Chapter 45: An elder brother is like a father; children must be taught

Before the screen, Lorgar raised his hand, testing it as it reached through the projections, revealing a look of curiosity.

He then looked at the worried figure standing behind Roboute Guilliman—a brother almost as tall as himself—and spoke:

"Roboute Guilliman? Our eldest brother says we are brothers."

"I can understand the reasons for your vigilance for the time being. Judging from the state of my future sons, they have lost their faith."

"I fear I am the same."

Lorgar noticed that after he finished speaking, a flicker of hesitation, and even remorse, appeared on Guilliman's face.

"I cannot maintain this for long; this is our eldest brother's ability," he raised the arm of his dissolving psychic avatar. "Guilliman, no matter what you have done in the future, I forgive you, just as our father apologized to me—"

Bang! A Custodian behind Guilliman crushed the chair in front of him:

"Foul! Blasphemous! How could the Emperor—"

Aaron hurriedly jumped down from Guilliman's chair, rushed over to the Custodian, and shouted:

"Shut up! This is family business between us! That old man hasn't said anything, so why are you jumping up and down?"

Lorgar was amused by his eldest brother's antics, and chuckled softly:

"So, I also ask you, my brother Guilliman, please trust our eldest brother. At least he is more reliable than our father, and he loves us more than our father ever did."

Guilliman's hand still remained on the button, unreleased. He said nothing, merely watching Lorgar's psychic avatar gradually dissolve.

Only after the Primarch's presence completely vanished did Guilliman slump back into his chair, like a hamster suddenly released from a tightened wheel.

He was exhausted, but the very first words he uttered still fulfilled his duty:

"Classify this signal record as top secret. Any query requests must be routed to the restricted clearance level of the clone Primarchs."

His eyes ached to close, yet he continued to check the detected data of Lorgar's psychic signature—there was no trace of corruption, perfectly pure.

Damn this duty.

Why must he suppress his inner emotions and execute every rational command with such icy coldness?

The central console slowly rose, and Guilliman's personal guards, accompanied by a Custodian, personally carried out the sealing of the signal source.

The other Custodian, Phoebus, whom Aaron had stopped moments before, was physically bending the broken chair back into place.

He muttered darkly:

"My Lord, it was too reckless just now. If this had been a ruse of the Chaos Gods, waiting to strike the moment the fleet exited the Warp, we would have lost no small amount of force."

"You should have opened fire directly. If it truly was the ritual effect Your Lordship believed in, it wouldn't have caused any harm either."

It was Aaron's first time seeing these colossal rooms constructed entirely of metal. Unfortunately, the characteristic curiosity of a young man could not be indulged, as he had to focus immediately on firing back:

"How can you talk like that? Are you all completely obsessed? You want to fight the moment you meet, and friendly fire doesn't matter as long as you fight? Just to gamble on the mere possibility that an enemy is standing before you?"

Phoebus maintained the utmost composure, a muffled voice escaping from beneath his helm:

"We have no choice! Only a merciless strike is the best answer to the Emperor."

"You have not witnessed the treacherous deceit and foul heresy of those abhorrent xenos; we have no time to determine whether someone is friend or foe, because we have no margin for failure!"

Aaron could feel the anger in Phoebus's tone. Guilliman timely relaxed the hand covering his face and stated:

"Phoebus, this has nothing to do with our eldest brother; it was never his responsibility. Lorgar's faults indeed stem in part from our father."

"And I am complicit."

Unable to tolerate the Lord Commander's words, Phoebus struggled to contain his fury, his voice trembling:

"My Lord, Aaron Wilson may not understand, but you were about to press the fire command just a moment ago. Why did you stop? We do not possess the chips to gamble, nor the luxury of choice."

"Enough, Phoebus!" Guilliman roared, his face even flushing slightly.

He rarely lost his temper in front of others. His adoptive parents had taught him that anger solves nothing and only leads to self-destruction.

In truth, he had been about to press it. But it was the first time he wore that fur skirt over the Armor of Fate.

It sounded absurd, but his movement had been impeded by that very fur skirt, much like one of his father's perverse jests, tugging at some part of his body.

It made him hesitate, until he saw his eldest brother appear.

All of this was utterly ridiculous.

Aaron stepped up to Guilliman, patted his knee, and turned back to look at Phoebus:

"I am sorry. I know nothing of the future, and I am not familiar with your plight."

"Still, Phoebus, allow me to use your name."

Aaron took a deep breath, his expression turning resolute:

"Now you have a new choice! I do not know if my grand words are merely a joke compared to the pain you have all endured. But this dark future, of which I know nothing, has not yet come to pass for me."

"I will use all my strength to stop it, to change it. Even if it means achieving what my father failed to do!"

The only lesson Aaron had learned from his father was never to suffer from internal friction, but to hold fast to one's goals.

If his father chose to let things drift in the future, and even came to regret it,

then he would step in for his father and change it all!

An eldest brother is like a father; a child needs to be taught!

Phoebus straightened up, his grip tightening on his blade:

"I have heard many grand words, but only action brings results."

The Custodian turned and strode away, unwilling to prolong the entanglement.

At that moment, upon the central platform, only the brothers Aaron and Guilliman remained.

Aaron approached the Primarch and offered words of comfort:

"Leave the past to me, and do as you will with the future. I believe you can bear all of this, and father—well, father more or less believes so. He said with his own mouth that if you could take over his duties, that wouldn't be bad either."

Guilliman's hand finally relaxed, and he exhaled a long breath, looking up at his brother.

Aaron stood on tiptoe, poking Guilliman's cheek in an attempt to coax a smile from him:

"If we meet our other brothers, I will love them before they can make their mistakes. No, I loved them even before I ever laid eyes upon them."

Aaron's form began to grow ethereal; this dual dreamscape could not last much longer.

"Oh, I have to go! Remember, where you can see the stars by looking up at the three pyramids, I wrote a letter to you on a clay tablet!"

"Also, father says he agrees to let you be the Emperor. I don't know if that's any help to you, but that's all I know about you!"

He began to fade, and finally vanished altogether.

The next instant, the departing Custodian Phoebus was tripped by a small floor panel, his flawless physique faltering upon catching those final words.

Had anyone familiar with the Custodes witnessed this, they would have suspected Tzeentch himself had personally stepped out to trip him.

Phoebus clawed gouges into the ground with both hands:

"His Majesty—His Majesty said He intends to do what? Pass the throne to the Lord Commander? This was not included in the submitted communications of Malcador and Cawl! Damn it, those insidious Ultramarines truly are consumed by ambition!"