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

Chapter 326: You Still Have to Turn Your Back When Answering the Phone
Having said that, it was obviously useless to continue struggling to perform as a "state religion ascetic". The uninvited guest lying on the ground stopped his fake trembling and obviously wanted to jump up from his current position close to the ground - this position was too dangerous, just like being slaughtered.

As a fully armed Astartes, Lanmalok, who was fully confident in his own strength, didn't really care about the other party's current posture. Anyway, if he really wanted to kill the other party, it wouldn't take more than two seconds. But out of the caution that a Dark Angel Fire Wing Grand Master should have, he quickly physically interrupted the other party's action of getting up, and put the muzzle of the grenade gun close to the other party's head as a deterrent:

"You'd better understand this: I'm still allowing you to answer questions alive because I think there may be room for mediation in this matter." He said this to the "ascetic monk" who was half-lying and half-kneeling on the ground, and at the same time he was on guard against the other party suddenly taking something out of the belt that didn't seem to hide anything. "Of course, you may be a spy sent by some hostile force, or a saboteur with some ulterior motives. In this case, you will certainly not escape death. But there is another possibility that you are working for some other department in the empire. In this way, you can go back alive to report to your master and tell them that the next time they try to intervene in an incident that has nothing to do with them, they should at least learn to make a formal application through official channels. Now tell me, which one are you?"

The fake priest's face quickly lost its fake trepidation. Even in the face of such a clear death threat, he did not panic, but responded with a mocking sneer: "Like you said, in order to survive, I will of course answer that I serve a certain lord in the empire. I'm sorry I can't tell you the title and name of that lord - would you believe such an answer?"

"We can always find some way to verify it." Lanmarok read the readings of the auspicious instrument in the helmet and said without emotion, "Although some of the transformation surgeries you have undergone can cleverly cover up your true emotions in terms of physiological monitoring, I think it is a reasonable assumption that your pain nerves have not been completely removed during these surgeries. You may not know that I have some relatively "special" cousins ​​working for Chaldea. They are very good at using some unique ways to get the truth out of a person's mouth."

"No need to go to so much trouble." Ruo Heselius decided to increase his presence. "This information can be confirmed with psychic power."

As he spoke, a Blood Angel recorder walked out from behind him, following the hint of Joscelius' body language. Anyone with a little knowledge could tell his basic position in the chapter from his azure armor, the staff in his hand, and the psychic hood. And the fake priest's knowledge was obviously more than "a little". He understood what he was going to encounter in an instant, and immediately - this time, most likely sincerely - screamed in fear:
"No! You can't do this!" He tried to struggle to get up from the ground again, but was once again held down by Lanmarok. This did not stop the mortal from continuing to struggle, even though he almost broke his bones: "You have no right to read my memory! I am, I am-"

The fake pastor didn't say what he was in the end. At the moment when a certain word was about to come out of his mouth, he twitched violently, as if he was suddenly "possessed" by something and interrupted the sentence. At the same time, he ignored the human instinct to survive and smashed his head hard towards the ground.

There was a loud bang that made people's teeth ache, but if Heselius did not see the scene of "white and red scattered all over the ground from the skull", the fake priest did not succeed in hitting his head on the dark and smooth Baal marble. The loud noise that seemed to contain some metal collision sounds came from Lanmalok's leg armor and the fake priest's belly: at the moment when the latter was about to hit the ground with his head to commit suicide, the dark angel kicked him in time but also mercilessly, kicking the poor mortal off the ground and rolling three meters away. He obviously lost consciousness under the heavy blow.

"He's still alive." Joscelius came to this conclusion after a simple observation, but there was still a hint of surprise in his tone.

"He has some mechanical modifications in his abdominal cavity." Master Fire Wing knocked on his helmet, as if to show off the sophisticated functions of the auspicious instrument installed in it. "That belt is unusual. It should have some interference force field, which makes it difficult for me to see the specific structure. But since he installed some iron internal organs for himself, I don't need to be so delicate."

"You react very quickly." Joscelius praised reluctantly. This was an objective fact that he had to accept: he could argue that he did not react immediately when the other party showed abnormality because at that moment, his instinctive reaction was to confirm whether this abnormality contained psychic power or evil control. But the fact was that he did not react immediately to deal with this unexpected situation, while Lanmarok did. No matter how reluctant he was, he had to admit it.

In response to the praise from his allies, Lanmarok showed appropriate humility: "It's just that I've seen it a lot in the past. This is how the trigger commands in some brainwashing programs behave when they are activated."

This humility did not make Joscelius feel any better, even though he was more aware of the other party's correctness through this statement - rather, it made him feel even more angry because of this.

"What should we do now?" He asked unhappily, "My suggestion is to just make him disappear. In fact, all the questions you asked him before seem redundant."

"In the past, I thought so too." Lanmarok shrugged. "But now that I work for the Chaldean Bureau, I have to follow Chaldean principles. I will have him under control, and to be honest, I have some guesses about where he came from... The current political environment in Baal is too complicated, so we'd better act conservatively and cautiously."

Joscelius felt that he was being pointed at, so he was unhappy and wanted to say something. But before he could make a sound, another dark angel emerged from the darkness and interrupted his thoughts with his presence. Obviously, Lanmarok had called for support through the internal communication before he said this.

As the uninvited guest was slowly dragged away, Joscelius finally spoke with dissatisfaction: "This is a very inefficient way of dealing with the situation, and it may also bring endless troubles."

"But there is also a chance that we can avoid some trouble." Lanmarok replied, "Most importantly, Chaldea has the luxury of resources to allow us to handle these incidents in this inefficient way, and we are confident that we have the ability to do it well."

If Heselius simply wrote his dissatisfaction on his face, but they did not continue to discuss this topic. The episode brought by this uninvited guest should not interfere with their actual mission here. In this not-so-relaxed silence, Lanmarok walked forward and opened the adamantine door in front of them with a special encrypted identification code, allowing the crime scene behind it to truly appear in the eyes of the investigation team.
-

When Hastings received another communication from Lanmalok, he deliberately pinched the communication bead and sighed loudly to ensure that the other party could accurately receive his current emotions through the sound.

"What happened again?" He carefully controlled his tone, making sure that his irritability was fully permeated into every word. In the past, he would not dare to speak to an Astartes who occupied a certain degree of leadership in the Chapter (Legion) in this way. But on the Storm's Edge, Fujimaru Ritsuka had obviously made some bad moves in various matters. After the sense of distance caused by the objective differences between Space Marines and mortals was dispelled by her in various strange ways, Hastings found that he and the Fire Wing Grand Master who had captured him on board were actually quite talkative.

By the way, there is one thing he doesn't want to admit: Sevatar is the one who deserves the most credit in the above incident.

"It's just a small matter that needs the time of the Inquisitor who handles most of our paperwork." Lanmalok praised the other party in a half-hearted way over the communication. "Is the new Inquisitor near you?"

Hastings knew it was no good. But even so, he still had to do what he had to do: "Technically, yes, but in reality, I'm currently undergoing a series of psychic tests from the Grey Knights, so I can't communicate with her for the time being."

"You were wearing a communication device during the inspection?" Lanmarok said with a hint of deliberate fussiness in his words. "They are so unprofessional."

"Just a reminder, you should praise me here for being very professional in convincing them to allow me to communicate with the ground through the Shadow Hammer during the inspection." Hastings gritted his teeth, "So what's the matter?"

"It's because you didn't do things cleanly from beginning to end." Lan Malok blamed the other party for no reason. "When you meet Inquisitor Marlan, ask her if she has sent any spies to the ground of Bal Prime. One just ran into me and wanted to participate in the investigation of the Archbishop. I locked him up. If she says no, I will deal with him myself."

Hastings instinctively wanted to refute: Lord Inquisitor Marlan had just entered the Baal system, how could he have time to do anything. Then he realized that for a Lord Inquisitor, "just this little time" might be enough for them to do a lot of things - otherwise, why would they be able to add the title of "Lord" in front of their title of "Inquisitor"?
Then, he took another second to realize that the other party's information source could only be himself, and realized that he had to accept Lan Malok's evaluation of "doing things from beginning to end". But before he could respond to the other party's request, Lan Malok had already hung up the call.
-

Joscelius and the recorder he brought with him walked around in the room where Archbishop Trolipo had stayed. Lanmaroc quietly stuck himself by the door, as if to say "I have already investigated before, so I won't bother you now." No one realized that he had actually turned on the silent mode of the power armor and was secretly sending a message to the orbit.

According to the Dark Angel's assurance, the traces in the room were exactly the same as when he first saw the scene - but unfortunately, before the incident was reported outside the church, the panicked priests and servants of the state church had already physically destroyed most of the traces. The soft long-haired carpet on the floor of the room, which was in line with the noble status of an archbishop, was of course easy to leave traces, but even the Fire Wing Grand Master could only restore a chaotic firefighting operation from the chaotic footprints and dried water marks, scattered sand, or other fire-fighting chemical residues.

Of course, there were some signs that were too unreasonable, which was why even Lanmaroc, who knew nothing about psychic power, made the judgment that "psychic power must exist in this matter" after a simple observation of the messy scene: the long-haired carpet under their feet, which was theoretically very flammable, did not burn to ashes along with its owner's spontaneous combustion. And at the time of the fire, Archbishop Trolipo was obviously standing on it - the black mark of a human figure left on the carpet was evidence, but obviously, only the part of the carpet that had direct contact with the burning archbishop was burned. The long fibers on the carpet, which were only ten centimeters away from the burn marks, seemed as if nothing had happened, and still maintained a soft touch and bright color.

In addition, there was a small round table overturned near the scene, which was supposed to be used as a temporary bar. No one knew whether it overturned at the time of the incident or was knocked over when the servants came in to put out the fire. Judging from the scattered objects around it - thanks again to the long-haired carpet - there was originally a bottle of wine on it (the bottle was still intact, but the contents had been spilled after it fell to the ground, leaving a few abstract wine-red lines on the nearby carpet), two crystal wine glasses (which fit the situation that the archbishop invited his confidants to have a private talk), an ordinary pen and a parchment with a brief memo (all of which were alternative plans for the next few days, nothing too noteworthy), and a small box with a small capacity (probably stepped on during the time when people came and went, but there seemed to be nothing inside). The above things also appeared to be very clean, mainly meaning that there was no sign of fire on the surface.

To be fair, Lanmalok himself could not find any other clues from this thing - he had certainly tried. But on this issue, the think tanks in the Blood Angels Chapter obviously had different opinions. Joheselius and his two assistants looked around the room for a while, and obviously found some clues that Lanmalok had not found. Then they gathered together and stood in a triangle near the black mark left by Trolipo, muttering some spells.

Lanmarok could not understand, nor could he feel any special changes, but he could still see the blue light radiating from the psychic hoods of several think tanks, and realized that something was going on in a dimension he could not perceive. After the contact with Hastings ended, he continued to wait patiently for a few minutes until the blue light under the psychic hoods of the think tanks disappeared. Joscelius also sighed in exhaustion, and then asked cautiously:

"Did you learn anything through the spell?"

"No." Joscelius' voice was a little frustrated, but more of a calm "that's as it should be." "But here, 'no discovery' itself is also a discovery: we tried to review the scene when Archbishop Trolipo died in this room through the warp, but the investigation was unnaturally hindered."

Lan Malok seemed to understand a little, but because he knew nothing about psychic powers, he didn't dare to draw a conclusion directly: "...So?"

"We must go and see the bodies," said Joscelius. "The body of Archbishop Trolipo, and that of the Confessor Comte. I trust you have preserved them well, have you not?"

Now it was Lanmalok's turn. He felt a little unhappy about his ability being questioned after hearing this question.

(End of this chapter)