The Emperor’s Angel of Death

Sorosjan was a little confused by Talos's words, so he asked:

"What's wrong?"

"When we returned from Colchria, we took a detour to avoid the Red Corsairs patrol fleet and came back from Sengrad. I encountered some things there, or rather, I received some news."

Talos then recounted the events in detail—

"It seems that riots have broken out on nearby planets. →"

This book is first published on the entire network by 𝕥𝕨𝕜𝕒𝕟.𝕔𝕠𝕞

On the bridge, Cassatt, bored, sat in his chair with his legs on the railing, watching a visual transmitter. A panting voice issued a brief report from the horn-shaped speaker, along with occasional cheers from the crowd.

"...The Department of Justice strike force entered the den of thieves, where... they crushed the resistance with powerful force, and then... just received news from the Second Militia that a rebel stronghold has been captured by the Emperor's warriors, with a total number of casualties of..."

"When is it not abnormal for the Imperium to not have riots."

Talos stood aside, holding a freshly brewed hot coffee. This was no ordinary recaff, but Red Mountain coffee from a distant, savage world, an expensive luxury item only available in busy trading areas like the Maelstrom, and only those standing at the top of the Imperium's power pyramid were qualified to enjoy it.

In the picture, a host in formal attire stood in a safe place, away from the tracer fire and explosive smoke behind him. He was neatly dressed and well-groomed, and his humble appearance showed no signs of mechanical modification. →

This kind of broadcast is very common in Imperial hive cities, basically joyful reports of the Emperor's victory, lectures on the doctrines of the Ecclesiarchy, inspiring sermons, and criticisms of arrested criminals and heretics—in every case, the officially selected representatives embody pure, non-threatening personnel.

The host looked natural, but Talos could still see that, in addition to being trained to maintain his appearance under the gaze of servo-skulls, this short man also wore a large number of control joint frames, auto-focus diaphragms, and skin fluorescents.

"...The Imperium has once again crushed the rebels, praise His glory, no casualties reported!"

The man solemnly waved his arms at the scene behind him, a certain unnamed town in the lower levels of the hive city being reduced to ashes by a circle of makeshift tanks.

"Hmm?"

Suddenly, Talos frowned. Through the blurred flickering flames, he tried to concentrate and could make out the small silhouettes of those swaying figures struggling to die, seemingly all children and women, and being burned alive.

"...a wave of rebellion, but this is a hymn to the Throne of Terra, long live the Emperor! The heroes broke through the obstacles and drove away the filthy heretics..."

"Huh?"

Cassatt also noticed something was wrong, he frowned and paused the picture. →

"Why do I feel like this hive city is so dark? There's no light at all?"

"More than that, look."

Talos reached out and pointed to the edge of the screen, where some people in guard uniforms were rummaging through piles of corpses.

"Those corpses are as thin as firewood, what rebellion are they using? Teeth?"

"Want to go take a look?"

"Yeah, let's go take a look. I feel like there are some things happening that we don't know about, maybe Sorosjan doesn't know either."

Soon, two Thunderhawks detached from the cruiser and flew all the way towards the planet, encountering no obstacles along the way, because they carried the symbols of the Astral Knights. As for the dozens of inquiries and greetings from the planetary governor, they were all ignored by Talos.

The Thunderhawks headed straight for the hive city.

After entering the atmosphere, he realized that things were much worse than he thought. The entire hive city, except for the upper and middle parts, had completely fallen into darkness, like a huge cave appearing on the parched earth.

Talos then had the Thunderhawk land directly in an unknown area of the lower hive.

In his mind, even if a hive city was dirty, backward, and chaotic, it should at least be lively.

But when Talos walked out of the Thunderhawk, he was greeted only by deathly silence.

The wind sighed on the steel wreckage, whistling through the rusted pipes, the metal rubbing together making creaking sounds, the notes rising and falling with the scraping, like a boring song. Countless undulating ruins and metal shacks loomed in the darkness like undulating mountains.

"What happened? Why does the hive city's power seem to be cut off?"

Sablin's puzzled voice came from under his helmet as he looked at the silent darkness around him.

Talos was silent for a moment, then said:

"Promethium. Because Angstrom is besieged, they can't get enough promethium."

At this time, Talos had vaguely guessed something, but did not say it out loud.

The team followed him all the way, they did not turn on any lighting equipment because their helmets and superhuman vision were enough.

After that, they came to an abandoned station, steps rising from the piled debris, the concrete quietly crumbling under their feet as they passed. The song of silence had a deeper tone here, as if the elevated railway was a huge tuning fork, its vibrations constant, like the hum of a sleepwalker at night.

"Look—"

Cassatt circled his hand in the darkness, and everyone saw a train overturned under the tracks, surrounded by countless dried-up corpses.

One could imagine the scene at the time, countless people, driven by some disaster or something else, trying to board the last train to who knows where, but the train eventually derailed, overturning on the ground and crushing layers of severed limbs.

After that, they continued to move in the darkness and discovered more suspicious things.

First of all, it was still quiet, not only were there no people, but there were no animals either. It should be known that hive cities are never short of various creatures, especially rodents, but here, even rodents seemed to have disappeared.

As if it had been bombed by a virus bomb.

Walking to a cellar opening, Talos squatted down, twirled some pale green sludge hanging on the grate with his fingers, and then reached out to take a detector from Alvarez.

Soon, the instrument came to a conclusion.

"Someone used poison gas, but not a life-eater virus like a virus bomb, but rather the nerve gas that the Department of Justice often uses for suppression."

"And they specifically poured the poison gas from the underground pipes, obviously to kill anyone who might be hiding inside."

"Sergeant, found something."

Suddenly, the Le Lin squad, which was scouting in front, sent a message, and everyone immediately moved in the direction where he was.

Soon they came to a traffic artery, which was a three-layer fast passage, many vehicles were parked on the side of the road, and in front of the huge confluence area in front of the passage, countless corpses were densely lying, most of them were air-dried due to the special environment of the hive city, turning into skin-and-bone mummified corpses, but they could still see their struggling appearance before death, and the outlines could be seen that there were men, women, old and young.