171: Cursed Legion

Holy Terra, deep within the Golden Throne.

The Supreme Leader of the Imperium, the Emperor of Mankind, the will of the God-Emperor, amidst endless pain and vigil, clearly perceived that cold, efficient, and rapidly expanding heretical light in the southeastern sector.

Guilliman's crusade was exhausted dealing with various threats; Chaos had been thwarted in the Eye of Terror but its foundation remained intact; the movements of the Necron Dynasty were unsettling; and the Human Federation—a heretical regime that completely discarded faith in the Emperor and operated under the banner of absolute rationality and human purity—had grown in speed and danger beyond the scope of conventional threats.

The Emperor saw the light of STC-Ω flickering in the hands of heretics, saw their covetousness toward the domain of time, and saw their dangerous path, so similar to that of the Human Federation before the Great Collapse.

The silent Emperor made a difficult decision. He would no longer rely solely on the power of faith for remote intervention, nor would He place His hopes entirely on the armies of the mortal Imperium.

He would deploy those oldest and most powerful guardians, whose fates were thoroughly bound to His own and the survival of the Imperium of Man—warriors whose souls had partially merged with the Emperor's will through ten thousand years of loyalty and sacrifice, their bodies enduring endless torment in the rift between the Warp and reality.

These were not living men, nor pure Warp entities. They were the most loyal and heroic in the Imperium's history; under specific conditions, their souls were retained and bound by the Emperor's great power, becoming eternal guardians existing between life and death.

They usually appeared only in the Imperium's most critical moments as spiritual or semi-corporeal forms to combat Chaos and the mortal enemies of the Imperium.

And now, the Emperor decided to project an unprecedented scale of the Binding Legion into the real universe in a more stable and lasting manner, specifically to contain, weaken, and even destroy the heretical Human Federation.

The core of this legion would be based on those Imperial officers and soldiers who died in the process of opposing the Human Federation and whose souls met the conditions for binding (including many loyalists who martyred themselves during the fall of the Segmentum Obscurus). Their obsession—loyalty to the Imperium and hatred for the heretical Human Federation—combined with the Emperor's will to form a highly targeted force of destruction.

Target area: the border zone between the Human Federation's endlessly devouring expansion front and the remaining controlled areas of the Imperium's Segmentum Obscurus, a cluster of shattered systems known as the Broken Spine Sector.

The spatial structure here was already fragile due to ancient wars, and recently it had been ravaged by the Human Federation's resource extraction and Imperial resistance. With the boundary between reality and the Warp blurred, it was an ideal breeding ground for the manifestation of binding power.

No warning, no prelude of energy eruption.

Just as a Human Federation resource extraction fleet had finished its preliminary scan of a metal-rich asteroid belt and the engineering ships began deploying mining laser arrays, a golden mist, like dawn yet like embers, billowed without warning in the void.

Within the mist, flickering figures began to coalesce. They were clad in tattered but still recognizable Imperial Power Armor, holding weapons burning with golden flames, with steadfast golden soul-fire burning in their eye sockets. No banners, no designations, only a silent, oppressive mass of golden figures, like an army of heroic spirits stepping out of a historical scroll.

More unsettlingly, as these Binding Legion warriors appeared, the surrounding reality seemed to slightly reject the presence of the Human Federation. The efficiency of the Purification Dome generators dropped inexplicably, ship sensors suffered unknown interference, and even the flow of the abyss of order energy felt a hint of stagnation. The very existence of this Binding Legion seemed to carry a field of negation against any order that was not Imperial orthodoxy.

"High concentration of Holy Psionic Entities detected! Type unknown, energy signatures highly correlated with faith in the Emperor! Numbers are continuously increasing! The opposition is ignoring communications!" the extraction fleet Commander reported in horror.

"It's the Binding Legion! The Emperor's undead guardians!" an intelligence officer who had deeply studied the Ecclesiarchy and psionic phenomena identified them instantly. "They aren't demons, but they're more troublesome than demons! They are directly empowered by the Emperor's will and have a natural suppression against any power outside the Imperial system!"

"Extraction fleet, evacuate immediately! Nearby patrol fleets, rally to me! Activate Desecration Protocol - Holy Specialized Type! Attempt to interfere with them using logic pollution and anti-faith data streams!" the captain of the nearest adjudicator-class battleship, the Iron Fist, reacted swiftly.

However, the Desecration Protocol's effect on these Binding Legion warriors, who existed between life and death and relied on obsession and holy conviction, was greatly diminished.

The golden mist only fluctuated slightly, and the warriors' actions were barely affected. They silently charged toward the Human Federation's engineering ships and escort craft. Burning weapons easily tore through shields and armor; ships hit were not only physically damaged, but their internal systems also seemed to suffer a kind of contamination—automated systems failed, and crews felt an inexplicable exhaustion and loss of will.

The main guns of the Iron Fist blasted into the Binding Legion, vaporizing countless figures, but new figures immediately replenished the mist, appearing seemingly endless.

Worse still, the dissipating golden light from some destroyed Binding Legion warriors would actually attach to nearby Human Federation ships like corrosive rust, slowly eroding the hulls and energy circuits.

"Retreat! Abandon the extraction zone! We can't take these guys head-on!" Seeing the losses mount, the captain of the Iron Fist decisively ordered a withdrawal.

In the first contact, a small Human Federation resource extraction fleet was forced to evacuate, losing several engineering ships and escort craft, while the Binding Legion was nearly unscathed and firmly occupied that sector. The golden mist began to spread slowly to the surroundings, as if contaminating this stretch of space.

"The Emperor's Binding Legion has appeared in the Broken Spine Sector; their scale continues to expand, and they have established a stable presence. Their power has a special suppression effect on our Order Field, and conventional weapons and information warfare are ineffective." Alpha-01 presented the emergency battle report to Han Zhe.

"They seem to be solidifying that area, transforming it into some kind of holy bulwark to obstruct our expansion, and it could potentially become a springboard for an Imperial counterattack."

Han Zhe looked at the sensor images of the sector shrouded in golden mist, a cold light flashing in his eyes. The Emperor had finally deployed these last-resort irregular forces. This not only showed the level to which the Human Federation's threat had been raised but also heralded the start of a new, more troublesome form of conflict.

"The Binding Legion... undead who exist on faith and obsession," Han Zhe said coldly. "They do not fear death because they are already dead. They do not fear temptation because their convictions are pure. They are even somewhat immune to our logic pollution. Troublesome indeed."

"adjudicator, analyze the fundamental weaknesses of the Binding Legion. We need to find a way to eliminate, or at least effectively contain them."

Analyzing... the adjudicator's voice carried a slight hum of high-speed calculation.

Foundations of the Binding Legion's existence:

1. Holy link with the Emperor.

2. Intense individual and collective obsession.

3. Special environment of the manifestation zone.

Potential weaknesses:

1. Energy Dependency: Their existence and combat continuously consume holy psionic energy. Cutting off or interfering with the energy channel to the Emperor's will could weaken or even dissipate them. However, this requires direct confrontation with the Emperor's divinity projection.

2. Obsession Targeting: Their hatred is primarily directed at heretics and traitors. If their cognition can be confused, or if their obsession targets can be made to conflict (for example, by creating scenes or information suggesting the Imperium itself has betrayed the Emperor), it could trigger internal chaos.

3. Reality anchoring: They require specific anchors in the real world. Large-scale alteration of the reality structure in the area, or using powerful reality stabilization fields to squeeze them out, could be effective.

4. Conceptual Devouring: Attempt to use the gods bottle units or Siphon Protocol to devour their existential foundation—those holy psionic energies and obsession concepts—but the risk is extreme and could trigger a more violent counterattack from the Emperor's will or cause contamination of the gods bottle.

"A multi-pronged approach," Han Zhe decided quickly. "First, order all forces around the Broken Spine Sector to temporarily halt expansion into that area and move to defensive monitoring. Avoid unnecessary attrition."

"Second, technical teams, immediately develop Anti-Holy Reality Stabilization Anchors specifically designed to reinforce the reality structure of the Binding Legion's active zones and weaken their manifestation basis. Combine this with the time anchoring technology parsed from STC-Ω to attempt to stabilize the regional time flow and interfere with their existential stability."

"Third, the intelligence and psychological warfare departments are to begin researching the creation of informational weapons targeting the Binding Legion's cognition. Use the Imperial historical data we possess (especially the dark side), forged betrayal orders from high-level Imperial officials, or even attempt to simulate the Emperor's disappointment or new decrees to see if we can disrupt their obsession."

"At the Tomb of Time Research Station, prepare for a controlled, small-scale devouring experiment targeting captured stray psionic residues of the Binding Legion to assess the risk and effects."

"Finally, accelerate the commissioning of the new fleet and the repair and expansion of the Firmament Network. The Binding Legion is just the beginning; the Emperor won't stop at this move. Ouroska and the Thanatos Dynasty are also watching like hawks. We must respond to this multi-front pressure with even greater strength."

"Understood!"

The Human Federation's pace of expansion hit its first hard stumbling block in the Broken Spine Sector. But as before, the setback did not bring retreat; instead, it stimulated colder, more targeted research and development. A new form of confrontation centered on faith, obsession, reality stability, and devouring quietly began.

Meanwhile, the Human Federation's increasingly massive vanguard fleet was taking shape in the rear shipyards, like fangs hidden in the shadows, waiting for the moment to tear apart the next prey.

The legacy of humanity's dark age of technology flickered in their hands, the Emperor's legion of the dead emerged on the borders, and the Necron Dynasty's Celestial Orrery was being calibrated in the distance. The Human Federation's path of conquest had never been so crowded, nor so close to a boiling critical point.