How can a retired savior be considered retired if his price drops to 40,000?

Chapter 238 The Ceremony Begins

The arrival of Ritsuka Fujimaru, the emperor's personal choice and envoy of the throne (a long list of other titles below), to Baal Samsung. In fact, after they jumped out of Mandeville Point, they had already caused an uproar in the galaxy.

Without him, the Emperor's Dream would have been too eye-catching. From various dimensions such as specifications, decoration, firepower, identification code, equipped technology, and its own meaning, it is too eye-catching. Even though Vasilian had already contacted the Blood Angels Chapter Monastery through intra-system communication when the Lion's Mane arrived, and immediately publicized this fact after a simple preliminary discussion, the Emperor's Dream The actual appearance still caused chaos visible to the naked eye in the traffic scheduling within the galaxy.

The Imperial Guards don't pay attention to these trivial matters. These are the problems that the internal affairs officials of the empire are grabbing their remaining hair and screaming to solve, and they are only responsible for objectively adding trouble to these people. Let’s not talk about anything else, even if we only talk about the most realistic part: an ocean-going ship that is even larger than the Glory Queen-class battleship needs to queue up at the airport of Baal Prime to dock and carry out the ceremonial guard, which brings a massive amount of scheduling and The paperwork has kept the mortal clerks at the Baal Department of Transportation busy for three days.

What's more, the impact of this incident is not just as simple as "a huge battleship needs to enter the port." The resulting chaos will naturally make it known to everyone. Although in order to carry out the next work, Fujimaru Ritsuka and Chaldea did need to make their presence known on Baal, the fact that this happened so early in an unofficial way really made her I felt a little caught off guard.

To put it more clearly, she did not expect at the beginning that the landing ceremony, or ceremony, or whatever the person in charge of recording would give it a nicer name when she arrived in Baal would be so "lively" ".

Actors preparing to go on stage often cannot see the full picture of a normal performance. Therefore, when the honor guard tank Fujimaru Ritsuka was riding in landed on the Baal ground and slowly entered the room surrounded by the Imperial Army squad, the flight show that opened the ceremony was only visible in the sky. A thin trail of clouds was left on the sky, and the Dark Angel's vigorous 90-man phalanx martial arts drill had also ended.

According to the plan, there will be ten temporarily adjusted servo skulls floating above the surrounding crowd, moving forward with the Kronos tank, and during this period, Fujimaru Ritsuka's long series of titles will be loudly repeated. During the planning stage, due to insufficient inventory, she reduced the broadcast phalanx that was originally supposed to have 100 pieces to 10 pieces. But when it came to actual operation, she suddenly discovered that the original requirements of the Imperial Army did make sense in reality: Now she couldn't hear the servoskulls.

The sound of those high-power loudspeakers was almost completely drowned out by the cheers of the spectators on both sides of the road.

Fujimaru Ritsuka was stunned for a moment by such a deafening sound. Fortunately, at this stage, all she really had to do was stand there holding the Eagle Scepter, remain elegant, dignified, smile, and wave around, so this moment of stupefaction did not have any visible impact.

The person involved has no doubt that even on such an occasion, if the thing placed by the Imperial Guard in the center of the ceremonial guard to refer to the emperor is a statue, a painting, or even a dog in rich clothes, these people can do this without any qualms. Keep cheering.

In the first moment, she wondered if this was some kind of face-saving project, but when she saw the Ministry of Justice commissioners trying to maintain order, there were even monks of the Blood Angels Chapter (or, in other words, the other way around, because the crowd Astartes are always easier to spot), and the idea was half-dismissed. Perhaps the local government will recruit some civilians for various reasons to support the "grand visit" of central officials who are here, but no one with a little intelligence will make the situation such that it is basically impossible not to cause trouble. scale.

But this did not make her stylized smile any more natural, because it was obvious that what drove these civilians to come here was a strong religious fanaticism. Fujimaru Ritsuka was not used to this kind of scene, but this "unadaptation" did not prevent her from quickly realizing that the cheers that were mixed around her, so deafening that she could not hear the content at all, were not for "Fujimaru Ritsuka" , but to dedicate it to a "religious symbol representing the Emperor."

As close as Fujimaru Ritsuka could see, there was a clear tendency of the crowd to cross the safety line and move towards the honor guard; there were also people beating their chests and feet, tearing their clothes, and wailing loudly in excitement; and even more One even took out a knife and cut out the shape of the national religion's symbol on his face on the spot to show his loyalty and devotion. This made people wonder, "Is this really okay with the Blood Angels nearby?" This kind of fanatical atmosphere that does not distinguish between men and women makes Fujimaru Titsuka feel a little suffocated - as a non-religious person in a broad sense, she is unlikely to be moved by this.

The crowd gathered nearby was much larger than she had originally imagined. She originally thought that she was used to seeing huge crowds of people in places such as Tokyo's morning and evening rush hours and large exhibitions, but when she saw the scene around her, she saw a straight and wide main road with no obstructions, and the scene of crowds of people even... As it stretched to the end of her horizon, she was still genuinely shocked by the sheer violence of this quantity.

The more powerful ones will receive invitations to the social dinner after the parade through the communication and arrangements between the Custodes and the Blood Angels, so there is no need to crowd here.

This can be seen from the fact that after her figure was completely exposed to everyone's eyes, some Blood Angels' actions were slow due to surprise, but the voices of mortals were not affected at all. These crowds of people who gathered quickly in maybe only a day or two were not so much the well-informed or slightly powerful civilians on Bar, but rather pilgrims who were swayed by religious fanaticism.

Fortunately, Fujimaru Ritsuka's acting skills have been honed in various situations. Even though she felt a little uncomfortable with such a large number of enthusiastic people in her heart, she still looked elegant, dignified and full of joy from every angle. She gestured around with the calm attitude that a religious symbol should have, quietly waiting for the next step in the plan:

The roar of engines sounded again on the channel that had been cleared today and was used exclusively for ceremonies. An Orion attack transport craft rowed along the straight avenue on the ground from a low altitude. The temporarily transformed warehouse unfolded, and what fell from it were not guns, missiles, or soldiers symbolizing death, but overwhelming petals.

The Imperial Guards headed by Vasilian wanted to show off, so these instead of the ribbons and confetti commonly used during festivals fell from the air. They were massive real flower petals that were in short supply in many imperial worlds, including Baal.

Regarding the question of "where do so many petals come from?", Fujimaru Ritsuka is actually not 100% clear. She was only responsible for providing seeds of various flowers to Somni - the Stormbound also had the function of being the last surviving ark of a race, so of course it was equipped with a seed bank for the needs of ecological regeneration and civilization survival, which contained The seeds of all plants known to humans around 2000 AD. As for how the cultivation device on the Emperor's Dream turned a small seed into an overwhelming rain of petals within a few days... This question may have to be asked to the Emperor, and even if he told it, the people listening would be confused. Not necessarily understandable. In this slightly crazy festive atmosphere, the Kronos anti-gravity tank, surrounded by the Imperial Guard team on the ground, finally began to move forward slowly in the rain of petals.
-

At Arax Angel Fortress, Dante, the leader of the Blood Angel Chapter, was frowning under his golden armor mask, staring at the parade screen in front of him that was relayed by the Servo Skull.

His personal position in the political and military sense made him have to think more about this matter, and the "Imperial Saint" who originally only existed in the words of the Imperial Army, but now finally came out after being called out for thousands of times, The figure did successfully answer some of the questions that had arisen in his mind in the past two days.

To be fair, the man standing on the Kronos tank was indeed wrapped tightly in layers of fine clothes, with almost no skin visible. Maybe if it were someone else, he could only simply tell that the person was a woman based on the style of the dress in this situation, but Dante has seen too many people in his service life of more than 1,500 years: Men, women, civilians, soldiers, good guys, bad guys, mortals, Astartes. These subjectively long and tedious experiences have indeed become a valuable asset for him objectively. The huge data gathered in his brain formed a mysterious and mysterious world for him unconsciously. intuition:

Even though vision can provide very little detailed information, and the approximate height and body shape can only be used as an inaccurate reference for the age of the person involved in the vast empire, he can still rely on this paragraph of petals flying from time to time in front of the camera. From the past images, it can be judged that this girl is not very old, maybe she is an adult, or even younger.

In this case, the thing that worries him the most so far - the process from the Emperor's Dream entering the Baal system to the actual start of the landing ceremony is too rushed from any point of view - is Here’s an explanation that doesn’t sound like too much of a headache: From experience, young people are always more impulsive, reckless, and quick-tempered. Especially when one is as young as this "Imperial Saint" and holds a high position, the sense of omnipotence brought by excess power can easily give such a person the illusion of being "omnipotent".

Three Terran standard days were indeed too long for a ceremony of this scale.

Due to the vast territory of the empire, it must rely on subspace for transportation and communication. Issues involving vast areas in the empire often show a strange state of "urgent and slow": even urgent military situations, such as The Chapter received requests for help from other galaxies, and the ships had to leave immediately. However, in the treacherous subspace of the dark side of the Empire, the soldiers might feel drifting during this voyage that should only be a week or a month. It's been a year - things are indeed urgent, but the constraints in reality often prevent us from acting with real urgency.

Even the warships of the Blood Angel Chapter will encounter this situation if they can get into Sanguinor's navigation from time to time. Then inter-galactic broadcast communications, imperial government and commercial-related ships, and nobles' private armed ships will all encounter this situation. Boats, etc., will only encounter more problems during navigation, not less.

This resulted in "three days". On the dark side of the empire, basically no information could be transmitted from within the galaxy.

Fortunately, Baal itself has become the administrative and military hub of the dark side of the Empire under the orders of Robert Guilliman, so there are often many Astartes Chapter Mothers from various sectors, significantly more in number than the average. The military and political officials needed by the star are gathered in the galaxy, and the circulation of personnel and materials is much more frequent than before the Great Rift opened. I don’t know if the people who made this decision that made the schedule very hasty had this in mind from the beginning, but it did make the outrageous order to put together a grand event within "three days" some workability. : At least he only needs to ask his blood slaves to send invitations in his name within the galaxy, and he can gather the number of people that should be present at a social party that meets the specifications.

But that's not to say he doesn't have other things to worry about. As the Chapter Leader, what he actually needs to be busy with is: after learning the news, contact the person in charge of this ceremony, the Forbidden Army Warden Vasilian; and make sure that all the requests made by the other party are feasible (if there are any unfeasible parts, Then make it feasible, at least that's what Vasilian requested) After that, provide the corresponding venue and arrange manpower to raise and assist the corresponding matters. Dante spent more than ten hours completing all these negotiations and coordination work, so that the next things could continue to operate normally without him being needed, so he left with peace of mind - and then held an emergency group meeting.

He had indeed known for a long time that there would be such a person arriving in Baal with an important mission, and he also knew that by calculating the time, he would arrive almost recently, and he had been dreamed into by Sanguileno recently, and in a... In a way that seemed unreal, in an atmosphere like chatting with old friends, I was told in a circumstantial way that "you don't need to be too nervous about what will happen next." However, the experience accumulated over a long period of time still makes Dante unable to be optimistic about what may happen next. Too little information and too hasty time also prevent the chapter meeting from making a decisive conclusion that can be consistently applied.

After the Great Rift unfolded, it became practically difficult for the Holy Empire and the Dark Side to communicate with each other. The astrological message that was sent from Ultramar, passed through the Great Rift, and was finally received by the astropaths on Baal, informing that "an agent of the Emperor will come to you with an important mission." Although after passing through the Great Rift, the meaning inevitably became brief and fragmented, it still originated from a miraculous psychic ritual. Even Mephiston couldn't figure out how this was done.

Information and intelligence on both sides of the empire can often only be physically exchanged by passing ships through a handful of relatively stable fixed routes. This low efficiency resulted in that even though the Blood Angels Chapter began to try to collect relevant intelligence after receiving the Star Language, due to the previously mentioned "hurry and slow" status of the Empire, they did not know much about the relevant events. The portion is still very small.

The most irritating thing is that if I ask Vasilian the question "What are your specific tasks after coming to Bar?", he will only be answered with sentences like "You will know soon", which is not soft. Push back hard.

The Custodes may not realize how important this issue is to the Blood Angels. To these Emperor's Guards, this death world is nothing more than a Chapter Astartes homeworld, with at most some "Foundation Order", "Primarch Homeworld", "Autonomy" labels on it, and other There is no essential difference among the thousands of imperial worlds. But for the Blood Angels, Baal and her two moons are the home, spirit, faith and belief of all of them——

Dante took a deep breath and shook off these divergent associations, forcing himself to focus on the present and not worrying too much about things that had not happened yet. But when it comes to focusing on the present, there are some things that are not quite right that force him to continue to frown and think under the mask:

Is his memory inevitably failing with age - are any of the Dark Angels sub-groups painted in pure black? Are their Chapter emblems so similar to their parent Chapter's?

(End of this chapter)