Chapter 321: Grandpa Guilliman Uses the King

In the instant Zhou Yun and Guilliman stepped into the ward, all wailing and sobbing ceased.

The thick, foul air grew crisp; the scent of disinfectant overwhelmed the stench of dirty secretions; patients on the beds suddenly felt renewed strength coursing through their bodies, their swollen tear ducts no longer spilled putrid tears, the edema receded, and light returned to their eyes.

The patients stared in stunned wonder at their own hands, their eyes wide—disease and pain had vanished as if in an instant.

They might as well have been fully cured!

The patients scrambled off their beds in delight, turning toward Guilliman and Zhou Yun standing at the doorway.

Since the warriors of Cadia 184th Regiment did not contract Tear Plague, these patients were all members of the Oltremar auxiliary forces.

Zhou Yun was a stranger to them, and they did not know he was Doraemon.

But how could they fail to recognize the Primarch's form?

With reverence and fervor, the patients tried to drag themselves from their beds to kneel before Guilliman.

They naturally assumed this miracle was Guilliman's doing.

The Primarch swiftly gestured for the stunned apothecaries and medics to stop the patients from kneeling, then immediately began examining their conditions.

They quickly concluded: the patients' diseases had truly vanished.

Even the omnipresent mites—nearly impossible to eradicate entirely—were dying in swarms; black pools of mite corpses pooled on the ward and encampment floors.

The medics and apothecaries were utterly baffled; the patients and accompanying Imperial Cult priests, however, took it for granted that this was the Primarch's miracle.

Guilliman rubbed his brow, trying to ease his headache.

He could faintly hear, beyond the ward, Imperial Cult priests already beginning to preach.

"This is the Emperor's mercy! The Divine Nature of the God-Emperor has spread through His bloodline to His sons!"

"The glory of the Lord of Mankind shines upon the Primarch! The Plague God's diseases dare not touch Him!"

The priests waved their eagle-headed staffs, shouting with hoarse fervor of the Emperor's and Primarch's divinity; the warriors below listened, entranced.

It was no wonder the priests were ecstatic—the rise of the Doraemon Sect had pressured Imperial Cult groups near Oltremar.

The Cult had long distrusted the Doraemon Sect, but the endorsements of Sanguinius and Guilliman forced them to suppress their doubts and allow its rapid spread across Macragge and Oltremar.

Zhou Yun frequently moved across Oltremar's battlefields, using his Fourth-Dimensional Pocket to recover objects corrupted by Chaos; the Cadia 184th and the Doraemon Company operated throughout Oltremar equipped with these tools.

Many mortals witnessed the miraculous effects of these tools and took them as Doraemon's divine signs, joining the Holy Doraemon Sect.

This instilled panic in Oltremar's Imperial Cult factions, especially after Guilliman's resurrection—he remained distant from the Cult, yet permitted the Holy Doraemon Sect to hold ceremonies and festivals in Macragge's capital.

Of course, Zhou Yun understood this was Guilliman's political maneuver: he sought religious counterweights to balance the Cult.

But the Cult, unaware of this, felt their authority threatened; now that the Emperor's son had performed a miracle, they could not resist proclaiming it loudly.

"Ancient superstitions held that a king's touch alone could cure all disease."

Guilliman said, his face dark and grim:

"Now you expect me to believe this plague is divine, and that merely standing here can heal it?"

"Oltremar Moral Education: 'Grandpa Guilliman Uses the King's Hand to Defeat the Plague God's Disease.'"

Zhou Yun, sitting beside Guilliman, shrugged. He understood Guilliman's mood.

Guilliman now felt like Ximen Bao, who had drowned the River Witch and the Three Elders, only to discover the River God was real.

Materialism no longer existed! The Imperial Truth no longer existed!

Under these circumstances, only Mortarion and Fabius Bile—the two lunatics—could still refuse to question materialism and the Imperial Truth.

Guilliman's expression was complex: on one hand, he had indeed found a way to heal his people; on the other, the method was deeply unpleasant. And Guilliman felt strange.

"This is odd. I never realized I possessed such an ability."

Guilliman murmured, stroking his chin.

Guilliman sighed, as if accepting it.

He and Zhou Yun used the Door of Anywhere to move across Oltremar.

Wherever they went, Tear Plague vanished like dew before the sun; the Imperial Cult preached with hoarse fervor of Guilliman's miracle; patients knelt in gratitude before Robert Guilliman.

Chants echoed endlessly; Guilliman seemed to be undertaking a sacred pilgrimage—even the worst-hit regions shed their plague upon the Primarch's arrival. Such coincidence. Such perfect timing.

With the Door of Anywhere, Guilliman visited the encampment with the most Tear Plague victims in a single day, eradicating the disease through his mere presence.

"Tear Plague" could not stop its tears—how unwillingly! At Mortarion's plea to the Father, it had to suppress itself during Guilliman's visits, withdrawing the Father's blessing from the mortal patients.

This was to exhaust Guilliman in Oltremar, to make him wander in despair, to force him to remain in Oltremar saving his people, unable to reach his father's side.

This was Mortarion's goal: to force Guilliman to choose between Oltremar and the entire Imperium.

Either let his people weep in disease, or let the Imperium fall to chaos and division.

How sorrowful. How agonizing.

"Tear Plague" wept uncontrollably; its tears flooded the material realm, injecting bacteria into mites, accelerating their growth, development, and hatching.

Meanwhile, the dormant plague bacteria within the patients began to revive.

Weep. Weep.

In this galaxy, the ability to weep freely is itself a blessing.

"Tear Plague" writhed, its tears cascading like a tide from its eye—formed of countless mites.

And from the eyes of mortals who had seemed cured, and from the eyes of those once healthy.

In the Talarasglaudo Valley encampment, patients in the hut wards slept heavily—first peaceful sleep in days.

But that peace shattered quickly; the first sob rose from the ward.

A patient cried out in agony; tears gushed from his tear ducts, thick and foul, clinging to his eyelids and eyeballs, hardening into clots that swelled and reddened his eyes and lids.

Then came an unbearable rustling from within his eyes—countless tiny mites crawled out from between his eyelids and eyeballs, spreading through the entire ward.

Soon, other patients showed the same symptoms; those seemingly healed by Guilliman began weeping again, mites surging from their tear ducts like a black tide, pooling on the floor.

Mortal medics screamed in terror; Astartes apothecaries blocked the mite tide.

Similar scenes unfolded across other worlds: patients previously healed by Robert Guilliman now relapsed with Tear Plague symptoms.

Medics and apothecaries were helpless.

The mite tide even emerged beyond the wards—these tiny mites seemed to appear from anywhere unseen by human eyes.

They oozed like viscous black water from every corner, surging toward Oltremar auxiliary encampments.

Laser fire met the mite tide, but with little effect.

"Use phaeton!" roared the commander of the Talaras Oltremar auxiliaries.

Mk. IIa Heretic Phaeton Flamethrowers unleashed searing flames, burning the plague-carrying mites on the ground.

But the mites moved like a disciplined army, swiftly changing tactics.

The Oltremar auxiliary commander watched in horror as Talaras's cold rain turned black and viscous, teeming with Tear Plague mites.

Rain fell on mortal soldiers; mites bit their skin; Tear Plague symptoms appeared instantly—within moments, nearly a third of the Oltremar auxiliaries began weeping and wailing.

"Tear Plague" wept, rejoicing as it poured the Father's blessing upon them.

The only thing "Tear Plague" regretted: the Astra Militarum troops clad in Cadia uniforms, advancing through the black rain toward the Oltremar encampment, seemed shielded by some force—it could make mites bite them, but could not infuse them with its blessing.

Leina stood outside the Oltremar auxiliary encampment, bathed in Talaras's cold rain; her eyes blazed with psychic fire. She heard the demonic sobs from the Warp, felt the profane power within Tear Plague—and she was furious.

Damn it, Warp demons have no manners! This is too much!

"GET OUT!!!"

A powerful psychic surge erupted from Leina; the black, Tan -like mite tide ignited. Simultaneously, her psychic energy surged into the sky's clouds, exploding like a blazing sun, burning away the storm clouds and polluted rain, restoring sunlight to the Talarasglaudo Valley encampment.

But the sobs from the Warp remained. Leina could destroy mites—but not the bacteria already parasitizing human bodies.

As long as those bacteria persisted, causing the infected to weep and suffer, the demon born of Tear Plague could keep drawing power, growing stronger.

This was the unique power of Nurgle and his demons: when a great plague spreads, Nurgle can rise to become the strongest of the Four Chaos Gods.

"Commander, how do we handle these patients?" Cadia 184th soldiers swiftly took control of the Talaras Oltremar auxiliary encampment and asked Leina for orders.

"Report this situation to Zhou Yun and Lord Guilliman—" Leina's words were cut short by a sharp click of a door opening.

Instantly, she and the Cadia 184th soldiers turned, faces lighting up, all staring toward the sound.

A pinkish-red wooden door gently swung open; a figure stepped out.

"Zhou—?" Leina hadn't finished saying Zhou Yun's name before she froze.

A round, blue-furred, red-nosed cat stepped out from the Door of Anywhere.

The Cadia 184th soldiers dropped to their knees; the Oltremar auxiliaries gasped, as if witnessing a legend come to life.

Zhou Yun, wearing Doraemon's form, reached into his Fourth-Dimensional Pocket and pulled out a lantern.

"Ta-da! The Lamp That Eliminates Useless Bacteria!"

(End of Chapter)