- Illuminated Son -
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That is all, loading chapter of the * - Illuminated Son - *
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"Fugimus, non Alien,
Sana Leprosi,
Comitatu Simplex...
(Shun not the Alien,
Heal the Leper,
Educate the Naïve...)"
-- Codex Mores et Specimina, auth. Primarch Arturius Imperia
Arturius Imperia, formerly known as the Draco Imperatus of the Regnum Dracones, is the Primarch of the Steel Wyverns Legion of Space Marines, second of the twenty sons of the God-Emperor of the Imperium of Man. Also known by the epithets of the "Dragon of the Emperor," the "Imperishable Son," and "Secundo Imperatus" to those who live in the 5,000 worlds of the Imperius Provincia.
Held by most in the modern Imperium as a sort of Messiah, the Illuminus Primas, revered and worshipped by the Cult Imperialis being second only to the One-and-Only true God-Emperor, the Ecclessiarchy had dubbed the Dragon of the Imperium as "Angelis Illuminus," meaning "Angel of Illumination." The Cult Imperialis teaches all in the Imperium of Man that the Second Son will avenge mankind of the betrayal that the Nine did upon the God-Emperor and shall rid humanity of its evils and sins, remaking the human race into what the God-Emperor has always wanted them to be.
A being of both Wisdom and Power, being second to only his Father in Warp powers and raw strength, and a being who wields an unknown amount of the dreaded and mysterious Necrons' C'Tan shards at his disposal. Keeping them in underground vaults spread across the Imperius Provincia or the "Regni Immortalis Draculi." Such power made many weary of the Primarch, even the emperor feared his own 'son.'
Many have called the Dragon mysterious, secretive and to a few, rebellious, one such trait that the Primarch and his Legion have is the wearing of their helms at all times. Arturius is many things but a rebel he is not, his loyalties are with his Father, the God-Emperor, and the Imperium. He wields many lore and sciences in his mind, using his intelligence, he formed a stellar empire capable of rivalling the Imperium of Man, this realm had many worlds which were inhabited by the mostly avoided Eldar and the unknown Dawi. Many of the historians of the Imperium called this realm by many names and titles, "Domain of the Serpens," "Imperium Minor," "Domum de Scientia et Veneficia," among others but it is commonly called the Imperius Provincia.
The Imperius Provincia, being the second of two sectors of the Milky Way forged by a Primarch and had its own personal army, that being the famous Regni Excercitus, being constructed from the roots of the ancient Federal Army of the old Federation of Cities on Serpens Prime. Over the ten millennia since the disappearance of the Imperius Provincia, the Imperium of Man have noted the training regime of the Excercitus with a few Imperial Guard Regiments partially or fully implementing the regime into their training. Of these regiments, the most notable of these regiments is the Arteroreos Free Men Regiment, famed for having discipline and experience only rivalled by that of the Catachan Jungle Fighters and the Death Korps of Krieg.
Though the Free Men Regiment is not the only surviving remnant of the Imperius Provincia and the Angelis. The "Ultimum Praesidio," having glory and fame rivalling that of the golden companions of the God-Emperor, the Adeptus Custodes, the Ultimum Praesidio is a group of 100 men who uphold the ideals of the Angelis as well as being the only ones capable of using the same biotechnology and biomancy which the original guard of the Angelis used to create one of their own, the Draco Domini, through the contingent of five members of the former Domini who were ordered to defend the God-Emperor by the Angelis. They stayed by the God-Emperor's side till upon his entombment to the Golden Throne, they swore to continue their orders of protecting the Emperor, though not in vain. These five Domini went to create the Ultimum Praesidio, having authority on par to that of the Custodes, the Praesidio are renowned for being one of the best warriors in the Imperium of Man but they are also known to being the most adept at diplomacy with alien races, as rare as they may happen. The original 5 Domini have continued to stay inside of the Imperial Palace, rumors say that they reside inside the Sanctum Imperialis, where they stand as sentinels ever vigilant in their watch to keep their liege's Father protected until his prophesied return.
In the Ecclesiarchy, the Primarchs are believed to be splinters of the God-Emperor's personality, from that point of view, the Angelis Illuminus can be labeled as being the young rebellious and uncontrollable part of the God-Emperor. There are many newly founded branches of the Ecclesiarchy with some of them solely made to educate the populous of the Imperium of the Angelis, some of these branches were forcibly destroyed on terms of "Heretico Traitorio,' for reasons such as teaching ideals that make the Angelis more of a God than that of the God-Emperor.
Many scholars of ancient Imperial history have stated that the reason why the God-Emperor, secretly, named Arturius and his Sons, the Steel Wyverns, as his personal Agents, alongside the numerous Temples of the Officio Assassinorum, Arturius and his Sons had done many deeds for the God-Emperor and many of these deeds had gone against what Arturius embodied, or what he wanted to embody, this could be the reason why he had a 'falling out' with the God-Emperor at the wake of the Horus Heresy. To this day, historians still debate on whether or not that is the reason, we may never know.
The Wyvern gene-seed is known to have components of Pariah, Null psykers, and Necron, one of the most dangerous Xeno races, DNA. In turn, these strands of DNA make it so for a son of the Angelis to be powerful in the Warp or being highly resistant to it. Though that isn't the only special component of the Dragon, unlike the other gene-seeds, different races such as Elder, are capable of undergoing the same procedure of the Wyverns.
This adds another powerful piece that the Wyverns have. These Eldar Astartes are called Aeldarii Filii, they are noted for their speed and versatility in combat with many of the Eldar citizens of the Imperius Provincia comparing them to the Harlequins of the Eldar God of Mischief, Cegorach. They are few though, with a theorized 1,000 being the highest amount they were capable of amassing. Before the Horus Heresy, the Aeldarii Filii were used as recon and special ops soldiers.
In an old Imperial Document, the High Lords of Terra once demanded for these Eldar Astartes to be decommissioned and immediately terminated but the God-Emperor convened with the High Lords and told them of the success and skill the Eldar Astartes had on the battlefield, the High Lords argued that tainting the pure gene-seed of one of the Primarchs with Xeno subjects but the God-Emperor already set out a 'Silent Decree' which stated that the Eldar Astartes of the Wyverns were to be seen as Imperial Sanctioned Xenos.
When the Horus Heresy started, it was Arturius who held off thousands of daemon hordes and even fought Horus, Angron and Magnus, at the same time, with the assistance of Ignis Vermis and his Steel Wyverns Legion, Arturius halted the advance of Horus on the Imperium. The efforts of the Imperius Provincia and the Steel Wyverns are noted down in history with the Ecclessiarchy making entire books about the Wyverns as angels who defended the Imperium.
Unfortunately, even in their great defense, the Wyverns had an entire Cohort of their Legion fall to chaos. Cohors - II fell after Horus persuaded their Captain, Marcius 'Peacekeeper' Gylle, with promises of power, the Captain accepted to join Horus in the thought for peace and order. With the fall of the second Cohort, Horus had gained the flagship of the Cohort, one Draco Angelus V or the 'Draco Deum,' the traitor Legions knew of the importance of the ship with its manufactorums being comparable to that of several Forge Worlds, losing it would mean to lose the War. To protect the Angelus, the ship was sent to the Eye of Terror itself with a fleet protecting it at all times.
For a few months, both the Imperium and Traitors didn't move against each other, the Imperium needed to muster its men while fortifying the lines. In this time, the Traitors used the Angelus to manufacture enough weapons and armor to combat the Imperium. With these news, the Dragon was forced to spread his forces throughout the front lines. The first of many battles took place on the world of Argaunt which had Eldar Webway Gates, the named 'Mirrors of Argaunt,' that allowed travel to Serpens Prime, Macragge, and Terra, with these Mirrors, the traitors could invade the three worlds and ransack or even conquer them, losing one of the three would mean both a morale and logistics disaster. It was here where the battle for Sanctuary took place and where the fallen Peacekeeper fought against Frater Legatus Gabriele also known by the epithet of the 'High Dragon'.
Many events occurred in the Horus Heresy but the most horrible of them was the battle of Serpens Prime. One day, on the fields of the Seges Urbes, a gigantic Warp Portal formed and from it the entirety of the Traitor Legions flowed out, throughout Imperial History, this attack is commonly referred as the 'Undivided Crusade,' a clear mockery to that of the Great Crusade of the God-Emperor and also a sign that the Four would unite against a foe they knew they couldn't defeat alone. The Urbem Militiae were immediately mustered to defend the core world of the Imperius Provincia, but the threat of all of the traitor Legions added by the gigantic number of daemons the Ruinous Powers sent to assist the traitors in their crusade, had forced the Techtites to send out the Metali Angeli, giant 200 feet tall constructs made from Techtite' Necrodermis, these metal guardians were made to be capable of combatting threats perceived to possibly be 'World Crackers,' through their almost unnatural and unrealistic control over gravity and the elements. The combined efforts of the Urbem Militiae, the Mundus Fratres, and the Metali Angeli proved to be enough to hold the traitors' crusade but slowly their defense began to form cracks that is until Arturius and the Domini arrived, the combined strength of the Angelis and the defenders of Serpens Prime proved overwhelming for the traitors, so much so that they used a trick to win.
In the confusion of the battle, Magnus the Red, with the assistance of his Legion and several fallen psykers, used one of the most powerful artefacts of the Warp, the Tome of Chaos Undivided, that which allowed the complete and unaltered power of the Warp to manifest into the material realm. The efforts of the Angelis were almost fruitful, the Dragon himself stared into the eye of Magnus as he chanted the dark tongue of the Warp. In all but a moment, all signs of life, of civilization were gone, every planet in the area of the Imperius Provincia vanished as the Laws of Science began to return, the complete disappearance of so many planets had made a disbalance in the area that all the stars had gone supernova. The light which came from the explosions had reached all the way to Terra, some believe the light illuminated clusters of thousands of galaxies throughout the universe, the Ecclessiarchy of the modern Imperium have called this event the 'Ascencio de Angeli,' translating to the 'Ascencion of the Angel' in Low Gothic, the logical members of the Imperium speculate that with the great subtraction of stars in the area, it would mean a great expanse of the Milky Way would become totally dark, dubbed as the 'Cimeterium Martyrum,' many Adeptus Mechanicus have sent expeditions into the Cimeterium to create an answer to the disappearance and possible return of the Provincia, although current records hold no answers, it is known though that the numerous stars that once housed the Cimeterium had left no elements in their deaths, the building blocks of hydrogen and helium were not found, the consequences of such a thing would be astounding but it may also pose an answer to how the stars disappeared, some Electro-Priests theorized that the stars had generated the light that their deaths would've made but actually didn't go supernova but was taken to the Warp, the theory isn't all that trustworthy but some still give credence to it.
In the end, all of us pray for the return of the Dragon of the Emperor. A return of the Golden Age of Mankind.