion expansion was officially set into motion on Macragge by Guilliman’s absolute will.
After Calgar passed down Guilliman’s orders to restore the Legion system and expand recruitment, it was like dropping a massive boulder into a tranquil lake, sending immense shockwaves through the Ultramarines.
Granted, many battle-brothers—especially those who had campaigned on the frontlines for years and deeply felt the rigidity and shortcomings of the current system—welcomed this with enthusiasm.
They were long sick of the constraints the Codex Astartes imposed under certain battlefield conditions, as well as the sluggish rate of reinforcement.
However, a considerable portion of the Chapter strongly disagreed.
Particularly the Chaplains, who had dedicated their entire lives to studying, interpreting, and enforcing the Codex Astartes, as well as a number of deeply traditional officers, all of whom displayed fierce resistance.
On the assembly plaza, heated arguments echoed incessantly.
“This… this is a sacrilege against tradition! The Codex Astartes has been our guiding beacon for ten thousand years! It is the holy code drafted by the Lord Primarch himself!”
A gray-haired, highly senior Chaplain named Leandros stood with a flushed face.
In his hands, he tightly clutched the Codex, its cover decorated with adamantium, as though it were his sole lifeline.
His voice trembled with agitation.
“If we overturn it now, then what was my devotion over the past few centuries for?
“Everything I did to uphold the purity of the Codex… was it all a mistake?”
He remembered his former captain, Titus—a brilliant warrior who had always sought to apply “flexible adaptations” to the Codex.
It was precisely Leandros’s report that had led to Titus being thrown into a black cell, enduring centuries of solitude and punishment.
If the Primarch’s will now was to break old conventions, then had Titus not suffered a grave injustice?
The thought drove him to the verge of collapse.
(What a joke! I am an Angel of the God-Emperor, a son of holy Guilliman! How could my entire life have been a mistake?!)
He roared internally, the bedrock of his faith shuddering violently.
Calgar looked at the emotional Leandros and the others, feeling deeply conflicted.
As Chapter Master, he had long felt firsthand how ill-suited the Codex Astartes was in this era ten thousand years later, especially when facing the full-scale invasion of Chaos and the fractured realm of the Imperium; it was practically doing more harm than good.
Having heard the Primarch’s incisive breakdown, he agreed from the bottom of his heart that reform was imperative.
Yet he also understood what Leandros and the others were going through.
For warriors raised on the teachings of the Codex from youth, viewing it as the meaning of life and their sole way of existence, to suddenly be told that everything they held dear was a “mistake” needing to be completely overturned was no different from a total collapse of faith.
Severe cognitive dissonance might even spark the flames of rebellion.
At the thought, Calgar felt a cold shudder.
He would never allow dissension or rebellion to fracture the Ultramarines at the very moment of the Primarch’s glorious return!
He could not let such trivialities trouble his newly resurrected father!
“Silence!” Calgar bellowed, his voice crashing like thunder over all arguments.
His eyes flashed like lightning as he swept his gaze across those defiant battle-brothers.
“This is an order issued directly by the Primarch—our gene-sire! Do you dare disobey the will of your creator?!”
He raised his voice, letting it reverberate across the square:
“The Codex Astartes itself is the manifestation of the Primarch’s will!
And now, it is the Primarch himself who has proclaimed his new will to us!
“Ten thousand years have passed!
The galaxy has changed beyond recognition!
Are we still to cling to ancient dogmas, stubbornly trapped in the past until we are buried alongside the Imperium?!
“Do you truly wish to guard a grave called the Codex Astartes forever?”