The Emperor’s Angel of Death

"Speaking of which, I feel quite ashamed. Although I hold the position of acting Chapter Master, I haven't really chatted with everyone, listened to your thoughts and opinions, nor have I truly fought alongside you all that often."

In the brightly lit bridge of the Avesta, on the command platform, Sorskyan faced nearly a thousand warriors clad in white armor, a look of shame on his face.

"It is my dereliction of duty. I should treat the Astral Knights and the White Templars equally. Otherwise, how can I live up to the Primarch's entrustment and the Emperor's expectations?"

Standing to Sorskyan's right, Arash immediately spoke up:

"Chapter Master, please don't say that. Everyone sees your efforts. When you took over the Astral Knights, there were only 33 battle-brothers left. It's only right that you focused on restoring the Astral Knights. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't even know the secrets of our own bloodline and have so many blood brothers. It is also you who led the Chapter to eliminate countless enemies for the Emperor. Only you can restore the Chapter's glory and reputation. Every warrior of the White Templars unconditionally supports everything you do!"

"We will always support the Chapter Master!"

The warriors roared in unison, deafeningly.

"No, that's not an excuse. Not doing it well is not doing it well. Let me introduce this gentleman, Captain Tekshar, now the 9th Company Captain of the Astral Knights, but before that, he was a member of the Venom Thorns Chapter."

After Sorskyan finished speaking, Tekshar on his left strode forward, gazed at the White Templars before him, and then slammed his fist against his chest.

"It is a great pleasure to meet you brothers! Seeing so many blood relatives, my heart is filled with excitement!"

Hearing him say this, the crowd was somewhat confused. Some warriors whispered in the back, seemingly wondering where this Venom Thorns came from.

But Arash knew, and he immediately said:

"The Venom Thorns Chapter is also marked as a successor Chapter of the Imperial Fists, but was declared traitors and destroyed by the Imperial Fists about two hundred years ago."

The crowd immediately erupted in an uproar. Sorskyan then raised his hands to calm them down.

"Everyone, don't be surprised. The reason for the matter is not complicated. The Venom Thorns Chapter had a conflict with the Imperial authorities. In the end, the Imperial Fists at the time chose to stand on the more official side. But these things are in the past. Now, what we have to do is open our arms and welcome back the lost brothers. This is a good sign for the Chapter's revival!"

Sorskyan didn't plan to go into too much detail about the Venom Thorns. Tekshar could understand that the priority now was to restore the Chapter's strength, and everything else was secondary.

"Bringing Captain Tekshar and the 9th Company here this time is also to hope that the Chapter can be more harmonious in the future, that everyone can be familiar with each other, and that the companies can break through the framework of the Chapter. Chapter Master Arash, could you introduce the various company captains and companies of the White Templars to Captain Tekshar?"

"Yes, Chapter Master."

Arash then briefly told Tekshar about the situation of the White Templars and introduced the company captains and the heads of various functional departments to him one by one.

The White Templars had already reached a scale of 806 people before the Maelstrom Expedition. Although they experienced the Maelstrom Expedition and the subsequent Chapter relocation work, and were unable to conduct large-scale recruitment and replenishment, they still received a lot of new recruits transferred from the Astral Knights. Currently, the total number of warriors in the Chapter is 947, which is close to a full complement. At the same time, Sorskyan also assigned the civilized world of Ramdong to the White Templars as their new homeworld.

Of course, Sanctuary Star was not abandoned. After all, there was still a well-defended Chapter fortress there, a world that could provide a considerable number of soldiers, and a very secret webway entrance, so it was still the official homeworld of the White Templars, and in the future, a company-sized force would always be stationed there.

This was equivalent to the White Templars having two homeworlds, greatly improving their recruitment efficiency. At least when Sorskyan came, the White Templars already had 450 new recruits waiting or already starting transformation surgery.

Because the White Templars were located in the Sol System where Imperial power was concentrated for a long time, although they had the historical continuation from the Eleventh Legion, they still had to maintain the standard Codex structure.

Therefore, its 1st Company is a veteran company, and also the most powerful company. It is entirely composed of veterans and equipped with Terminator armor for combat. The 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th companies are battle companies and are the backbone of the Chapter. The 6th and 7th companies are reserve battle companies. The 8th Company is a reserve assault company, equipped with a certain proportion of air vehicles to carry out air strikes or air assaults. The 9th Company is a reserve devastator company, composed of 10 devastator squads, equipped with heavy firepower equipment. The 10th Company is a scout company, composed of new recruits.

However, as descendants of the Undying Army's Destroyer cadre 'Manticore', the White Templars still showed some of their past power, which was reflected in the fact that their 6th and 7th companies were also secretly equipped with a large number of heavy firepower equipment, essentially also devastator companies, while the 8th Company, as an assault company, was actually equipped with weapons of mass destruction, such as phosphor weapons, rift weapons, and so on.

According to Arash's introduction, the current personnel status of the White Templars is as follows—

1st Company: 87 men, Captain Nadir

2nd Company: 92 men, Captain Wang Rajik

3rd Company: 88 men, Captain Barez

4th Company: 94 men, Captain Yahasru

5th Company: 79 men, Captain Osruka

6th Company: 97 men, Captain Sparbad

7th Company: 90 men, Captain Mitradates

8th Company: 81 men, Captain Orodes

9th Company: 100 men, Captain Surena

10th Company: 104 men, Captain Sheroe

In addition, there are 12 formal and apprentice apothecaries, Apothecary Guildmaster Avicenna, 14 formal and apprentice tech-marines, Forge Master Ben Albert, and Reclusiarch Horamdin.

What surprised Tekshar very much was that the number of Dreadnoughts in the White Templars seemed to be abnormally high. Other Chapters had only a few, at most about ten, but the White Templars had a full 19 Dreadnoughts!

Then Sorskyan explained that this was related to the old veterans who had previously implanted the corrupted Grey髓. Although Randle had called a halt to the transplantation of the corrupted Grey髓, many of the veterans in the same batch as him had transplanted it. Most of them eventually died in battle or died accidentally, and those who did not die, in order to prevent them from suffering the extremely painful metallic death, could only artificially cut off those metallized parts and put them into Dreadnoughts for preservation in stasis fields. Although Sorskyan later thought of many ways to stop the spread of the corrupted Grey髓 in their bodies, once they entered the Dreadnoughts, they could no longer come out. This is also the reason why the White Templars have a ridiculously large number of Dreadnoughts.

After the introductions were completed, Sorskyan announced a new decision—