Chapter 186: Light of the Nation!
"You... what do you mean by this?" Kian Voss stood over the daggers that the stranger had just dumped at his feet.
The man who had entered, dressed in the formal robes of a Priest of the Imperial Creed, wore a face of pious solemnity. "Warriors of the God-Emperor, you have fought bravely to purge the Pox-host, but you have walked through the garden of the Plaguefather. Your souls are tainted. Your minds are compromised. For the safety of the Hive's billions, I ask you—I beg you—to perform the final sacrifice."
Kian's squad stared at the daggers with the hollow, defeated eyes of men who had seen too much. They had survived the trenches, they had survived the trenches of Equine Reach, but they were breaking under the weight of this absurd, bureaucratic nihilism.
Reno, the Water Guild Overseer, felt the bitterness rising in his throat. Is this it? he wondered. Is this the 'High-Tier' future I bought into? A lifetime of back-alley deals, only to be ordered to slit my own throat by a mid-level priest?
Kian, however, felt a sharp, metallic hum of intuition in his brain. Something was wrong.
In the Imperium, bureaucracy was a religion, but it was a lethally efficient one. If an officer was deemed "corrupted," a Commissar didn't walk in with daggers and a "pretty please" request. They didn't ask you to self-terminate. They put a bolt-round through your brain before you could finish your next sentence.
This smells like a local play, Kian thought. This isn't an Imperial decree. This is someone showing off.
Kian looked the "Priest" up and down. He wasn't the Canon-Preceptor, and he certainly didn't have the aura of the real Cathedral staff.
"Who are you?" Kian asked, his voice low. "By whose authority do you command the Emperor's soldiers to die? Show me the seal of the Planetary Bishop!"
The Priest's expression soured. "I am Renato, High-Custodian of the Upper-Tier Rites. I serve the purity of the faith. You have touched the rot—that is enough reason to die!"
Kian realized it instantly: This guy was a fraud. He was an opportunist, likely trying to clear the "evidence" of the corruption or settle a personal vendetta by forcing a squad of hardened PDF veterans to commit suicide.
"A Priest, huh?" Kian smirked. He looked at his soldiers, who were still trembling. "You guys heard him. He wants us to die."
Kian didn't wait for a reply. He lunged forward.
WHAM!
His fist connected with Renato's jaw, sending the man sprawling. Kian didn't stop—he leaped onto the Priest, pinning his wrists to the floor with a knee, and began a rhythmic, brutal interrogation.
"You piece of heretical garbage!! Posing as a servant of the Creed?! What is your endgame? Who are you working for? Are you a radical? A cultist? Or are you just trying to scrub the crime scene of your own failures?!"
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Each punch was calculated and heavy, delivered with the efficiency of his 30-Strength stat. Renato's face turned into a map of broken cartilage.
"How dare you! I am—"
THUD.
"I am—"
THUD.
"I'll kill you—"
THUD.
The other Priests standing in the doorway were stunned. They watched as their leader was being dismantled by a PDF Corporal. They rushed forward to intervene, but Reno wasn't having it.
"Oh no, you don't!" Reno roared, performing a textbook "Knight's Flying Kick" that sent the lead acolyte careening into the library shelves.
The Voss Guard enforcers, who had been feeling useless all day, finally found their purpose. They charged the remaining acolytes with a roar. They didn't use finesse; they used the "Brute-Force" method. A fist to the gut, a knee to the solar plexus, and then the full, crushing weight of armored boots.
It was a total curb-stomp. The Cathedral's "White-Collar" priests, who spent their days reading ledgers, were no match for battle-hardened Underhive gangers.
Within seconds, the "Holy Men" were lying on the floor, groaning in a heap of broken bones.
Just then, the heavy doors of the dungeon-villa groaned open. The Bishop of the Planet and the Canon-Preceptor (The Pious One) walked in.
They stopped, staring at the sight of their priests being turned into floor-mops.
The Bishop, a man of sixty with a face of stone, looked at the carnage and then at Kian, who was currently pinning the bleeding Renato to the floor.
"What is the meaning of this?!" the Bishop roared.
Renato, spitting out teeth, gasped, "Your Eminence! These... these heretics! They attacked the Purgation Detail!"
Kian looked up, eyes cold, and pointed at the "Priest."
"This fraud tried to convince my men to commit suicide. I'm an Imperial Sergeant. I've killed hundreds of Poxwalkers in the name of the Throne. Does that look like 'corruption' to you?"
Kian stood up, his face covered in the fake-priest's blood. He turned to the actual Canon-Preceptor, the man he had been fighting alongside for the last three days.
"Canon! You've seen me fight! You've felt the Spirit-Light on my armor! Is this man's 'audit' authorized by you?!"
The Canon-Preceptor walked forward, his presence filling the room with a terrifying, golden hum. He stared down at Renato, his face darkening with an apocalyptic wrath.
"Renato? You are a scribe of the third tier. You have no authority to order a Purgation. You have disgraced the Creed, you have attacked the Emperor's soldiers, and you have spoken in the name of a Saint who is currently standing in this very room."
The Canon turned to the Bishop, bowing his head. "My Bishop, I request that this 'Renato' be handed over to the Ecclesiarchy's inquisitorial wing for... intensive questioning."
The Bishop looked at the pathetic, beaten form of Renato, then at Kian's squad—the only men brave enough to walk into the Hive's rot and come back out.
"Let it be done," the Bishop sighed. "The soldiers shall be honored for their service, and this... insult... shall be erased."
As the guards dragged the wailing Renato away, Kian looked at the Bishop, his mind racing.
100 million dead, the Spire-Elite hiding like rats, and a Bishop who has to watch his own staff try to murder the help.
Kian looked at his bloody hands and then at the golden icon of the Emperor.
"Truly," Kian whispered, a hollow laugh escaping his throat, "the Emperor's world is a masterpiece of madness."
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