Zelo took a little more time to explain to the Stollians what would happen next, and how the Imperium intended to handle Stoll Star.
Regarding Stoll Star, the Imperium gave Zelo and the Stollians two options.
The first was to blockade Stoll Star completely, establishing an orbital blockade ring that would fully isolate the planet from the outside.
The second was far more efficient: Exterminatus.
After evacuating the humans on the surface, the Imperium would launch Cyclonic Torpedoes at Stoll Star.
Zelo chose the latter.
The tragedy of Stoll Star did not need to be repeated, and far too many human souls had been buried there.
Total annihilation was clearly necessary.
But he made one additional request.
The City of Hell had to be preserved, as proof of the atrocities and resistance that had once taken place on this planet.
The Primarch had given the Imperium a difficult problem.
Cyclonic Torpedoes would bring about total Exterminatus, powerful enough to directly alter a planet’s geography, and far more thorough than virus bombs or orbital bombardment.
After hearing the Primarch’s request, a senior representative of the Adeptus Mechanicus went to the Master of Mankind and stated that this matter would waste manpower and resources, and that the plan would be extremely difficult to carry out.
But the Primarch was also present at the time.
When the Emperor cast a somewhat dissatisfied look at Zelo, the Primarch merely held his ground with an unyielding smile.
Zelo was unwilling to back down on this point.
He had already agreed to the destruction of the entire planet.
So the Adeptus Mechanicus finally labored for three days and nights before presenting their plan.
In this matter, they were the ones tasked with carrying out the Primarch’s commission.
The Adeptus Mechanicus would reinforce the continental plate surrounding the City of Hell, then cut the City of Hell away from the plate, sink the entire city beneath the crust, and close the plates above it again, using the thick crust as the city’s first line of defense.
Next, they would pour a stabilizing compound formulated for Stoll Star into the plates around the City of Hell, stabilizing the ground around the buried city so that earthquakes caused by the Cyclonic Torpedoes would not destroy it.
Finally, they would install powerful Void Shields to provide a secondary layer of protection for the fragile structures within the urban area.
Zelo agreed to this plan.
After evacuating all the Stollians from the City of Hell, the Primarch decided to convert the city into a prison.
He would chain the surviving slavers inside the city, which was about to become an underground prison.
The Stollians clearly supported Zelo.
They had never longed for the suffering they had endured there.
Even if some workers felt a trace of sentimentality for the workshops where they had once toiled, the Imperium and the Primarch later promised them better assembly lines.
The survivors were temporarily settled aboard starships, which would then take them to the third planet.
There, the Adeptus Mechanicus would establish a Hive City and perform gene-seed implantation procedures on those with the potential to survive the transformation.
Before their departure, Zelo carefully assigned tasks and responsibilities to the senior Stollians.
After arranging matters for the Stollians, Zelo remained on Stoll Star for another five days, waiting for the Imperium’s arrangements for him while accompanying the Imperial forces as they cleansed the remnants of Grandfather Syllax’s armies.
The surviving human slaves were liberated one by one.
Those still lucid joined Zelo’s group.
Those who were unconscious, or who no longer had any will to live, were granted mercy by Zelo’s own hand.
The Emperor had also briefly descended upon this planet, walking alongside Zelo.
It was on the third day of the cleansing that Zelo and those gleaming golden figures arrived at the palace Grandfather Syllax had used most often.
Its former splendor had long since withered.
Within the palace, twisted and screaming sculptures of flesh and blood were blanketed in thick ash, and the eternal fountain of blood in the great hall had dried up, giving off a fetid stench.
The Adeptus Custodes went to hunt down the Daemons that had fled into the underground catacombs, while Zelo, lost in thought, followed his memory to the heaviest and most blood-soaked door within the palace.
The door creaked open.
Zelo blinked in astonishment.
There was still a living creature within the sacrificial chamber: a hunched Daemon that appeared incredibly aged.
At first glance, it looked like a naked old man, or perhaps a fetus curled in the womb.
“You are still alive.” It spoke before Zelo could raise his longsword.
Zelo blinked.
He looked at the slab within the chamber, the very slab where he had once lain.
It was on that stone slab that Grandfather Syllax had prepared him, before burying him once more in the pit of Blood Ants.
“Yes.
I am still alive.” Zelo smiled.
He was alive, and the defeat of the Daemons and slavers was certain.
He strode forward easily, raising his sword.
“No.
The one who survived is not you.
I recognize the original slave.” The old Daemon said.
Its head spun through the air, blood scattering as its last words echoed in Zelo’s ears.
It was already dead.
Zelo’s twin swords had decapitated it cleanly.
The blades shimmered with the cold light of psychic energy, crackling softly as the psychic force utterly destroyed that sinful soul within the Immaterium.
Amid the acrid stench of a Daemon soul-fragment, Zelo approached the stone slab that had once been used to prepare him.
It was carved with densely packed incantations.
He was just about to lower his head for a closer look.
Suddenly, golden light blazed behind Zelo.
The Primarch turned around.
He saw the Master of Mankind, whose gaze was now fixed sharply upon him.
“What is it?” Zelo asked.
The Emperor was silent, but stepped forward and approached the stone slab before him.
Golden light flickered in the Emperor’s eyes.
He looked at the sunken carvings on the stone slab, as if he could already see the blood of his child flowing thickly through those hollows.
“I sense a defiling aura,” the Emperor said calmly.
He extended his hand, and golden flames rose from his arm, instantly igniting the sacrificial table before them.
“What did you endure on this?” He had experienced much: being force-fed potions, flayed, inscribed with curses, limbs amputated…
But Zelo felt there was nothing worth mentioning.
“The necessary preparations before a sacrifice.” Zelo said, watching the stone slab burn like a furnace before him.
Perhaps because the flames were too intense, Zelo even thought he heard a sharp shriek, like stone splitting apart.
The Emperor took a deep breath, inhaling that odor unique to Warp creatures.
“I believe I have found part of the reason.
Your soul was reshaped here, but not entirely.” Zelo remembered.
Before this sacrifice, he had no understanding of psychic power at all.
After it, however, he had connected to the Immaterium and understood the beauty of psychic energy.
“You mean my psychic power?” The Emperor gave Zelo a long look before answering ambiguously.
“You had best reduce your use of psychic power.
Among your brothers, there are those skilled in it.
The Imperium does not need more Psykers.” “Why?” Zelo blinked, but the Emperor rarely answered him directly.
“Treat your psychic ability with caution.” The Emperor slid his hand over the blazing stone slab, the scorching flames having no effect on him.
He raised his hand to look at the faint psychic energy on his own fingers, the energy that had shrieked because of the Emperor’s psychic flames.
It did not belong to Zelo.
At least, not to the Zelo he had originally designed.
This was a different Warp power.
But even though the Emperor had already come to its most hidden lair, he still did not see the naked Daemon that had previously appeared beside Zelo.
“Do not pry too deeply into the Warp.” The Emperor’s figure dissipated along with these words.
Zelo blinked and turned around again.
All the defiling aura within this sacrificial chamber had vanished.
Only the scorching heat of the Master of Mankind’s golden flames remained.
There was no trace of anything left for him to investigate.
Zelo also withdrew from the room.
The Emperor had forbidden him to pry any further.