Carrying the two gender-swapped Primarchs, Caleb just returned home.
Only to see that the gameboard had transformed into a massive stellar map sandbox.
Based on Caleb's estimation, this star map should be a portion of the 500 Worlds of Ultramar from the original lore.
The many worlds within it were indeed much better off than most places in the Imperium.
However—due to Guilliman's "self-mutilation" maneuver, many worlds, excluding Ultramar itself, were actually far inferior to the time when the Primarch was still present.
Even though these worlds were still ranked among the best in the Imperial economy—they were still a far cry from the 30k era.
Caleb locked the icon on the gameboard onto an unassuming agricultural world.
This world maintained a relatively primitive natural landscape, but at the same time, a large amount of farmland had already been replaced by mechanization.
Apart from the core capital city, the surrounding estates featured many buildings in the style of ancient Greece and Rome.
These structures, made of marble and plasteel, certainly made life much better for the ordinary populace.
At the same time—those seemingly rigid, yet painstakingly drafted by Guilliman, "Codex of the 'Second Imperium'" well regulated the minimum standard of living for the populace.
Here, Caleb could even see government departments distributing cheap flatbread.
In other words, on these planets of Ultramar, as long as you weren't too incompetent, you likely wouldn't starve to death.
The administrative efficiency and management capability of this agricultural world were indeed much stronger than that of Francis or whoever that was before.
However, that didn't stop the lower classes from suffering in dire straits, while the nobles engaged in infighting.
How should one put it—even within Ultramar, besides having enough to eat, you still had to live a painful life.
Clearly, without the Primarch, the management capabilities of many worlds had indeed declined severely.
To the point where they couldn't even fulfill the "Ultramar Basic Law" that Guilliman had established back then.
There was still a day and a half left on the gameboard—however—within these 500 worlds, Caleb sensed a hint of crisis.
Green icons suddenly appeared above some of the worlds, and when Caleb clicked into them, he discovered that these worlds had actually fallen into a plague!
People who were already unable to receive medical care experienced severe mutations in their bodies.
Horns grew on their heads, and bizarre pustules grew all over their bodies.
At first, these serfs or laborers didn't have any problems.
They could even talk to their families, describing how they had already seen the future of a beautiful deity.
However, as time passed, these people tormented by illness gradually lost their sanity.
They would laughingly attack those around them and drag them into the embrace of Father Nurgle.
In their perception, this wasn't an evil act; it was a necessary path to let their families embrace paradise.
Thus, these plague armies, resembling walking corpses, appeared across layers of the gameboard.
Many of the plague zombies even retained their sanity; they would pick up weapons and shoot those who resisted their preaching.
This caused many planets to fall into plague rebellions.
And initially, Macragge and the Imperial institutions were completely unaware of this.
[Nurgle: The plague shall descend upon Macragge!]
Caleb could even hear the strange, repetitive voice of the narrator.
Clearly, Father Nurgle was a bit angry; perhaps the corruption of that one child had made Father Nurgle feel fearful and furious.
He had actually launched the Plague War a hundred years ahead of schedule.
Really want to figure out why Father Nurgle would be this angry.
By all logic, Father Nurgle should be very tolerant of his children.
However, when Caleb's perspective switched to the Garden in Nurgle's realm, he understood why.
Because after that Great Unclean One named Kuves returned, he had started renovating and singing karaoke in the Garden!
[Kuves: Great Ultramar is my homeworld, I will transform the Garden to look like that!]
[All the dirty little flowers are getting shoveled out; I'm going to turn this place into paradise!]
Looking at the part of the Garden where Kuves was, Caleb suddenly understood why Nurgle was so furious.
After this weirdo went back, he not only shoveled out all the vegetation in the Garden.
He even purified the plague from certain creatures that were originally there.
This guy would hold up a big Ultramarines banner and then proceed to heal the sick like Isha.
Isha, who had been hiding there recently, had also become extremely close to this Kuves.
Even now, the Eldar goddess Isha was living there.
The goddess Isha, the mistress of the Garden, particularly enjoyed chatting with this blue little brat.
Just chatting about life, redemption, and other strange topics.
He looked at the Eldar goddess in the estate castle.
Caleb finally understood why Nurgle was so angry; it was one thing for his own brat to be infected by Ultramar, but now his wife was infected by Ultramar too—isn't this top-tier cuckoldry?
Seeing this scene, Caleb wanted to laugh—wasn't this a form of NTR?
Not only that—the remnants of Hive Fleet Behemoth had somehow accumulated a massive amount of power again.
They seemed to have smelled something, gathering almost all their strength and advancing towards the vicinity of Macragge!
Although, based on the travel speed of these bugs, it would likely take decades.
But if these bugs arrived at Macragge together with the Plague Fleet, it would truly be a hell-level chaotic brawl.
At this moment, Caleb finally noticed why these bugs were so restless.
Because a genestealer was frantically calling the Hive Fleet.
[Genestealer 1: Come quickly, come quickly, there are countless delicious things here!]
[The whole planet is biomass, I'm stuffed, hurry up and come!]
[Genestealer 2: Come quickly, the corn is almost too much to eat!]
[I can't stop my mouth, my stomach is about to explode!]
How could the Hive Fleet endure hearing such news?
They had never even heard of a planet that could make all the genestealer stuffed!
Meanwhile—the surface of the planet marked by the genestealer had formed layers upon layers of thick biomass ocean.
When these images were transmitted to the Hive Fleet, even the Hive Queen, upon seeing this, felt as ecstatic and intoxicated as if she were on drugs.
Countless planets that were resisting the bugs suddenly found that the bugs had run away!
They were gnawing and gnawing, then suddenly dropped the food in their mouths and advanced rapidly towards Ultramar!
So, in Caleb's field of vision, these Hive Fleets were gathering towards Macragge from all directions.
Just looking at this dense, crowded scene, it was already hard to imagine how tragic the upcoming battle would be.
Not only that.
In the shadows of Macragge, there were other forces surging with undercurrents.
Some hedonistic cults began to propagate the return of a great Primarch.
They claimed—that the Lord of Excess would completely corrupt the gene-father of the Ultramarines.
And using this as a headline, they invited those who pursued excitement and pleasure.
Caleb had only sat by the gameboard for 6 hours, and as a result, the entire Ultramar was already in a state of chaotic mess.
Except for the core region of Ultramar which was still spared, various events had basically occurred on other planets, big and small.
Actually, Macragge might be better off now than before, because there was an infinite supply of food and biomass.
This directly allowed Macragge to launch the "Macragge 10 Billion Subsidy" for other planets.
Now, Macragge had nothing else, but it had an extremely large amount of food.
Applications for other things might be rejected or unable to be approved, but as for food, there was as much as one wanted!
"By the All-Father!"
"Such a magnificent ocean of biomass, it's truly hard to imagine!"
"By the way, why does this corn double every 5 minutes?"
"How did such awesome stuff appear here?"
Sicarius held the corn sample in his hand and asked a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus exploration team.
At first, they thought this corn was a disaster, a curse. But after sacrificing the population of several hundred million from an agricultural world, the entirety of Macragge no longer had to worry about food.
Although Sicarius felt deep grief over the deaths of those hundreds of millions of citizens, he felt that their sacrifice was very much worth it.
Take that entire Corn Planet that constantly maintained its own mass, for instance.
It was simply an endless source of energy that could never be finished!
Previously, the taxes paid by this agricultural world could, at most, support a portion of the worlds in Macragge.
But now, relying solely on that planet that could continuously produce corn—Sicarius could even pay the tithes for all the other 500 worlds!
To be honest, as an Ultramarine, Sicarius had never fought a war with such abundant resources.
Even Calgar had happily gone off to elbow-strike the xenos known as the Tau.
Gazing at that astronomical figure of grain production, Sicarius wondered how he should utilize this massive hoard of assets.
The prices of bread, cake, and other foods on Macragge were now cheaper than air!
If not for the biomass and the need for transport ships to move it, food would essentially be free nowadays.
"By the Primarch!"
"This is truly a dilemma!"
"With so much resource output, I don't even know how to spend it. What should I do?"
If Guilliman knew his home had a planet with infinite food, he would wake up laughing from his dreams.
Unfortunately, he was afflicted with a deadly poison and could only lie still within a stasis field.
Archmagos Cawl had not yet created the Armor of Fate for him to wear—if the Primarch were made to stand up now, it wouldn't be long before Guilliman kicked the bucket on Macragge.
However, very soon—the Inquisition brought very, very bad news to Sicarius.
Plagues had begun to break out inexplicably on several worlds.
Simultaneously, many frontier planets began to lose contact for no apparent reason.
"It seems it's not all good news!"
"Even with a steady stream of food production—the xenos threat still endangers the security of the Imperium at every moment!"
Sicarius said no more; he did not choose to dispatch any forces to those worlds that had lost contact.
Because the Ultramarines were currently concentrating on crushing those damned xenos of the Tau Imperium.
However, as the saying goes, if nothing unexpected happens, then something unexpected is about to happen.
Just as only a few hours remained on Caleb's gameboard.
The originally peaceful Macragge was suddenly shrouded in a Warp storm!
Boom!
The Adeptus Astra Telepathica, responsible for planetary communications, exploded on the spot, and then the surviving Astropaths began to shiver and dance a jittery tap dance.
They were like leper gnomes afflicted by a plague, dancing inexplicably.
Their mouths muttered things like: "Plague, 500 worlds!"
"Lust, Emperor's Children, and such!"
Left with no choice, the Inquisition could only execute these individuals who had already gone mad.
However—during the process of executing these madmen, many drop pods covered in pustules suddenly fell from the sky.
The entire Imperium had failed to detect this Plague Fleet of unknown origin.
The Imperial fleet was also caught off guard, suddenly coming under attack by the Plague Fleet!
Coercing a large number of spacecraft, these Plague Fleets began to constantly smash into Macragge.
No one knew why these fellows had appeared here.
Nor did anyone know why the ships of Typhus of the Death Guard would suddenly appear in the skies above Macragge!
"Quick, protect Macragge! We cannot allow these desecrators to pollute our holy land!"
"All members of the Honor Guard, follow me!"
"We cannot let traitors offend our home!"
The reaction speed of the Ultramarines was quite fast.
The enemy had only just reached the ground when these Ultramarines were already engaging the Death Guard at the landing sites.
In orbit, a large number of Imperial ships also opened fire on the Plague Fleet.
However, not long after their shells left the barrels, a strange corrosive power began to rot away the entire fleet.
Millions of people on the ships were turned into walking dead, like zombies.
And these people had one thing in common: all these personnel had been recruited from other planets!
Typhus watched the fleets being reduced to ash and began to let out a gurgling laugh.
He hadn't expected Father Nurgle's plan to be so perfect!
Manipulating causality was something only the Chaos Gods would execute.
Ordinary people could lose the entire game with one slight misstep, but only the Chaos Gods could perfectly master the causality of the Warp.
Chaos's target this time was actually the Fortress of Hera, the sanctuary of the Ultramarines on Macragge.
The target this time was the Primarch; they intended to use the profane power of Chaos to corrupt the Ultramarines' Primarch!
Of course, Typhus didn't think he could defeat the opponent with just his small force.
This was the home of the Ultramarines, after all—the number of Ultramarines alone was dozens of times his own force.
Naturally, the forces of Chaos were not entirely without reinforcements—besides the Death Guard's participation in this game.
There was another heavyweight fellow participating in this Great Game.
While a large number of Ultramarines were being lured away by the Death Guard, a group of Noise Marines in purple armor quietly slipped inside.
Of course, they didn't really 'quietly' slip in, because their Primarch had already killed every enemy along the way.
From the entrance of the sanctuary all the way to the interior of the Prayer Hall.
The path was strewn with the corpses of Ultramarines lying in every direction.
Even in death, these corpses were posed in strange dance positions, as if performing some kind of choreography; if one were to piece these corpses together, they would form a romantic dance suite.
Ordinary people could hardly understand this thing called 'art'.
However, the Emperor's Children very much loved this thing that their Primarch Fulgrim called art.
"How truly interesting!" Fulgrim licked his lips; his half-human, half-serpent body gave him terrifyingly explosive speed.
He just stood there, silently watching Guilliman, who was sealed within the stasis field.
The smile on the corners of his mouth was irrepressible!
"So many years have passed, and you're still the same as ever!"
"Maintaining a posture of imminent defeat?"
"Rather than becoming enemies later, why not come and be my sister?"
"The Lord of Pleasure will have a place for you!"
"You should have surrendered earlier, instead of clinging to life like this!"
Fulgrim, having slaughtered his way from start to finish, looked mockingly at Guilliman within the stasis field.
He didn't believe the current Guilliman could do anything to him. After all, the former Guilliman hadn't been able to kill him, and now that Fulgrim had successfully ascended to daemonhood, it was naturally impossible for him to lose to Guilliman.
"Why hasn't this countdown ended yet?"
Caleb looked at the time; the countdown still had a full 15 minutes left!
Heavens, a full 15 minutes—that was enough for Fulgrim to kill Guilliman how many times?
Guilliman was still poisoned and already on the verge of death. If he fought a Fulgrim in his prime in this state, wouldn't that just be seeking death?
[14 minutes remaining.]
[Host may prepare to deploy units.]
[Note: This deployment must include the Primarch: Guilliman—if not, deployment will be impossible!]
"I see!"
Caleb finally understood; perhaps Guilliman had to achieve a 'life through death' rebirth by Fulgrim's hand.
Of course, the price was that Guilliman's original body might truly be gone and would have to be written off.
However, Guilliman's soul could still be preserved, kept within the body of a loli woman!
"Tsk tsk tsk!"
Caleb picked up that blonde-haired, blue-eyed loli Guilliman; just looking at this cute appearance, he couldn't help but laugh out loud.
He hoped Guilliman could accept it. Anyway, his big brother Lion had already accepted it, so it should be easy for Guilliman to accept it too, right?