Emperor's Daughter of the Red Sands

Chapter 57 Tragedy
"My followers, my sons...all the Word Bearers of Legion No. 17, today...will be the Day of Atonement forever remembered."

"I, Lorgar Aurelion, made an unprecedented mistake, because among my legion... there appeared a hateful traitor I didn't know about."

"Chief Priest Erebus of the Word Bearers conspires with Chief Captain Kor Phaeron about treason against the Empire... Their sordid treachery has been fully proven."

"This is unforgivable blasphemy."

"This is the eternal sin of the Word Bearers... This is also the price of my pride and arrogance. No matter what, this sin must be paid in the most painful form..."

"Otherwise, the No.17 Legion will no longer exist..."

"The City of Perfection was once the jewel in the palm of the Word Bearers, the beacon of our reason, and the eternal treasure of the No.17 Legion..."

"Now, our faith is being tested like never before. We must sacrifice the perfect city and the blood of the sinners to show the loyalty of the Word Bearers to the Empire."

"The order from my father, the Holy Emperor of the Imperium of Man, Lord of Man must be carried out in the most complete form."

"Any possibility of treason must be stifled, and any sporadic disloyalty must be judged."

"It is with the greatest weight and grief that I issue this order."

"Destroy the perfect city."

"Don't stay alive."

……

Ashes are drifting.

Bombs were fired at innocent and devout eyes, and the carnage took place among the panicked crowd.

This is the smoke of the perfect city, where the proud masterpiece of the Word Bearers of yesteryear is still burning.

The most rational city in the entire galaxy, the Jerusalem in the hearts of many believers, was burned to the ground by its creator.

The hovering Thunderhawk spewed bolt fire, and Leman Russ's treads were stained with blood as it rolled over the cathedral.

The once-prosperous city-states are being wiped away inch by inch by the sword of the empire, and peaceful people are also dying in ignorance and confusion.

The terrifying howls of the light spears and macro cannons had dissipated, and there was no sign of life in the ruins left behind.

Only the gray angels of death shuttled through the ruins, relentlessly carrying out the God-Emperor's punishment and the Primarch's will with bombs.

In front of the collapsed God-Emperor Icon, only the desperate screams of the survivors remained.

There is no mercy.

Hundreds of thousands of Word Bearers Astartes carried out orders from the Primarch insensibly and relentlessly, the brilliance of faith temporarily eclipsed in the face of too heavy a duty.

They are the creators of the perfect city and the disseminators of religious beliefs—however, before that, they have only one most important duty.

The ruthless hammer of the Empire.

Obedience to military discipline and orders is in the nature of all Astartes, and this is especially evident in the No.17 Legion.

Even if they saw the puzzlement in the pupils of mortal believers, they heard their prayers before despair, and they were even questioned by those hysterical questions.

——Since you shaped all of this, why did you destroy it with your own hands?
Faced with the questions posed by those bloody and tearful believers, every Word Bearer was unable to answer.

They themselves cannot understand why this is happening.

They should have been preachers of reason, and they should have faced the people of the God Emperor with kind faces.

However, the orders from the Primarch lingered in everyone's heart.

【Leave no survivors】

So the Astartes raised their cold muzzles.

That overly tenacious will forced them to ignore everything in front of them, as if in the cruel war of the past hundred years, as always.

It's just that the enemy in front of him is no longer a dirty pagan, but the people of the empire who are desperately praying to the God Emperor for salvation.

The broken limbs torn apart by the bombs, the blackened corpses burned by the flames of promethium, and the vicious curses uttered by desperate believers when they were dying.

They became the Fallen Angels, the executioners who brought death and destruction to the people of the Empire.

Most Word Bearers can see the headless corpse that hangs high on the highest point of the Perfect City.

The beginning of all, the birthplace of all iniquity.

Head Priest of the Word Bearers - Erebus.

The wavering of faith in everyone's heart turned into hatred for the former chief priest. If it weren't for the betrayal of this heretical priest, the treasures of the Word Bearers would not have been destroyed at all.

None of this should have happened, and faithful believers should not have been cleansed in the Word Bearers fire.

But they can't stop.

If they had any mercy at all, it could mean that the entire Word Bearers would be forever tainted with the taint of treason.

Not only is their belief denied, but everything they have dedicated to the Empire, to humanity, to the Emperor and the Primarch will be turned into a dream, fleeting.

They saw the hunched figure of the Primarch of the No.17 Legion kneeling before the Emperor, and they heard Lorgar's prayer of atonement in his grief.

This is the last chance to determine the loyalty of the Word Bearers.

Destroy the perfect city with your own hands, completely kill the fire of rebellion in the most hysterical way, and dedicate your complete loyalty to the empire and the emperor.

Beginning with Lorgar's penitent prayer, the city of the Word Bearers, once proud, was doomed.

For the Word Bearers, this might even be just the first step in redemption.

Even though they didn't know why the flame of rebellion was born, it did exist. The joint death of the chief company commander and chief priest had already pulled the No.17 Legion to the brink of destruction.

Yes, destruction.

If the legion shows the possibility of rebellion, it will usher in the most complete destruction of the human empire.

The quiet disappearance of the Second and No.11 legions is not false. The two legions that quietly disappeared in the Randan War have turned into secrets that only Terra veterans know. This lesson has been engraved on every Terra veteran. In his heart, even the Word Bearers, who had boundless loyalty to the Lord of Humanity, would probably not be spared.

So, despite the most vicious curses and sights, no Astartes stopped killing.

Men, women, old people, young children.

No one was spared.

The flames that burned heresy in the past are now pouring on these believers who used to believe in the God Emperor devoutly.

There is no room for chance in the flames of faith. Pious or not, sin has existed from the beginning, and all the Word Bearers can do is to wipe out all irreparable sin.

This is a sad and cruel farce.

It is also an irreparable tragedy.

……

……

　The reason for the relatively few updates recently is that the schedule is relatively dark, and the body is not very comfortable. Sorry everyone, I will restore 4k after two days of recovery!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)