I own nothing that is not original...

Thanks for all the reviews!

Well, this chapter reveals something about the four of five main factions that will fight over the planet.

Also, we get back to the Zerg and the Overmind. I hear that you all like the Zerg.

* I am planning to give Alena a special sword and a whip. Can you help me name them? So far, I've come up with Psi/Bone Blade & Whip of Acid and Fire... I want a weapon that could be remembered.

Chapter 14

"Pardia, you look terrible!"

The man stood up from his ornate chair as Inquisitor Pardia entered, beleaguered from the three week travel from the south.

"Lord High Inquisitor... I have grave news."

The High Inquisitor, the lord commander and the leader of the King's Inquisition, was an elderly man. He still looked strong with hard lines around his face and bulky muscles still visible through the black clothes he wore.

"Come! Take a seat, and tell me of your mission to the south."

Pardia nodded.

"There is an infestation of daemons! Terrible and beastly creatures have formed a nest for their kind, and they spread darkness on the ground that consumes the trees."

The High Inquisitor frowned.

"Were there many of them?"

"We only saw a couple of dozens and their nest seemed to be new, but..."

The High Inquisitor narrowed his eyes.

"Hmm... This is not good news."

Pardia cleared his throat with a glass of wine.

"My lord, you must alert the King."

"What?"

"He must raise an army and purge these creatures and their nest."

The High Inquisitor shook his head.

"That may not be so feasible at the moment, Pardia."

"My Lord?"

"You know of the silent conflict between the King and the young Duke of Garav. The Kingdom is divided, and the King cannot muster all the might of the Kingdom for an unsubstantiated threat so far south. The best we can do is to clear out the region and drive the Orks against these daemons."

Pardia could not believe his ears.

"My lord, I lost all my men, and the men provided by the King and the Imperial Cult. Their souls would weep at this... lack of vengeance!"

The High Inquisitor narrowed his eyes.

"Calm down, young Inquisitor. Know your place. The King has much on his plate now. Perhaps we can muster a few thousand men from the south..."

"The south is fragmented and its petty nobles will not join forces."

"That is not your concern, Pardia. Now, go back to your room. I shall send for you."

"Yes, my lord."

The mountains were steep and rocky. The valleys were deep but wide enough to have plenty of pasture and farmland. There were dozens of houses in a village protected by thick wooden palisade covered in dried clay. It was like the last ten they saw as they passed through the mountains.

The mountains were smaller as they went westward and larger villages appeared. Then they saw a small walled town, and eventually, they saw a large structure far to the west. It was big enough to be noticed through the clear daylight. A normal human may not see it, but the Space Marines could see it clearly.

Armanus put his helmet back on to take a better look through the zoom function.

"Is that the castle you mentioned, Pelagas?"

"Yes, brother. It is the capital and the castle of the Duke of Verin... if his line still exists."

"Verin... wasn't that the name of the Head of Arms aboard that vessel?"

The Techmarine nodded.

"Yes, he was the Chief Security Officer of the vessel and had commanded the vessel's serf-soldiers against the daemons and Orks."

Aramanus took off his helmet again and chuckled.

"So, he made 'Duke.' I don't remember him such an ambitious fellow."

Others chuckled too. Giadus spoke.

"Are you sure that they would support us? We have not been around for nearly 600 years. They are quite likely to attack us on sight."

Pelagas shook his head.

"No, I do not believe that he would. In fact, I believe that they would assist us against the traitors. From what I got from Obran, he maintained good relations with the Duchy, and they would have quite a large stockpile of lasguns at their disposal."

Armanus nodded.

"Well, I do hope that this is worth a week of walking."

"I hope so too, brother Sergeant."

Judanus chanted a spell coaxed from the memories within his daemon sword. Energies of the Warp flitted around inside the Observation Room. The room where his comrades were sacrificed had become the focus of his dark magics. Every eight hours, Judanus shoved eight slaves into the room, further fueling the Warpfire that began to slowly melt the barrier between the reality and the Warp.

This particular spell was his first step into recruiting some minions. He had already removed the gene-seeds of his fallen brothers and had thrown in what vials of gene-seeds he could find in the vaults under the Tower. The gene-seeds were cooking nicely with the corrupting power of the Warp while being bound to the daemon sword so that those created from the gene-seed could not betray him.

However, Judanus needed some servants to do his bidding. I summoned back the souls of his dead comrades, enraged but no longer sentient as the daemons consumed most of their souls. He shoved these souls back into their power armors, coating the skeletons with the thick flames of the Warp. Judanus, through harnessing the power of the Warp Storm, had made his own version of Rubric Marines, though not the same.

These new and strange Rubric Marines were more intelligent but equally as obedient. Although bound not to Judanus but to the sword that allowed him to cast spells, they made an excellent Chaos Marines. Their armors have already been altered, with the Warp twisting the very materials of the power armors. Horns, thorns and strange scales had sprouted from the armors as they began to walk out of the chamber.

"Excellent, brothers. Now that I have some bodyguards worthy of me, I think it is finally the time to coax a really helpful Hand."

Chuckling at his own pun that no one heard or could understand, he once again lifted his daemon sword.

"I summon you! I know you are out there!"

With another eight slaves sacrificed, a portal formed within the Warp Vault of Judanus. From that portal, a Space Marine in white came out slowly. He was wearing all the colors and equipments of an Apothecary. His pauldron showed the Hands of Sorrow colors but in a close inspection, the armors were already beginning to mutate. Bronze had covered some bits.

"Welcome back, brother Apothecary Lilgath. How was your time in the Warp?"

"Short and violent... just as I like it."

Apothecary Lilgath had been lost to the Warp during the decade of battles aboard the vessel.

Judanus chuckled.

"Who would have thought that you would fall in line with the servants of Khorne."

The corrupted Apothecary growled.

"Who would have thought that a mewling, whining boy like you would become a Chaos Lord?"

Judanus roared and pointed his daemon sword, named Ga'huld after the daemon trapped inside it, at the Apothecary.

"DO NOT FORGET that I have coaxed you out of the Warp, and I am perfectly willing to put you back into it... in pieces..."

Apothecary paused, and then bowed his head.

"As you wish, LORD Judanus."

Only then, Judanus sheathed his sword.

"We have much work to do, Lilgath. I have an appointment with the Duke of Garav, so I will momentarily leave you in charge here."

"What must I do, my lord?"

Judanus growled at the mocking tone.

"Do not take that tone with me, unless you wish to feel my blade."

Then he turned to leave, taking his 'Rubric' Marines with him. Just as he got aboard the elevator, he commanded Lilgath.

"In exactly 7 hours 41 minutes, you shall take eight of the slaves crowded within the inner walls of the Tower and feed them to my Warp Vault. I wish the Warp Vault to be fed every eight hours."

"As you command."

'How long has it been?'

I am always aware but the things felt as if they moved slowly when I focused most of my mental powers to the work.

'Three weeks? No... almost... six weeks?'

I was surprised at the length of my slumber and the lack of any alarming moves by the humans, or the Orks.

'What has been going on around here?'

I stretched out my mind and renewed my unbreakable connection to my Overlords and Overseers. They have been slowly spreading all over the planet and increased my knowledge of the world.

It appeared that I was mistake in my first impression of this world. I found that much from the captured prisoners before I melted them down in the Nutrient Pit, but this was much larger. The Kingdom of the humans was large, stretching across most of this continent except for the large segment to the North West that made up about one sixth of the total continental landmass.

From the few Overlords and Overseers there as well as from the minds of the prisoners, I found that land to be called as the Northern Alliance, where the surviving collection of local rulers formed a united front against the Kingdom for nearly four hundred years. The Kingdom itself was barely six hundred years old, and it had captured the major part of the continent only three hundred fifty years ago.

I also found about the how and why there were so many lasguns around, particularly around the big castles. I found out about the duchies and baronies and other human divisions of land. I also learned of their primitive feudal social hierarchy. Also, I quickly understood why there was no army formed against me just yet.

The King has been in silent and quiet conflict with the Duchy of Garav in the north east, bordering the tundra where violent Orks lived and raided the Kingdom's borders. To fight the Orks, the Duke of Garav had traditionally been given significant leeway in terms of tributes to the King. After a while, the Duchy of Garav became powerful enough to absorbed many lesser domains, sometimes without the King's permission. Now, the young Duke, succeeding his father only ten years ago, had great ambition and was preparing to challenge the King in a great rebellion.

The King, of course, was also preparing to assail to North and put the impudent Duke to his rightful place as the fence against the Northern Orks. With such large conflict on the horizon, the King was unwilling to spend a fortune to gather a proper army to fight a 'supposed' daemonic incursion in the extreme South, which was not valuable to the King. The South was poor. Its last duke had died over thirty years ago, and the South has been divided and split into dozens of tiny baronies and earldoms and an occasional counties. With each tiny landlord unwilling to assist each other in almost anything, and with the land so divided and the tiny squabbles draining the wealth of the South, it was useless to the King.

Of course, the King was not abandoning the South at all. He just could not afford a professional army to deal with my Zergs. Instead he sent one of his generals, the Count of Rilemas who was also the High Marshall of King's Armies. A dedicated supporter of the king, and controlling a land the size of Texas, he was commanded to South and marshal an army to find and destroy the daemonic infestation, which was my Swarm. The High Marshall hadn't actually departed his County as yet. According to a Changeling, the Count had opened his treasury, and also with some of the money the King sent, to hire new professional soldiers when he came down here.

Although there was no real army formed against me yet, I was not unprepared. Over the last six weeks, my Hive Clusters have been on automated mode, pumping out Zerglings, Roaches, Hydralisks, Mutalisks and a few Ultralisks. Overlords have been covering the skies, dotting the blue heavens with their massive bodies while the ground has been covered in Creep with Zerglings hidden under it.

At the moment of my awakening, all productions had stopped, and by my calculation, I had just around 11,700 Zerglings, pumped out from 14 dedicated Hatcheries with Queens continuously spraying the spawning hormones. In six weeks, I had spawned over ten thousand Zerglings. Although this is a significant number to a minor human colony like this planet, knowing the possible scales of wars around this galaxy, it was right choice to force my own evolution.

I also had commissioned extra Hatcheries, Lairs and Hives along with more of every building, trying to prepare for any eventualities. This had allowed me to now have 26 Hatcheries, 15 Lairs and 9 Hives. More than that, my very first Hatchery had grown to even bigger Hive than normal. However, it was not quite complete in my view, particularly since my deep meditation into the genetic knowledge of the Zerg. From the depth of the former Overmind's genetic memories, I found all that I needed. I found all the secrets that the Zerg's hidden Xel'naga master had hidden inside.

Mentally smiling, I gave the order.

'Initiate Merging! All Spine Crawlers, head to your nearest Hatchery, Lair or Hive and begin merging as I command!'