The manufactorum was ash and silence now.
Aurelius stood with his brothers in the lee of a half-collapsed wall, the Guardian spear planted in churned earth still wet with blood. The mortal auxiliaries moved like ghosts, collecting ammunition, checking each other for wounds they were too proud to speak of. The rain that fell here was brown with soot; it pattered against auramite without a sound worth hearing.
Jovan knelt over the corpse of the traitor commander. "Old plate," he murmured. "Pre-Heresy marks. You'd think they'd die out eventually."
Aurelius said nothing. The spear hummed faintly under his hand — not a machine-spirit, but the way a tool hums when it knows its work is done for the moment. His mind was still wide, the Gift stretching like a net over the ruins. Somewhere to the west, a mind flickered with that same raw intent he had felt before the ambush. It would move soon.
The mortal captain edged closer. "Lord Custodian… what you did back there. That… force. It felt like being crushed from the inside."
"The Emperor's Gift," Aurelius said simply, not looking at him. "You were spared its edge."
The captain hesitated, half wanting to ask more, half knowing he shouldn't. "We are… grateful, my lord."
Jovan chuckled, low. "Gratitude isn't needed. Just obedience."
"Movement," Aurelius said, before the captain could reply. Observation had caught the decision — a choice made in the dark, weapons lifted, feet planted for the rush. "Thirty heartbeats. West approach. Mortals first, then the real blade behind them."
The Custodes formed a shallow line. Gold in the mud, waiting. The mortal guards scrambled to find cover. Aurelius shifted the spear to one hand; his other fist darkened again, the air around it trembling with the weight of his will.
He closed his eyes. The Voice of All Things reached into the ruins — a sobbing wall beam begging not to fall; an ammo loader praying for its feed to keep cycling; the harsh, clipped thoughts of the enemy vanguard. Under it all, one sharper note, clean and deliberate. A commander's will.
That note tugged at a memory — not of the battlefield, but of the vaults far below Terra.
The gel was colder this time.
He lay in the auric sarcophagus, eyes closed, letting the needles bite without flinching. They had told him it was the last phase before bone-lock. If he survived, the frame of his body would be set for life.
The sarcophagus spoke in its own way — valves worried about pressure, sensors impatient to finish their cycles. He soothed them without words, keeping his breathing slow.
When they pulled him out, he could feel the difference before he saw it. Limbs heavier, skin tighter over new muscle, a steady thrum in the bones. The Custodian in the crimson sash stood watching.
"Stand," he said.
Theta-Seven obeyed, legs stiff.
"You are stronger. Show me you are faster."
The training square was empty except for them. A staff waited in the Custodian's hand. Theta took the one offered to him — auramite-core, heavier than it looked.
"Name the goal."
"End it before it begins."
"Action."
The staff came down like a falling pillar. Observation opened that thin door — decision before movement. Theta slid sideways, wood ringing against stone. The Custodian reversed in a blur. Theta's own staff met it, Armament skimming the surface just enough to keep the haft from splintering.
"Again."
They moved until his arms burned and his breath rasped. At the last exchange, something flared behind his eyes. Pressure rolled outward — not the sharp crown of dominance he'd felt in the Hall of Swords, but a steady weight, a promise. The Custodian's blow slowed, just enough for Theta to step in and press his staff across the man's chest.
"Better," the giant said. He stepped back, unruffled, as if they'd been speaking the whole time. "Control that, and one day it will serve without spilling."
Rain dragged him back to the present. The west approach bloomed with hostile intent.
"Now," Aurelius said.
The Custodes broke cover in unison, gold and red flaring against the grey. Aurelius's spear was a line of sun through smoke; his fist carried the cold, crushing crown of Conqueror's Haki into the teeth of the charge. Mortals fell before touching them, their wills folding like wet parchment. Behind them, the blade of the enemy push — hulking abominations stitched from man and machine — shuddered as their machine-spirits screamed in Aurelius's ears.
He gave them no time to recover. Armament flared along the spear's edge; a thrust, a pivot, a tearing sweep that left molten ruin in its wake. Jovan's guardian spear cracked down like a hammer beside him.
When it was over, the field smelled of hot oil and rain on dust.
"Clear," Jovan said.
Aurelius planted the spear. The Gift still hummed, steady and waiting. Somewhere far beyond this world, the Emperor sat the Golden Throne, and Aurelius served as His hands. The boy in the square was gone. The line he had been carved into was set, unbreakable.
"Advance," he said, and they moved on.