[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-warhammer-starting-as-a-planetary-governor":3,"chapter-warhammer-starting-as-a-planetary-governor-warhammer-starting-as-a-planetary-governor-chapter-557":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","Warhammer: Starting as a Planetary Governor",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1681327,2147,"Chapter 557 558 — Victory Tally: Your Majesty’s Kindness… We Can Never Repay!","warhammer-starting-as-a-planetary-governor-chapter-557",557,"\u003Cp>The Emperor's Angels radiated such terrible menace that Drew felt death brush the nape of his neck.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In that instant he found himself—and the high-born like him—faintly ridiculous. They had actually dared to threaten His Majesty the Savior, the Sun of the Imperium—a being before whom even daemons quailed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No wonder they had invited a punishment this cruel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps my life ends here—and House Ovelia will be purged as well, he thought through the fear.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was possible. The Empire's New Sun had shown a will that brooked no compromise.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Forgiveness might be beyond reach.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But there was no choice left to him; only obedience remained. Any other path would end worse.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Yes. I am Drew Ovelia. I will come with you—and accept whatever judgment His Majesty decrees.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The candidate-heir swallowed, forced his posture to hold, and shuffled on trembling legs as the Angels marched him inward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He clung, barely, to his poise.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Along the way he passed nobles who could no longer walk, being dragged instead. The corpses on the floor were worse—stark, undeniable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Drew recognized one at a glance: a scion of ancient Terran blood, heir to a marquisate, bearer of a tax-immunity writ signed by the Emperor Himself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>More exalted than Ovelia.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That man had tried to bargain with frontier defense lines and the lives of hundreds of billions, and had quietly backed the Ascolon revolt.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It had availed him nothing. His house was ash; his body lay discarded like trash.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>CRUNCH—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>An Angel's boot came down without the slightest deviation, bursting the noble's head like a melon. Augmetic eye, micro-gear, syrupy nutrient slurry splashed out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Drew flinched as filth spattered his face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He did not wipe it away. He did not even twitch. To draw notice would be to invite the bolt.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Savior held the nobility's fate in his fist. The only prayer was for a sliver of clemency.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Punishment? Humbling? So be it—so long as they were not uprooted to the last branch, like those who left not even a seed behind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Drew, like the rest, was truly afraid.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In all the ages since the Imperium's founding, no one had moved with a ruthlessness like the Savior's. Not even the creeping rot of Chaos had killed them all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Word told of a Nurgle heretic who fled into the Plague God's Garden itself—and was still found, and somehow dragged out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They had \"cleansed\" him with sanctified waters, destroyed the living plagues in his flesh one by one, perfumed him with sacred candle-wax…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then strapped him atop a Holy Tower beneath a merciless sun. For a Nurgle cultist, there was no torment worse.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He died screaming.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There were many such tales.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Any soul bearing the rebels' blood—however faint—was marked. It was harsher than executing nine clans at once. They even dug up graves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In fact, the New Sun had gone that far: Titan god-engines had leveled the chapels on Holy Terra where the proscribed lines interred their ashes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They opened the bones of their forebears and scattered them in the streets for feet to grind into dust.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Drew shuddered.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Nobility was nobility because of the sanctity of blood. They revered their ancestors and treasured the name; that lineage was their credential.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To see ancestral ashes flung to the wind—this was a blow to the mind few high-born could endure.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now, the image of the Savior that lived in their hearts was terror itself: relentless, absolute.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Any who were not loyal would be remade into nothing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So the nobles in the great hall had learned docility.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Drew was brought through the hotel's interior into one of the suites refit as a \"little black room\"—what the Inquisitors, with a certain humor, called a luxury suite.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Down the corridor he glimpsed the implements of sentence; the screams bled together; the stink of blood overwhelmed even his nasal filters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I'm finished,\" he whispered, wobbling on his feet.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He could see the shape of his fate: torments that would break flesh and will alike until he disgorged every secret the Savior wished to hear.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He cursed himself, briefly, for not pledging sooner—had he only turned to the Sun earlier…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Too late now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He even wished the corridor would stretch on forever, so he would never reach the door.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the Angels halted before one and steered him to it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His suite.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Drew Ovelia. Enter and submit to questioning.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Angel's vox was flat, metallic, without room for speech.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Drew lifted his head as if through water.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He did not look into his own chamber—but to the next door along, where another noble waited, pudgy and sweating.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Armageddon Sector. House Tartarus. They had once distinguished themselves in the First Armageddon War.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Drew traded a last, empty glance with the man—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>—and then both were shoved through separate doors. The alloy portals boomed shut.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Inside the luxury suite.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"By the Emperor…\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Drew's breath snagged. Racks of instruments. Old blood that no cleaner could quite erase.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A pane of glass showed the sister suite across the hall—the fat noble he had just seen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Connected rooms. So that one sees the other's judgment… to press the mind with fear, to break it faster. The thought came unbidden.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had no time to think further. Two interrogators closed and injected him with a tailored cocktail—peeling back trained mental screens, leaving his limbs heavy and weak.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Brewed precisely for nobles drilled in memory discipline.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He knew, now, he was meat upon a board.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They strapped him—hard—into the chair.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Drew Ovelia. Thirteenth child of the Ovelia patriarch—an interesting number. Core member of the Lacas Pan-Sector League…\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A figure in a jet-black coat with a red armband took the far seat. Immaculate. Eyes like a hunting hawk.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And smiling.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A cruel smile.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Drew's gaze stuck to the armband. That mark belonged to the maddest Inquisitorial faction in the galaxy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The ones who had just pulled the rebel houses up by the roots.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His throat worked. He tried to beg… but fear had cut his voice.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Tok. Tok. Tok.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Inquisitor rapped the table lightly, then slid a steaming cup across. His tone was gentle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Don't tense up. Drink first. We have time.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That made it worse. It felt like torment of another flavor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Drew's hands shook as he lifted the cup. He clenched his teeth and swallowed it all—like taking a poison willingly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"…It's… actually good,\" he thought, absurdly, as warmth slid down.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Across the glass.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Tartarus noble watched as \"the other one\"—someone of his same class—was shown a chair… and even poured a hot drink.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The manner seemed almost… civil.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Maybe it's just questions?\" He clutched at a straw and loosened a fraction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He pasted on a servile grin. \"Inquisitor, my lord—I am loyal! I pledge absolute fealty to His Majesty the Savior. Whatever you—hey—HEY—\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The words drowned under the first blows of the cudgels. He jerked as they stuck him with a sensitivity ampule—multiplying all bodily sensation a hundredfold.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every pain was now a hundred pains.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before he could even form a plea they had locked him to a spiked frame. Barbed hooks bit his flesh; shock-batons crashed down in searing arcs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A towel smothered his face. Drukhari-derived capsaicin wash sluiced into nose and mouth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His scream tore the air. It filled the \"suite.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This, the attendant noted, constituted the West Ice Vault Hotel's complimentary cudgel massage and facial treatment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Merely the starter. The menu had many courses.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"K—khh—cough—Inquisitor, my lord—I'll confess—I'll tell you everything—I'm l-loyal—!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Between spasms he shrieked himself hoarse, mind shattered by the disparity with the room he could see—and by his remorse for having opposed the Savior at all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He would have begged for faint, or death.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"You can still shout. That means our service is inadequate,\" the torturer said with a thin grin. \"Enhance the package.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"No—!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His howls rose again and again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>None of it bled into Drew's room; the sound-dampening was perfect.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seated, facing away from the glass, Drew never knew what unfolded across the hall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He did feel the anxiolytics sink their hooks—his bodily panic eased, his thoughts steadied. The cup had done its work.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Tell us everything you know concerning House Ovelia—particularly any part that touches disloyalty. Concealment will carry consequence.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Inquisitor's voice was level now, the questions clipped and exact.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Drew crushed the tremor from his words and spoke.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He named the quiet arrangements, the hidden accounts, the illegal concessions; he laid out the lines of influence and the little schemes that bent Imperial law.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He held nothing back.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Guilt or innocence before statute seemed almost beside the point. What mattered, he realized, was his attitude—and whether the Savior would deem him worthy of a sliver of mercy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The questioning ran on for days. They asked him, outright, whether he was loyal to the Savior; what he made of the New Order; how he would act henceforth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His answers never wavered—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Loyalty. Only loyalty.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They had him copy the Savior's aphorisms by hand, hundreds of times, and chant them until they flowed like water from his tongue.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then the psykers took him—mind-rake and soul-probe to test for lies. The pain flayed his thoughts raw.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He endured. He passed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At some point beyond time, the end came.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Inquisitor closed his dataslate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"My questions are concluded. The Urth Inquisition will apply penalties to House Ovelia in accordance with the evidence you have provided.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He fixed Drew with a look—and, to Drew's surprise, a faint smile.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Lord Drew—return to the hotel floor and await His Majesty's arrival. And remember: be grateful.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They escorted him out. The gore-streaked corridor gave way to the glare of opulent daylight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For a breath, he felt reborn.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He remembered the implements and the executions; he understood that his earlier choice had been right.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But for the gifts sent before he set foot in the hotel—and for the pledge he had already made—the questioning would not have gone so gently.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>House Ovelia would still be punished.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the bloodline would live.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I would live.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Back in the great hall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Many nobles waited in a haze of dread, bracing for verdicts to fall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then the vox-throats rang with a cold voice:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Those remaining in the hall had been provisionally judged loyal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His Majesty the Savior—the Hope Primarch, the Sun of the Imperium—would arrive in two Terran hours to discuss the Empire's course, and the allocation of webway profit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A carrot after the cudgel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Praise the Savior!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Relief rippled through the high-born, an after-the-flood joy—and, unexpectedly, a prickle of gratitude.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They had been granted a reprieve—and even a seat at the webway's table.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Their families' dark futures had a pinprick of light.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Drew's hand found the little booklet of Savior's maxims in his breast pocket. \"His Majesty grants us redemption,\" he whispered.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gratitude swelled despite himself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Your Majesty the Savior—Sun of my heart!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Across the hall, the pudgy Tartarus noble—post-ordeal, eyes wild with a new and awful reverence—crashed to his knees, nose and tears running.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Your kindness… House Tartarus can never repay!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was not alone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Aboard the dark-golden grav-limo.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Deville is vicious,\" Eden said, half in awe. \"The high nobility will take me for a demon in a crown.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Which was the point.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Savior's mercy was for loyal Imperial souls—not for rebel lords who worshiped profit alone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not long before, Eden had sent word: Deville was to rein himself in.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A necessary leash.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The threat had reached its pitch; the political alliances were shattered. Press further, and despair might drive the nobles to burn everything down.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Worse: purge too many at once, and swathes of the Imperium would lie hollow—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A banquet for xenos and Chaos.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The aristocracy were not wholly worthless. Many were elite-schooled administrators; many more were the backbone of Imperial armies. They were—however wayward—a part of Imperial power.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The proper course was to seize control, keep the loyal, and kill the unforgivable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In short: gather the strength one needs—many vassals, few enemies.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now, the Savior's personal authority towered like a mountain. The reforms and webway commerce would push forward smoothly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Within the Empire's bounds, no one would dare gainsay him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Such concentrated power had eluded even the Emperor Himself; in those days He bargained with the Mechanicus and courted great houses—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To say nothing of the… unruly primarchs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But now, when the Savior said east, none dared step west. This was an Emperor in truth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Time to harvest the fruits.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Deville the mad dog had broken the Empire's factions and taught the hotel's guests the curriculum.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now Eden could go and \"negotiate.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By day's end the great houses would suffer various sentences and disgorge mountains of wealth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The rules of succession would change as well—from a single heir to shared inheritance among first, second, and third sons:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A Partition Edict.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It would blunt the consolidation of power, frustrate monopolistic dynasties, and keep Imperial strata from freezing solid—while tightening the center's grip.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As for deeper reforms—unnecessary.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was a dictator-emperor. Parliaments and vote-houses and power-sharing would only bleed the Empire's strength.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He needed authority—now—to face the galaxy's fangs, not the Emperor's former fetters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A new frown touched his brow.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When this was done, he would have to go to the Dark Angels' marches.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Gloaming Marches—especially the tracts bordering the Eye of Terror—were first on the imperial reconstruction slate; stability there was non-negotiable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the latest intelligence was grim: an unknown Chaos legion had struck—and the strategium's augurs foresaw a horror descending.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Something that would not die.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before long the grav-limo slid into the West Ice Vault's private tunnel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Savior—Imperial Emperor—alighted. Flanked by honor guards, Custodian Wardens, and the lightning-helmed elite, he strode slowly into the great hall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>(End of Chapter)\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Get +20 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on \"Zaelum\"]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Every 500 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Thanks for Reading!]\u003C\u002Fp>",2293,"2026-06-06T13:29:18.240Z",1,"novelbin.me","a34e8bc1d30f77d5598a1170093e2ad76d393e287dc1a435124e006485730b8e","warhammer-starting-as-a-planetary-governor-chapter-558","warhammer-starting-as-a-planetary-governor-chapter-556",771,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fwarhammer-starting-as-a-planetary-governor-cover.jpg"]