On Illevar, most of the current locals have never seen , new generations replacing the old and only my extended family benefiting from life extension gifts.
Even so, the use of the rare chronophage blades was restricted to Blanks and Pariahs. The rich nobles and rchant had sufficient fortunes to prolong their lives with rejuvenate treatnts, while my soldiers and scribes supporting the Lancefire Dynasty received better food and dication, which gave them a fairly long service ti of about a century.
Construction of new Hive Cities had progressed quite nicely, with three new cities dug underground and the Zero Hive ford of Blanks had grown to encompass the whole valley, with suburbs sprawling outward already.
Granted, every single Blank man had a large harem of his own, with hundreds of concubines pumping babies out as fast as humanly possible.
It was ti for phase two, unleashing most of these Blank n into the colonies and mixing the genes with the Catachans once more. Most of them were rather useless to the Astartes training, since only my bloodline had a fair chance of surviving the gene-seed implantation.
Instead, I could provide them with administrative and commanding positions in the local governnts, especially in Hive Cities of Illevar and Natale, and on Salvation my own Cardinal World.
A million such n, and I could be fairly sure there will be no Warp corruption and a rather more skilled leadership, since the Zero Hive had a formidable schooling system.
The influx of immigrants had continued as well, the vast majority being young won imported as reparations and tithes for my ships and troops actions to rescue their ho worlds, or as indentured servants bartered by various Forge Worlds in exchange for STC templates and again military aid.
The rest of the immigrants were PDF and Guard regints, or skilled technicians and scribes provided as colonization support.
Veteran troops made the best colonists, because this has always worked, since the days of the Roman Empire.
Catachan regints were ever better, but I was reaching the limit of possible requisition there, after stealing away more than half of that planet's trading stock. But Cadian and Valhallan regints weren't that bad either, and the dangers of a new colony were sotis equal with those of a battlefield. From predators and hostile natives, to harsh environnts and poor infrastructure, colonizing and exploiting a new world was never easy.
It sounds far fetched, but even the Catachans sotis had problems with Titan-sized saurians and swarms of flesh-eating locusts.
I had to visit a dozen of problem causing worlds and help out, either by eradicating certain species or using them as target practice for the Lanters and the techmarines.
As the year had passed, a whole new army had been recruited and trained, 20 armor regints, 10 artillery and air support and 70 heavy infantry, with a couple of special Auxilia regints with better gear to provide screening for our Knights and Titans.
Less than 1 percent of the original troops had stayed as non-coms and officers, while the forr troops were given large areas of land and a dozen won each as reward for their service.
In twenty years I could expect to raise five tis more troops without affecting the productivity, simply due to population growth and better education.
Already, scouting expeditions were mapping out the nearby stars for the next expansion sphere, the one which would take us from a re 400-planet kingdom to a 4000-world star empire.
By the third phase in 40 years ti, there should be a sizable power in this area, over 40 thousand worlds ho to a quadrillion people. And by the next century...well. We shall see if we reach that far.
First I had to make sure the Imperium of Man stayed safe (sowhat) and kept the attention of the galactic enemies onto itself, mainly by defending the Forge Worlds and cleaning up more Hive Worlds.
That part already seed to work fine, as the Primarchs were all glory hounds and genetically predisposed to stir trouble for themselves wherever they went.
Thousands of cults and cabals were forming against them, gathering xenos and traitors into giant conspiracies aid at placing them in power, restoring the status quo or destroy the Imperium or other combinations.
Everything and everyone, from rogue psykers, disgruntled Navigators, heretek techpriests and genestealer cults, to crazy Eldar and Dark Eldar elents, bloodthirsty Necrons and demons, failed Inquisitors and corrupted priests and bishops, renegade Guard officers and space marines, pirates and corsairs, slavers and mutants, up to entire Navy Fleets and Sector Governors, all opposed the Angel Reborn and the Indomitus Crusade of his Brother Guilliman.
Much less so wherever I had reach, with my Obsidian Auguries and the network of Rogue Traders, Ordo Xenos and the Pharos itself.
I spent an entire month in the Pharos, scanning the Ultima Segntum for new opponents and deploying various types of counterasures, from homade Tyranid Eversors to plasma warheads and various canisters of nerve gas or glass-transmuting viruses.
The Tau received another dose of 40k ugly truth, a dozen Sept Worlds being invaded by demons via new Warp Rifts, while a couple of new allied xenos worlds burst into Exterminatus flas.
That invasion was the last drop, since a couple of Tau Septs deployed new weapons against demons, from suppressive forcefields of the Earth caste, similar to the Bastion psychic fields I recovered from Vigilus, to blue-fla pyroweapons by the Fire caste, probably so type of enhanced prothium like the Sisters of Battle used. So Tau battlesuits even had energy blades, crackling with electric arcs as they fought the demonic invaders.
They were starting to develop working strategies against this new enemy, but it was far from what I needed. Give them a decade or two and try again.
The Tau had also began expanding vertically, both by enlarging their cities and by exploring towards the upper side of the galaxy, trying to maintain a small print on the planar map while still growing in volu.
Smart play, and one I could allow for now, except when heading towards human planets. They had settled a couple of Necron Tomb Worlds though, which should provide them plenty of high level technology to study, if they survived.
As for the Tyranids, the Segntum was mostly clear right now, except for two: Hive Fleet problem. And perhaps find so she-wolves mates for Canis.
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