Chapter 422

Tiruien was stunned for a full seven or eight seconds before he reacted, looking at Uula with a bit of horror.

Uula was not considering the assassination of the leaders of the Administratum, Adeptus Arbites, and Navy from a political perspective at all.

He was purely punishing the enemies of Saint Doraemon, starting from a religious perspective.

Creating an accident to make the flagship of the High Admiral of the Navy crash on Terra, assassinating three High Lords at once, and destroying the Adeptus Arbites' headquarters judgment hall would only be a disaster politically, and no one would believe it was an accident.

"Why? What are you stunned about?" Uula tilted his head slightly and continued to say to Tiruien: "Isn't this very good? Isn't what Sanguinius did to the Ecclesiarch like this?"

Tiruien felt that sweat had already begun to break out on his back.

Many people could guess that the sudden death of Baldo Strate was Sanguinius's doing, but before this, except for Saint Doraemon, no one dared to voice this guess.

Moreover, Uula's plan and what Lord Sanguinius did to the Ecclesiarch Baldo Strate were completely different things.

The High Lords were not so much independent individuals as they were representatives of the giant institutions behind them, incarnations of interest groups, and a collection of hundreds of millions of bureaucrats.

Assassinating three High Lords in such an obvious, brutal, and terrifying way would only further stimulate the Administratum, the Adeptus Arbites, and the Navy, and might cause a large number of wavering centrists to lean toward the conservative faction.

Moreover, the High Lords' brains contained a lot of important, irreplaceable information—such as the complete departmental structure of the Administratum—and their deaths would only cause this information to be lost, affecting the succession of power in the new High Lord departments.

The reason why Sanguinius killing the Ecclesiarch directly was feasible was because the conservative faction of the Ecclesiarchy behind Baldo Strate could not possibly question whether Sanguinius assassinated the Ecclesiarch.

Questioning the Archangel for assassinating the Ecclesiarch, not to mention whether hundreds of millions of believers would believe it, the matter itself was equivalent to questioning Sanguinius, the second most worshipped object in the Ecclesiarchy, and also questioning that Baldo Strate's faith was not sincere and enthusiastic enough to die suddenly upon arrival.

More importantly, the power foundation of the Ecclesiarchy was the faith of the believers; would the believers worship the Ecclesiarch more or Sanguinius more? Just think about it a little.

Another point was that even if the conservatives of the Ecclesiarchy still had sincere faith, they were not resistant to Sanguinius; the Ecclesiarch dying due to his sincere faith in Sanguinius was a decent reason they could accept.

Of course, these were not the biggest problems in Uula's plan.

His biggest problem was that as the Fabricator General of Mars, he was actually trying to bomb Terra; was he trying to start a war between Mars and Terra?!

Obviously, in Uula's mind, faith was greater than everything else.

"This is completely unnecessary; we can remove them from their positions through the High Lords' council."

"This can smoothly transition power and let our people control the three departments of the Administratum, Adeptus Arbites, and Navy."

Tiruien explained hurriedly.

"What if Irtu and the others don't cooperate?" Uula's two dwarf heads asked with a frown.

He knew this was impossible; he asked this only because he preferred ending their natural lives over ending the political lives of the Director of the Administratum and the others.

But Tiruien still opened his mouth to explain.

"They won't." Tiruien shook his head slightly: "They and the conservative faction behind them have the goal of maintaining the old Imperial laws."

"Removing them from their positions through the High Lords' council is completely in line with the provisions of Imperial law; if they don't cooperate, it's equivalent to violating Imperial law and their own faction."

"A High Lord is, after all, just a spokesperson for a faction."

Uula's two heads nodded at the same time: "Will this High Lords' council dismiss all three of them at once?"

"No, we will use the salami slicing tactic."

Tiruien shook his head and said:

"Slice by slice, cutting only a small piece each time."

"If we swallow them in one bite, they will of course resist to the death, but if we eat them slowly, slice by slice, they won't have any fierce reaction."

"This time we will first remove Irtu's position as Director of the Administratum, but keep the weaker Minister of the Adeptus Arbites and High Admiral of the Navy in the High Lords' council."

"This can also create gaps between their factions."

"Actually, I still have an excellent kill team..." Uula seemed to say a bit unwillingly.

"Lord Guilliman prefers to carry out reforms in a gentle and gradual way, minimizing the internal friction of the Empire as much as possible."

Tiruien reminded:

"This point is agreed upon by Lord Saint Doraemon; he hopes that we will not waste resources and energy on such things."

"'This is my money!' Lord Saint Doraemon said through the mouth of his avatar Nobita."

"So it is the Holy Word! It has been stored in the database; I feel that the operating efficiency of the Cogitator array has improved." Uula nodded repeatedly.

Then, Uula continued to ask: "Then what about Fadix? Our Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum."

He was indeed the key; Fadix held the entire Officio Assassinorum in his hands.

The operation of Grand Master Vangorich during the Beast War killing all the High Lords in one day and taking their place was still fresh in his memory.

Fadix followed the traditions of the Officio Assassinorum most of the time, maintaining a state of abstention in the High Lords' council, neither agreeing nor opposing.

But what did he think in his heart? Was he a reformer or a conservative? What kind of plans and desires did he have? What kind of person was he?

These were all mysteries; Tiruien didn't even know which temple of the Officio Assassinorum he belonged to.

It wasn't that Tiruien hadn't tried to explore Fadix's secrets and collect intelligence on Fadix.

He believed that other High Lords had done similar things; this was normal, as High Lords all had a bunch of spies under them.

But every spy Tiruien sent to the Officio Assassinorum would turn into a bloody coffin at his private residence's door the next morning.

"The Harlequins tried to infiltrate the Officio Assassinorum."

Tiruien said while weighing his tone:

"But although they escaped unscathed, they didn't find any valuable information."

"I don't know Fadix's political leanings, but the three lords don't seem to care much about this."

"That must be because Saint Doraemon has already made arrangements." Uula said with certainty.

Tiruien nodded gently; he also believed the same as Uula.

"Alright, now let me, poor old Tiruien, start rebuilding this council chamber."

Tiruien said a bit depressed, looking at the dilapidated Grand Council Chamber that had been dismantled to fit Uula in.

Inside the Grand Council Chamber of the High Lords on Terra, in the Imperial Palace,

Zhou Yun rested his chin on his hand, observing everything in front of him with great interest.

The theoretical supreme rulers of the Empire, the High Lords, sat around a thick, hollow, solid-wood round table.

Placed directly next to the round table were thirteen seats.

Nine of these seats were engraved with the emblems of the departments they represented: the Director of the Administratum, the Minister of the Adeptus Arbites, the Ecclesiarch, the Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, the Inquisitorial Representative, the Fabricator General of Mars, the Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum, the Master of the Astronomican, and the Navigator Ambassador.

These were nine permanent seats.

Among them, the positions of the Master of the Astronomican and the Navigator Ambassador were vacant.

The Master of the Astronomican had accidentally wiped out the entire Adeptus Astronomica while trying to relight the Astronomican.

The Navigator Ambassador was a reformer, but his ideas were too radical, making even Guilliman call them too extreme, and he had been dismissed.

But because they were permanent seats, their positions were still symbolically retained.

In addition, the remaining three positions belonged to the Canoness Superior of the Adepta Sororitas, Morvenn Vahl, the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, Trajann, and the High Admiral of the Navy, Merida Pereth; these were three non-permanent seats, which did not always belong to a certain department, but had the same voting rights as other High Lords.

Generally speaking, the High Lords were these twelve seats.

But in today's meeting, a thirteenth seat was added, belonging to the Imperial Regent and Commander-in-Chief of the Empire, Roboute Guilliman.

The Regent represented the will of the Hua Hua Hua Di Huang and was the Hua Hua Hua Di Huang's proxy, so he should sit among the High Lords and enjoy voting rights.

The seats of Zhou Yun and Sanguinius were behind Guilliman, considered qualified to attend, but shared a single vote with Guilliman.

In addition, there was one more person who attended but had no voting rights, and that was the Imperial Viceroy, Tiruien, who was currently standing in the center of the hollow round table; he was the moderator of the High Lords' council.

Hmm... a thirteen-person council, where the thirteenth seat represents the will of the god, acted by a person... familiar, very familiar...

Zhou Yun couldn't help but complain in his heart.

How is this the same as the Council of Thirteen of the Skaven in Warhammer Fantasy next door? The thirteenth seat of the Skaven also belongs to their god, the Great Horned Rat.

No wonder Zhou Yun always felt that the Hua Hua Hua Di Huang guy was against him; it turns out he's a rat.

It's really too bad; it must be smashed with an Earth-destroying bomb.

Guilliman is the same; rounding up, he is also a rat; no wonder he always makes Zhou Yun work overtime.

Thinking this, Zhou Yun looked at Guilliman beside him, but his peripheral vision was attracted by the Director of the Administratum, Irtu.

As the former head of the High Lords' council, Irtu's position was right next to Guilliman, and it was also within a distance where Zhou Yun could slap him if he reached out.

Cyrene Veilwalker had reported Irtu's situation to Zhou Yun, and Zhou Yun knew that this unlucky Director of the Administratum had been fed a lot of neurotoxins by his assistant, Nessor, who obviously had ulterior motives.

Although he didn't know the reason for Nessor doing this, the effect of the toxin was obvious.

Half of Irtu's body was twitching uncontrollably, and his head...

"Director of the Administratum, why is your head pointy?" Zhou Yun couldn't help but say to the Director of the Administratum, Irtu, who had a small point on his head.

"Although my point affects my work as a High Lord a little, my point does not affect my fulfillment of the High Lord's duties."

"Although I am not in a hurry, let us not delay any longer; I am anxious to start the first topic."

(My body hasn't been very good lately; updated at 7:07, dedicated to the blessing.)

(Actually, I'm dizzy and uncomfortable and can't hold on; updating early to see the feedback.)

(End of chapter)