Seraphs of the Emperor’s Judgment

Chapter 59: Saul Tarvitz

Originally, the Emperor's Children were known as the Third Legion. Its recruits were drawn from the noble houses of Europa on Holy Terra.

At the time, the Europan nobility selected the finest young scions of their houses and offered them to the Emperor as a gesture of apology and respect after their defeat by the Thunder Warriors.

Following the example of the Europan nobles, other aristocratic families also began sending their children to fight in the Third Legion.

It is said that this was the origin of the Third Legion's name change, carrying the meaning of 'Children of the Emperor'. Upon the rediscovery of Fulgrim, this name was formally reaffirmed.

One distinction of the early Emperor's Children was that during the Unification Wars, the Third Legion was highly willing to cooperate with, and even lead, regular Imperial army elements into battle. To other Legions, this was seen as conduct worthy of disdain.

But for this "noble Legion," leading "weaker" forces seemed only natural and proper.

Even before their Primarch and the Legion were reunited, the Third Legion was renowned for executing missions with high efficiency and often exceeding the Emperor's expectations.

During the Great Crusade, the Emperor frequently dispatched the Third Legion to undertake diplomatic missions and to protect secret emissaries. Some even referred to them as the Emperor's heralds.

The Third Legion painted their armor purple as a symbol of their mandate, adorning it with motifs of lightning bolts and blazing suns.

During a ceremony marking a world's submission to the Emperor, the Emperor and the Third Legion were attacked by insurgents. Space Marines of the Third Legion's XVI cohort sacrificed themselves, suffering grievous wounds from vortex weapons to protect the Emperor.Afterward, the Emperor granted the Third Legion the right to bear the Palatine Aquila—the double-headed eagle—as a reward for their loyalty.

Despite their illustrious reputation, the Third Legion suffered a catastrophic blow following the pacification of Luna and the signing of the Treaty of Mars. A massive shipment of gene-seed was lost under mysterious circumstances while en route to Luna. Later, it was discovered that the Third Legion's gene-seed vaults on Terra had been sabotaged and tainted by remnants of the Selenar gene-cults.

All of this led to the outbreak of the "Blight" within the Third Legion. The afflicted soldiers' organs began to atrophy, and they ultimately died off one by one.

This tragic state of affairs was only arrested upon the return of their Gene-Primarch, Fulgrim, to the Legion. However, their numbers had severely dwindled, forcing them to operate under the aegis of the Luna Wolves Legion.

It was precisely because of this that Fulgrim forged an incredibly close bond with his brother, Horus.

When Horus declared his rebellion, Fulgrim was swiftly seduced into joining him. They became one of the first Legions to turn traitor. They began by conducting a brutal purge of the loyalists within their own ranks on Isstvan III, and subsequently participated in the annihilation of three loyalist Legions on Isstvan V.

The corrupted Gene-Primarch Fulgrim himself even committed the cardinal sin of kin-slaying on Isstvan V, decapitating his close friend and blood brother, the Primarch of the Iron Hands, Ferrus Manus.

Following their fall, the Third Legion fully embraced the Chaos God Slaanesh en masse. As glorious as the Emperor's Children had once been, their degradation was now equally profound. So much so that many of their fellow traitor Legions found it shameful to associate with them.

During the Siege of Terra, the Emperor's Children Legion did not participate in the assault on the Imperial Palace. Instead, they turned their sights on Terra's tens of billions of inhabitants.

All manner of demented atrocities occurred in the zones they invaded. When Horus was slain by the Emperor and the traitor forces shattered and fled, the Emperor's Children were the most intact Legion to withdraw from the surface.

With their warships laden with slaves, they made a beeline for their new sanctuary, the Eye of Terror.

Over the course of this, the Third Legion aggressively fractured into numerous smaller warbands due to internal conflicts. However, driven by a pathological craving for pleasure and pain, they remained one of the Chaos factions that raided the Imperium most frequently, even after splintering.

Therefore, when this man claimed to be a Captain of the Third Legion, every warrior besides Soshyan instinctively prepared to pull the trigger.

"Lower your weapons."

Soshyan's voice cut off their urge to attack. Though confused, the warriors obeyed the order.

He looked at this haggard, unnervingly ghostly man and asked:

"Captain Tarvitz, can you tell me the date of your last memory?"

Saul studied Soshyan with his dull eyes for a moment before whispering:

"013.M31."

With every digit he uttered, the man had to take a breath, as if bearing a crushing weight.

Hearing this, Soshyan knew his hypothesis had been proven correct.

"Captain Tarvitz, it is currently 912.M41."

Saul's eyes snapped wide open, staring at Soshyan as if looking at a monster.

"Are you..."

He asked, his voice trembling slightly:

"From ten thousand years in the future?"

"No."

Soshyan shook his head.

"Captain Tarvitz, it is you who are from ten thousand years in the past."

Hearing Soshyan's words, Saul's shoulders instantly slumped. What little color remained in his face drained away, making him look exactly like a corpse that had been steeped in formalin for ages.

"Then Terra... must be safe, yes?"

"Horus's rebellion was ended. He himself was annihilated by the Emperor personally."

"I knew it would come to this. The moment Garro successfully escaped, the Warmaster's defeat was preordained..."

Suddenly, he raised his head.

"The Pri—Fulgrim... what was his fate?"

"He murdered his brother, the Primarch Manus. He became a Daemon of Chaos and fled into the Eye of Terror."

Saul immediately grabbed Soshyan by the shoulder.

"He's actually still alive!?"

"Yes."

Soshyan heard no joy or relief from the man's mouth. On the contrary, he felt an intense surge of fury and hatred.

"He must pay the price for everything he has done!"

Saul practically forced the words out through clenched teeth.

BOOM————!

At that moment, another massive explosion echoed. The Space Marines all felt the violent tremor and looked around.

"What have you done?"

Perceiving the anomaly, Saul asked Soshyan.

"We planted melta bombs on the bridge."

"So that's how it is."

The Captain of the Third Legion's 10th Company nodded thoughtfully.

"I've known for a long time that that was its weak point, but I lacked the tools. To think you actually managed to do it..."

"What is the situation with this ship?"

"This is not a ship."

Saul shook his head, revealing a horrifying truth to the group.

"It was originally a Slaughter-class cruiser. The Word Bearers were conducting a dark sacrificial ritual aboard it, but they summoned something they couldn't control. That thing fused with this vessel. All life was digested by it. Right now, we are essentially inside its body."

"You said all life was digested by it. Then what about you—"

Soshyan's phrasing was cautious. Saul promptly pointed a finger at his own head.

"It couldn't digest me. For all these years, it used every means imaginable to try and break me—hallucinations, monsters, even time stasis. But it couldn't breach the aegis of my mind, let alone extinguish the fury in my heart. I still have many debts to collect. I will absolutely not die before then."

BANG!!

Just then, a thunderous crash erupted from the heavy airlock not far away, as if something was battering against it.

"Looks like it's genuinely angry."

Glancing back, Soshyan said to Saul:

"We have a Thunderhawk. We can get out of here. Captain Tarvitz, will you join us?"

The man didn't reply immediately. Instead, he simply pulled his sword from the deck, walked over to the other door, and pushed it open.

"Let's go."