The Tyranid Hive Fleet arrived in the Kalixus System with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face.
Seventeen worlds. Three billion human souls. An entire sector's worth of agriculture and industry.
All of it suddenly in the path of Hive Fleet Leviathan's latest tendril.
The distress calls went out immediately. The pleas for help. The desperate prayers to the Emperor.
And for once, the Emperor answered.
Not through vague psychic impressions or cryptic guidance. Not through the slow grinding of the Imperial bureaucracy.
He answered specifically.
"The Emperor has personally requested that we respond to Kalixus," Inquisitor Vorn announced, her voice carrying an edge of disbelief.
Bartholomew looked up from the tactical display he had been studying. "Personally requested? As in, He actually said words to someone?"
"He communicated directly with the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, who then communicated with us. The message was very clear: 'Send my friend to Kalixus. The Tyranids will test him, and I wish to see how he grows.'"
"His friend?"
"That's what the message said."
Bartholomew's face went through several expressions, eventually settling on resigned acceptance.
"Of course He's calling me His friend to people. Of course He is. That's not going to cause any problems at all."
"It has already caused problems. The Ecclesiarchy is in an uproar. The Inquisition is divided. And the Jenkinsites are claiming this as proof of your divine status."
"Great. Wonderful. Exactly what I needed."
"On the bright side, no one will question our deployment to Kalixus. When the Emperor personally requests something, the entire Imperium moves to accommodate."
"That's not really a 'bright side.' That's more of a 'terrifying implication about the power dynamics at play' side."
"I've learned to take what I can get."
The journey to Kalixus took two weeks.
Two weeks of preparation, planning, and trying not to think too hard about the fact that they were about to face one of the most dangerous enemies in the galaxy.
Tyranids were not like Orks or Chaos cultists. They were not motivated by ideology or rage or the whispers of dark gods. They were simply hungry. An entire species designed for one purpose: consumption. They would devour everything in their path—biomass, technology, knowledge, souls—and move on to the next meal.
There was no negotiating with Tyranids.
There was no deterring Tyranids.
There was only fighting, winning, or dying.
"This is going to be different from our previous engagements," Captain Maximillan said during one of the planning sessions. "Chaos forces can be disrupted by targeting leadership. Orks can be broken by killing their Warboss. Tyranids are a gestalt. The Hive Mind coordinates all of them simultaneously. There is no single point of failure."
"So we can't just cut off the head and watch the body die," Bartholomew summarized.
"Exactly. We have to kill all of them. Every organism, from the largest Bio-Titan to the smallest Ripper. And they will fight to the last, because retreat is not a concept they understand."
"How many are we expecting?"
Maximillan's expression was grim.
"Based on fleet augury data, we're looking at approximately forty billion Tyranid organisms. Perhaps more."
Bartholomew's brain short-circuited.
"Forty billion?"
"The Hive Fleets are not small threats. They are extinction-level events."
"And we're supposed to fight that? With what, a hundred and fifty thousand soldiers and a few dozen Space Marines?"
"And a Titan," Deus Invictus interjected. "DO NOT FORGET ME."
"And a Titan. Which is one Titan against forty billion aliens."
"The odds are not ideal," Maximillan admitted. "But we have advantages. We have you."
"I'm one person!"
"One person who can teleport, manipulate fire, step through reality, match Primarchs in combat, and survive impossible situations through means that defy explanation. In the calculus of war, you are... a significant variable."
"That's putting a lot of pressure on a guy who still doesn't really understand what he's doing."
"Welcome to leadership."
Kalixus Prime was beautiful.
Or rather, it had been beautiful, before the Tyranids arrived.
From orbit, Bartholomew could see the devastation. Massive swathes of the planet's surface had already been stripped bare—the distinctive pattern of Tyranid consumption, where everything organic was broken down and absorbed into the Hive Fleet's biomass reserves.
Cities burned. Forests vanished. Oceans boiled as the bio-ships drank them dry.
And everywhere, everywhere, the chitinous tide of the Hive Mind's children.
"There are so many of them," Bartholomew whispered.
"THERE ARE APPROXIMATELY FORTY-TWO BILLION HOSTILE ORGANISMS ON THE PLANETARY SURFACE," Deus Invictus reported. "ADDITIONAL ORGANISMS ARE BEING SPAWNED FROM THE BIO-SHIPS AT A RATE OF APPROXIMATELY FIVE MILLION PER HOUR."
"That's... that's a lot of spawning."
"TYRANIDS ARE EFFICIENT REPRODUCERS. IT IS ONE OF THEIR FEW ADMIRABLE QUALITIES."
"Did you just compliment the enemy?"
"I AM CAPABLE OF ACKNOWLEDGING EFFECTIVE DESIGN EVEN IN ADVERSARIES. IT DOES NOT DIMINISH MY DESIRE TO DESTROY THEM."
The landing was chaos.
Not metaphorical chaos—actual, screaming, death-everywhere chaos.
The moment the transport ships entered the atmosphere, the Tyranids responded. Bio-weapons of every variety filled the air—acid sprays, barbed projectiles, things that exploded into clouds of flesh-eating spores.
Three transports went down in the first minute.
Seven more in the second.
By the time the survivors hit the ground, the 1st Jenkinsian Volunteers had already lost eight hundred soldiers.
And the real fighting hadn't even begun.
"CONTACT!" Sergeant Marcus Aurelius roared over the vox. "ENEMY WAVE APPROACHING FROM THE EAST! THOUSANDS OF HOSTILES!"
"I see them!" Bartholomew responded, pulling himself from the wreckage of his own transport. "All units, form defensive lines! Grey Knights, anchor the center! Space Wolves, take the flanks! Deus, I need covering fire!"
"WITH PLEASURE, PRINCEPS."
The Titan's weapons spoke, and a section of the approaching Tyranid swarm simply ceased to exist—vaporized by plasma fire so intense that the ground beneath them turned to glass.
But it wasn't enough.
For every Tyranid that died, ten more took its place.
The wave hit the Imperial lines like a tsunami of chitin and claws.
Bartholomew had fought before. He had faced Orks and daemons and even Primarchs.
But he had never faced anything like this.
The Tyranids were relentless. They didn't pause, didn't hesitate, didn't show fear or doubt or any emotion at all. They simply attacked, died, and were replaced by more of their kind.
And they were fast.
A Hormagaunt leaped at Bartholomew's face, scything talons aimed at his throat. He teleported backward, letting the creature pass through empty air, then stepped back into reality with his chainsword already swinging.
The Tyranid split in half.
Two more took its place.
He teleported again, appearing behind the new attackers, cutting them down before they could turn. But more were coming. Always more.
"There's too many!" a Jenkinsian trooper screamed.
"Hold the line!" Bartholomew shouted back. "We just need to—"
A Warrior-class Tyranid emerged from the swarm—a creature the size of a Space Marine, armed with bone-swords and a venom cannon that sprayed deadly bio-acid.
It locked eyes with Bartholomew.
And it smiled.
The Hive Mind, it seemed, had taken notice.
The fight with the Warrior was brutal.
The creature was faster than it had any right to be, its bio-weapons striking with precision that spoke to millions of years of evolutionary refinement. Its bone-swords carved arcs through the air that Bartholomew barely dodged, each miss leaving gouges in the ground that smoked with residual toxins.
Bartholomew teleported—but the Warrior anticipated, adjusting its strike to intercept his destination.
He stepped sideways through reality—but the creature was already turning, already attacking, already adapting.
"It's learning," Bartholomew realized with horror.
"TYRANID WARRIOR ORGANISMS ARE SYNAPSE CREATURES," Deus Invictus reported. "THEY SERVE AS CONDUITS FOR THE HIVE MIND'S INTELLIGENCE. THIS ONE IS RECEIVING TACTICAL DATA FROM THE GESTALT CONSCIOUSNESS."
"So the Hive Mind is specifically focusing on me?"
"IT APPEARS SO. YOU HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED AS A PRIORITY TARGET."
"Great. Wonderful. I'm flattered."
The Warrior lunged again, and this time Bartholomew didn't dodge.
Instead, he moved.
Not teleportation. Not reality-stepping. Something new.
His body flowed like water around the attack, bending and twisting in ways that shouldn't have been physically possible. The bone-swords passed within millimeters of his flesh without touching it. And as the Warrior's momentum carried it past, Bartholomew's own blade found its mark.
The Anointed Blade of Saint Marachius drove into the creature's skull, and the golden fire that Vulkan had gifted him erupted outward.
The Warrior burned.
Not just physically—something deeper. The synaptic link it maintained with the Hive Mind screamed as the holy fire severed it, isolating the creature from the gestalt consciousness.
For a moment—just a moment—the surrounding Tyranids hesitated.
Their coordination flickered.
Their unity wavered.
"NOW!" Bartholomew screamed. "HIT THEM NOW!"
The Imperial forces responded with everything they had.
The next three hours were a blur of violence.
Bartholomew fought like a man possessed—which, given the various entities that had blessed him, was technically accurate.
He discovered that his body could do things he had never imagined.
His reflexes were beyond human—beyond Space Marine. He could track multiple enemies simultaneously, his awareness expanding to encompass the entire battlefield.
His strength had grown. Not to Primarch levels, certainly, but far beyond what his frame should have been capable of. He could bisect Tyranid Warriors with single strikes, could punch through chitinous armor that should have been impervious to human force.
And his weapons responded to his will in ways they never had before.
The Anointed Blade sang with every swing, its holy runes blazing with golden fire. Tyranids that touched that fire simply ceased, their molecular structure unraveling as the blessed energy overwhelmed their biological processes.
The chainsword—his original Ultramarine weapon—had somehow evolved. Its teeth now glowed with a faint blue light, and each strike sent waves of disruptive energy through whatever it touched.
Even his lasgun—which he had barely used since acquiring better weapons—seemed more effective in his hands. Shots that should have merely wounded Tyranids instead punched clean through them, as if the weapon was somehow channeling more power than its design allowed.
"WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?" he shouted into the chaos.
You're becoming what you were always meant to become, the Warp-voice replied. The blessings are fully activating. You are no longer a mortal wielding borrowed power. You are becoming something new.
"WHAT SOMETHING NEW?"
We do not have a name for it yet. But it is magnificent.
In the Warp, the Chaos Gods watched with undisguised glee.
"He's finally using them," Tzeentch observed. "All the abilities we've given him over these months. He's finally integrating them."
"ABOUT TIME," Khorne growled. "I WAS GETTING IMPATIENT."
"You're always impatient."
"BECAUSE PATIENCE IS BORING. LOOK AT HIM! HE'S MAGNIFICENT!"
And Bartholomew was, objectively, magnificent. His movements were fluid, lethal, almost artistic. He carved through Tyranid swarms with an efficiency that would have made the Primarchs proud.
"We should give him more," Slaanesh suggested. "While he's in combat. While he can truly appreciate the gifts."
"I AGREE."
"As do I," Nurgle added.
Tzeentch considered.
"Very well. But nothing too dramatic. We don't want to break him."
"Define 'too dramatic.'"
"Let's start small. Speed. Strength. Enhanced durability. We can add more later if he survives."
"IF?"
"When. When he survives. I have seen the probabilities. He will survive this battle. And he will emerge stronger."
"THEN LET US MAKE HIM STRONGER STILL."
The four Chaos Gods reached out together—an unprecedented act of cooperation—and touched their favored mortal with additional blessings.
Bartholomew felt the change immediately.
It was like someone had turned up the volume on his entire existence. Everything became more. More vivid. More intense. More real.
His perception of time shifted. The Tyranids, which had been moving with terrifying speed, now seemed almost slow. He could see their attacks coming, could plan his responses, could dance between strikes that should have been impossibly fast.
His body responded with power he hadn't known he possessed. A single swing of his chainsword carved through three Warriors simultaneously. A burst of fire from his hands incinerated an entire pack of Hormagaunts. A stomp of his foot sent shockwaves through the ground that knocked dozens of smaller organisms off their feet.
"WHAT THE HELL?!" he screamed.
Blessings, the Warp-voice explained. The Chaos Gods are being... enthusiastic.
"THEY'RE DOING THIS NOW?"
They felt you were ready. And they were correct. Look at what you're accomplishing.
Bartholomew looked.
Around him, a circle of devastation had formed. Dead Tyranids carpeted the ground in heaps, their bodies still smoking from fire and energy discharge.
And his soldiers were staring at him with expressions of absolute awe.
"THE EMPEROR'S CHAMPION!" someone screamed. "HE BLAZES WITH THE EMPEROR'S LIGHT!"
"HIS POWER IS BEYOND MORTAL!"
"WE FIGHT BESIDE A GOD!"
"I'M NOT A GOD!" Bartholomew shouted back.
But no one was listening.
The battle turned.
It shouldn't have been possible. Forty billion Tyranids against a force of less than two hundred thousand Imperials. The math didn't work.
But math, as had been repeatedly established, didn't apply to Bartholomew.
His mere presence seemed to bolster the Imperial forces. Soldiers who should have been exhausted found new reserves of energy. Weapons that should have overheated kept firing. Wounds that should have been fatal somehow healed.
And the Tyranids...
The Tyranids were afraid.
Not individually—individual Tyranids were incapable of fear. But the Hive Mind, the vast gestalt consciousness that coordinated them all, was experiencing something it had rarely encountered in its eons of existence.
Uncertainty.
Every tactical adjustment it made was countered. Every concentrated assault was repelled. Every attempt to overwhelm the Imperial positions was met with fire and fury that defied explanation.
And at the center of it all, a single figure blazed like a sun, cutting down Tyranid organisms faster than even the Hive Mind could track.
For the first time in this campaign, the Hive Mind considered retreat.
"They're pulling back," Sergeant Marcus Aurelius reported, disbelief evident in his voice. "The main swarm is... withdrawing."
"That's impossible," Captain Maximillan replied. "Tyranids don't retreat."
"I'm looking at the augury data. They're definitely withdrawing. The bio-ships are repositioning. The ground forces are consolidating around the primary hive structure."
"Why? We haven't even damaged their main forces. This battle should have just begun."
They both turned to look at Bartholomew, who was standing amid the carnage, still glowing faintly with residual golden fire.
"I think," Maximillan said slowly, "we have our answer."
You scared them, the Warp-voice said, sounding impressed. The Hive Mind. An intelligence that has devoured galaxies. You scared it.
"I didn't mean to!"
You never mean to. That's part of what makes you so effective.
Bartholomew looked at his hands. They were still glowing. Still radiating power that he didn't understand.
"What am I becoming?" he asked quietly.
Something new. Something unprecedented. Something that even we do not fully understand.
"Is that supposed to be reassuring?"
No. But it is honest. We have always been honest with you.
"I know. That's one of the few things I can count on."
On Terra, the Emperor watched the battle through a thousand psychic threads, His attention fixed on His friend.
HE GROWS, the Emperor observed to Himself. FASTER THAN I ANTICIPATED. THE CHAOS GODS' BLESSINGS ARE INTEGRATING WITH MY OWN GIFTS. WITH VULKAN'S FIRE. WITH THE WARP-SENTIENCE'S PROTECTION. HE IS BECOMING...
The Emperor paused.
I DO NOT KNOW WHAT HE IS BECOMING. BUT I WILL NOT LET HIM FALL.
He reached out, subtly, carefully—and added His own contribution to the battle.
A wave of golden light washed across the battlefield, invisible to mortal eyes but devastating to the Tyranid psychic network. The Hive Mind's grip on its organisms weakened further. The coordinated assault became a confused scramble.
And the Imperial forces pushed forward.
GO, MY FRIEND, the Emperor projected. SHOW THEM WHAT YOU CAN DO. I AM WATCHING. I AM PROUD.
The final assault on the primary hive structure was spectacular.
Deus Invictus led the charge, his god-machine weapons blazing, carving a path through the Tyranid defenders.
Behind him came the Space Marines—Ultramarines and Space Wolves and Dark Angels and Grey Knights, fighting together in a display of unity that would have been unthinkable months ago.
And at the very front, advancing on foot, came Bartholomew.
He didn't run. He walked. Calmly, steadily, as if he were taking a stroll through a garden rather than advancing into the heart of an alien hive.
Tyranids threw themselves at him. Warriors and Carnifexes and creatures that defied classification.
He destroyed them all.
His blade sang with holy fire. His fists crackled with barely-contained energy. His very presence seemed to unmake the Tyranid organisms, their biological processes failing as they approached him.
"WHAT IS HE?" a Jenkinsian soldier whispered.
"He's the Emperor's Champion," another replied. "He's our hope."
The Hive Queen was waiting in the depths of the structure.
Massive. Ancient. A creature that had lived for millions of years, coordinating hive fleets that had consumed entire star systems.
She looked at Bartholomew with something that might have been curiosity.
You are different, her psychic voice echoed. Not prey. Not like the others. What are you?
"I'm just a guy," Bartholomew replied.
You are not. I have consumed civilizations. I have devoured worlds beyond counting. I know what 'just a guy' looks like. You are something else.
"I'm still figuring that out myself."
Then let me help you understand.
The Queen attacked.
The fight was unlike anything Bartholomew had experienced.
The Queen was fast—impossibly fast for her size. She wielded multiple weapon-limbs simultaneously, each strike powerful enough to crush a battle tank. And behind her, millions of Tyranid organisms waited, ready to swarm if she fell.
But Bartholomew had grown.
He matched her speed. He countered her strikes. He danced around her attacks with a grace that spoke to powers beyond mortal origin.
And when he finally saw his opening, he didn't hesitate.
The Anointed Blade drove deep into the Queen's skull, and the golden fire erupted outward.
No, the Queen's psychic voice whispered. This is not... how it ends...
"Sorry," Bartholomew said. "But this is exactly how it ends."
The fire consumed her.
And with her death, the Hive Mind's grip on Kalixus shattered completely.
The remaining Tyranids fell into chaos (lowercase).
Without the Queen's psychic coordination, they became little more than animals—dangerous, yes, but no longer coordinated. No longer guided by a vast intelligence.
The Imperial forces fell upon them with renewed vigor.
By nightfall, the battle was over.
Kalixus was saved.
The casualty reports were sobering.
Thirty-two thousand Jenkinsian Volunteers dead. One hundred and seven tanks destroyed. Three Space Marines fallen in combat. One Grey Knight wounded severely enough to require extensive augmetic repair.
But against forty billion Tyranids, those losses were... miraculous.
"This shouldn't have been possible," Inquisitor Vorn said, reviewing the data. "By any tactical calculation, we should have been overwhelmed within the first hour."
"I know," Bartholomew replied. He was sitting in his command tent, still covered in ichor and blood, too exhausted to even clean himself up.
"The Ecclesiarchy is already calling this the 'Miracle of Kalixus.' They're saying you channeled the Emperor's own light to smite the xenos."
"I channeled something. I'm not sure it was the Emperor."
"Does it matter? To the soldiers out there—to the billions across the Imperium who will hear about this—you are proof that the Emperor still protects. You are proof that miracles are real."
"I didn't ask for that."
"No. But you have it anyway."
The growth of the Jenkinsite religion after Kalixus was explosive.
Before the battle, they had numbered perhaps twenty million faithful.
After the battle, that number tripled within a week.
Holovid footage of Bartholomew fighting the Hive Queen had spread across the sector, across the segmentum, across the entire Imperium. People saw a lone figure, blazing with golden fire, striking down a creature that should have been unstoppable.
And they believed.
New Jenkinsite temples sprang up on a hundred worlds. Missionaries spread the "Gospel of the Champion" to populations desperate for hope. The holy text—The Confusions of the Blessed—went through seventeen new printings to meet demand.
The Ecclesiarchy, faced with a religious movement too large to suppress, finally made a decision.
"The Cult of the Emperor's Champion is hereby recognized as a legitimate expression of Imperial faith," Cardinal Horst announced in a galaxy-wide broadcast. "Brother Bartholomew, in his humility, may deny his divine status, but his actions speak louder than words. He is the Emperor's instrument, whether he accepts this truth or not."
Bartholomew watched the broadcast with his head in his hands.
"Brother Bartholomew," he muttered. "They're calling me 'Brother Bartholomew' now."
"It's better than 'Saint Bartholomew,'" Vorn pointed out. "They were considering that option."
"How is that better?!"
"Saints are expected to be dead. Brothers can be alive. It's a technicality, but a significant one."
Commissar Ciaphas Cain was not jealous.
He wanted to make that absolutely clear, to himself and everyone else.
He was not jealous of Bartholomew Jenkins. He was not jealous of the man's impossible abilities, his growing legend, his army of devoted followers, his personal friendship with the Emperor.
He was not jealous of the fact that people looked at Jenkins with genuine awe and love, while they looked at Cain with fear and reverence born of propaganda.
He was definitely not jealous of the fact that Jenkins' confusion and self-deprecation were seen as endearing humility, while Cain's own attempts to downplay his heroism were dismissed as false modesty.
He was absolutely, positively, one hundred percent not jealous.
"You're jealous," Jurgen observed.
"I am not."
"You've been staring at the holovid footage of Jenkins for the past three hours, sir."
"I'm studying his combat techniques."
"You've been muttering 'it's not fair' under your breath."
"That was about... something else."
"What else, sir?"
Cain didn't have an answer.
Because the truth was, he was jealous. Not of the power or the fame or the religious movement—those were all things he would have run screaming from.
He was jealous of the authenticity.
Jenkins didn't pretend. Jenkins didn't construct an image. Jenkins was exactly what he appeared to be: a confused, overwhelmed person doing his best in an impossible situation.
And people loved him for it.
Meanwhile, Cain had spent his entire career carefully crafting a persona, maintaining a facade, being something he wasn't. And now, watching someone succeed by simply being themselves, he felt something unfamiliar.
Envy.
"I hate this," he muttered.
"Yes, sir. Will you be attending tonight's celebration? Lord Jenkins has specifically requested your presence."
"Of course he has. He specifically requests everyone's presence because he genuinely wants to include people." Cain sighed. "Yes, I'll attend. Someone needs to represent the normal, non-miraculous heroes of the Imperium."
"Very good, sir. Shall I prepare your dress uniform?"
"Yes. And Jurgen?"
"Sir?"
"If you ever tell anyone about this conversation, I will find creative ways to make your life difficult."
"Understood, sir. Though I should mention that my life is already quite difficult, so you may need to be very creative indeed."
Despite everything, Cain laughed.
The celebration that night was unlike anything the Jenkinsian forces had experienced.
Soldiers danced and sang and drank (perhaps too much). Space Marines stood in solemn appreciation, their version of celebration being slightly less frozen than usual. Even the Grey Knights had unbent enough to accept cups of recaf, though they didn't actually drink them.
And at the center of it all, Bartholomew sat with his command staff, looking exhausted but happy.
"You did well today," Vulkan said via holo-link. His image flickered but his warmth came through clearly. "You embraced your abilities fully for the first time. How does it feel?"
"Terrifying," Bartholomew admitted. "But also... right? Like I was finally doing what I was supposed to do, even though I don't know what that is."
"That is often how purpose reveals itself. Not as a clear instruction, but as a feeling. A rightness."
"Did you feel that way? When you first fought alongside the Emperor?"
Vulkan was quiet for a moment.
"Yes. I did. It was the first time in my life that I felt I belonged. That I was part of something larger than myself." His smile was gentle. "You are feeling the same, I think. Welcome to the family, little smith."
"The family?"
"The brotherhood of those who serve a cause greater than themselves. It is a small family, but a proud one."
Later, as the celebration wound down, Bartholomew found himself standing alone on the observation deck, looking out at the stars.
The fleet was preparing to move on. There were always more battles, more threats, more impossible situations that somehow required his presence.
But for now, for this moment, there was peace.
You are thinking deeply, the Warp-voice observed.
"I'm trying to understand what I've become."
And what have you concluded?
"That I'm something new. Something that shouldn't exist. A convergence of blessings and powers from sources that should be incompatible." Bartholomew smiled slightly. "And that somehow, against all odds, it's working."
It is. And it will continue to work. Because you are the center now. The nexus around which the galaxy is beginning to turn.
"That's a lot of pressure."
It is. But you will bear it. Because that is what you do. You bear impossible burdens and somehow make them look easy.
"They don't feel easy."
Nothing worthwhile ever does.
Bartholomew was quiet for a moment.
"Thank you," he said finally. "For everything. For protecting me, for guiding me, for being there when I had no idea what was happening."
We are part of you now. Where you go, we go. What you face, we face. Until the end of time and beyond.
"That's both comforting and slightly terrifying."
We know. That seems to be your natural state.
"It really is."
In the Warp, the Chaos Gods watched their mortal rest, their satisfaction palpable.
"He grows stronger with each battle," Tzeentch observed.
"HE KILLED A HIVE QUEEN," Khorne said, something like pride in his voice. "ALONE. WITH A SWORD. THAT IS WORTHY OF RESPECT."
"The blessings are fully integrated now," Nurgle added. "He is no longer merely human. He is something more. Something ours."
"Something everyone's," Slaanesh corrected. "The Emperor has blessed him. The Omnissiah has claimed him. The Warp-sentience protects him. He belongs to everyone."
"THAT IS ANNOYING."
"It is. But it is also what makes him unique. He is the only being in existence who is blessed by all the major powers simultaneously. That has never happened before. It may never happen again."
"Then we must ensure he survives," Tzeentch said. "For as long as possible. For as long as he can continue to entertain us."
"FOR AS LONG AS HE CAN CONTINUE TO GROW."
"For as long as he can continue to be him."
The four gods fell silent, watching their mortal sleep, watching the future unfold in ways even they could not predict.
And for once, they were content to simply wait.
On Terra, the Emperor felt His friend's exhaustion across the vast distance of space.
REST, BARTHOLOMEW, He projected gently, a whisper of psychic warmth. YOU HAVE EARNED IT. TOMORROW WILL BRING NEW CHALLENGES, BUT TONIGHT, REST.
And in his quarters aboard the flagship, Bartholomew smiled in his sleep.
Because for the first time in his new life, he felt truly at peace.
He had an army. He had allies. He had friends—both mortal and divine.
And he had purpose.
What more could anyone ask for?
[END OF CHAPTER TWELVE]