Chapter 376

The thick, toxic industrial clouds were torn apart by the bow of the void ship, and the entire land of Terra was directly exposed to Zhou Yun's eyes.

The first thing that flooded into Zhou Yun's eyes was that series of building complexes spanning the central part of the entire Eurasian continent.

From the Mount Ximalaya to ancient Mesopotamia, from Kathmandu to the Taklamakan Desert, everything in sight were those spires piercing the void, continuous metal domed fortresses, and wide, thick walls capable of docking starships.

Zhou Yun really wanted to use the word "magnificent" to describe the buildings in front of him, but he really couldn't do it.

Perhaps when these building complexes were first built, they were a perfect combination of practicality, order, and art.

But now, practicality had given way to the trivialities accumulated over ten thousand years, order had given way to ever-increasing chaos, and art had naturally vanished.

Supernatural storms raged on the ground, kicking up dim yellow dust and beating against the scorched, blackened walls. The exquisite Aquila carvings on the towering walls had become ugly, and the holy angel carvings had become platforms for placing barbaric metal gun mounts. The disorderly growing fortifications were like a mass of metal slime stuck to the walls, which were wide enough for Titans to run on.

And inside the walls, most areas were dilapidated, no different from the Hive Worlds of Ashford, or rather, this place that people called the Imperial Palace of Terra was just an ugly, twisted Hive World.

It was like a microcosm of the millions of other Hive World cities in the Empire, a symbol of the Empire's decay, depravity, and chaos.

It was just that this Hive World didn't produce industrial goods, weapons, and ammunition, but political decrees, laws, and tithe bills.

"Once, Dorn built this place perfectly, arguably one of the greatest creations of humanity. Even Lorgar's Perfect City and Guilliman's Magna Macragge could not compare to it, so perfect that even Fulgrim felt jealous, and Perturabo felt envious."

Sanguinius's voice was as calm as water, but anyone could feel the sadness in his words:

"But now, as far as my eyes can see, it is devastated; all the beauty of humanity has dissolved in war."

Roboute Guilliman looked away silently.

It was he who, after the Great Heresy, tore down those magnificent buildings of the Imperial Palace and replaced them with cold defensive lines, steel, and dense buildings.

But according to the history told by Tiruien, Guilliman was able to know... in the past ten thousand years, the Imperial Palace had never suffered a real, large-scale invasion.

In other words, the cold defensive lines built by Guilliman had been gathering dust for a full ten thousand years; in these ten thousand years, apart from occupying precious areas within the Imperial Palace of Terra, they had played no other role at all.

Even now, those defensive lines were of little use.

Over ten thousand years, government affairs from across the galaxy had continuously piled up in the Imperial Palace of Terra. The space needed to store these parchment scrolls kept increasing, the manpower needed to process government affairs kept increasing, and the corresponding demand for administrative space naturally kept increasing.

Thus, those defensive lines built by Guilliman had long been buried in the depths of the Hive World over the ten thousand years; it wouldn't be easy to dig them out.

"Look on the bright side, the Perfect City was bombed, the Imperial Palace of Terra was torn down, and our Magna Macragge of Ultramar is once again the most magnificent and tidy city in the galaxy." Zhou Yun stood beside Sanguinius and said.

"Alas, ambitious indeed." Sanguinius glanced at Guilliman and said.

"Ambitious, ambitious." Zhou Yun nodded in agreement.

"Perturabo is still alive, Mortarion, Magnus, Lorgar... they are all still alive."

Guilliman said somewhat bitterly:

"I was wondering what would happen if they fought back? Who knew they would just live in the Warp and not do anything major for ten thousand years."

"I want to know, didn't Dorn stop you?" Zhou Yun couldn't help but ask.

Guilliman's expression suddenly became even more bitter.

"At that time, Dorn was obsessed with self-abuse and the Crusade of Atonement. He blamed the tragedy of the Hua Hua Hua Di Huang's fall on himself and tried to atone for his sins with pain; most of the time, he was not on Terra."

"Later, after he saw the Imperial Palace I had modified, he only said one sentence."

"...'Watching the pain brought by your maintenance of the Imperial Palace is enough for me to atone for half of my sins.'"

"It's a real pity that the Imperial Palace was built by Dorn." Zhou Yun nodded and evaluated: "If it were Perturabo, he would already be bombing Macragge."

As the ship approached the ground, the situation on the surface of Terra became clearer before Zhou Yun's eyes.

Compared to other areas on Terra, the Imperial Palace was simply a Paradise World.

Burning, the entire land was burning. Looking around, among those Hive Worlds distributed across the entire planet's surface with hundreds or thousands of layers, countless buildings were burning.

Blood flowed into rivers, corpses piled up into mountains. Those nobles who once ruled a region, whose wealth was enough to buy several Paradise Worlds, were hung on the tops of the Hive World spires, fluttering like blood-colored battle flags.

But being able to see corpses was already considered good; most corpses had been gnawed clean by hungry people, and not even white bones were left.

Riots were spreading across the land; the mother planet of humanity seemed to have returned to the chaos of the Age of Strife, and it was even bloodier and more chaotic than the Age of Strife.

At least in the Age of Strife, there were still a few areas on Earth that maintained the most basic order, such as the Achaemenid Empire, the various kingdoms of the Dragon, and the America Hive World.

Although they were mentally prepared in advance, the expressions of Zhou Yun and Sanguinius still couldn't help but twitch.

On the contrary, Guilliman's expression was quite stable, as if everything in front of him wasn't too bad.

"At least it's better than ten thousand years ago."

Guilliman replied calmly:

"Guess what the scene was like when I arrived at Terra ten thousand years ago?"

"Seeing Dorn with a face full of pain, holding Ferrus's head in one hand, a bucket containing Sanguinius in the other, and the dying Hua Hua Hua Di Huang on his back?" Zhou Yun raised his eyebrows and asked.

"... It was like that; the scene in front of us is far less desperate than it was then." Guilliman nodded slightly and said: "At least we weren't late."

Compared to the trio, Tiruien was even more terrified.

Witnessing three holy souls being dragged into the cesspit built by them, the Terra bureaucrats, to roll around, the current situation of Terra made him feel ashamed to the point of substantial pain.

This was his dereliction of duty, the dereliction of duty of the High Lords.

"Tiruien." Guilliman called out softly.

The Imperial Prime Minister quickly got up and stood beside Guilliman like a humble acolyte.

"Tell me, why has Terra become like this?" Guilliman asked in a gentle tone.

Tiruien opened his mouth slightly; many kinds of answers flashed through his mind.

Was it because of the gods in the Warp? Khorne's believers had been secretly transporting blasphemous holy relics to Terra over the past ten thousand years, secretly developing cults in the Hive Worlds.

Was it because of the extinguishing of the Astronomican? It should have been impossible for blasphemous powers in the Warp to manifest on Terra, because the light of the Astronomican was enough to destroy all daemons.

Or was it because of the lack of faith? Condemning those civilians for abandoning their faith in the Hua Hua Hua Di Huang and turning to the Chaos Gods?

Too many reasons flashed through Tiruien's mind, but the answer he finally gave was so simple that it made him feel a bit guilty.

"Hunger, my lord." Tiruien lowered his head and said: "It is hunger that led to chaos."

This was the most superficial and realistic reason.

Terra was the core of the entire human Imperial trade system.

She extracted food, industrial goods, parchment scrolls, water, and even air from a million other planets in the galaxy.

And she herself exported political decrees, faith, laws, positions, and tithe bills—apart from these, Terra produced nothing.

Once the trade routes were left, this wasteland planet of Terra could never support a population of trillions.

But the opening of the Great Rift tore apart the trade routes, and Terra was completely cut off from planets outside the solar system. Hunger descended upon this planet.

At first it was water, then food, then air; these things that people relied on for survival disappeared bit by bit from the lives of civilians.

They watched in panic as the price of a gram of corpse starch rose to an astronomical figure, watched in horror as the corpses of their neighbors who died of hunger were gnawed clean by hungry people, watched in fear as hallucinations appeared due to lack of water—even so, in the first years when the Day of Blindness descended, civilians could still endure it by relying on faith.

Until they finally discovered that nobles, bureaucrats, and Ecclesiarchy priests could still maintain their past extravagant lives, until they discovered that merchants and nobles colluded to hoard goods, until they could no longer endure it at all, and riots happened because of this.

And those Chaos believers lurking in the darkness were just taking advantage of the situation.

Guilliman seemed satisfied with Tiruien's answer and nodded in approval.

"Damn it, how did our Terra get into such a ghostly state?" Zhou Yun couldn't help but say.

The only thing that made Zhou Yun feel comforted was that the current situation was something he could solve.

Food, water, air... Zhou Yun could bring all these to Terra.

Just as Zhou Yun began to browse the Future Department Store to find suitable props, a noise suddenly rang out in the ship's communication.

This chaotic communication only expressed one meaning: demanding the ship to hover in the air and accept strict inspection, otherwise it would not be allowed to land in the Imperial Palace.

At the same time, a considerable number of gunships appeared around the ship, looking like they were going to force them to stop.

Zhou Yun was a bit dazed by this somewhat abstract scene. Who was so brave?

Tiruien was also taken aback; he also quickly began to think about who had the ability to do this?

It must be a High Lord—the Inquisition representative, the Astropathic Choir Master, and the Adeptus Custodes Captain-General were his own people; the Astropathic Choir Master was dead, and the Assassinorum Grand Master often appeared neutral...

The Administratum, the Fawu Force, Mars, the Navy, the Ecclesiarchy... who could it be?

Tiruien, who couldn't figure it out for a moment, decided to solve the problem in front of him first.

He planned to use the old method again, asking those pilots if they wanted to know how fast a kill team could locate their entire families.

But before Tiruien could speak, the ship and the gunships around it suddenly shook slightly.

Zhou Yun raised his eyelids slightly, his will extending in all directions.

(End of chapter)