"The time is ripe; the next phase of our plan can begin." A figure in a Repair robe, with only a thin chin visible from the shadows, cackled Weirdly.
"I thought you'd almost forgotten about this!" The plump Chief Priest, who had previously attempted to kidnap and sacrifice Horatio and Farida, slammed his staff down in a fit of rage.
Veins bulged on his smooth, shiny forehead, appearing purplish-blue and quite terrifying.
"It is said that the Naval Military Supervisory's intelligence department has collected a list, and it likely implicates us! It must be destroyed!"
The fat man yelled, "You don't know how anxious I am right now! I wanted to act days ago, if it weren't for you, I…"
The expression on his face was exaggerated and repulsive; it was supposed to be a man's face, but whether due to excessive estrogen secretion or some other reason, it displayed a contrived effeminacy.
"A trump card must be played at the most opportune moment. I forgive your shortsightedness, hehehe," the grey-robed man chuckled.
The plump Chief Priest's teeth ground together in anger.
"Get out of here! I will handle the rest myself!"
Thud!
The heavy double doors slammed shut, emitting a pained groan.
The grey-robed man cackled maniacally, his voice growing louder and then fading into the darkness.
—
At the same time, in a research lab within a Mechanicus enclave in Abyss Port.
A busy Tech-Priest was rummaging around, collecting research samples.
Her movements were stealthy, like a cautious thief.
At the same time, she was as busy as a squirrel moving nuts, her bionic limbs and neural dendrites weaving through various equipment like Medusa's snake-heads or Arachne's appendages.
Several Servo-skulls floated above the red-robed woman's head, their bionic eyes constantly emitting eerie red light, seemingly scanning for something.
Behind her, maid and butler Servitors, crafted with bio-skin to resemble porcelain dolls, constantly obeyed commands released from their power circuits, executing the Goddess Priest's orders.
Their movements were gentle and swift, and their artificial skin left no fingerprints or traces.
Suddenly, a microbial-level anomaly in a petri dish caused Rati-EB2A1, a Servitor skilled in both fabrication and biology, to mechanically turn her head in alarm.
Her head, equipped with a stabilizer, remained still as her body rotated 90 degrees to the right, then moved towards the anomalous petri dish.
Her crimson bionic eye emitted a chilling red light, shining on the petri dish.
The dish contained the 'mercury' liquid that Horatio had confiscated from the neck of the Black Adeptus Mechanicus Father he had slain on the plague ship.
Father Lati frowned.
Because, in principle, low-to-mid-ranking Fathers like her were not allowed to come into contact with Black Adeptus Mechanicus products.
To avoid suspicion of a fatal technological heresy, she had submitted this sample to her mentor.
However, unfortunately, a few days after receiving the experimental sample, her mentor had accompanied Campius the Wise to Lucius-Agrippina for a circuit of academic discussions.
Today, she was supposed to be alone in her lab, conducting academic research.
But there was a technological problem that, due to technical restrictions, she had been unable to solve.
Rack her brains as she might, she could not fathom it, and driven by a thirst for knowledge, she had done something highly unusual—something forbidden throughout the Adeptus Mechanicus.
—While her mentor was away on academic discussions with Campius the Wise, she secretly used obsolete code to disable the access control Servitor and slipped into her mentor's lab.
The sample had also been placed in a petri dish by her mentor.
Initially, there was nothing unusual.
But just now, a nano-level reaction occurred within it, scanned by one of the Servo-skulls passing overhead and captured by her astonishingly calculating mind.
The beautiful Goddess Priest bent down, her bionic eye constantly adjusting and magnifying the resolution.
When the magnification reached the limit of the advanced analysis bionic eye.
A rare look of bewilderment appeared in Rati's natural eye.
She saw that this mercury-like liquid was actually billions of nanobots.
They were clumped together, appearing as round and lustrous as a drop of mercury.
Now, these nanobots suddenly became agitated.
Originally congealed into a single drop, they began to crawl and spread outwards.
This strange phenomenon piqued Father Lati's curiosity.
After carefully checking that no one was around, she used a bionic limb covered with Bionics skin from behind her to carefully clamp the petri dish. Taking her servants, and after cleaning up all possible traces, she returned to her own research lab.
As she exited the research lab, a half-finished Servitor, immersed in a tank of green nutrient solution, with its eyelids removed and supposedly unconscious, moved its cloudy yellow eyeballs.
—
A few minutes later, on the Doomsday-class battlecruiser Unyielding.
A communications officer on duty suddenly received an urgent communication from the retribution-class 'Holy Will'.
The officer was puzzled, and when he heard the urgent message and gunshots from the audio array on his ears, his eyes widened.
"Captain! Urgent message from the 'Holy Will'!" the officer shouted.
Commodore Peru, who had been dozing on the fleet command throne, instantly opened his eyes.
"Relay it!" he ordered.
Vice Admiral Hood's urgent and muffled shouts came through the audio array in front of him.
"A mutiny has occurred on my vessel! I need reinforcements!"
The last two words made Commodore Peru's eyes widen considerably.
He could hear the intense gunfire coming from the retribution-class battlecruiser's command bridge.
—
On the command bridge of the retribution-class battlecruiser 'Holy Will'.
Vice Admiral Hood held a pistol and sought cover behind the display console in front of the fleet command throne.
"Commodore Peru! Immediately dispatch all Shark Assault Boats! A damned mutiny has occurred on my vessel!"
A laser shot grazed the Vice Admiral's head, knocking his gold-braided general's bicorne hat to the ground, where a smoking laser burn hole was now clearly visible.
"Yes, General… How much longer can the situation hold?" Commodore Peru asked uneasily.
"It's not looking good! The armed forces have mutinied! First, Captain Lord shot the Captain dead, then he died together with the Fleet Military Prison."
Vice Admiral Hood looked at the chaotic bridge. The general's guard was desperately clearing out the mutineers on the bridge and frantically blocking the Voidsmen-at-Arms rushing towards the bridge.
The Captain of the battlecruiser 'Holy Will', with 35 years of warship command experience, had half his head missing. His bicorne hat lay on his abdomen, and he lay askew on the battlecruiser's command throne, his eyes wide in death.
There were two more loud gunshots.
The inexplicably mutinous Captain Lord had his entire head blown apart by the quick-witted Fleet Military Prison (Commissar) with a boltgun, and he toppled onto the command display console.
Blood short-circuited the entire display console, causing the massive machine to burn out with a pop.
And the Fleet Military Prison was left with only his last breath, lying on the cold deck, painfully coughing up blood.
Blood soaked his pristine Naval Military Supervisory coat, and a profusely bleeding large hole was clearly visible on his chest and officer's gorget.
The 'Holy Will', which had been perfectly normal, suddenly saw such an absurd scene unfold.
Then, Vice Admiral Hood received urgent reports of armed forces mutiny from Midshipmen on various decks and compartments throughout the vessel, sent just before their deaths.
These dense messages utterly bewildered him.
The Imperial Navy armed forces, the guardians of the warship, had mutinied????
And it was a sudden, premeditated rebellion that occurred in an instant, with no prior signs????
This was as absurd as the military police rebelling and occupying military headquarters.
What was worse, the number of mutineers seemed to be considerable.
The general's guard, numbering only a few hundred, simply could not withstand the wave of armed mutineers.
This was why, after the Church of the Celestial Woman incident, someone was eager for Horatio to leave Abyss Port first.
If he didn't leave, he would be stabbed to death by the out-of-control pilgrim group who had gathered upon hearing of the miracle.
Then, the blame would be placed on the fanatical pilgrims, all of whom would be executed and silenced, turning it into a historical cold case.
A certain Inquisitor, through a sudden prophecy from an 'ally' (doubtful), learned that something big was going to happen.
But the Inquisitor, who had just returned from the Calixis Sector after hearing the prophecy, had no time to investigate the conspiracy.
The 'ally's' enigmatic, headless, and tailless prophecy also didn't provide him with many useful details.
To be safe, he first had Commodore Peru, a former Inquisitorial Acolyte, call Horatio away. It just so happened that the Commodore also wanted to pave the way for him.
No one knew who among them was truly a traitor.
Welcome to the 41st millennium, the end of days, this rotten world.
There's no beginner's village; you start straight into hellish difficulty.
One misstep and you're doomed.
Everything could be an enemy's conspiracy or trap.
Yet everything could also be a bait set by the Imperium and its allies, like the mantis stalking the cicada while the oriole watches.
The Gothic Fleet is in grave danger.
Battles on the ground, in the void, in the open, and in the shadows.
Traitors and true culprits hidden within the vast Imperial system.
Multiple overt and mysterious covert 'allies'.
Prophecies both true and false, like a dream and an illusion.
Wise Inquisitors, fanatical Inquisitors.
The immense value and treasures contained within the dark frontiers of the Imperium, where even the Astronomican's light cannot reach.
The precarious Cadia, and the impending galactic catastrophe.
Horatio: Come on, the challenge has begun. But I am not fighting alone.