Warhammer: In the Name of Ashes

"Where are the Imperial Guards? Where are the Imperial Guards? Why not stop him!"

The newly appointed Director of the Government Affairs Council asked his entourage in a low voice, but anger and fear almost filled his chest, so that the volume that should have been controlled began to rise uncontrollably.

The fleet did not stop at the Government Office as he expected, but headed straight for the Throne Court?

Brayton no longer dared to think about what this meant, but from the moment the opponent took off from Antarctica, the original plan seemed to have completely gotten out of control.

What about the Imperial Guard? What role did they play in this?

What about the Imperial Fists? As they control the entire Terra air defense system, they must have obtained the flight path of the fleet as soon as possible! What is their position?

What about Xingyuting? The other party took off from the Antarctic, not the star port! That means Calvin didn't just arrive on Terra! Why did Xing Yuting withhold this key information?

Brayton no longer dared to think about it anymore, too many accidents had changed his original plan beyond recognition;

Too many people's positions were completely different from his expectations, which also made him aware that this "political blackmail" privately agreed upon by several high lords had since then become a cue for their own demise.

He no longer has to worry about the success of his original plan. What is before him is another cruel question:

What about his allies? What will be done?

Probably giving up on him? There is nothing wrong with this, it would have been the same choice for him.

How to survive this political farce, or be more realistic:

How to preserve the survival of his family as much as possible while paying the minimum price, even if the price is himself...

Forbidden army! Or the Forbidden Army!

Brayton rediscovered the clue that played the most critical role in this incident.

They did not appear in the Beast War, and they did not appear in the Faith War.

Apart from the covert intervention in the "Sovereign Lord" incident, even when their comrades and an indispensable part of the combat system, the Sisters of Silence, were dismissed, they still did not appear.

These beings who transcended the political ecology of the empire had been silent for so long that he and his allies had forgotten their existence.

And today, at the meeting to decide on the change of the empire's highest power, when it came to the success or failure of the new lord of the mysterious Tribunal's debut, they appeared.

There must be something that he and his allies don't know...

Something must have changed quietly...

Brayton stopped questioning the speechless attendant. Since he didn't know some things himself, how could the poor man in front of him know?

He slowly picked up the water glass on the table, took a drink without any image, and then slammed it down on the table.

As for the identity of the Lord of Terra and the dignity and reserve of the Chief of the Government Council, in the eyes of Brayton at this time, it was already a luxurious emotion.

"Forbidden Army, or Imperial Army!" He murmured in his mouth, but his eyes were trying to communicate covertly with the two people sitting across from him.

"Forces? Here!" A loud voice responded to Brayton's question.

The thick gilded wooden door of the conference hall was pushed open again, and all eyes focused on the door following this announcement.

A tall, inhuman golden figure strode into the room. The tall body standing with a sword was wearing the famous "Fortress Lord's Helmet".

The 17th Marshal of the Forbidden Army, Trajan Valoris, rarely entered this mortal palace again after centuries.

The high lords could no longer sit still, and all stood up and bowed to pay tribute to the leader of the aloof Eagle Guard.

Even the Mars Foundry Director, who occupied half of the conference hall, issued a greeting to the Marshal of the Imperial Guard from the loudspeaker in his huge body.

But Brayton was not among those voices.

It's not that he doesn't want to follow the crowd, but because of his position as the Speaker of the Imperial House of Representatives before inheriting the power of the Government Affairs Council, he has no chance to meet this man who walks around the palace all year round.

According to the etiquette rules of the upper-class nobles of the empire, if there is no intermediary to make an introduction, then rashly initiating a conversation for the first time is an extremely abrupt behavior.

He could only watch with anxiety and embarrassment as the golden-armored giant responded to all the greetings one by one, then walked to his seat as if there was no one around, and put aside the golden eagle helmet that usually represented his existence.

But his two "allies" turned a blind eye to his anxious gaze, as if they were asleep.

A group of imperial guards then walked into the venue and marched along the periphery of the conference room. Their number was exactly twice the number of seats in the venue, and they left two people behind each supreme lord when they walked.

When all the imperial troops were in place, the two people at the door worked together to close the door after getting Trajan's signal.

Everyone in the venue, who had just relaxed, fell into an eerie silence again after this change.

"What are you?" Sir Julio Malcolm, the representative of the Rogue Traders, was the first to lose his temper.

As one of the three non-resident seats in the meeting of the Twelve High Lords, he had the weakest confidence and had to be the first to break the silence when certain people looked at him.

However, his question did not receive a response from Trajan. The latter was still sitting on the specially enlarged armchair like a sculpture. He did not respond until the foundry director of Mars asked Calvin's whereabouts.

"Are the representatives of the Tribunal not here yet? Are their representatives not participating in this meeting?"

"Be patient and don't be impatient."

Trajan still showed considerable respect to this veteran supreme lord.

After all, the Mars behind him is his own entity, a solid pole of the Empire's double-headed eagle.

"Where is Lord Calvin now?" The pope of the state religion took the opportunity to ask the question that everyone was concerned about.

Regarding this representative of the new force, Trajan weighed a little and chose to respond, and his answer made everyone in the venue stop what they were doing:

"Throne Court, Silver Gate."

Is this really a face-to-face meeting?

All the high lords looked at each other in confusion. When this possible speculation was indeed confirmed by Trajan, no one showed any obvious reaction.

It's not that they are not surprised by the incident itself, but the mortals who can stand here are the most elite part of the empire.

At this time, they were all thinking about the subsequent impact of this incident, and Calvin's encounter itself became an irrelevant issue.

Meet the emperor...

When was the last time someone was able to walk into the deepest hall of the palace area alive?

I'm afraid it goes back to the apostasy era, right?

It was the "Emperor's Brides" under High Lord Gog Vandire who faced off against the Alliance of Chapters Astartes on Terra.

The empire's fragile regime was about to break apart due to this "internal war".

It was also the appearance of this group of imperial guards who led the leaders of the battle sisters who called themselves the "Emperor's Bride" to the deepest part of the throne room, and confirmed Vandire's demise from the most fundamental legal basis.

It was this invitation to the throne room that caused Terra's political landscape to change again.

After experiencing such violent turmoil, the Imperial State Church welcomed six living saints one after another.

The Order of the Sisters of Battle has since been divided into three, and then into six. As a result, it flourished in the following hundreds of years and made great achievements in stabilizing the empire's territory.

The originally precarious position of the Empire's State Church has been supported, and the Inquisition has once again gained a sharp internal sword after possessing the Holy Hammer Order as a heavy external hammer.

Since then, the traditional forces represented by the State Council, the Navigator, and the Imperial Navy have had to admit the fact that the Imperial State Church has always been stationed in the Senate of Terra.

What about this time?

A new force in the Empire, with the Emperor's pardon, would be enough to gain a foothold on Terra;

If that Tribunal, who was originally the top force in the empire, was authorized by the emperor again, what would be the consequences?

Is another saint about to appear?

And unlike those saints far away on the borders of the empire, this one was born in Terra...

The empire's destiny is probably about to change.

A group of supreme lords occupying Terra, representing all the huge forces in the empire, had lost all interest at this time and were no longer interested in Brayton's fate.

What they are thinking about at this time is more about whether they can adapt to the new rules under the upcoming adult, and what impact these rules will have on the empire in the future.

——

In fact, I don’t really care whether Calvin can be canonized or not.

What he wanted to know most at this time was how many doors he could pass through in this ancient palace with a history of ten thousand years.

There are so many doors...

Calvin complained feebly in his heart, but he continued to pass through the tall porch guarded by these imperial guards, led by the imperial guards in front.

The buildings of these palaces are so majestic and grand, even the lowest dome is tens of meters high;

They were all decorated with gold and gems, and even the floor under Calvin's feet was as transparent as jade.

How majestic these doorways are, with passages nearly a hundred meters high and tens of meters wide enough for a Titan to walk through;

The best craftsmen have devoted years of time and energy to writing and carving the great achievements of the human empire on these huge doors in the most intuitive form of relief.

Walking among these palaces, a divine soul like Calvin could not help but marvel at the power of civilization.

After passing through countless doors, even with Calvin's inhumanly tall body, he couldn't help but have the illusion of his own insignificance.

But these are all details, not what he really cares about.

In fact, since arriving on Terra again, Calvin, who has already achieved certain achievements in the soul realm, has clearly felt tremendous pressure - the pressure of the man named Lord of Humanity who lives deep in the throne room.

And it seems that it has reached a certain limit, and it seems that some mechanism has been touched.

When Calvin followed the leading imperial army to the core area of ​​the throne room, he stepped on the first jade-polished floor with his heavy steps.

This ever-present pressure suddenly exploded, stimulating Calvin's power from dormancy and forcing him to enter a state of spiritual vision instantly.

boom!

The boundary between subspace and reality began to blur at this moment. The expected signature sneaky noise in subspace did not appear, but it surprised Calvin.

Oh, the subspace here is particularly "clean", probably because of the existence in front of me...

As soon as Calvin thought of this, he was so shocked by the scene in front of him that he lost his interest in speech.

A huge, burning endless flame, strange star with two colors of white and gold, was floating in Calvin's spiritual vision.

And his own soul also instinctively protects itself under the stimulation of this power.

A slightly smaller, broken black planet expanded rapidly from scratch, squeezed out a space within the position of the two-color star, and finally looked at each other while silently rotating.

Buzz…

Huge psychic energy fluctuations began to spread in the middle of the distance from Calvin to the throne room. The entire throne room and even the psykers of Terra were speechless.

The majestic mountain of Olympia, the eternal star torch in the Forgotten Fortress trembles.

Countless wizards in the Star Language Court were howling at the top of their lungs, feeling endless horror at the collapse of their carefully constructed witchcraft structures.

The members of the navigator's family all gave up social activities and huddled in their gorgeous palaces, surprised by the sudden recovery of their mutated bodies;

Countless empire-registered psykers in the City of Vision all stopped what they were doing at the "loud noise" that only psykers could hear, and looked worriedly in the direction of the palace area...

The turmoil stirred up in the outside world continued, but Calvin himself had long since recovered from the initial shock.

Well, it was shock at first, then familiarity, and finally the relief that some of the speculations were confirmed.

Yes, it was only then that Calvin finally determined that the existence in front of him was the "star" that signed a contract with him to give him "domestic registration".

And it was with the gift of this being that he had the opportunity to obtain a divine soul, and after meeting again, he could re-observe the existence in front of him from a higher level perspective.

But this is not necessarily a good thing, at least that’s what Calvin thought.

The more he understands spiritual energy, the more he can understand how powerful the being in front of him is;

Likewise, the more he understood the secrets of the soul, the more clearly Calvin understood what a miracle the existence before him was.

This is a pressure that people without psychic talent cannot imagine:

This being called the Lord of Mankind is like a fiercely burning star in the eyes of all psykers;

At every moment, energy fields that are as deadly to psykers as radiation rays are being swayed outward.

Weak psykers could not even approach him, and when the black ships reached the distant outer reaches of the solar system, they were spontaneously annihilated by his brilliance.

Ordinary psychics cannot look directly at his existence, because in the world of idealism, there is no difference between looking directly at his existence and challenging him;

And when he fell into a deep sleep, he was just the instinctive defense mechanism around him, which was enough to burn out those arrogant souls.

Calvin is no exception, and even in his understanding, this defensive force has a clearer intention to attack a powerful soul like his.

Before the being known as the Emperor awakened, the more powerful the soul, the more it was viewed as a threat.

This is also a scene that those who have not reached the other side of the soul and achieved divine authority cannot see:

With Calvin's level of power, in his experience, spiritual power was far from the truly terrifying aspect of the Emperor.

From the perspective of Calvin's power, the core "concept" in "him" excluding spiritual energy is the source of all power and the source of deeper pressure.

Yes, after walking all the way and deeply understanding the power of the Emperor, Calvin used his own perspective of power to transcend the barriers of the material level and look at the fiery and glorious existence from a distance. He saw a scene that shocked him extremely. .

what is that? Calvin couldn't be sure.

From an intuitive psychic perspective, it is a dazzling ball of light that cannot be looked directly at;

From the perspective of power, it is a collection of countless wills, and is an extension of a certain concept.

From another perspective, Calvin tried to use the inscriptions in his body to construct a deeper structure of that existence without any instruction.

The scene in the field of vision changed again. The dazzling light group was extinguished after the spiritual energy was filtered out. Concepts that were too complex to be understood were summarized under the special structure of the "inscription".

In Calvin's eyes, a sharp sword stained with blood loomed deep in the throne room.

"The Lord of Humanity...?" Calvin murmured.

The two custodians who led the way acted as if they had not heard anything, and did not react at all to Calvin's rebellious words.

They didn't know when they stopped in front of a still majestic and grand portal. Instead of taking a step forward, they just stood on both sides of the portal and guarded it with halberds.

Calvin could tell from their silent but clear body language that the only way down was for him.

Calvin did not hesitate, pushed open the silver door engraved with the emperor's great deeds, and then disappeared behind the portal.

"I'm afraid, a human sword is the right one..."

The voice of this special visitor still echoed in the depths of the throne room, but the two guards of the imperial army were as motionless as eternal stones.