The Emperor’s Angel of Death

Originally, Sotha thought that because the agricultural world had a large population, evacuating so many people at once would mean they would have left their homes in a hurry without preparing any food or drink. The first thing to solve would be the problem of food and drink, so Sotha asked the court to prepare a lot of food in advance in these merchant ships, mainly various grains.

As he expected, according to the statistics of the rescue ships on the orbit and the original evacuated transport ships, the Lamenters rescued approximately 29 million people this time. Although it was not as many as expected, it still required a large amount of rations, and the prepared food was immediately put to use.

As a result, as soon as the priests arrived on the ship, they immediately established the original order, and even formed a 'Guardian Team'. The first thing they did was to burn all the food distributed by Eldar or throw it into the void, and temporarily formulated 'religious laws' - anyone who dares to hide alien items will be sentenced to death immediately upon discovery, and their family will be implicated.

"The aliens are too vicious, they even distribute food to those mud legs! They want to destroy the Emperor's faith in this way! We must not let them succeed!"

This was the original saying of a highly respected bishop in a religious meeting, which was reported directly to Sotha after being heard by a hidden Eldar spy. At that time, he was so angry that he really wanted to chop up all these dog things - they shouted fiercely, but each priest's food quota was twice that of civilians, and the bishop could even dine with the captain and others, drinking wine and eating ant meat.

In addition, the priests continued to publicize that the Eldar had poisoned the food. One bite would make people not recognize the Emperor, two bites would make people not recognize their parents, and three bites would immediately turn them into slaves more unbearable than servitors. They also fabricated outrageous rumors such as the Eldar secretly harvesting children's organs to make weapons, and they also formed many temporary religious courts to specifically review those civilians who were 'suspected' of having contact with the Eldar, arbitrarily carrying out death sentences and burning at the stake, trying to control everyone with fear.

In just a few dozen hours, they turned from prey trembling under the claws of the Tyranids into cruel religious executioners, and tens of thousands of people were executed or subjected to the flesh punishment of cutting off their hands and feet.

When he saw the countless rations being scattered in the void, Sotha was really very angry and also very sad, because this not only represented waste, but also meant that many people would starve to death before the merchant fleet sailed to the nearest Imperial world. The little supplies on the ship were not enough for so many people to use no matter what.

The Eldar also discussed this privately. Almost all Eldar believed that these religious-minded apes were not worth saving at all.

But what could Sotha do?

The Lamenters didn't care, could he care? This was also why he sometimes felt that the Lamenters were too light, they lacked means, or to put it bluntly, they were naive. They were single-mindedly saving people, but they didn't know what was really harming people. They worked hard to fight against the aliens, but turned a blind eye to other things that killed countless people.

It may also be that the shadow brought by the Badab War was too great, making the Lamenters completely afraid to fight against the Imperial institutions.

Sotha was also a little annoyed in this situation, and what made him even more annoyed was the report from the seers. They sensed weak psychic signals in the human ships, which also meant one thing -

The Lamenters not only rescued Imperial civilians, but also gene stealers hidden among them.

Thinking that the Lamenters shed blood but rescued such things, Sotha was really disgusted. There was no way, he had to clean up the mess for the Empire and let the Custodes directly enter the ship to arrest people. The Eldar's sensitivity to the psychic energy of the Tyranids played a role at this time. Those gene stealers basically had nowhere to hide, but the Imperials didn't understand this. The Eldar's 'special arrest operation' was infinitely magnified by the priests, further deepening the Imperial residents' hostility towards their saviors. Although they didn't dare to do anything during the process of the Phoenix Custodes arresting people, they kept hiding in the dark and cursing, and painted a large number of insulting patterns on the walls with paint.

If Sotha hadn't suppressed them, Duran and the others might have killed everyone on several ships, but even with such restraint, the Lamenters still expressed their protest, claiming that 'the ship is also Imperial territory and is sacred and inviolable', and also sent people to the ship until Duran explained to them and personally showed them the gene stealers, the Lamenters realized what happened.

Sotha no longer had the energy to deal with this kind of nonsense. After learning from Bandaram that Malakim was basically unharmed, he notified the Lamenters to prepare to pick him up.

However, when looking at Malakim's condition, Bandaram told Sotha something amazing.

"Father, a dark power flows in his blood."

"Dark power?"

Looking at Malakim, who was lying naked and floating in the crystal suspension fluid, his eyes closed as if he was still sleeping, but there were almost no scars on his body, Sotha frowned and turned to look at the humanized Bandaram in a blue dress. She now only had the chitinous characteristics of the Tyranids on her forehead, the back of her hands, and her segmented tail. In other aspects, she was completely like an Eldar child, and a female one. According to Veronica, it originally had no gender, but because it had been in a female environment for a long time, especially under the influence of Veronica, it had imperceptibly shaped itself into a female.

"What do you mean? Chaos power, or... it can't be Chaos, right."

Bandaram shook her head.

"It's not the evil power of the Warp, or rather, not those I know. In terms of form, it is similar to a kind of curse power."

"Curse power?"

As a psychic collective, Bandaram's learning ability is almost equivalent to data transmission. She had long been aware of the vast collection of books and information collected and accumulated by the court, so Veronica insisted that Sotha bring her with him, not to let her contribute to the battle, but to let her use her knowledge reserves to solve the problems Sotha might encounter.

"This is a relatively primitive and pure power in the Warp. The Old Ones mainly used curse power. It has strong plasticity and is related to the formation of the Warp, but because it is too mysterious and ancient, and the birth of the Ruinous Powers has polluted the Warp, this power is difficult to trace and investigate, but it is possible that the crystal domain of the Changer of Ways still hides this original power."

Sotha frowned. These concepts were too complex and difficult to understand, and Bandaram spoke very broadly. After thinking for a moment, he said:

"Could this be the Black Rage that plagues the Blood Angels lineage?"

Seeing Bandaram's slightly confused expression, Sotha then described the situation of the Black Rage.

"...I once helped the Flesh Tearers solve their Black Rage, but before long, those recovered warriors fell into a deeper Black Rage in battle, and were even more crazy and unable to extricate themselves. Therefore, I dared not deal with this kind of thing for them anymore. When you say this, I feel that if it is really some kind of curse power, does that mean there is a source, or a caster?"

Suddenly, Bandaram raised her hand and gave a thumbs up.

"Father, you are amazing. I really didn't think of the possibility of a caster. Since the Old Ones left, even the ancient empires rarely had those who could master curse power. According to mythology, only a few historically famous Asuryan High Priests mastered this power, but there have been no such legends since the Fall four million years ago."

The silent Sotha suddenly thought of something, his face changed slightly, but in the end he shook his head.

"Forget it, this is not something I can manage. Does the Black Rage have any additional impact on him now?"