“Inquisitor Aglaea.”
Aglaea stumbled, the dossier in her hands falling to the ground.
If not for Sister Arabella beside her offering support, she might’ve lost her composure entirely.
“No, no, I’m fine, my lord.”
Her words jumbled in confusion as she bent down, grasping twice at the air before finally picking up the docunts.
She let out a long breath and used her psychic ability to adjust her hormone levels, forcing her brain into a state of artificial calm.
“How is your plan progressing?”
“After wiping out the Imperial Navy forces, the Seeker began funneling large numbers of people to the Pierrd core world. We don’t know how he managed it, but there’s a webway gate there. According to the deal, we would conduct centralized processing of the population there.”
“Everyone in the sub-sector?”
“Everyone. The last ti my fleet contacted the scouts monitoring each planet, the populations had already dropped to less than a tenth.”
Plap—
The sound of a pen tip hitting the floor.
Aglaea raised her hand and smashed her fist into the Governor’s face.
Just one punch. A punch purely out of rage.
The already-disfigured face of the Governor twisted even further.
Had it not been for Great Sage Kaul’s ch-limb holding her back, Aglaea would’ve thrown a few more punches.
“You f***ing pigs, you dumb pigs—do you even realize what the h*ll you’ve done?”
Confined by steel and tal, Aglaea gave up struggling and began cursing loudly.
“The entire Pierrd Sub-sector had nearly five trillion people! And you just let that lunatic concentrate them all on one planet! You handed them over to his sacrificial altar!”
“And you idiots actually believed his bulls**t! You pigs are part of the sacrifice too! Do you even understand what happens when that many people are offered to Chaos...”
Aglaea didn’t even dare imagine it.
She had once seen the catastrophe of Chaos aboard a Black Ship.
Just one unstable psyker devoured the souls of a dozen prisoners and caused Nurgle’s plague to infect half the ship.
The ship’s tal corroded and rusted at lightning speed, boils grew across the bulkheads, and she watched with her own eyes as those disgusting Plague Marines walked out of what looked like cloacal daemonic portals.
Even being near that aura caused humans to mutate on the spot—microbes and tissues went into chaos, rging grotesquely, smiling as they walked toward the living.
If not for the presence of the Emperor’s Custodes and Sisters of Silence aboard that ship, she wouldn’t even be here ranting in front of everyone.
Five trillion people. Even with over half lost in the process, that’s still two trillion.
The population of four Hive Worlds...
Aglaea looked utterly hopeless.
That old man really had gone mad.
Just to pursue knowledge, he sacrificed that many people to Chaos.
‘...By the Emperor, please tell what to do.’
The young Inquisitor was completely at a loss.
Even the stern mask she’d maintained to appear authoritative finally cracked.
At first, she’d naively thought she had sothing on the old man and planned to use the opportunity to take him out and inherit his legacy.
After all, Inquisitors falling to Chaos was nothing rare in their line of work.
Many had been purged for that very reason.
Once she found out her ntor had started dabbling in Chaos, the idea had already taken root.
She even thought she had good luck—was happy at first to have a chance to take over her branch of the Ordo right after getting promoted.
But—
This old bastard.
Why did he have to go this far?
All I wanted was to quietly take him out, avoid Chaos for the rest of my life, spend a few decades organizing historical texts, dump the endless ss on the Ordo, and retire to a paradise world.
With stable bio-based psychic ability, she could live for centuries without issue.
She’d already picked out a house on her garden world—paid the down paynt just to secure a good location.
Why did this old bastard have to blow things up like this?!
Aglaea swore to herself, if she survived this, she’d never touch the Horus Heresy again. Anything to do with Chaos was all cursed.
She’d rather randomly pick so Chapter howorld and call it a day—Macragge’s records are too detailed, Blood Angels are rumored to be too linked to the Warp, maybe one of those with massive holes in their history...
Fine! I’ll study the model Chapter—Dark Angels, alright?! There’s no way they’re involved with Chaos, right?!
...But is now really the ti to be thinking about the future?
A voice echoed from deep inside her.
Will I even survive?
Aglaea asked herself.
She didn’t know.
She didn’t even know what to do in the face of a disaster like this—her only firsthand experience was that one Black Ship incident.
Everything else ca from reading reports.
She had no idea what would really happen if this many people were sacrificed to Chaos.
She was just a rookie who hadn’t left the library for long.
Being able to pull the chanicus and an expedition fleet into this ss already took guts—there’s no way she could get the Sisters of Silence or Custodes involved.
“Inquisitor Aglaea, can you confirm that the intelligence you received is accurate?”
Seeing the young Inquisitor ntally shutting down, and having sowhat pieced together what had happened, Romulus finally spoke up.
“For the most part, yes.”
Aglaea nodded. She had been investigating her teacher for a long ti.
“Because the first three answers were things I already knew. The xenos gave the sa responses I had on file. That’s why I was formally reassigned—the old bastard’s plan has already succeeded. I didn’t even know we...”
“Inquisitor Aglaea, I don’t care about your Inquisition’s internal filth.”
Romulus glanced around and imdiately cut her off.
“You only need to tell us what we might be facing.”
Right now, the most important thing was understanding what kind of threat they were up against.
The transmigrators didn’t really grasp what a five trillion–person Chaos sacrifice ant.
Thanks to GW’s mathemagics, they had long learned to be skeptical of any nurical info from before they crossed over.
“What? Cultists across the planet, daemons pouring out of the Warp nonstop, a corrupted Inquisition fleet... maybe by the ti we get to Pierrd, we’ll see the planet halfway swallowed into the Warp already. It’s over...”
Aglaea replied with growing pessimism, her voice getting darker, her soul feeling more and more clouded.
“You—”
Marshal Orlando was about to step forward and detain this doomsaying witch.
Romulus raised a hand to stop him.
Marshal Orlando swallowed his words, glanced at the silent Imperial Fists, and stepped back.
Everyone kept their eyes on Aglaea.
Romulus remained calm and composed.
Rases was still deep in thought about his own concerns.
They all gave the young Inquisitor their patience—because anyone who had to shoulder a disaster this big the mont they got promoted would be barely holding it together.
The young Inquisitor kept her head down, hands pressing against her temples like she could block it all out.
Arthur watched her for a while, couldn’t bear it anymore, then felt a faint pressure on his shoulder plate.
He turned to look—Garna was giving him a look.
The other two buddies still seed to be thinking about this with a normal person’s mindset.
Can you expect soone with this kind of cracked worldview to figure it out on their own?
More likely, she’d spiral into heresy, lose control of her powers, and set off a Warp firework display for everyone.
Sclang—
So he very decisively drew the Black Sword.
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