Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Battle of Macurag, Part One

Guilliman now had a rudimentary understanding of the current state of the Imperium of Man, and all he had learned over these ten millennia filled his heart with inexpressible sorrow. The empire for which he would once have laid down his life, that great nation that once embodied the spirit of human advancement and exploration, was gone. Now, the Imperium was nothing but a decrepit giant, marching endlessly through the universe with its vast, decaying body.

What made it all the more tragic was that, in this era, the Emperor was worshipped as a god—precisely what the Emperor himself had so vehemently opposed. And yet, now, nearly every world of the Imperium housed cathedrals dedicated to his veneration. The irony was cruel: this very practice, once the Emperor’s greatest objection, had in this moribund empire become almost the only means by which stability was maintained.

In his meditation chamber, Guilliman vented his anguish upon the lavish tapestries depicting the Emperor’s holy visage. Again and again, he demanded answers from his father—what had become of the Imperium, why he had been awakened, why he must bear witness to this decaying empire.

“If I must see this wretched ruin, I’d have been better off dying in Horus’s rebellion,” he murmured to himself, sitting alone in the chamber.

Yet he understood that he could never abandon the Imperium, even in its decrepitude.

“Try to look on the bright side—at least the Imperium still stands. Things aren’t as dire as you feared.” Wang Ming stood atop the high walls of Hera Fortress beside Guilliman and Fulgrim, gazing down at the Ultramarines and Travelers repairing the fortress below.

Guilliman merely gave a bitter smile at Wang Ming’s words, remaining silent.

“It might be better if it weren’t,” he thought sadly.

Despite his despair at the current state of the Imperium, the war for Macragge was not yet over. All sorrow and emotion would have to wait until after the fighting; now was the time for battle.

Under Guilliman’s command, the Ultramarines and their mortal auxiliaries coordinated to annihilate one Chaos traitor stronghold after another. Even those objectives that would have required immense casualties to take were overturned by the Travelers.

The 2,200 Travelers participating in the war alongside the Ultramarines also learned some basic tactics. The Astartes possessed remarkable ability to learn—their near-photographic memory and enhanced neural reflexes allowed the Travelers to master the fundamentals of an Adeptus Astartes’ combat skills in the shortest time.

“Li Weihua! Li Weihua! Where’s your armor company? This is Second Company—we’ve got a Warhound ahead and need fire support!” Second Company’s Captain Chen Tao watched the Warhound-class Titan before their position, contacting Fourth Armored Company’s commander, Li Weihua, over the comms for fire support.

The traitor Titan was too much even for the Travelers’ heavy weapons—the massive, Chaos-corrupted feet trampled their positions, while its twin autocannons kept up a relentless barrage.

Though the Travelers were immortal, pain was something they still felt, and each death was excruciating. The Travelers of First Regiment, unless absolutely necessary, avoided treating death as casually as those of the Second Regiment—they preferred to fight with tactics.

After Chen Tao called in for support, it wasn’t long before six Sicaran battle tanks and a Baneblade super-heavy tank rolled swiftly onto the plain behind Second Company’s lines.

“We’re here—we see the Warhound. Preparing to fire.”

The six Sicarans and the Baneblade unleashed their weapons on the Warhound. A hail of autocannon shells and armor-piercing rounds from the twin-accelerated cannons overloaded the Titan’s void shields, and their firepower hammered directly against its armor. In moments, the Warhound was reduced to a burning, smoking heap of twisted metal.