Chapter 324: The Shadow of Macragge

If it is said that all perfect things have their shadows, and all order must have its chaos, then Illyrium is the shadow and chaos of Macragge.

This city, built from rough stone and belonging to the barbarians of Macragge, is the place most detached from Macragge's political system.

Once, Roboute Guilliman bloodlessly reclaimed this place from the barbarian leaders who worshipped primitive faiths.

But the barbarians were merely a loose collection of tribes, and even their internal beliefs were bizarre and varied; the barbarian leader Roboute Guilliman tamed was merely the commander of a tribal alliance.

Privately, those tribes still did not submit to Macragge's rule, and even after ten thousand years, their descendants still secretly worshipped those ancient gods.

Naturally, this included a large number of Chaos cultists who worshipped the four Chaos gods.

Zhou Yun once asked Roboute Guilliman why he did not destroy Illyrium.

He had originally thought Guilliman would reply with something like, "These are also my people," or "Not all of them are Chaos cultists."

But Guilliman replied, "When you find a toilet is clogged, the best method is never to blow up the toilet and let the excrement spray everywhere."

"As long as Illyrium exists, it will continuously gather the Chaos cultists of all Macragge there; they will engage in internal strife, consume each other, and maintain a balance, and we only need to conduct periodic encirclement and suppression."

"To use a phrase I once saw in an ancient text from the Dragon Kingdoms to describe it: 'Scattered, they are a sky full of stars; gathered, they are a pile of shit.'"

Zhou Yun was therefore sincerely impressed by Guilliman's political wisdom.

Encircle three sides and leave one open, feigning a path to survival.

The followers of the four Chaos gods are like this: individually, each one is extremely dangerous, but gathered together, their threat actually diminishes.

Because they will always choose to bite the followers of other Chaos gods first.

"Pfft—!"

A figure cloaked in dark green robes rushed rapidly before the pipes of Illyrium; he spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, his entire body covered in wounds.

The cage beneath the robe rattled and clanked, and the raven inside cawed.

"The sixth time, this is the sixth time," Festus, cloaked in dark green robes, said through gritted teeth.

Their sect had received an oracle from the Great Grandfather six days ago.

The Grandfather's messenger was about to descend and required two carrion-eating ravens as hosts for the divine envoy.

Thus, they, in their piety, had made six attempts; the first five attempts had all encountered accidents.

The Ultramarines' encirclement team broke into the ritual site, the newly caught ravens died of heatstroke from the sun, a venomous snake bit and killed the ravens, the priest responsible for the ritual had his neck bitten off by a hound halfway there, and the ravens in the cage inexplicably turned into two blue eagles.

They had just experienced six inexplicable failures like this.

And this time, this was the sixth time; Festus and his companions had been entrusted with the mission to escort the ravens to the ritual site.

They still encountered a massive number of obstacles.

First, the Ultramar Auxilia began searching, then they encountered two beautiful young women on the road trying to seduce them, followed by a group of strong men who went mad and insisted on fighting them to the death, and finally, a diviner tried to trick him out of the ravens in his arms.

There were also a large number of those Chaos cultists trying—after enduring hardships and the sacrifice of his companions, he finally delivered the ravens to the entrance of the ritual site.

Festus crashed into the ritual site and held the cage in his arms high; two pitch-black ravens were cawing inside.

"The host for the divine envoy has arrived!"

Festus shouted loudly:

"The sixth time, we have finally succeeded!"

The other cultists in the ritual site cast excited gazes one after another.

Festus grinned, revealing a smile; his abdomen was bleeding uncontrollably, and his life force was continuously draining away.

But it didn't matter; he had already felt it, felt the Grandfather's garden calling.

The priest closest to Festus revealed a beautiful smile, gently stroked Festus's dying cheek, and took the ravens in the cage from his hands.

"My Lord is grateful for your dedication; may your soul return to His garden with me."

"... Oh, though not the Plague God's garden, but the Lady of Thirst's."

Purple light flickered in the priest's eyes; he grabbed the two ravens from the cage and stuffed them into his own pants.

Before the Grandfather's followers could stop him, he had alive-and-well sodomized the two ravens.

"The seventh time—let us begin the seventh attempt."

After cleaning up the corpses of Festus and the priest corrupted by the Lady of Thirst, the leader of the Illyrium Great Grandfather Sect said through gritted teeth.

Two ravens, their feathers crawling with maggots and rotting flesh, flapped their wings and took flight from the rough stone tower of Illyrium, flying toward the direction of Hera Fortress.

The Grandfather's followers in Illyrium, after seven days and seven attempts, finally completed the ritual and transformed the two ravens.

These two ravens became the hosts for two souls from Nurgle's Garden, allowing them to act in the material universe.

Morge flapped his wings, feeling somewhat unaccustomed, finding it hard to endure the sense of restraint brought by this material body.

He had not returned to the material universe for a very, very long time.

His former body... oh, it had dissolved in the biomass pool within the under-hive of Ashfold.

Then, his soul, with the help of a Nurgling, was able to return to the Grandfather's garden.

The reason for returning this time was to complete a mission given by the Grandfather.

"Lion El'Jonson, or rather, Zhou Yun... that guy."

Morge, flying in the air, slightly shook the raven's head.

"Do you hate him, brother?"

Morge asked his brother, Margit, who was flying beside him.

"I am grateful to him."

Margit opened the raven's beak and answered calmly:

"Only after my soul returned to the Grandfather's garden did I understand that the Grandfather's love is not something everyone can bear."

"If we had succeeded back then and dragged all of Ashfold into the Grandfather's domain, then most people would only have become zombies, breeding grounds for fungi, and nests for parasites."

"The Grandfather loves humanity very much, just as he loves every living creature; this love is equal and profound, and the people of Ashfold could not bear it."

"Although Zhou Yun did not save everyone, he at least saved far more people than should have survived."

"That sounds like a questioning of the faith in the Grandfather, brother," Morge said, fluttering his wings a few times.

Margit just shook his head slightly: "The Grandfather does not care; the Grandfather just loves us equally."

"As long as one can accept and bear this love, even souls as base as ours can return to his garden."

"I hope we can complete the Grandfather's commission and repay this great love."

Listening to Margit's words, Morge cawed twice.

"Don't worry, brother," Morge said, "Our mission is just to deliver a message to Zhou Yun; it's too simple."

"Besides, we are just two small ravens now; who could discover us?"

Listening to Morge's words, Margit nodded slightly in a somewhat approving manner.

Yes, they were just two small ravens; who could discover them?

But Margit did not notice that right behind them, at a distance of one meter, a pair of eyes glowing with psychic light were watching the two of them.

Tigurius in the Library of Ptolemy slightly withdrew his gaze; he had sensed that two corrupted things were coming toward Hera Fortress.

What Tigurius found most laughable was that these two small Nurgle cultists actually thought they wouldn't be discovered?

The moment the thought of heading to Hera Fortress popped into their heads, Tigurius had already prophesied their existence.

Did they not know that Macragge had him, Tigurius? Two bumpkins from Nurgle's Garden; I really don't know which remote demon world they came from.

What? Ashfold in the Underworld System?

Originally, Tigurius had intended to strike these two ravens down directly with a long-range psychic lightning bolt.

But hearing them mention Ashfold, Lion El'Jonson, and Zhou Yun in their conversation, he immediately realized that these two ravens were coming for Lord Zhou Yun.

This made Tigurius have to pay a little more attention.

He quickly injected his thoughts into his psychic power and projected them into the mind of Mephiston, who was stationed at the Doraemon base, letting Mephiston inform Zhou Yun so he could make a judgment.

"Lord Tigurius! You're slacking off again! We're going to report you to Lord Guilliman!"

Two Harlequins, while standing on their heads on the table and compiling fake history, yelled at Tigurius.

These two were fished out of the Black Library by Lord Zhou Yun and sent to Tigurius.

I have to say, the Aeldari, especially the Aeldari Harlequins, really have a knack for fabricating history; after they arrived, Tigurius's workload decreased significantly.

It allowed him to find time to use his psychic powers to observe all of Macragge for leisure and relaxation.

It's just that these two Aeldari Harlequins—their personalities are even worse than Cato Sicarius of the Second Company.

Sicarius is just proud; these two Harlequins are annoying, always writing some strange and extremely blasphemous things.

"What slacking off? Is monitoring the safety of all Macragge slacking off? Have you finished your work?"

Tigurius asked sternly, then saw the fake historical files that were basically finished in front of the two Harlequins.

"Really finished writing? Let me see."

The Harlequins giggled and handed the newly compiled historical files to Tigurius.

Tigurius lowered his head and discovered that this file was used to fill in the history of the Illyrium rebellion during the Imperium Secundus period.

The first chapter introduced how Illyrium was reclaimed by Roboute Guilliman before he had returned to the Imperium.

"'The Young Roboute Guilliman Tames the Illyrium Tribal Leaders with His Tight Ass'"

Tigurius instinctively read out the title of this section, and then his face turned black instantly.

He threw the book onto the Harlequin's face.

"If you dare to write such blasphemous things again, I will use my psychic powers to blow you all into the sky."

"And then let Lord Zhou Yun throw you back to the Black Library!"

(End of chapter)