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

Fujimaru Ritsuka took a step forward and asked condescendingly:

"Is it wrong to trust your friends? Is it wrong to want to make the planet prosperous and make progress? Is it wrong to care about your own people? Is it wrong to gamble everything on a possible future when there is no other way? You may have made a mistake in not being cautious enough and not seeing through Chaos's conspiracy; you may have made a mistake in being indecisive and not stopping the loss in time when the impact was not big; you may have made a mistake in succumbing to temptation and being blinded by a better future - but I want to say that your motives are not wrong!"

Governor de Vere was shocked by these words. They were so unlike the words of an envoy from the throne.

She was still kneeling on the ground in a posture as if she was being interrogated, but she did not notice that her eyes were wet. The person who had the right to judge all this continued:

"The only mistake in this matter is the existence of a group of insects behind the curtain that are worse than beasts, watching with eager eyes, wantonly playing with the fate of mankind and enjoying themselves in doing so!"

Fujimaru Ritsuka shouted angrily:

"The damage has been done, the verdict will not be changed, and the person responsible must pay the price. But I want to ask you, the Governor who has worked so hard for this planet: Can you really die willingly?"

Impossible. How could it be possible?

"Don't you have any regrets?"

Regret and remorse are everywhere.

"Do you have any wishes you would like to fulfill?"

Yes. Of course there are.

Clear tears flowed down Jasmine Deville's face, which was covered with wrinkles due to the years. She had long forgotten her manners, her standard accent, and her grammar. She knelt on the ground, leaned forward, and stretched out her hands desperately like a drowning person trying to grab the last reed:

"I want to correct all this!" She screamed in a cracked and broken voice, "I can pay any price as long as Jestal is away from the control of the evil god!"

Another golden light streaked across the sky. The golden light was like a scroll, slowly unfolding in the gorgeous and sickening sky in the subspace. Deville's eyes were blurred by tears and she was unable to confirm what those lights were. Before that, Fujimaru Ritsuka had already held her hand tightly.

-

Human resources filling

"You will lose everything," she pronounced. "Your past, your life, your achievements, your existence. Even so, do you still want to fulfill this wish?"

Is there anything to hesitate about?

"I do!" Deville's voice was impatient.

"Then, I will swallow all your sins in the name of the 'Sin Drinker'. No one will remember your sacrifice today, but I guarantee you that your unsullied soul will return to the Golden Throne."

At that moment, the golden eyes that Fujimaru Ritsuka looked down on were like gods.

-

Ortnaus Lingji Enhancement Mode is activated——

Grand Order: Untold Epic

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 34 The Unremembered Hero

There are still three minutes left until the scheduled time.

The Storm's Edge was already hovering near the ruins in the inner city of the First City, and contact with the Dark Angels had ended.

Somni asked if the Emperor's Dream was needed for fire control support, but Lanmarok was inexplicably angry and refused. Somni didn't care about this. He only cared about whether the Dark Angels could act perfectly according to the plan.

The waves of the subspace were slowly swallowing up Jestal. The gradual chaos of time and physical rules caused most of the detectors and sensors used in the physical universe to malfunction. Only some of his own equipment inherited from the dark technological age and the near-future observation lens Sheba on the Storm's Edge were still functioning sporadically.

Somni did not complain, but calmly examined all the data he could collect, and after constant cross-comparison, calculated the reading that was closest to the actual situation. After repeated arguments, he was sure that a shell was indeed fired at the right time and accurately descended along the only channel that could communicate the inside and outside of the singularity, which was burned by Fujimaru Ritsuka's rapid descent. He therefore withdrew his gaze with satisfaction.

Those Dark Angels didn't screw up after all, he thought.

I don't know if this mechanical behavior pattern comes from the fact that he is a machine or is affected by the borrowed Imperial Guard shell. Fujimaru Ritsuka wondered about this, but Somni himself didn't care. For him, the only thing he cared about was whether he could complete the task perfectly.

Whether it is the Emperor's Dream or the Imperial Guard, they are the same in that they were "created to complete the mission assigned by the Emperor."

Before leaving, he received two orders from the Emperor: obey all orders from Fujimaru Ritsuka and protect her life. He originally thought that such orders were clear and simple and not very difficult, but as time went on, he gradually became confused about it.

In actual operation, these two orders often conflict with each other. If the former is completed in a rigid manner, the latter will often slide towards failure: Fujimaru Ritsuka has been on the verge of death twice in the past half year, and both times even happened inside the Storm Boundary, just a hatch away from him, within reach.

One such serious mistake could be considered an accident, but the second time made him start to wonder. He reported this to Fujimaru Ritsuka, who just laughed happily: "I didn't expect this, but now you are finally starting to act like a human being."

Fujimaru Ritsuka did not give a specific answer. She believed that there was no unified standard for this matter. She only made a suggestion: Don't be so rigid, you can try to refute the orders she issued. No one is always right, so when necessary, even an exact order can be disobeyed - as for when it is "necessary", it depends on his own judgment.

Somney accepted the advice, but he was still confused. He was trying, but he still couldn't tell when something was "necessary."

Where is that "necessary time"? Maybe before they land on this planet, maybe when Fujimaru Ritsuka decides to blend in with the crowd to investigate alone, maybe when the Chaos Ritsuka begins and the space is about to be closed, or maybe when Fujimaru Ritsuka decides to make an orbital landing alone...

Or maybe, it hasn't appeared yet.

If he could really be "more like a human being" as Fujimaru Ritsuka said, would it be easier to make such a judgment? Somni guessed so, but he couldn't judge.

Such complicated thoughts flashed through his mind only for a moment. The ammunition dropped by the Lion's Mane fell along the thin and winding golden line in the air in a completely unphysical manner. Somni's servo system calculated the precise time when the missile landed for him. Then, he reversed the process and concluded that he should take action now and execute the command to "activate the treasure".

This was also an order that he could not understand. However, the meaning of an order was not to be understood but to be executed.

He turned and left the control room, and boarded the outer deck of the Storm's Edge. The magic power supplied by the Triton Engine continued to fill his body, almost reaching the upper limit of what his spiritual base could hold. Logically, he should now use this energy to rebuild his spiritual base, but this treasure can only be released with this current body that is similar to that of a human.

Somni raised his hands to the sky of the warp that was so gorgeous that it made him physically uncomfortable. He concentrated all his functions and, with a desperate move, he retrieved this treasure given to him by the Emperor, which he had acquired but did not understand:

"The Golden Dream of Mankind (Age Aurea)."

The process was slightly simpler than he had imagined. As Fujimaru Ritsuka said, even if he didn't understand the principle, he could still use it when he had to. It was hard for humans to push themselves to the point of exhaustion, but for Somni, a warship, overload operation was a tactical option that could be activated naturally when needed.

A golden torrent rose out of thin air from his empty hands, outlining a magnificent picture on the sky: it was a scene of countless human beings living and working in peace and contentment, countless human beings roaming the sea of ​​stars, countless human beings exploring to their heart's content, and countless human beings living in peace and prosperity.

The whole picture is unfolded in a way that is difficult to describe in words, extremely complex and extremely simple. You can see the prosperous picture of the human race in the entire galaxy, and at the same time you can see clearly any inhabited planet, even the most ordinary family's sumptuous dinner on the table. The war has been eliminated, the threat of aliens and chaos has been eliminated, there are only humans in the galaxy, and the empire is prospering in a safe and peaceful environment.

That was a dream the Emperor had, and perhaps still has. Because of the symbolism of the name "The Emperor's Vision", he gave the dream to Somni, who successfully took it over - even if he could not understand the meaning of this action, or the meaning of the Noble Phantasm itself.

He displayed the Emperor's dream in the sky above Jestal, but he was not sure what Fujimaru Ritsuka wanted him to do.

Whether he was a warship or a Custodian, he never questioned the Emperor's decisions. He did what he was told, without questions or doubts. He was a tool for the Great Crusade, and obedience was his duty.

But after the artifact was unfolded, when there were no orders for him to complete, Somni instinctively examined his achievements: in the Emperor's dream, like a piece of gilded light slowly descending to the surface, in it, in the place of Holy Terra, there was a sapphire-like planet floating, with more than 70% of its surface covered by flowing water.

He did not understand the meaning of this scene. The planet had become a dry wasteland before he existed. However, at this rare moment when he could take a break from his busy schedule, he temporarily allowed his eyes to linger on it for a while.

He thought the planet was beautiful.

-

In this already crazy world, the boundary between illusion and reality, dream and reality, is not so clear - especially in the subspace: under the effect of Fujimaru Ritsuka's treasure, the "Emperor's Dream" slowly unfolding in the sky above Jestal was successfully confused with reality for a moment. And she did not miss that moment.

After all, the ability of the Ortnaus Spiritual Exoskeleton in its original design was not to serve as a carrier to summon the data in the Spiritual Portrait, nor to serve as an intermediate medium to connect the Spiritual Bases of both parties, but to strengthen the Spiritual Base of the user himself. With such "reinforcement", even if he has never reached the Seat of Heroes, Fujimaru Ritsuka can successfully sublimate his "life" into a Noble Phantasm to use:

"The Unremembered Wedge". It is a story about a mortal who eliminated singularities, cut off the Lostbelt, crossed many histories, and took back the future for the whole of humanity. However, after the future was taken back, no one remembered it and it could only disappear silently. The only thing that did not have a place for her in that future was her own. She had already accepted this fact and would not feel sad because of it: she still had her own "future".

Ritsuka Fujimaru is very optimistic and believes that her story has just begun and that she has only gone through the "prologue" part of her life.

The "wedge" itself not only symbolizes the beginning of the story, but also a structure that can firmly fix the two objects. For Fujimaru Ritsuka, she is the wedge that once took back human reason and fixed it back to "the future that mankind should go to." For her, there is no more suitable name for the treasure than this:

In that moment when dreams and reality were confused, a second before the singularity completely closed, she confused the prosperous scene in the Emperor's dream with "Jesthal's current state" and fixed it at that moment in time. Then the space was locked, the singularity was formed, and the outside world could no longer observe the situation inside the "Cat Box" -

——That is to say, before this complete blockade is completely lifted, no one will know whether Jestal has become a deserted dead planet or a prosperous world like the Emperor’s fantasy.

And to guide the situation as much as possible towards the latter is the mission that Fujimaru Ritsuka shoulders.

The concepts of time and space in the subspace are chaotic and meaningless. However, in the effect of this treasure that is almost useless in normal times and is almost omnipotent only in certain circumstances, order is born in chaos, and meaninglessness can also be used.

Around the clasped hands of Fujimaru Ritsuka and Governor Deville, the scene in the ruins was rapidly retreating in an orderly manner. Broken walls and carvings were patched up, people were moving backwards, the rituals that had been held passed by quickly as if in reverse, and the blood flowing from the bodies of the sacrifices rushed back into their bodies. They watched the dust accumulate on the ground again and again and then be swept away. They watched the people coming and going here go from a whole large research team to fewer and fewer, until they stopped at a scene with only two people:

Raj Hastings, who had not yet suffered from blue-gray disease, excitedly pulled Jasmine Deville, who was younger than she is now, and pointed to a mural on the wall depicting crops.

This was the scene when they first discovered the ruins during archaeological activities 110 years ago. At that time, they were still best friends, and their eyes were still shining with longing for the future.

"This is the limit of your fate here." Fujimaru Ritsuka said to the Governor General beside her, "I can execute your sentence here. As long as I can prove that you were indeed dead at the critical point when this relic was just discovered, many things will change later."

Governor Deville was stunned for a moment. She wanted to agree immediately, but then she realized that Fujimaru Ritsuka's words were hints.

"But you didn't do that," she pointed out sharply, "which means that this method is not foolproof."

"That's right." Fujimaru Ritsuka admitted frankly, "Because Raj Hastings is still alive, and his future in this world line is still destined to be occupied by the Tzeentch demon. To be honest, in my original conception, you two needed to be proven dead at a point in the past, but Raj Hastings' body was taken away by the demon, and the influence of the unborn made such proof almost impossible. What's more, you have now become the core of the Chaos Ritual, and I can't guarantee that after confirming your death, the curtain of reality will be torn apart at that moment."

"So……"

"So, you are going to a more distant past."

Fujimaru Ritsuka raised her hand. She pointed out a direction for Governor Deville, but it was not any direction that actually existed and could be understood by humans under normal circumstances. It was a direction that only existed in a chaotic place like the subspace.

Ritsuka Fujimaru points to the "past".

A distant, dark, indiscernible past filled with death.

"The Great Expedition".

"Ten thousand years ago, Jestal was a planet occupied by aliens. They left these ruins underground." She told Governor Deville, "During the Great Crusade, the Dark Angels were ordered to carry out orbital bombing on this planet, using virus bombs to exterminate the entire biosphere on this planet."

The Lion's Mane of the Great Crusade, the Lion's Mane of the Dark Angels, the Lion's Mane that had carried out the extermination order on the planet before it was named "Jesthal", the Lion's Mane carrying the same type of bomb from the same period. In terms of historical "fate", there is no better catalyst than this.

When the Lion's Mane dropped bombs on the surface of Jestal, the corresponding history in the warp would naturally emerge. All Fujimaru Ritsuka had to do was to catch it at the right time and show it to Governor Deville.

"The safest way is for you to go there and die there. Use orbital bombardment, or use the energy generated by your own death to erase this so-called relic ten thousand years ago." Fujimaru Ritsuka said in a forced cold tone, "Ten thousand years, a one-way ticket. It's too far, so I won't go with you - I still have unfinished tasks and responsibilities, and I can't let myself die here."

"...I completely understand."

“I don’t know what will happen on such a long journey, but if you decide to embark on this road, you must never stop, and you can’t even have the thought of giving up: the whole world will be affected by your success or failure.”

"I understand. I believe I have enough willpower to overcome all difficulties."

"No, you don't understand. I don't understand either. No one understands." Fujimaru Ritsuka retorted, "Even if the Empire has very reliable life extension technology, humans are still not built to live that long. Ten thousand years is not a scale that humans can measure with themselves. Even if the body does not perish due to the passage of time, the spirit will be worn out in the process. Humans are creatures that live in the blink of an eye. In such a long time, your goals, memories, and wishes may all be worn away. You have to face the greatest enemy of human survival - time. So far, no one has successfully defeated it."

Governor Deville showed a confused look, while Fujimaru Ritsuka continued to give cold instructions:

"Don't think about defeating it. Think about escaping, thinking about protecting yourself, and thinking that you must live until the moment you should die. If you are determined to die now and can hold this belief, then try that path. Or, you can choose this place as the place where your life ends - in fact, this will not make the current situation worse. The choice is yours. Time in the subspace is very ambiguous. You can think about it carefully."

Governor Deville took time to think. How long did she think? Calculating time in the warp was meaningless, so no one, including herself, knew the answer.

"I choose to go back to the past and die in the past," she finally said. "It is my fault that this planet fell into chaos, so no matter what, I have an obligation to correct the mistake."

"Even if I have to face a long future that is more terrifying than death?"

"even so."

Fujimaru Ritsuka closed his eyes and nodded:

"Then please go ahead and go back to the past." Her voice was a little choked up. "I wish you a safe journey."

-

It is impossible for outsiders to understand the subjective feelings of the traveler during the journey back ten thousand years. What Fujimaru Ritsuka, who is standing in the relative "future", knows is that in the next moment in her perception, she has already observed Governor Deville appearing in that "past" time point.

She was already haggard and gaunt, not much better than a skeleton. Even though Fujimaru Ritsuka's treasure allowed her to go back through the waterfall of time without being affected physically, the mental damage she suffered would still manifest in her human body. She was almost dead, but she was still barely alive with a kind of obsession.

She succeeded. She will die before she was born, in the Great Crusade 10,000 years ago. Because of this paradox that should not exist, she will not be born after the singularity is resolved and the universe corrects itself. Her existence will disappear, and everything related to her will no longer exist.

From now on, no one except Fujimaru Ritsuka will know that there has been, or will be, a planetary governor who made a huge mistake and then used her life and soul to correct it. She is flawed, but the strong will and determination she showed in her life, and the great journey she took to correct her mistakes, make her a hero.

No one remembered the name of the hero, and no one recited the grand epic. This made people feel a little sad, but Fujimaru Ritsuka was no longer sad. She just used her activated treasure and the instability of the concept of time in the subspace again, picked the corresponding past, and confused it with the "true origin" of the singularity.

The bomb fired by the Lion's Mane since the 42nd Millennium was finally allowed to fall again. As the inventory equipment of the 30th Millennium, it came from the barrel of the ship of the 30th Millennium, fell on the planet of the 30th Millennium, and destroyed a building of the 30th Millennium. This logic is completely smooth and there is no unreasonableness. The governor of the planet in the 42nd Millennium who was killed by it was completely carbonized under the high temperature and pressure caused by the explosion. No bones remain, and her soul has gone away under the inspiration of the Golden Throne through time and space. There is no evidence to prove that she ever existed.

The ritual stopped because the core was destroyed, and the singularity disappeared. In the long, almost eternal moment when the isolated "cat box" was opened, countless possibilities collapsed and disappeared, and countless futures were cut and died. Under the waves of the subspace, the "human principle" that has existed for more than 40,000 years cast a glimpse at this remote planet, and the concept of linear time was re-established. Reality began to be reconstructed under Fujimaru Ritsuka's anchoring of the past and the future:

The destruction of the core of the planetary ritual did affect the warp, but in the 30th millennium, the barrier between the warp and reality was still very thick, and no irreversible changes occurred due to this little energy. Only the Dark Angels who detected the relevant fluctuations discovered an abnormal space folding phenomenon when cleaning the battlefield: a shell somehow passed the surface and directly hit the temple hidden by the aliens underground, which was not a bad thing. Therefore, this accident that could not be called an accident was sealed up without any care, and shelved together with the combat report.

With the destruction of the last stronghold of the Tzeentch demons on this planet, the planet itself was also freed from the control of the High Heaven. It was still temporarily abandoned due to the impact of the Extinction Order on the environment, and was forgotten by humans because of the Great Heresy. However, after 10,000 years, no one has discovered any Chaos relics on this planet that was rediscovered and named "Jesthal", and the Chaos rituals that enveloped the entire planet naturally never occurred. It just quietly suspended in the physical universe, steadily developing as an imperial planet until it prospered.

During the forty-second millennium of human history, nothing happened in Jestal.

This chapter can also be called:

No knife

Reorganization of Human Management

Nothing happened to Jestal

Using 40K shells to bombard 30K targets is a DA tradition. Don't play if you don't like it.

I deliberately chose the one with the least barrage (calmness).

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 35 A Conversation No One Knows

"We call this place the 'Abandoned Hole'," Merlin introduced to Conrad Curze.