Chapter 346: Our Human Empire is thriving!

Terra, in an auxiliary palace near the Emperor's Imperial Palace,

Alexei Lev Tiriun, Prime Minister of the Imperial Senate or Imperial Council Prime Minister or one of a thousand other titles, wakes up from a short dream.

He moves his pale, bloated body and opens his eyes in the dim room. Compared to the reception rooms he has carefully decorated during his eighty years of service, his own room looks simple and boring.

There is no sandstone fireplace of the former French Federation, no luxurious gilded clock of the American nobility, no rare and exquisite porcelain from the Dragon Kingdoms, no original manuscripts of the Great Crusade era... There is only a small bed, a floor and desk piled with documents, and a window that is as small as can be.

Even though he is the Prime Minister of the Imperial Senate and the host of the High Lords Council, according to the Imperial law written on parchment scrolls, he is not among the twelve High Lords, but he has the right to attend the High Lords Council, and his power is second only to those bureaucrats. He has the power and ability to obtain a better room.

In fact, the smallest bit of the money Tiriun has embezzled is enough to buy the most luxurious palace on any planet outside Terra.

But ever since the years called the "Day of Blindness" descended, Tiriun has craved the sense of security brought by such a dim room.

As if this could avoid the gazes cast by things that are stirring like blasphemous blood beneath the curtain of reality.

Even in this dim room, Tiriun must rely on hypnosis and large doses of anesthetics to fall asleep, and then wakes up from nightmares every half hour, and trembles in the fear of reality.

He often dreams of butchers with sharp iron helmets cutting off his head, often sees himself in the mirror showing a strange smile, often hears bird cries out of thin air, often endures the pain brought by inflammation and fever, and often sees a blue, round raccoon in hallucinations claiming that xenos are a sub-species of humanity.

These terrible scenes often make Tiriun feel suffocated. Several times he almost committed suicide.

Tiriun takes a deep breath, calming his fragile heart that is beating violently, and slowly crawls out from the quilt.

He looks at his ugly, bloated body exposed to the air, and then feels cold, but does not wake up Jieqi, who is lying beside him, and puts on his clothes himself.

Although work is about to start soon, Tiriun still cannot

The two huddled together last night, spending this long and painful night,

Jieji was not Tiruien's wife; in fact, after Tiruien buried his second wife with his own hands and watched six of his seven children be killed in political struggles, with one sent beneath the Throne, Tiruien never married again.

Jieji was merely Tiruien's assistant, but this did not mean that the two sleeping together was a descent into biological instinct.

In reality, Tiruien was already two hundred years old and had not accepted deeper rejuvenation therapies to extend his life; he actually no longer had that function.

Tiruien and Jieji huddled together simply because they had come to trust each other completely during their long work, able to barely survive these nights following the Day of Blindness through this mutual trust.

Most of the time, Jieji would bring Tiruien some peace of mind. Well, most of the time.

Tiruien recalled the day the Day of Blindness descended, the day what the people on Terra called the Great Rift, and what the Black Legion member Khayon, imprisoned by the Inquisition, called the Crimson Path, descended.

Frankly, what Tiruien had done in his eighty-year-long career as Imperial Viceroy was more than what the sixty-four Imperial Viceroys who still had their names recorded in the past five hundred years had done combined; this was, of course, the reason he had been able to sit firmly in this position for eighty years.

When the call for help from Cadia arrived and the Thirteenth Black Crusade struck, Tiruien successfully won over five High Lords to support a proposal through a series of bribes, fraud, and interest exchanges.

He proposed lifting the restriction that forbade the Custodians from leaving Terra, allowing the Custodians to support Cadia and protect that important gateway.

But the Master of the Neiwu Force and Chief High Lord Irthu Simotrien opposed Tiruien's proposal, or rather, he opposed any proposal that changed Imperial law.

Tiruien could understand; although most High Lords' power came from every scroll of parchment and every line of text in Imperial law, the Neiwu Force was the most deeply linked to Imperial law, and the slightest change would cause a torrent within the Neiwu Force.

Countless people might lose their ancestral positions because of this, countless people would die suddenly in front of parchment scrolls, and the entire import of parchment for Terra would increase by several percentage points; the resulting trade fluctuations could bankrupt several nobles and planets that relied on this for a living.

With the livelihood of ten billion Neiwu Force employees at stake, as the Master of the Neiwu Force, Irthu certainly had to defend it to the death.

The reason Tiruien knew this so clearly was because his father was a Neiwu Force official, but shortly after Tiruien was born, he was notified that the department he belonged to had been dissolved one thousand five hundred and sixty years ago; Tiruien's father and ancestors had been performing useless work for a thousand years. They were required to transfer to new positions.

And when Tiruien's father spent two years finding a new position, he discovered that the department he was supposed to be transferred to had been dissolved five hundred years earlier. Tiruien's father thus lost his ancestral Neiwu Force position.

After his father died, Tiruien was sent to the Progenium Academy, and then spent one hundred and twenty years climbing to the position of Imperial Viceroy, only to learn that all of this was because the High Lords' Council had corrected a small spelling error in Imperial law one thousand five hundred and sixty years ago.

Tiruien understood that if he wanted to abolish the Custodians' restriction and have the Custodians support Cadia, he would be facing the entire Neiwu Force and the forces represented by other High Lords who opposed this proposal.

But just when Tiruien had exhausted all his talents and finally pushed everything to the voting stage, and was about to succeed,

Jieji rushed into the High Lords' Council and brought the latest news.

There was no need to discuss the Custodians supporting Cadia anymore; there was no longer a Cadia.

In fact, Jieji's notification was completely unnecessary, because a few minutes after her words fell, the firmament was pierced by the Great Rift.

The entire Terra, the entire galaxy, fell into madness and chaos.

Tiruien walked tremblingly to his desk; before starting work, he took out a small picture book from inside the desk.

It was a religious pamphlet he had received from a priest of the State Sect during his childhood, which depicted the figures of the nine pure Primarchs.

Every child on Terra was told to pray constantly to these images, not to let these glorious figures leave their minds, not to let these models of human spirit and hope disappear from their hearts.

Tiruien slowly opened the scroll, looking at the nine figures on it—Lion El'Jonson, Leman Russ, Jaghatai Khan, Vulkan, Corax, Rogal Dorn, Ferrus Manus, Roboute Guilliman, and Sanguinius.

"My thoughts may be a bit heretical, but I have had a strange feeling since I was a child; I believe that one day they will return and lead us again."

Tiruien said uncontrollably, his voice loud, almost a shout.

Strangely enough, this childhood fantasy could actually give him some strength now. "Is it because of those astropathic messages recently?" Jieji's voice sounded behind Tiruien; she had efficiently dressed and sat at the desk next to Tiruien to begin work.

"Perhaps, perhaps those somewhat bizarre astropathic messages gave me false hope."

A gray smile crossed the corners of Tiruien's mouth.

The astropathic messages received recently were truly bizarre.

Some claimed that Guilliman and Sanguinius had been resurrected and had formed the Second Empire and were killing their way back to Terra.

Some claimed that the Wolf King Leman Russ had brought back medicine to heal the Emperor.

Some claimed that Rogal Dorn had returned and was preparing to lead the Imperial Fists to attack Terra and launch a coup.

There were also some parts where Aeldari claimed to be sub-humans, Erebus claimed to be awaiting the birth of the fifth god of the Warp, and the Lion King's foster father Luther had reappeared and was seeking to resurrect Lion El'Jonson.

There were even more blasphemous, malicious, and bizarre rumors, even claiming that Horus had returned.

Of course, the most bizarre and blasphemous was that a sect worshipping an existence called "Saint Doraemon" had suddenly emerged in the galaxy.

That sect actually claimed that Sanguinius and Guilliman had both submitted to the authority of Saint Doraemon.

And the image of that Saint Doraemon was a blue, round, chubby raccoon dog with a red nose and no ears, which even looked a bit cute.

!

If this were not some kind of heretical faith, it might be very popular with children.

It was just that they were far too heretical; according to their doctrine, the purest Primarch Sanguinius had been corrupted into a Daemon Prince of Saint Doraemon.

Tiruien took a deep breath and banished these fragmented thoughts from his mind; he had to start work.

Although the galaxy was already dark and hope seemed to no longer exist, he still could not put down his work.

Our Human Empire is thriving! Tiruien cheered himself on.

Tiruien worked continuously for more than four hours, until eight o'clock when he welcomed his first guest.

"It is the Lady Abbess of the Adepta Sororitas, the Abbess of the Convent of the Prophet, the Commander-in-Chief of the Adepta Sororitas, Lady Morvenn Vahl."

"Accompanying her is Lady Magda, the Abbess from the Order of the Sacred Rose of the Adepta Sororitas."

Jieji announced the identity of the visitor to Tiruien; she hesitated slightly and said:

"It's a bit strange to say, but the power armor of the Adepta Sororitas... when did it change to a metallic blue paint job?"

(End of chapter)