Before long, the ant-bull’s carapace began to discolor and char under the high heat.
A peculiar aroma—a mix of roasted char and seared protein—wafted through the air.
Guilliman grabbed the ant-bull’s limbs, which were still sizzling over the high heat, with his bare hands.
With a skin-crawling tear, he wrenched the limbs away from the torso.
He roughly tore through the blackened shell and the medium-rare flesh beneath, inspecting it closely.
He wanted to ensure that the disgusting flesh-boring maggots hidden deep within the muscle fibers were completely roasted to death or cleared out.
Next, he pinched a slightly squirming, half-roasted flesh-boring maggot and casually tossed it into his mouth.
*Crunch, crunch…*
He chewed a couple of times and nodded in satisfaction.
“Not bad. Tastes like chicken, nice and crunchy. It has hundreds of times more protein than beef.”
He savored it, seemingly analyzing its flavor profile.
“With a careful taste, first there’s a burst of beef and mutton, closely followed by the savor of chicken and fish… Hmm? If you chew even closer, holy crap, there’s even a hint of human flesh in there!”
This was no lie.
In truth, every Space Marine had more or less tasted the flesh of heretics.
When swinging chainswords in a frenzied hack-and-slash against enemies, tiny bits of flesh and blood splatters would inevitably splash into their mouths.
For these super-soldiers, whose saliva was highly corrosive and whose digestive systems functioned like furnaces, such bits of meat were often broken down and absorbed by their bodies before they even had a chance to spit them out.
“With it cooked to this level, you should be fine eating it, right?” Guilliman tore off a large chunk of the ant-bull’s hind leg meat—crisp on the outside, tender on the inside, and still sizzling with fat—and looked over at Leandros with concern.
“Father, I… I am perfectly fine eating the ant-bull at this level of doneness. My oral surgeries and stomach modification procedures were highly successful,” Leandros answered somewhat nervously, his voice still weak.
Hearing this, Guilliman patted the ground beside him with his massive, fan-like hand, making heavy thudding sounds, and said heartily to Leandros, “Then sit down! Sit down and eat up!”
Leandros struggled to his feet and slowly, almost gingerly, walked over to Guilliman’s side.
Like an obedient grade-schooler, he sat down properly with his legs pressed together, his docile posture wildly at odds with his heavy power armor.
Guilliman handed him the massive hind leg of the ant-bull, which was taller than a whole grown man.
He even thoughtfully peeled away the charred, rock-hard outer carapace with his bare hands, revealing a steaming, massive chunk of pinkish-white meat underneath.
Looking at the meat, which wafted an enticing aroma—albeit from a rather bizarre source—tears instantly welled up in his eyes.
*This is a meal personally prepared by the Gene-Father!
The Gene-Father cooked for me!*
*To eat food roasted by one’s own Gene-Father…
how many Space Marines throughout history could ever claim to have experienced such a privilege?!*
“Father, I… I am truly…” Tears blurred Leandros’s vision, and he choked up, unable to finish his sentence.
Lowering his head, he took massive bites of the meat in his hands, swallowing it along with hot tears and uncontrollable mucus.
He ate with absolute reverence, as if performing a sacred ritual.
“Come now, we are eating. Let’s not talk about those things. Eat, eat.” Like a kind, elderly father, Guilliman reached out and gently patted the back that was trembling from crying, helping him soothe his breathing.
Leandros ate incredibly fast and urgently, as if trying to swallow all his regret and emotion right along with the food.
Once he stuffed the last bit of meat into his mouth and swallowed hard, he suddenly whipped around to face Guilliman and dropped to his knees with a heavy *thud*, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Father! I was wrong! I was truly wrong!”
“Sigh, why are you kneeling now?” Guilliman reached out to support him.
“Wasn’t it just adhering to the Codex I wrote? What is so wrong about that?”
He slipped his hands directly under Leandros’s power armor pauldrons and, with a slight tug, effortlessly lifted the heavy Space Marine Chaplain from the ground and set him back down, exactly like a regular person picking up a docile Golden Retriever.
“No! Father! I was truly wrong! I have committed grave errors!” Leandros shook his head, his tears flowing even faster.
“Because of my blind adherence to the Codex, I…
I sent Titus, once the most heroic captain of our company, to the Deathwatch!
“He is a truly heroic and fearless warrior, Father!
yet I reported him and had him reassigned to the Deathwatch!
“It has been a full hundred years! A full hundred years since then! Is he doing well? Or has he already died without dignity, without honor, in some battle against the xenos?!”
The more he spoke, the more emotional he became, attempting to kneel once more.
“This is all my fault, Father! I have no right to continue being your gene-son! I am unworthy!”
Prompted by his weeping, the other Ultramarines who had gradually woken up began to kneel around Guilliman, silent and heavy-hearted.
They had all, to some degree, done similar things.
Due to their rigid enforcement of the Codex, they had harmed excellent battle-brothers or caused unnecessary sacrifices.
They did not resist their Primarch because they didn’t want to change their habits; the deeper reason was the heavy guilt that had accumulated over centuries!
It made them feel as though they had desecrated their armor and failed the honor of the gene-seed flowing through their veins.
The atmosphere in the plaza instantly turned incredibly tense and heavy.
These iron-willed warriors now felt the profound weight of their “errors.”
Their past convictions were wrong; many of their past actions were wrong.
This even led them to doubt whether their very existence was also a mistake.
The shaking of their resolve brought a tremor on a spiritual level.
Hundreds of Adeptus Astartes fell simultaneously into deep regret and profound depression.
This intense emotional surge was like a massive boulder cast into the Warp!
A covert ripple, born of pure emotional energy, quietly spread outward, instantly drawing the gaze of predators deep within the Warp.
A Daemon of Tzeentch lurking on the border of reality and illusion let out a low, pleased chuckle.
It “saw” the violent fluctuations of the psychic barriers in this area, witnessing souls that were once rock-solid now being eroded by repression and despair.
*What a beautiful transformation…
what delicious despair and self-doubt…*
The daemon greedily drank in this rare “delicacy.”
*The Changer of Ways will surely be highly interested in this…*