Chapter 411

Catheria was not a rigid old Inquisitor, nor was she an extremist in the Inquisitorial faction. She was just an orthodox young Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus who had only been in service for twenty years.

She was young, she was spirited, and deep down, she actually still harbored "delusions" about the Empire, about humanity, and even about the Emperor.

This kind of spirit is actually a type of heresy in the Inquisition. A slight deviation could lead to falling and corruption.

But Catheria had her unique stability in spiritual will, and she had a teacher. Her teacher was a Grand Inquisitor, so whether it was her teacher, her colleagues, or the Inquisition, they were all willing to give her a chance to mature.

Catheria naturally knew how heretical the thoughts she had deep down were. She actually hoped that the Empire wouldn't be so cruel, wouldn't blow up an entire planet just because a tiny bit of corruption appeared on it, wouldn't execute tens of millions of people as traitors just because they couldn't pay the imperial tax, and wouldn't refuse to find a way to save the Emperor just because of various reasons of the Ecclesiarchy...

Her heart carried these delusions that could be called arrogant. How much, how much, how much... she wanted to save humanity!

Human hearts are made of flesh. Even if one is an Inquisitor, aren't they also a human?

She had personally executed no fewer than hundreds of thousands of people, among whom were her comrades, women and children, heroes who had held a position for years, and governors who could be considered clean...

And the number of people who didn't die by her own hands but died because of her orders was countless. In her twenty-year career so far, she had already issued three Exterminatus orders, destroying three worlds, two of which were Hive Worlds destroyed because of her.

She had once fought Nurgle contaminants at the lowest level of a Forge World. She was saved by an Astra Militarum regiment she had conscripted, saved twice by its Commissar!

After the battle, she personally ordered the burning of this Astra Militarum regiment because they were all infected with Nurgle's plague...

She also slaughtered three simple towns. That was an agricultural world. The people in that town were simple, hardworking, and had no bad intentions. At the same time, they were also devoutly believing in the Emperor. They offered every bit of their harvest to the imperial tax and the Ecclesiarchy, with faces covered in dust and mud, smiling at her...

But they might... just might be facing the corruption of the Warp, because in the wilderness far away, an illegal psyker on the run had passed through their farmland and suburbs, so she had to choose to slaughter everyone in those three towns.

And...

And more...

She was still young, very, very young. As an Inquisitor, there were too many ways to extend life. For example, her teacher was already over five hundred years old. For her, a twenty-year career was really as young as a newborn child, but she had already experienced too much, so much that she felt she might already be a hundred or two hundred years old...

She already knew the truth of this world. Everyone is struggling painfully. The Empire is actually dying, or because of death, and they are just struggling painfully for this corpse named the Imperium of Man.

This world... is there really still hope?

Her deepest delusions were just delusions, right?

And now, some kind of miracle she had never thought of suddenly appeared before her eyes!

Others don't understand!

They don't understand at all!!

Even if it's the Astra Militarum Commissar, the Astra Militarum veteran hero, or that attached legal low-level psyker, they are limited by their status, they don't understand!

Everything they think, what combat power, what physical body resisting shells... okay, this is indeed awesome, but it's still not important. None of this is important. The only thing that is truly important is that the target human isolated the Warp corruption!!

As an Inquisitor, Catheria knew the countless desperate problems the Empire faced, from combat personnel, to the infighting of the High Lords, to the possible rebellion of Space Marine Chapters, to the 13th Black Crusade that might appear at any time on the Cadian front... there were too many despairs, but the root of all these despairs, the one without equal, was the corruption of the Warp!

From Terra to Cadia, from the Core Worlds to the Eastern Fringe, from the Dark Tunnels to the edge zones, the Warp covers everything in the human world, and everything outside the human world!

This world is divided into two layers. The first layer is the material world, the galaxy where all mortal things live, with stars, planets, and normal cosmic space.

And behind this first layer of the material world, there is a idealistic ocean of consciousness, spirit, and soul called the Warp. All emotional fluctuations of mortals will be cast into the Warp, leading to the appearance of existences in the Warp. The four most terrifying existences are the masters of the Warp, the ultimate Chaos Gods, representing war and slaughter, twisted desire for battle, the bloody slaughterer, Khorne.

Representing magic and intrigue, chaos and change, the endless mysterious and twisted knowledge, Tzeentch.

Representing decay and rebirth, plague and filth, the eternal lord of bacteria and viruses, Nurgle.

Representing love and desire, ultimate pleasure, the lord of twisted enjoyment beyond the limits, Slaanesh.

They almost encompass all the desires and emotions of life in this world, whether it is courage, exploration, awe of life, or love... all emotions will breed them, and they also bring the deepest malice to the people of the material world.

Corruption is this kind of malice!

Anyone, except the Emperor, even the Emperor's descendants, the Primarchs known as demigods, will be corrupted. Half of them have fallen into the arms of the four Chaos Gods or the Warp Chaos itself.

Catheria knew very well that humanity's true and ultimate enemy is the Warp itself. As long as the corruption of the Warp exists for one day, this corpse of the Imperium of Man will continue to rot, and there will absolutely never be a day of rebirth.

But... but!

What if there is a way to isolate the corruption and influence of the Warp!?

Catheria suddenly remembered a book she saw by chance on the ninth row of the ninth shelf in a secret Inquisition world library when she was an apprentice. On the ninth page, she saw a very secret, very strange content.

"... The Emperor once planned to let humanity live completely detached from the Warp. He found the Webway of the Old Ones and processed, repaired, and adapted it under the Imperial Palace on Terra. Once the plan succeeded, humanity would avoid the corruption of the Warp, and this was the true reason for the Emperor's Great Crusade..."

"... When his Great Crusade failed, when half of the Primarchs rebelled, he was severely wounded, but this injury was not fatal to the Emperor. However, he was still forced to sit on the Golden Throne, just because a large hole was broken in the Webway under the Imperial Palace. Once he stopped suppressing all this, the surging demons would bury everything, and humanity would be declared extinct the moment the Emperor stood up from the Golden Throne..."

Catheria only read it that one time. Her special psychic power immediately issued a warning about this, which made her decisively put down the book and pray in the Inquisition church for thirteen days and nights. Afterward, she entered the library again and indeed never found that book again, and she had never told anyone about this.

She had never believed the content in that book, nor had she completely disbelieved it, because both belief and disbelief could be a demon's conspiracy. But in her twenty years of service, she had confirmed one point based on her experience and what she had seen and heard: once humanity is no longer afraid of the corruption of the Warp, then so-called demons are really no different from ordinary xenos. At most, there are more of them, they can't be killed, only banished. But for the scale of the Imperium of Man, the Warp is no longer an absolutely fatal enemy!

And... if the content in that book is true, this also perfectly explains why the Emperor must sit on the Golden Throne. It's still the corruption of the Warp!

The Warp corruption coming through the Webway hole under the Imperial Palace!

So, if there is really a way to isolate Warp corruption—not referring to isolation like blanks or the Blackstone creations of alien technology, which isn't true isolation, just thickening the veil of the material world, making it harder for demons to enter the material world, not that their corruption disappears or is isolated—even blanks can still be killed by demons. This has happened countless times. Similarly, Blackstone creations that can thicken the reality veil can also be seized by the fallen or demons and then used to weaken the reality veil...

This is not true elimination of Warp corruption!

But now, Catheria has seen with her own eyes a miracle that has never appeared in this world!

Warp corruption has truly been eliminated, it doesn't exist. A Lord of Change couldn't even corrupt the most ordinary and terrified women, children, and infants. Its existence turned into a quasi-material body. Even though it still possessed powerful psychic powers, it couldn't use them at all at this time. At the same time, all its foul language and all the Warp information with terrifying omens and consequences turned into completely meaningless, chaotic tones at this time.

!

As a psyker, Catheria, standing on this land, felt refreshed in body and mind for the first time. That feeling of being continuously soaked in a cesspit or concentrated sulfuric acid no longer existed.

"I understand!"

"I understand!"

Catheria and this Lord of Change roared simultaneously.

"He is the Emperor's Chosen!"

"He is the Four Gods' Chosen!"

Then Catheria looked at the Lord of Change rolled in the steel roll with cold eyes, while the Lord of Change looked at Catheria with its bird eyes mockingly.

"Catheria, you think too much. You have already fallen into my master's domain. You will inevitably become my subordinate in the future. I look forward to you stepping into the maze of knowledge!" The Lord of Change cackled.

Catheria said calmly: "Perhaps at another time, in another place... you are right. The only thing I can do is commit suicide by shooting myself afterward. But here, in front of the Emperor's Chosen, the true, currently existing only Living Saint, the unknown Primarch from the past, humanity's savior, the Emperor's rescuer and healer, the eliminator of Warp corruption, the natural enemy of all filth in the Warp, what you say is really just talk, right? You should be clear about this, Kairos Fateweaver!"

"Now, Commissar, I order you, break and tear its bird beak, execute it if necessary, and then... the rest of you come with me to protect that one..."

"Our last hope for humanity!!"

Suddenly at this moment, Catheria and Kairos Fateweaver thought of something at the same time. One person and one bird spoke as if simultaneously: "Also, absolutely, absolutely must not let our savior be tainted by any Slaaneshi domain!"

"He has already obtained three omens, absolutely, absolutely must not let him obtain the last omen!"

Kairos Fateweaver cackled and said: "It seems you are more suitable to be my master's herald than I am, cackle cackle... Yes, yes, yes, that's it, everything is in my master's plan. Do you know how to isolate a man from falling into the Slaaneshi domain? There is only one way, only one way..."

Catheria's face was pale. She raised the power sword in her hand and pierced Kairos Fateweaver's incomplete bird beak, but this still couldn't stop Kairos Fateweaver from laughing wildly.

Demons do not die. Their death at most just lets them be banished back to the Warp, so it had no fear.

At this time, veteran Dafiqi asked Commissar Elian in a hoarse, low voice, very softly: "Only one way? What way?"

Elian's face was cold and stern. He didn't even frown and said: "Just castrate him."

"Castrate... castrate this suspected Primarch!?"

(End of chapter)