Warhammer: Lord of the Endless Monster Horde [179]

'460,000! A whole 460,000 Primaris recruits and you forgot about them!'

'These aren't just some random nobodies, but Primaris Space Marines even stronger than the existing Firstborn!

If Guilliman found out about this, wouldn't he be so furious he'd jump out of his coffin on Macragge and beat you up on the spot?'

Rhodes originally thought it would be impressive to get about 100,000, just enough to form his legion, but he never expected there would be as many as 460,000 Primaris recruits!

What does this mean? That's equivalent to 460 chapters! The combat power of at least four or even five legions.

At the very peak of the Great Crusade, the total Space Marine strength was just over a million, and these guys are far stronger than the Firstborn Space Marines.

"I have to say, Lord Cawl, you surprised me," Rhodes said, stroking his chin.

"Lord Rhodes, you know I was just fulfilling Lord Guilliman's orders, as well as the Emperor's mission.

About fifteen hundred years ago, I lost a large portion of my memory.

The place where I stored the data backups was also lost, and along with it, these Primaris recruits were lost too.

There was nothing I could do! I had to restart the project and secretly cultivated more than 200,000 Primaris Space Marines.

But I already performed the most basic modifications on these new recruits, and although they are in hibernation, the AI in the base constantly puts them through simulated war training.

They've been in intensive combat training the whole time," Belisarius Cawl said.

These Primaris recruits only need another round of surgery to have new super Space Marine organs implanted, and after implanting Lord Rhodes' gene-seed, they can immediately become combat-ready.

"Can you directly perform the Primaris Space Marine super-soldier upgrades on them?" Rhodes asked.

"Lord Rhodes, yes, anytime. You now have 500 medical pods, each surgery will take about two to three hours.

I have a large number of mindless servitors who can participate in the surgeries as well.

As long as you can supply enough super Space Marine organ materials," Cawl explained. It's thanks to these mindless servitors that he could amass such a huge force and keep it secret for so long.

They can loyally execute all his orders, perform fully automated surgeries, and completely keep secrets.

Now, as long as the new super organs keep up, modifications can be done at any time.

"The number of medical pods will increase soon. I'll allocate some to you. Help me get some giant bioculture tanks.

I'll handle the Zetton biomechanical muscle, Zetton skin black carapace, bone reinforcement fluid, and organ," Rhodes said.

If it were just several thousand people, his lab could handle the super organ materials, but for over 400,000?

Even the 200,000+ that Cawl secretly accumulated also need Primaris upgrades.

That's over 600,000 people, so production needs to be ramped up and new bioculture tanks added.

This number will keep rising in the future—Rhodes isn't planning to stop until he has created millions of Primaris Space Marines.

The galaxy is so vast, that only tens of millions of Primaris will be enough!

In the future, these people will take over the main roles—making the regular guys fill every gap is just too inhumane!

We need even bigger, stronger Primaris Space Marine brutes; the Astartes numbers must explode!

"I understand, Lord Rhodes! As long as there are enough medical pods and super organs," Belisarius Cawl nodded.

"Where are your ten bases? Let's go there immediately," Rhodes said.

With a faster-than-light engine and access to the Harlequin Webway, Rhodes didn't want to waste time—he wanted to get all 460,000 troops in hand quickly.

Once these soldiers are formed, Rhodes plans to send them to the battlefield.

"Lord Rhodes! These Primaris recruits aren't far away—they're all within the Solar system.

When I started losing my memory, I anticipated I might forget the storage locations of some Primaris recruits, so I planned ahead, using some advanced technology to move all their asteroid bases into the Kuiper Belt region of the Solar system.

This way, even if I forgot where they were, as long as they're still in the Solar system, I'd eventually find them," Belisarius Cawl explained.

In the galaxy, there's no such thing as absolute safety, only relative safety.

Storing them in other unknown star systems could risk their destruction by wars.

Cawl went to great lengths to store these Primaris recruits.

As early as the 38th millennium, he started preparing, moving all the bases to the Kuiper Belt, letting the Primaris recruits slumber and train there.

As long as they're in the Solar system, Cawl could find and reactivate them in the future.

Rhodes rolled his eyes at this—these hidden Primaris recruits probably wouldn't even get deployed, since by then, the Tyranids would have reached the Solar system.

They'd even threaten Holy Terra. The Tyranid swarm had its tactics, always striking at humanity's command structure first.

By the 42nd millennium, the main Tyranid forces had entered the galaxy. Only during the 4th Tyrannic War did humanity truly feel despair.

So these Primaris recruits' greatest likelihood wasn't activation, but being eaten clean by the Tyranid vanguard.

If Rhodes didn't activate them now, they'd never have a chance to shine.

No worries, Big Daddy Whitebeard will love you all—come be my sons!

"Well then, let's waste no time. Wake them all up!

Bring them all onto my ship, and I'll perform the Primaris upgrades and gene-seed implantation myself. It'll be safe," Rhodes said.

"On your ship? Pardon my frankness, Lord Rhodes!

Your vessel is a bit small—over 400,000 Primaris recruits won't fit," said Belisarius Cawl.

He had toured Rhodes' ship recently; it was about the size of a medium combat barge.

Normally, such a ship could carry a few hundred Space Marines and their attendants, crews, maybe tens of thousands at most—not 400,000 Primaris. Even a full Chapter would need two or three such ships.

"Hahaha! Acrhmagos! Get ready to witness the true miracle of the Omnissiah!" Rhodes exclaimed, spreading his arms.

He'd accumulated over a million system coins over time—now it was time for a major upgrade! This was his very first starship, and it was due for a top-level upgrade.

Currently, the ship's diameter is only about 1,000 meters. As a small mothership, it was on par with an Imperial battle barge.

Now equivalent to a medium combat barge, it was time to upgrade it to a heavy mothership and expand his base.

"You want me to witness the Omnissiah's miracle?" Even as the Adeptus Mechanicus' Archmagos, Belisarius Caul knew—

The so-called Omnissiah they first worshipped was just a C'tan shard called the Void Dragon!

This Void Dragon was one of the mightiest C'tan; a single shard was as strong as some minor C'tan and could bend physical laws.

Through his research over the years, Cawl realized that the machine spirits they created

were just weakened, low-level versions of C'tan!

Later, worship of the Omnissiah was shifted to the Emperor himself; the so-called Omnissiah's blessing was just the Emperor's or a physical miracle's blessing.

So if Lord Rhodes wants to show the Emperor's miracle, even that can't change the fact that the ship is too small!

Best to secretly acquire a large battle barge, ideally a Mechanicus Ark.

Rhodes smiled, said nothing, and opened the upgrade menu in the system interface, initiating the final upgrade for the Pedan Mothership.

A dazzling golden light enveloped the entire ship; Belisarius Cawl was shocked as this strange radiance began to transform the ship's environment.

The corridors became more magnificent and spacious, and the whole ship renewed.

Minutes later, Rhodes' Pedan Mothership had completely transformed, its diameter reaching 200 kilometers, and its height a terrifying 3,500 meters.

The ship was generally circular, with four rectangular corridor extensions, each over 3,000 meters long, expanding the ship's size by hundreds of times.

At the center was a super main cannon, capable of destroying a small planet in one shot; there were more than 200 secondary cannons, and over a hundred Pedan ships of various sizes docked.

There was also a force of 100 King Joe robots on standby in the hangar.

These King Joe units were 55 meters tall, weighing tons, and were initial models with no further upgrades possible.

Inside the ship was a King Joe production line, but it needed engineers, workers, and materials to produce new King Joe battle robots.

"This—how is this possible? This violates the laws of physics!" Belisarius Cawl exclaimed.

Making a spaceship larger out of nothing—this is just too magical!