Chapter 347: After Becoming the "Emperor" |
Seizing the Emperor's throne—along with his identity and the dark will of the Dark King—meant holding the ultimate trump card to flip the board entirely.
Lino could feel a cold, raving drive coiled inside him: a supreme power that hungered to reduce everything to ash.
It radiated a relentless, pulsing desire for slaughter and ruin, constantly pushing him to unleash a bloodbath.
Fortunately, the psionic strength behind this drive had its limits. As long as he sat upon the Golden Throne with its Stasis Field engaged, the surge of frenzy and bloodlust was clamped down to its lowest possible level.
Under those conditions, Lino's own willpower easily blocked out its toxic interference.
He closed his eyes upon the throne, tracking the paths of psionic energy.
Over a hundred kilometers away from the Imperial Palace, atop another peak in Terra's highest mountain range, he felt a staggering concentration of psionic power.
That was the seat of the Astronomican, where thousands of Psykers had their energy drained away every passing second.
Their output poured through Warp energy conduits into a central hub. There, after intense compression and frequency amplification, those scattered individual currents fused into a single Alpha-Plus Class torrent, channeled directly into the beacon to burn as fuel.
With a single thought, Lino could draw in that pristine, emotionless energy without the slightest risk to himself.
This was the exclusive privilege of The Emperor—or the God-Emperor.
Refining pure psionic energy through the ritual sacrifice of Psykers.
Strip away the veneer, and the practice was no different from a blood offering to the chaos gods.
Lino refused the psionic energy feed from the Court of the Astronomican.
It wasn't out of moral squeamishness. As the master of Palu, squeezing individual Psykers dry for psionic energy struck him as painfully inefficient—miles behind the Palu Empire's automated Warp-entity trawling rigs.
He shifted his consciousness into a Shaman Boy within the Palu Empire, sought out Palcador, and asked, "Are the Malcador clones ready?"
"Yes, Boss. Ten Malcador clones stand ready for immediate deployment."
"Bring them to me."
"At once, Boss."
Palcador stepped away.
Moments later, ten identical Malcador clones walked into Lino's meditation chamber.
With the ritual arrays cleared out, this space now served as his private study and reception hall.
The ten figures before him possessed the original Malcador's brilliance, administrative refinement, and thought patterns, but they were neither Perpetuals nor Psykers.
Implanted with vast archives of knowledge and linked to the Palu Psychic Field, they were fundamentally Ork variants built to mirror the original Malcador's appearance, work capacity, and personal habits.
Using a standard Paru Boy template as the genetic baseline, these variants carried a Genetic Purity of roughly 40%, safely above the 30% threshold required for direct possession, keeping them completely under Lino's control.
"Do you know why I made you?"
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Lino swept his gaze over the ten Malcador clones and asked.
In perfect unison, the Malcadors bowed low and answered as one:
"Yes, Lord Beast-God. You created us to govern the Imperium of Man. We shall spare no effort in executing sweeping, radical reforms across its domains."
Lino nodded with satisfaction.
"Good. I will send you into the Imperial Palace of Terra. From this day forward, you ten will replace every member of the High Lords of Terra and the War Council. Anyone who resists, dies. Anyone who disobeys, dies. Anyone who questions your orders, dies. Anyone who stalls or plays politics, dies. Anyone who lies to superiors or bullies subordinates, dies. Anyone who takes bribes or bends the law, dies. If you feel ten clones aren't enough, tell Palcador, and I'll have more cloned."
"Yes, Lord Beast-God."
Lino ordered Palcador to bring the flagship out into realspace, right under the radiance of the Astronomican.
Switching his focus back to Emperor Boy, he unleashed his Alpha-Plus Class psionic energy, using the Imperial Palace of Terra as an anchor to tear open a teleportation portal for the Malcador clones.
The energy drawn for the crossing came straight from the Astronomican, costing him zero Monocrystal reserves.
Once the ten Malcador clones arrived, Lino summoned the Adeptus Custodes in the name of The Emperor.
Captain-General Valdor had been holding the line against demonic tides inside the artificial Webway, only finally catching a breath after Lino sealed the Golden Gate with his psionic energy.
Before stepping into the palace, Valdor had no idea the figure sitting on the throne had been swapped out.
Technically, Lino could have played on Valdor's ignorance, issuing commands in his identity as The Emperor.
But Lino didn't care to do that; the setup was far too fragile, riddled with obvious hazards.
Valdor was bound to cross paths with the Eldar eventually.
If the knife-ears ever let slip that "the Emperor was not the Emperor," Valdor would likely rally the Adeptus Custodes in a bloody revolt against the figure on the throne.
To avoid that situation entirely, Lino decided to replace every last Custodian with his own people.
Valdor, the Custodian centurions, the royal guards, and the Aquila Terminators were called straight into the Imperial Palace by Lino.
The second they entered, Lino froze them solid with his psionic energy, running them through an automated assembly line of extracting genetic samples, splicing in Palu Ork DNA fragments, and creating brand-new life-forms.
In a matter of minutes, Valdor and the Custodians who arrived with him were all transformed into Custodian Boyz, each carrying a Palu Ork Genetic Purity of at least 40%, placing them firmly under Lino's absolute command.
After that, Lino summoned the rest of the Custodians for batch-processing.
Barely half an hour later, the entire force of thirty thousand Adeptus Custodes had been converted into Custodian Boyz.
Terra's core region, the Imperial Palace of Terra, became Lino's private estate.
He didn't stop there.
The Court of the Astronomican, the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, and the Navigator Alliance—the three most vital departments of the Imperium—needed a thorough Palu overhaul as well.
Lino set the Custodians and the Malcador clones to work in coordinated teams, escorting the core personnel of all three departments into the Imperial Palace of Terra in steady droves.
Two Terran days later, amid the backdrop of Chaos Orks harassing Terra, Lino completed the restructuring of Terra's management.
Later that same day, Space led the Palu fleet to reinforce Terra.
Three days later, the Chaos Orks within the Terra system had been wiped clean.
The Warp storms churned up by the massive loss of life died down, allowing the Astronomican's light to pierce the ripples of The Warp and project outward.
Roboute Guilliman arrived belatedly at the head of the Ultramarines Legion.
Lino called Guilliman into the Imperial Palace and spent half a day meticulously editing his genetic fragments.
That evening, Guilliman Boy made his debut, and the Chief Librarian and company captains of the Ultramarines Legion also became Palu Ork variants.
Guilliman was currently the only living primarch in the Imperium of Man within this sub-universe's age of rebellion.
In the genetic labs beneath the Imperial Palace of Terra, genetic samples of the other primarchs remained sealed away.
In theory, Lino could use his gene-editing ability to "resurrect" the other primarchs and complete their Palu transformation.
He spent some time studying the primarch samples before deciding to clone twenty Guillimans.
Like the Malcador clones, these Guilliman clones lacked immortality and psionic energy; they simply possessed the original Guilliman's work capacity and combat abilities slightly below those of a Custodian commander.
According to Lino's plans, the Imperium of Man would transition from its original "Segmentum—Sector—Sub-sector" system to a "Segmentum—Grand Sector—Sector—Sub-sector" system.
The five Segmentums would each be divided into four Grand Sectors, making twenty Grand Sectors in total.
The scale of each Grand Sector was roughly the same size as Ultramar, sitting comfortably within a single Guilliman's management capacity.
Each Guilliman clone took charge of one Grand Sector.
The Ultramarines Legion fully transitioned from an external combat force expanding territory into an internal security armed force handling domestic management.
The work of expanding territory, subjugating xenos civilizations, and recovering lost civilizations was temporarily shelved, to be reconsidered only after the Imperium of Man finished its adjustments.
Naturally, campaigns against the Chaos Orks and demons continued as normal; however, the one responsible for handling these matters was Space of the Palu Empire, not Guilliman.
The Corridor of Pain was littered with fallen Imperial worlds.
Space directly initiated bombardments with Extermination Weapons, cleansing every demon-infested planet before dispatching fleets and ground troops deep in for cleanup.
In the Kelkely Sector, there was a rift to The Warp measuring 1,200 meters by 800 meters. Closing it was impossible; it could only be sealed.
After Lino had Beast seal the rift, demons could no longer invade realspace through it.
With that, the Imperium of Man's greatest external threat was resolved, leaving only the long and difficult transformation.
High-intensity work brought about a vigorous demand for talent.
Ten Malcador clones and twenty Guilliman clones were not enough. Lino doubled the numbers, which finally allowed the Imperium of Man's transformation work to advance smoothly.
On the other hand, the Palu Empire's own development had not stopped either.
Ramping up Monocrystal production capacity and expanding the troop source were the two primary tasks Lino had set.
Palcador drew up a dedicated plan for each of these two tasks.
First, the raw material for Monocrystals was energy from The Warp.
Experimental verification by the Palu Academy confirmed that the Palu Shadow could protect the Eldar's Psychic Engines inside The Warp, allowing this Eldar device to directly absorb energy from The Warp and convert it into the raw materials needed by the Monocrystal factories.
The production efficiency of Warp Monocrystals increased more than tenfold compared to before, completely eliminating the time-consuming and laborious need to capture creatures from The Warp.
Acquiring more Psychic Engines became the current key to unlocking Monocrystal production capacity.
This production plan had a professional term: "Warp Energy Extraction."
Second, relying purely on gene-editing technology and spore cultivation technology to expand the source of Palu troops was still too slow, yielding only about ten million Paru Boyz a day.
To control the entire galaxy, the Webway, and the galaxy's corresponding areas in The Warp, and to lay a solid foundation for promoting the Warp Energy Extraction plan, just how many Paru Boyz would be needed?
Palcador estimated and concluded that roughly 500 billion Palu standing troops were needed.
These 500 billion Paru Boyz had to possess combat capabilities and basic combat gear, rather than being simple versions wearing steel loincloths and carrying clubs.
With these 500 billion Palu standing troops, the Palu Empire could establish Warp Energy Extraction bases in any corner of the galaxy, continuously extracting from The Warp.
This would draw resistance from the evil gods of chaos, but it didn't matter. A standing army of 500 billion Palu troops was not to be trifled with; even if the enemy deployed Extermination Weapons, the Paru Boyz could drown them with human-wave tactics.
So the problem arose: where would a Palu standing army of this scale come from? And how could troop replenishment be normalized?
This question once again involved the Eldar.
The Infinity Circuits of the Eldar Craftworlds were excellent devices, integrating multiple functions like "soul containment," "reincarnation," "knowledge transfer," and "career planning."
With the Infinity Circuits, every time the Palu standing army lost a soldier, the Palu Empire could generate a new Paru Boy through the Infinity Circuit and immediately deploy him.
How many Infinity Circuits would be enough?
Palcador genuinely didn't know; there was no data on this.
Lino was pondering. Since he didn't intend to leave any room for the knife-ears in the age of rebellion anyway, he figured he might as well launch a war of annihilation against the knife-ears right now, wiping them all out and getting his hands on the Infinity Circuits.
And so, a massive mobilization unfolded across the Palu Homeland.
This war did not require the Imperium of Man to intervene.
Out of nostalgia and moral considerations for the "human" race, Lino planned to build a "greenhouse" for the Imperium of Man.
Inside the "greenhouse," the Imperium of Man would enjoy eternal happiness, free from the harassment of chaos, xenos, and heretics.
Outside the "greenhouse," the Palu Empire would undertake all external armed operations.
To avoid dragging the Imperium of Man into it, Lino specifically ordered Guilliman and Malcador to join forces to block all news and communication requests coming from the Eldar.
...
...
At the same time.
Black Library, Obsidian Archive.
A faint speck of light floated about a meter above the floor.
As time passed, more and more specks of light flickered into existence out of thin air, converging toward the first speck.
From point to line, from line to surface, from surface to a three-dimensional model, Elina's figure gradually became clear.
As the final speck of light merged into her body, Elina suddenly opened her eyes and drew a long, deep breath.
"Hiss—hoo—I finally made it back."
Elina muttered to herself with lingering fear.
Half a month ago, she had been crushed to dust by The Emperor's psionic energy, and her soul immediately returned to the Black Library's Infinity Circuit.
After the rebirth program activated, she had finally endured the agonizing rebirth process, regaining her mobility within the archives.
With no time to overthink, Elina hurried to the reading stand, opened the Book of Destiny, and checked the latest revelation from the prophecy.
"Even though Lino killed The Emperor, banished the God-Emperor, and seized the throne of the Imperium of Man, our plan to seal the Dark King remains successful.
"Lino will ultimately let the Dark King annihilate along with the sub-universe's age of rebellion; please believe this.
"Right now, all we need to do is satisfy his wishes and not provoke his hostility.
"Please notify all Craftworlds immediately to fully migrate to the end times and perform soul fusion with the Craftworlds there. Before leaving, large Craftworlds such as Alaitoc, Biel-Tan, and Iyanden must voluntarily hand over their backup Infinity Circuits to Lino.
"Note: they must hand over the backup Infinity Circuits unconditionally and voluntarily.
"Do not resist Lino, and do not threaten him, or it will cause unnecessary casualties.
"Besides this, there are several other things you must do..."
