Chapter 52 Reckoning

Chapter 52: Reckoning

The gloomy, low-hanging clouds seemed to have fallen from the sky, and the unleashed, furious thunder illuminated the endless darkness.

The voice of the Primarch echoed through the violent thunder and rain.

That magnificent voice overwhelmed everything else.

It sounded like a majestic and divine deity pronouncing judgment upon the sins of mortals.

The Planetary Governor’s body was trembling; the bodies of all the nobles were trembling.

"My Lord, is there perhaps some misunderstanding in all this?" the Planetary Governor asked, his voice shaking.

"There is no misunderstanding whatsoever. House Graus, you have been declared excommunicate traitoris," Guilliman gazed down at the Planetary Governor before him, his tone ice-cold.

The Honour Guard clustered around him, silent beneath their cold metal helms.

Before this sentence of excommunication, enough to shake the entire Imperium, they showed no reaction whatsoever.

The Planetary Governor slumped to the ground; the smug, arrogant smile he had worn moments before had vanished without a trace.

House Graus was a massive family spanning several star systems, possessing wealth beyond compare.

Wealth sufficient to fund expensive life-extension surgeries for its members and maintain a private fleet.

Yet the Planetary Governor knew all too well that these things were utterly insignificant in the presence of a Primarch.

A single word from this being had stripped House Graus of everything.

The Planetary Governor looked toward the other nobles, casting a pleading gaze in their direction.

Yet not a single person dared to step forward. These very nobles had once sworn to stand united with House Graus.

And yet, not one of them stepped forward now.

Everyone distanced themselves from him as if he carried a plague.

"Sicarius, execute the adults of House Graus. Send their children to the penal legions, and tell those children that only through war and bloodshed can the sins of their fathers be washed away."

Guilliman swept his gaze across the other nobles, and the majesty within his eyes caused them to instinctively take a few steps back. "You stood by and allowed House Graus to defy my commands, blinded by greed for power and unwilling to speak out. You, too, shall face scrutiny."

The nobles instantly burst into tears of sheer terror.

Some nobles tried to rush toward the Primarch to beg for his mercy.

The Honour Guard intercepted them, their Terminator armor forming an impassable wall of metal.

"My Lord, my ancestors once bled for the Emperor! My ancestors performed great deeds for the Imperium! My Lord, you cannot do this!"

A nobleman wailed aloud, his corpulent body shaking uncontrollably.

He cried out, attempting to squeeze through the iron wall formed by the Space Marines, stretching his hands forward in desperation.

"Then your ancestors will feel only shame for what you have become. You have betrayed their ideals and their bloodline. Take them away, every single one of them to undergo investigation. Should any wrongdoing be found, deal with them immediately."

Guilliman swept his gaze over the weeping nobles, showing not a shred of hesitation.

The Space Marines forced all the nobles aside, rounding them up according to the roster.

Guilliman, surrounded by his Honour Guard, stepped forward onto the red carpet prepared for him.

The only irony was that the servants who had laid down the red carpet had already been rounded up and arrested.

This should have been a grand welcoming ceremony.

Instead, it had become the arrest site for House Graus and numerous nobility.

The nobles were led away by the Inquisitorial retinue within Guilliman's fleet to be investigated for their sins.

Quite a few nobles fainted on the spot.

The terror of the Inquisition was notorious; once fallen into their hands, absolutely no good outcome awaited them.

To combat the enemies of the Imperium with ruthless efficiency, Inquisitors rarely hesitated to employ all manner of horrific tortures.

Guilliman showed no mercy whatsoever. No matter how these wretches wailed and screamed, he did not spare them another glance.

This plunged the nobles into a state of utter despair.

Even if the investigations cleared them of direct wrongdoing, they would still lose their lofty status and be reduced to the level of lowly commoners.

"You are a tyrant through and through!" screamed a deranged high noble, drawing a pistol and firing blindly in Guilliman's direction. "You persecute the loyal servants of the Imperium! You seek to usurp your father's throne, you tyrant!"

Laser beams flashed through the rain.

The Honour Guard effortlessly deflected an attack so trivial it could not even breach their armor's energy shields.

The high noble's actions utterly enraged the Space Marines.

One warrior smashed the butt of his bolter viciously into the man's face, drawing a shriek of agony.

The strength of a Space Marine was unfathomably great; even while holding back, he effortlessly shattered the man's face.

Flesh and blood mingled with flying shards of teeth, and the once lofty noble was dumped onto the ground like a dead dog.

He was not yet dead.

He still had one last breath left in him.

Yet this was hardly a mercy; death a thousand times over would have been preferable to falling into the hands of the Inquisition.

"This is the extent of their loyalty. Power has corrupted them, causing them to forsake their oaths and forget all reverence." Guilliman glanced down briefly before striding toward the hive city. "Announce my arrival to this world. I shall listen to their voices."

Servo-skulls, cherubim, and various other flying constructs soared in all directions, roaring the news of the great Primarch's arrival across the entire hive city.

The news of the nobles' arrest spread rapidly, shocking everyone to their core.

Those who considered themselves powerful felt as though the end of the world had come, gripped by panic and terror.

The situation was completely unlike anything they had imagined.

They had expected it to be like the political games of the past—negotiations, power struggles, compromises, and deals—operating according to a set of rules entirely their own.

Gangs, nobles, and bureaucrats were intertwined in complex webs, forming highly specialized relationships.

Everyone patiently played their moves on the chessboard, evaluating their assets and utilizing their advantages to secure greater gains.

None of them could have anticipated that the Primarch would employ a brute force beyond imagination, smashing the power networks that the various families had spent millennia building with a single, sudden blow.

It was akin to one chess player carefully analyzing all their opponent's possible moves, trying to predict their strategies and formulate countermeasures.

Only for the opponent, the moment they sat down, to simply pick up the chessboard and smash it directly into their face.

An unprecedented terror spread through the hive city as Guilliman stepped inside.

Of course, the terror was confined solely to the privileged; the common folk at the bottom were cheering.

The greed of House Graus was long established and universally despised.

With the aid of the Adeptus Mechanicus, they had meticulously calculated the value of every single individual.

The policies they enacted were designed to bleed every worker's savings dry, ensuring they stayed just alive enough to labor while keeping them perpetually down-trodden to better maintain control over them.

Work, life, marriage, and every other aspect of existence were meticulously regimented.

House Graus reaped the profit from every single sphere, leaving the people with nothing to do except toil for House Graus their entire lives, and bear the next generation of Imperial citizens to labor for them in turn.

And all of this was about to change.

"Please, do not accuse me! I have a wife, I have a daughter!"

The enforcer who had once shot Bane in the leg wept and begged, facing judgment for his arrogance and hubris.

"You belong in hell, right alongside that damn House Graus! Your wife and daughter will curse your name forever; you will never return to the Emperor's embrace, fit only to be devoured by twisted monsters."

An old blind woman spat at him.

The surrounding crowd immediately followed suit, each of them spitting upon the enforcer.

"No, have mercy on me!" the enforcer cried out, but to no avail.

He had once been so vicious to others, inflicting pain without a second thought.

Now that the exact same terrifying fate had befallen him, not a soul felt any sympathy for him.

Soldiers led the enforcers away. Hawk followed the cheering crowd, intending to find his good friend Bane to tell him that he would continue to receive his pension and live a decent life.

Only then did he discover that his friend was already gone.

Bane’s corpse lay in a corner, covered by a ragged blanket, his head with its pale, messy hair lolling to one side. His body had grown cold as life fled it, and his crutch rested beside his feet.

His face bore an expression of lingering pain mingled with profound release.

The inflammation and burning from the gunshot wound, the humiliation of being driven away by the enforcers, and the agonizing grief of failing to lay eyes upon the Primarch had all tormented this poor veteran.

Had he not lived to witness the downfall of House Graus and the corrupt nobility at the very end, he likely would have died consumed by bitterness.

Hawk embraced his friend's corpse and wept.

At that moment, he noticed something scrawled in charcoal on the wall beside the body.

*Humanity shall prevail. The Imperium shall prevail.*

Beneath it was a signature: *Bane, Captain of the 33rd Army Regiment of the Imperial world of Acos.*

***