Chapter 50: Great Increase in Strength
As time slowly passed in the world of Sophis, Magos Albert labored diligently at the forge world's construction while investigating the secrets guarded by Sage Julius. Gradually, he uncovered the Alpha Legion's grand strategic design, one that had been laying groundwork for nearly twenty years, intended solely to strengthen their own power.
The revelation shocked him deeply. What troubled Albert more was the absence of a Primarch to oversee such ambitions.
Yet as Albert continued his investigation, he came to understand that the Alpha Legion harbored no intention of engaging in any conspiracy or schism against Martian Mechanicus headquarters. Julius and the other Magos remained loyal. Though the headquarters was equally shocked by the news, they chose not to pursue the matter further.
With the worst fears of division dispelled, Sage Albert's perspective shifted entirely.
The technological forces under Albert's command became willing to dedicate themselves fully to the Alpha Legion's continued growth, a reversal that surprised Julius and the other Magos greatly.
As the two sides collaborated on expanding the forge world, genuine friendship gradually developed between them.
...
Time passed with the turning of stars. Thirty years had vanished in a flash.
It is the 959th year of the 30th millennium.
The Medias Sector contains a vast collection of star systems spanning tens of thousands of individual suns. The various alien civilizations dwelling within this region, along with the scattered remnants of the Randan fleet that had escaped into these depths, fell one by one to the Alpha Legion, a campaign of systematic eradication that consumed nearly ten years of relentless warfare.
Throughout this conflict, the legion continued to grow and expand. This sustained advancement directly benefited the Sophis forge world. Warships multiplied. The ranks of Space Marines swelled progressively.
In a star system within the Calicus sector, Omega stands upon the bridge of a flagship belonging to a massive battleship nearly twenty kilometers in length.
More than three hundred space warships surrounded the vessel in the void, each several kilometers in length, with designs that spoke of cutting-edge technology and devastating armament. Simultaneously, a fierce battle unfolded across a nearby planetary surface.
Omega gazed out at the pristine expanse of space. Enemy wreckage was notably absent; only the hovering formations of his own warships filled the void.
A subtle pang of regret touched his heart, not for the enemy, but for the lack of worthy opposition. Thirty years of conquest had become routine.
Over the past three decades, the number of warships within the Alpha Legion's fleet had continued to grow steadily, eventually reaching more than three thousand vessels.
The number of Astartes warriors had climbed to nearly seventy thousand, and the Astral Legions numbered over thirty million strong. The Alpha Legion had finally ascended to a position of genuine military strength among the Astartes Legions.
Throughout these three decades, the various Astartes contingents gradually recovered from the devastation of the Battle of Randan, their numbers increasing steadily as their strength was restored.
The entire legion was now organized into squads commanded by company commanders, who were engaged in combat across various star systems within the Calicus sector.
This marked the third star sector in which Omega had fought over the past thirty years. The sensation of commanding countless troops was extraordinary.
His current responsibilities centered on establishing strategic deployments and delegating operational command to the company commanders. He personally entered combat far less frequently than before.
The alien civilizations possessing space warships proved far fewer in number than initially estimated, resulting in his arrival with the fleet producing no significant space battles whatsoever.
Thanks to the massive strategic plan devised in those early days, the entire legion received excellent weapons and equipment from both the Astronautical Army and the Astartes forces, including numerous heavy assault weapons.
The Mechanicus army and Titan legions had also expanded substantially beyond their former strength.
Equipped with such abundant military resources, each company commander could essentially complete independent operations by leading their own troops directly in the field.
Possessing such powerful equipment, these commanders would feel deeply embarrassed should they fail to complete tasks assigned by the Primarch.
Omega understood precisely what these company commanders were thinking. Whenever intelligence reports indicated that the conquest of a particular planet would prove difficult, he would personally dispatch reinforcements or even personally intervene in the campaign.
Of course, the Alpha Legion's military strength had nearly reached a critical threshold beyond which further expansion became impossible.
The forge world Sophis, along with more than one hundred planets accumulated by the Alpha Legion over the years, possessed only sufficient resources to support more than three thousand space warships. Any additional expansion would require greater planetary reserves to sustain.
Similarly, because the Imperium had constructed many forge worlds over the past thirty years, other legions rarely relied on the Sophis forge world for resupply anymore.
Looking across the entire territory of the human empire, numerous fleets were constantly expanding in all directions. Each expeditionary fleet required enormous logistical resources, not only for the Astartes Legions but also for the independent Astral Army forces.
This great expedition, which had lasted for more than 160 years, had transformed the entire human empire into a massive war machine.
As territorial expansion continued relentlessly, the governance of conquered planets fell significantly behind the pace of conquest.
Roboute Guilliman carefully managed the five hundred worlds of the Limitless Starfield, while the hundred-world system established by Omega and Alpharex required considerable effort to maintain properly.
This management method had succeeded in maintaining an excellent balance between warfare and resource attrition.
These worlds required substantial infusions of manpower and resources. Yet, one had to exercise extreme caution not to overtax them, lest they become unable to sustain themselves and subsequently incite rebellion.
Even Omega, despite his meticulous territorial management, grew increasingly worried. Most of the other legions had no interest in proper management whatsoever; instead, they directly demanded that surrounding human planets provide constant resource replenishment. The accumulated war costs were beyond calculation.
Every year, intelligence reports flowing through Alpharis's network brought news of rebellions erupting on human worlds, followed inevitably by Imperial crackdowns.
Most Primarchs could not even adequately develop their own homeworlds, let alone properly manage their recruitment planets.
The Imperial government itself had no intention of expending significant effort on managing individual worlds. Many conquered planets retained their pre-conquest systems entirely unchanged.
War has always been fundamentally about logistics.
Omega had long understood from countless intelligence reports that the Great Expedition had transformed into something that demanded formidable logistical support, a war requiring the entire human empire to sustain across all fronts as it constantly expanded its territory.
More than sixty years of continuous warfare had expanded Omega's vision from continental conflicts on a single planet to encompass entire star systems containing tens of thousands of stars.
His perspective had broadened as he began to consider the development and inherent problems of the entire human empire.
Such expansive perspective and clear strategic thinking resulted partly from decades of continuous self-cultivation and willpower refinement.
The direct and straightforward mental training methods employed in his early years remained effective, even after becoming intimately familiar with Rangdan's alien mental techniques.
The intensity of a single training session, which had previously been equivalent to one thousand ordinary sessions, had now become comparable to one hundred thousand sessions.
This represented an unparalleled refinement and elevation of spiritual power.
Possessing a refined spirit and incredibly powerful rational faculties, he had heard no eerie demonic whispers from the Warp during the past thirty years. The silence was its own form of discipline, harder than screaming.
During his meditation, Omega received a communication signal from the outside world. He opened his eyes, a flash of spiritual light visible within them, and gestured to establish the connection.
Company Commander Skol reported, "My lord, another daemon army has been discovered within the city!"
"Their bodies are blood-red, bearing horns and tails, with teeth sharp as blades, creatures resembling demons. They wield blood-red longswords capable of piercing tanks. Ordinary Astronautical soldiers are no match for them. The alien prisoners we captured report that the High Priest summoned these daemon entities!"
"The alien civilization here practices a malevolent faith. The Calicus Sector has proven to be very strange; we are encountering these malevolent creatures on every node!"
"Eliminate them all. Destroy any dangerous sites with missiles according to procedure. Exercise caution!" Omega instructed, his voice level and tone immediate.
'Yet another daemon incursion.'
He kept encountering such creatures throughout this sector; their increasing frequency felt deeply wrong, not a tactical problem, but a wrongness at the edge of his psychic awareness. The Warp was stirring.
As their fleet moved progressively further north into the hazy expanse of the star field, the alien civilizations that relied solely on technology became increasingly rare.
The Calicus Sector lay beyond the former territory of the Randan Xenomorphs and remained unknown to the Imperium of Man.
Many planets within this sector had developed powerful beliefs in malevolent gods, and the technology of these aliens proved remarkably bizarre.
Despite lacking even space battleships and remaining confined to a single planet, these worlds possessed anti-gravity floating islands, yet demonstrated no coherent technological development trajectory.
The planetary surfaces displayed very few technologically advanced structures.
These types of worlds often harbored powerful alien psionic entities. They lacked technological sophistication but exhibited a fantastical, bizarre aesthetic due to their pervasive worship of malevolent gods.
[End of Chapter]