There was a sharp intake of breath. "By the Emperor… is this a miracle?"
"He possesses not only unparalleled combat ability," another voice murmured in awe, "but medical expertise far beyond our understanding. Could he be the instrument of the God-Emperor's will?"
A heavy silence settled over the chamber. Then, one by one, the cardinals exchanged glances, murmurs of debate quickly giving way to something more unified. Reverence. Devotion. Purpose. At last, a voice rose above the others. "There is no more room for doubt. We must cast aside hesitation. This is the moment to pledge loyalty." The chamber erupted—not in chaos, but in unified, fervent prayer. For the first time, the College of Cardinals felt the divine hand of the Emperor so clearly.
The next morning, Kayvaan returned to the courtyard. The ground had been scrubbed clean of blood, shattered masonry replaced with fresh stone. The scars of yesterday's battle had been erased, but the warriors who stood before him bore their own reminders. Twenty men and women, lined up and waiting.
Kayvaan smirked. "Well, isn't this a surprise?" He paced in front of them, scanning their faces. "I thought you'd hold out longer. But here you are, standing at attention like obedient recruits." His gaze swept over them, amused. "Took a good beating, did you? I expected more resistance. Yet here you are, looking like the dregs of a battlefield. Aren't you all injured? Shouldn't you be resting a few more days?"
'We'd love to rest,' Duran thought bitterly. 'But would you let us?' He knew the answer. Refusing to show up today would've been an even worse fate. It wasn't surrender—it was survival. Duran had no desire to test Kayvaan's patience twice. Hatred burned in his chest, but so did pain. His arm, though reattached, was bound tightly in gauze and plaster, the healing process just beginning. Even with the best care, it would take months to fully mend, years to regain its former strength. But deep in his heart, he knew he had been spared by something greater. Watching his own arm severed had been a moment of utter despair. He should have died. Even if he had survived, a one-armed warrior was as good as a corpse. His future had ended the moment that blade struck.
Yet here he was. How? Duran couldn't comprehend it. His knowledge of medicine was crude—leeches, amputations, cauterization. Yet Marius had worked a miracle, reattaching what was lost. The warrior didn't understand the science, only that he lived. And that fact alone was enough to shake him to his core. Kayvaan stepped in front of Antali, tilting his head as he examined the throat-cutter's swollen neck. "Well, well," he chuckled. "Look at you. You look like a fathead fish. What happened? Lost your throat in just a day?"
Antali forced a tight-lipped smile, but when he tried to speak, nothing came out. His swollen throat made him look as if a buoy had been strapped around his neck—comically bloated yet undeniably painful. Beside him, Lancelot was in no better shape. The once-proud White Knight stood rigidly, one half of his face grotesquely swollen, his sharp features barely visible beneath the bruising. What was once a chiseled warrior now looked like a man with half his head stuffed into a wineskin.
Kayvaan barely stifled a grin. Then came Virgil. The Black Knight's nose had been utterly obliterated. His face was concave, the bridge of his nose sunken inward, leaving a crater-like indentation where once had been sharp nobility. If it rained, Kayvaan mused, the man's face could probably hold enough water to drown a rat. He knew the ship's medical facilities could fix it. But for now? He saw no reason to tell Virgil that.
Jomina stood further down the line, hands clasped over her stomach where Kayvaan's palm had struck her the day before. A deep red imprint was still visible through her tunic, though she was one of the least injured among them. Sir Tygett stood unnaturally still, his pale complexion betraying the sheer trauma of what had happened. His wounds were less visible, but the memory of having his bones torn apart, leaving him motionless like a broken doll, had left its mark.
Kayvaan crossed his arms, surveying the battered warriors before him. "You all considered yourselves the best," he said, voice carrying across the courtyard. "You thought strength was yours by right. That power ran in your blood." He gestured to them. "You held your blades with pride, believing yourselves untouchable. You dictated who lived and who died. You thought yourselves the chosen. He let the words linger before he stepped closer. "But now? Now you know—your past victories, your titles, your reputations… they were illusions."
For those who think deeply on such matters, the question of how to make the strong even stronger is a philosophical one. But for the Imperium of Man, it is a practical necessity—one that dictates the survival of the species. In the grim darkness of the far future, weakness is not tolerated. There is no room for the frail or the unworthy within the ranks of the Adeptus Astartes.
The Imperium does not sustain the weak; it does not allow them to exist in its war machine. The value of a thing is not intrinsic—it depends entirely on its circumstances. A cup of water means little to a man living by a river, but to a dying traveler lost in the dunes of a sun-scorched wasteland, it is more precious than gold. Take that same cup to the void of deep space, where no oases or underground wells exist, and its worth becomes astronomical. Water is not the only resource that holds such value in the vast abyss of the cosmos. Even air itself is a commodity that cannot be taken for granted.
Transporting a mere cup of water across a desert is a challenge. Transporting it across the cold void of space is exponentially more difficult. The same is true of warriors. A soldier fighting on their homeworld and a soldier deployed across the stars are vastly different investments. The further a warzone stretches from the Imperium's core, the greater the cost. When measured in light-years, when battlefields exist on the surface of alien worlds in uncharted systems, the value of a single warrior must justify the immense expense of their deployment.
If it costs one Throne Gelt to raise a warrior, it costs thousands—tens of thousands—to transport him to a battlefield across the galaxy. And for what? To waste incalculable resources sending mere fodder into the jaws of the xenos? To watch unworthy, weak-willed men be torn apart and devoured? To allow the warriors of the Imperium to be reduced to nothing more than rations for the horrors lurking beyond the void? No. That is not acceptable.
If the Imperium must spend a fortune to deploy warriors, then those warriors must be worth the price. The cost of sending them must be met with equal combat value. A warrior who costs ten thousand Thrones in logistics cannot be worth just one in battle. At the very least, his effectiveness must be one thousand. If he cannot reach that threshold, he must be discarded—mere hundredfold efficiency is barely tolerable. Thus, the Imperium's only option is to invest in elites.