"Mr. Swain, congratulations on completing all the tasks assigned by our Lord. Your specialized training is complete. Please sign here; I need to report back to our Lord." Custodes Tribune Aquilon handed Swain a file, gesturing for him to sign quickly.
"Why do I have to sign everywhere I go?!!" Swain got up from the ground, took the pen offered to him, and swiftly signed his name.
"Let's go eat, I'm starving," Swain said.
"The fleet is about to arrive at the Elysian Gate of Uranus. The three of you have plenty of time to bathe, change, and have a meal," Aquilon reminded the trio.
"What? Terra is almost here?" Swain immediately jumped up. Earth! This was Earth after thirty thousand years. He wondered how different it would be from what he had seen and what it was like in reality.
Swain immediately rushed into his room without looking back to take a shower. He was going home; he couldn't be all sweaty. A home after thirty thousand years was still home!
...Swain, Corax, and Mortarion squeezed in front of the wide window of the Custodes Battleship, watching the approaching planet, completely disregarding their status as Primarchs and second-in-commands of Legions.
The Custodes had supreme right of passage in the Sol System. After passing through the Elysian Gate, they proceeded unimpeded directly to Holy Terra.
"Terra, it has no seas. The Emperor, he has four hands." Swain couldn't help but sigh as he looked at the once brilliant sapphire-blue planet, now a dull yellow.
Custodes Tribune Aquilon heard such blasphemous remarks and couldn't help but grip his Guardian Spear. His mission was to protect the other party, not to kill his charge.
"Damn yellow skins, what have you done to my old home!" Swain grumbled, highly displeased, as he looked at the planet that was once seventy percent ocean and thirty percent land. After a distant glance, Swain had no interest in going down.
"Come on, boss, let's go to the Palace. Imperial Regent Malcador is already waiting for us." Corax pulled the still melancholic Swain along. He and Mortarion were natives; how would they know what Earth originally looked like? Now that they were officially home, how could they not be excited?
"Since things are as they are, let's go." Swain, Corax, and Mortarion boarded a Custodes Stormbird and flew towards the Terra Imperial Palace.
Who knows what other good things Malcador might have? Even if he just let a little something slip, it would be enough to satisfy the Raven Guard.
Malcador, who managed all internal affairs of the Imperium, was the uncrowned king of Terra in the Emperor's absence.
"Listen to me, when you see Malcador later, be extra sweet. While on Terra, complain to Malcador about being poor; Malcador is incredibly rich.
Hey, hey, Mortarion, especially you, don't always wear a grim expression. Even a little something from Lord Malcador would be enough to double the size of your Death Guard several times over. How many lives could that save?" Swain used the Death Guard as leverage to persuade Mortarion, who deeply loved his sons.
In the background, Mortarion's relationship with Malcador would worsen due to psychic matters, eventually escalating to him directly grabbing Malcador's neck. He needed to give them a heads-up in advance.
"Okay, no problem." Corax was entirely obedient to this. Swain never tricked him, and as he said, if the Legion could save many lives during the Great Crusade, that was enough.
"Oh, and one more thing: besides Mars, you also need to foster good relations with the Saturnine Technical Conclave, preferably to obtain the production line or authorization for Saturn-pattern Terminators." Swain began to plan ahead.
Saturn-pattern Terminators were the most powerful Terminators in Imperial history, characterized by their towering shoulder pads that firmly protected the operator's head.
Their unique thermal diffraction fields and disintegration weapons could easily tear through enemy steel defenses, reducing foes to molecular states, essentially a super-enhanced version of the Cataphractii.
Above the Saturn-pattern Terminators, the Saturnine Dreadnought was the pinnacle of Terminator technology, but its production process was too complex, and output was extremely limited. Most Legions were equipped primarily with Cataphractii.
Soon, with the return of Vulkan, the Lord of Drakes, he would help Saturn decipher the mysteries of this ancient Terminator power armor, allowing it to be widely equipped in the Legions. Swain needed to secure this advantage in advance.
As for whether Mortarion would betray them in the future? That could be dealt with later. All Legions would be equipped with this Terminator armor; it couldn't be stopped. Rather than trying to prevent it, it was better to invest early.
At the very least, the Emperor and Mortarion's relationship was good now. Mortarion, who had personally slain his xenos adoptive father, was less stubborn, though still somewhat silent.
Most importantly, Mortarion had already agreed to join his Savior Project. He couldn't treat him differently; wouldn't that be setting a trap for himself?
The Stormbird arrived unimpeded at the landing pad of the Imperial Palace's Departmento Administratus. Not far away, a stooped old man and important administrators from various agencies, including the Departmento Administratus, Departmento Munitorum, and Astartes Legion representatives, were already waiting. The return of two Imperial sons was reason enough for them to set aside their work and come to greet them.
"Corax, Mortarion, Swain, welcome back to the Imperium. I am Malcador." The Sigillite stepped forward and greeted the figures emerging from the Stormbird.
"Hello, Uncle Malcador." Corax was very astute, immediately calling him uncle.
Mortarion, though still wearing his silent expression, also greeted Malcador.
"Greetings, Lord Malcador," Swain also responded to Malcador's greeting.
Although he knew Malcador was just a young man of over 5,000 years, strictly speaking, he wasn't even as old as Swain. Swain was a man of the 2K era, tens of thousands of years old.
Swain employed the Ah Q spirit of victory to look down on Malcador in terms of age.
However, in such a formal setting, he couldn't just go up and hug him, saying something tactless like, "Little Ma, I heard the Emperor say..."
The Emperor must have already informed Malcador about Swain's situation. The Emperor would not conceal such important matters from Malcador.
Under the welcome of important Imperial figures, the trio arrived at the pre-arranged banquet hall.
Unlike the scoundrel High Lords of later eras, the Imperial high command of this era truly dedicated everything to the Imperium.
With the Emperor, the supreme leader of the Imperium, fighting on the front lines of the Great Crusade, what reason did they have to be negligent?
The banquet was very simple. Everyone introduced themselves, explained their respective duties, and then it concluded after a simple meal.
The Imperium was currently in a state of rebuilding, with new lost territories constantly being reclaimed. Everyone was very busy.
After the banquet, Malcador had an in-depth discussion with the two Primarchs and assigned them a series of learning tasks.
Malcador stated that he would regularly check the two Primarchs' learning progress until their Legion recruits grew into qualified Angels of Death.
Corax and Mortarion, in turn, expressed that they would humbly learn from Uncle Malcador and also stated that their Legions were destitute upon their return to the Imperium, hoping that their uncle could provide more support for their Great Crusade.
Malcador's old face broke into a smile upon hearing the children's addresses and complaints. He immediately declared that these were not problems. The Emperor had just reduced investment in the bottomless pit of the Webway, and the saved resources finally meant Malcador didn't have to be so stingy.
Children needed to generate income for the family, so the family naturally had to show some appreciation. Malcador waved his hand and increased the material supplies for the 19th and 14th Legions tenfold.
This harmonious and friendly scene made Swain's eyes narrow with a smile.
In the early stages of the Great Crusade, all material supplies for Legions whose Primarchs had not yet returned were coordinated by Terra. In terms of scale, apart from the First Legion and Horus's Legion, which returned earliest to the Imperium, the numbers of other Legions were kept around 20,000-30,000.
Even Fulgrim's Emperor's Children Legion and Magnus's Thousand Sons were once on the verge of annihilation due to severe genetic defects.
Fulgrim's Legion, upon his return, had only about two hundred men left due to The Blight. The Thousand Sons were even worse; the entire Imperium, and even other Astartes Legions, thought it best to simply disband them.
After all, no one liked the terrifying sight of sudden Flesh Mutations during joint combat, an uncontrolled genetic mutation where soldiers' bodies twisted, disintegrated, and even mutated into shapeless monsters, with their psychic powers also spiraling out of control.
Besides these two Legions, other Legions also had various genetic defects to varying degrees, such as the Flesh-Eaters Legion's craving for blood, and the Raven Guard Legion's Black Rage, a weakened version of the Black Rage.
However, these issues could be resolved.
Returning to the main topic
Corax and Mortarion's faces lit up with smiles upon hearing Malcador's generous gesture, and they inwardly decided to humor the old man well in the future, perhaps even getting some valuable equipment from him.
"Lord Malcador, are you just going to send Corax and Mortarion off with ordinary supplies?" Swain asked, smiling at Malcador, who enjoyed pretending to be an old man.
"The Imperium is so vast, even the landlord's family has no surplus grain..." Malcador could only feign poverty.
Despite being called The Sigillite, he was responsible for maintaining all the various affairs of the Imperium, big and small. To be honest, Terra was always in a state of deficit.
The reconstruction plans for the countless worlds reclaimed during the Great Crusade alone amounted to an astronomical figure, plus the various material replenishment for so many Space Marines. If the Emperor didn't have Malcador's assistance, he wouldn't even be able to leave Terra.
The immense amount of state affairs could bury the Emperor... "Didn't Neos already halt the Webway Project? That bottomless pit of the Webway must have devoured a lot of resources, right?" Swain was somewhat skeptical.
"The Webway Project hasn't stopped; it's just had most of its resource investment cut, serving as a fallback," Malcador truthfully explained the situation of the Webway.
"Wasn't he a complete gambler? How did he learn not to put all his eggs in one basket this time?" Swain was very confused, as he thought the Emperor had completely shut down the Webway.