Chapter 379: Honor the Emperor, Punish the Traitors!

"The residents of Terra are suffering unbearably, and your families are the same!"

"The people in the hive cities, their wives and sisters must cut their own flesh to feed their children!"

"The corpse starch produced by the workers, they themselves cannot even eat!"

"People have no food, they starve and are exhausted, yet the Emperor does not wish for humanity to suffer thus!"

"It is those High Lords, officials, and Ecclesiarchy priests in the palace who have concealed the suffering of the common folk from the Emperor, who have concealed the true state of the realm!"

"Cut off the heads of these bastards! Honor the Emperor, punish the traitors! Heaven's wrath upon the nobility! Skulls for the Golden Throne! Blood for the Emperor!"

"Food! We want food!"

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Roars, blood-soaked roars, echoed endlessly beneath the Wall of Eternity; those commoners had become waves of intermingled red and white, constantly battering the palace walls,

a priest in tattered Ecclesiarchy robes stood among the commoners, waving a war banner painted with fresh blood, roaring and bellowing as he preached doctrines of rage, revenge, and slaughter to the commoners around him,

beneath his feet, tens of thousands of commoners held hands, using their flesh and blood bodies to build an altar for that fallen priest; some had already died under the crushing weight, hunger, and crowding, yet their corpses still advanced, swept along by those surrounding them,

and around this living altar of flesh, countless people roared, following that fallen priest; their numbers were so great that Valerian, the Captain of the Adeptus Custodes Shield Guard, even suspected that all trillions of Terra's residents had gathered beneath the palace.

As those blasphemous, dangerous, blood-soaked words continued to spill from that priest's mouth, terrifying mutations appeared upon the bodies of those commoners,

men grew wings, women grew fangs; one by one, former humans transformed into half-human, half-beast monsters; the blasphemy spread among the commoners, and with it, fear spread as well.

"Do not fear! This is the blessing of blood! The gift of blood!"

"Accept the blessing of blood! Only then can we kill! Only by killing can we survive!"

"Oh Emperor! Look upon us! The nobles have embezzled your gifts, but we shall save ourselves with the blessing of blood!"

That fallen priest, preaching fervently to the Blood God, spat and raved; those commoners with distorted bodies were bewitched by his voice; they roared grotesquely, gathering together, trampling their comrades, and surging forward as a rising tide toward the ramparts of the Wall of Eternity,

but they struck an iron wall,

bolter fire, las-fire, and searing psychic power rained down upon that tide of flesh; those mutated monsters fell from the sky like raindrops, yet soon more commoners gathered into an even fiercer wave, crashing upward.

"The most heinous criminal is Imperial Prime Minister Viceroy Viceroy Tiruien! Embezzlement, corruption, seeking personal gain while holding the office of Imperial Prime Minister; his swollen, obese body is proof of his greed! Cut off his head!"

"Then come the High Lords! Ignorant! Decadent! Corrupt! Immersed in power struggles among themselves, feeding those billions of officials, parasitic upon the common folk!"

"Finally, the corrupt Adeptus Custodes! They are the Emperor's guardians, the Emperor's creations, yet they indulge in pleasures within the palace, running naked, exercising, and bathing in the Wang Zuo Hall, abandoning billions of commoners to become the nobility's watchdogs!"

Hearing that fallen priest's slander against the Adeptus Custodes, Captain Valerian's expression shifted slightly.

Although Valerian himself did not fully support the "Restriction Edict," believing the Adeptus Custodes should not be confined to Terra, surely running naked, exercising, and bathing in the Wang Zuo Hall was a bit excessive? Did they mistake the Wang Zuo Hall for a Custodes bathhouse?

Valerian calmed himself and slightly raised the ancient Watcher spear in his hand, named "Wisdom,"

his mission here was not to fight, but to monitor and assess the risk,

since Rogal Dorn, Roboute Guilliman, the High Lords of Terra, and the first Master of the Adeptus Custodes, Constantine Valdor, signed the "Restriction Edict," for ten thousand years the Adeptus Custodes have never truly left the palace, never deployed a fully formed unit into war,

whether during the Beast Wars, the Horus Heresy, the Pan Sect era, or even during the Fall of Cadia, the Adeptus Custodes never truly violated the "Restriction Edict,"

within the Adeptus Custodes, many also supported one point: the Adeptus Custodes are not part of the Imperium of Man; the Adeptus Custodes exist solely to guard the Emperor,

the "Restriction Edict" was like a chain woven from orders, tradition, and the Adeptus Custodes' own guilt, binding Valerian and his brothers deep within the palace,

unless the Emperor's safety was threatened, the Adeptus Custodes would never deploy as a full unit into battle—obviously, this mob of rioters had not yet reached the level of threatening the Emperor himself.

Nevertheless, Valerian still pulled the trigger on "Wisdom," firing a searing disintegration beam toward that fallen priest roaring upon the altar,

his duty was to monitor and assess risk; firing was also to test the strength of these fallen ones, to facilitate risk assessment—Valerian explained this to himself in his heart.

The disintegration beam from "Wisdom" originated from ancient technology known only to the Emperor himself; this terrifying light could sever the internal bonds of matter, decomposing any substance into a flare-like afterimage,

but contrary to Valerian's expectations, the disintegration beam he fired seemed affected by some unknown power from the Warp, vanishing into thin air before it even touched that fallen priest,

Was it the power of the Blood God? Some blessing that repels ranged attacks?

Valerian also noticed that the fortress fire from the palace walls could not inflict substantial damage upon those mutated rioters on the ground,

only when they surged toward the ramparts, close enough, could the las-rifles of the Astra Militarum, the bolters of the Astartes, and the psychic powers of the psykers begin to take effect.

Valerian lowered the spear in his hand; in that case, he alone could not help much,

moreover, the Wall of Eternity did not really need his help now; those commoners with distorted bodies were like wave after wave of continuous tides, constantly battering the reef known as the Wall of Eternity, then shattering against the ground.

How could commoners shatter the creation of the Primarch Rogal Dorn?

Even the Adeptus Custodes, who harbored doubts about the Primarchs and believed the Primarchs were imperfect creations, had to admit that the Primarchs' talents far surpassed their own.

Valerian had joined the Adeptus Custodes relatively recently, not experiencing the Great Crusade or the Great Heresy eras, yet through brief exchanges with those two Primarchs, Valerian could still feel their power and glory,

and that one—that one who appeared to be a commoner yet was worshipped by many as a god, Saint Doraemon, that Lord Zhou Yun,

Valerian's impression of him was not deep, but he clearly remembered that he always emphasized, "I am not a god,"

just like the Emperor of old in the Adeptus Custodes records; this made Valerian quite fond of Zhou Yun, considering him a worthy person to respect,

there are many beings in this galaxy revered as gods, but only the Emperor and Saint Doraemon have rejected divinity.

It is just that those three have now gone directly to the Lion's Gate to meet with Trajan, the Master of the Adeptus Custodes; surely their purpose can only be to proceed to the Wang Zuo Hall,

there is already considerable suspicion within the Adeptus Custodes regarding the Primarchs and Saint Doraemon; once they learn their purpose is the Emperor, I fear this suspicion and doubt will erupt.

"Captain Valerian, are you distracted?"

Standing upon the Wall of Eternity, continuously unleashing psychic power upon those zealots, Colonel Xiang Xiang Leina of the 184th Cadian Regiment said with some surprise,

she seemed surprised that the Emperor's perfect creation could be distracted on the battlefield, surprised by the slowness exposed in Valerian's will.

Valerian bowed his head slightly in guilt; he also vaguely realized that the ten-thousand-year "Restriction Edict" had in fact made the Adeptus Custodes sluggish,

"I am worried that my brothers will trouble Lord Zhou Yun with words full of suspicion," he explained to Xiang Xiang Leina.

"Hmm?" Xiang Xiang Leina listened to Valerian's words, her expression becoming slightly strange.

After hesitating for a moment, she said: "I think you should worry about your brothers..."

"... hoping that Lord Zhou Yun's words full of blasphemy will not trouble the minds of the Adeptus Custodes."

"I feel that your gazes are filled with strong distrust."

"Do you look at me and Sanguinius with such gazes? With such suspicious gazes?"

"You suspect Ji Li Man, that's one thing! But you also suspect me, a loyal follower of Hua Di Huang? You even suspect the Primarch of the Angels?"

"If you dare suspect me today, dare suspect Sanguinius, I dare not even think what you would dare suspect tomorrow."

Before the Lion's Gate Spaceport, Zhou Yun, who had just stepped out of the Arbitrary Gate, looked at the at least four thousand Custodes before him and said with a face full of indignation.

These Custodes looked at Zhou Yun, and their gazes toward Sanguinius and Ji Li Man were filled with suspicion and vigilance,

as if this force had formed up here solely to guard against them.

But before the leading Custodian could express this vigilance through words, Zhou Yun took the initiative and began to accuse:

"Where were you when I refuted the hypocritical faith of the Four-Armed God-Emperor in the Underhive?"

"Where were you when I fought the Tyranid swarm in the Mortuary?"

"Where were you when I fought the Great Devourer and the Blood God on Baal?"

"Where were you when I resurrected Roboute Ji Li Man on Octarima?"

"Where were you when I was sipping an entire pot of thick soup on the edge of the Garden of Nurgle?"

Custodian Marshal Trajann opened his mouth slightly, wanting to say something, but Zhou Yun gave them no chance at all.

"You are giving yourselves names thicker than dictionaries, you are running naked in the Palace, you are playing bloody games of house."

"We, who have devoted our loyalty and wisdom to Hua Di Huang, placed our full trust in you, coming here with just three of us and no guards, exposing our fragile bodies beneath your power spears."

"And you, who for ten thousand years have done nothing more than spray water on Hua Di Huang's dried corpse to keep it moist, are now fully armed and vigilant against us. Where is the trust? Is there any trust left?"

The bodies of the Custodes began to tremble; they gripped their power spears tightly, wanting to refute Zhou Yun, but the string of words Zhou Yun had just unleashed had struck a blow to their minds, tempered through countless trials, leaving them speechless for the moment.

Only Custodian Commander Trajann looked at Zhou Yun and the two Primarchs with a strange gaze, then weighed his words and spoke:

"So, why are the skin of all three of you so red?"

Sanguinius and Ji Li Man, whose skin was as red and rosy as fresh blood, shifted their gazes slightly,

"Then I ask you, are you a male Custodian or a female Custodian?" Zhou Yun, whose skin was equally red, said without changing his expression.

(End of this chapter)