Wilhelm XV looked at the report, hardly believing what he was reading, the world around him slowly falling apart.
"I sent four sons, and all four are dead?" he asked, almost as if he didn't believe what he was reading. As if he expected it to be a lie, a bad joke. Yet the general shook his head. He was the general who went scouting when communications were cut off.
"The army, both enemy and ours have been destroyed, corpses litter the ground, the mountains are destroyed and the earth is black and stained with blood. The bodies of Prince Frederick, Romel and Erich have been found. Although this seems to indicate that Tanya has survived, further investigation shows documents that were written in the midst of the battle. Suddenly all the wizards died and two completely opposing forces began to fight each other, destroying the land. Erich declared Princess Tanya officially dead when the entire stormtrooper division was killed".
Wilhelm leaned back in his chair, totally awakened by this news. The death of so many princes couldn't be anyone's fault but his own, he thought, sending them in would stop the bleeding. The irony is that they did stop it, for it seems that the enemy army had been destroyed. However, at what cost?
"And those two forces that clashed? Couldn't one of them have been Tanya?"
The general shook his head.
"The reports indicate that they didn't know who each other was, they were moving so fast that using prisms was impossible."
Wilhelm put his head in his hands. He couldn't pretend to be an emperor when so much of his family was dead. Constantly placing the blame on no one but himself, Wilhelm was close to tears. But decades and decades of rule and bad news allowed him to keep his composure.
"Emergency meeting of parliament, we are going to pass the law on compulsory conscription."
The general seemed surprised. Krieg had never had a conscription law. The army was so ingrained in society that anyone who wanted to join the army joined and there was never a shortage of soldiers. The inhabitants of Krieg did not feel fear, or at least not as much as other humans. That partly explains why in trench warfare soldiers are able to survive healthy and come back.
Krieg fought demons without retreating except on command, Krieg never retreated in panic from battle. Fear seemed to be a non-existent part of the planet's gene pool. For the locals, though, it was the norm.
That's why there was never any need for compulsory conscription. Because it would simply escalate the war that had lasted for millennia to no avail. For the first one to escalate the war would force the rest to escalate it.
"Understood my Kaiser, what do we do about..." He said slowly.
"I am going to join my family, do as I have told you to do."
—-
In the room were Amelia, Zelinda, Wilhelm, Kurt and Kaiser Wilhelm XV. In an impromptu family gathering, with no preparations and no food on the table as these gatherings always were.
Nobody but the father knew what had happened and had their doubts, but Kurt seemed calm, almost happy.
Wilhelm XV knew that Kurt was a good boy, sometimes a bit problematic like his adoptive mother, but as a grandson he loved him. So to break the news not only about the death of his uncles but also of his mother made his tongue burn. However, it would be worse to lie to him until he discovered the truth.
Tapping the ground with his cane, for Wilhelm XV was old. He called his attention to what was left of his family.
"Today I bring the worst news the Krieg family has received for centuries," Wilhelm XV said, drawing everyone's attention. With a sigh Wilhelm XV looked into the faces of his family, seeing the concern in them.
"Frederick, Erich, Rommel and Tanya have died in combat, protecting the fatherland against the threat of Gewelt".
Almost as if time stood still for a few seconds, no one reacted, Wilhelm being the first to react, getting up from his chair crying, to look out of the window. Afterwards Zelinda started to cry. Amelia started to ask questions and Kurt just stared, stared at nothing. With the smile wiped off his face.
"How could this happen? How did they die? What happened?!" Amelia shouted to her father, then looked at Kurt with sorrow.
Kurt, though he didn't know it, was a primarch... so what a normal human would take seconds to minutes to process would take him nanoseconds. This trait always worked well for him. But for some reason when he heard that his mother had died he couldn't accept it no matter how much his primarch biology forced him to accept it.
"For the death of four of our family there will be reprisals, I assure you," Wilhelm XV continued. However Kurt stood up, his eyes looked almost red.
"Grandfather, let me join the army and be the reprisal," he said, in a voice so cold that it would freeze oceans. With an anger held in check only by the esteem in which he held his family. With a growing hatred he had never felt in his entire comfortable life.
"Your mother wouldn't have wanted it, but I won't stop you," Wilhelm XV said, refusing to reject his son's lust for revenge.
"No, Kurt cannot go to war!" cried Amelia. "What if he dies? How are you supposed to live sending your dead daughter's son off to war?" Amelia asked, questioning and criticising Wilhelm XV.
Kurt seemed to ignore them, however, leaving the room and going to his personal workshop. Wilhelm sighed, finally coming to terms with his brother's deaths.
"Father, what will the reprisals be like?" he asked. To which Wilhelm XV only sighed.
"I'm going to pass the national conscription law. It is planned to draft 200 million veterans and teenagers for the war," Wilhelm XV said. To which his son could only nod, before leaving as well.
Amelia, who was still furious, tried to raise her voice against her father again. But she saw the despair in her father's eyes and simply resigned herself, approaching Zelinda to calm her down
—-
In the nation of Gewalt the Kaiser lay dead, burned by the magic of his former son Erich, now possessed by a demon of Tzeentch. For decades the cultists of Tzeentch had spread throughout the Kingdom following the orders of their God until the day finally came to fulfill their plan.
The army was taken over by cultists and any resistance was destroyed by demon magic. Gewalt in general was under the control of the cultists of Tzeentch and the population suspected nothing. Believing it to be a coup d'état because of the recent failure.
When the news that the main army of Gewalt and its entire mage population was killed, there were quite a few demonstrations against the incompetence of the government. The newspapers that had been controlled for years by the cultists of Tzeentch did not miss the opportunity to ruin the Kaiser's reputation either, until his death mattered to no one and was rather celebrated.
In the same palace where the Kaiser was dead Erich walked down the stairs of the palace to the prison where Princess Tanya was being held, in fairly decent condition despite her missing right arm and blindness.
"You will be a vessel for my experiments, but first I would like to ask you, why, despite being so powerful, do you continue to use only mathematical magic, that makes you weaker."
Tanya laughed.
"Because I would never pray to someone who wants to call himself God."
Erich looked at her strangely.
"Do you deny the existence of gods?" he asked.
"Gods don't exist, they are just powerful individuals who want to pass themselves off as gods. But really they are just inefficient beings who in their pursuit of self-centered power condemn the rest."
Erich fired a bolt of lightning at Tanya, electrocuting her but not killing her. Tanya at all times refused to scream, just accepting the pain with a smile. When Erich stopped she began to laugh again.
"In the absence of arguments you use force, classic among the religious".
Erich glared with his demonic eyes at Tanya, returning to hurling lightning bolts and electrocuting Tanya.
"Denying the gods, yes you are brave, but bravery is punished with pain".
—-
Kurt was building with rage, putting things together with his power, making them work because he knows it works. Having unlimited knowledge and the power to build it, Kurt kept building.
Kurt thought of nothing, only of revenge, of how his mother was gone and they must suffer.
Kurt then stopped for a second. Many materials were missing, materials he knew existed and needed to complete his creations but which he had neither at hand nor on this planet.
Using his magical power, the materials slowly began to create itself in front of him, he didn't know how or why. But he could create it. So without thinking he simply accepted it, continuing to create his weapons.
On the day the armies of Krieg would depart in two months, he would go first with the weapons that his mind knew but no one else did. He would go first with armour that nothing in this world could destroy.
He would avenge his mother. He would kill all who stand in his way.
No one would be spared his wrath.
When he completed his first deed, he started it up. A few seconds passed before it showed signs of working. Putting on his helmet he looked through it. A voice began to sound.
"Integrated Artificial Intelligence Support System Activated, Hello Master, what is my name?"
Kurt sighed with sadness.
"Tanya"