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

Chapter 224 Won, but lost everything

The Chaldeans won the battle on Skelos. This will be recorded in the Imperial records.

But what did they win?

Kellya pondered this question amidst the burning ruins.

Thanks to Fujimaru Ritsuka's love of meddling in other people's affairs, and also thanks to the fact that the current empire does have a lot of "other things" that allow them to "meddle", in the more than half a year since she was taken aboard the Stormbound from Parmenio, this is not the first time she has faced such a dangerous battlefield.

Even so, she was only just getting used to the roar of artillery fire in her ears, the powerful recoil of a mortal-sized grenade launcher in her hands, and the cold and illusory burning sensation that occurred when actively channeling the Emperor's psionic energy.

There are two things she has not yet adapted to: one is the slight dizziness caused by the rush of adrenaline when she is on the verge of life and death, and the other is the large amount of death and destruction that is meaninglessly spread out before her eyes.

But that's what war is like.

This branch of the Tyranids' tentacles was successfully wiped out by Chaldea within five days. After confirming that they could kill them with one strike, the entire team was divided into four groups and attacked simultaneously, almost simultaneously destroying the hive mothership and all the node creatures it had dropped on the ground. Without command and organization, and unable to reproduce, the Tyranids were already a spent force that was not to be feared, but there were no living people on Skelos.

The unarmed civilians had long been turned into sustenance for the abominable Devourers, and all organic structures had been converted by the Tyranids into biomass to power the hives; the Astra Militarum, as professional soldiers, had not been able to avoid a similar fate. According to intelligence obtained by Inquisitor Hastings from the Cogitator arrays of several government agencies that were still barely functioning, there had once been at least two fully staffed Imperial regiments that had fought valiantly against these space locusts on the surface of Skelos - and no one remembered their bravery, only the military equipment that had been corroded to pieces by acid could prove that all this had ever existed.

Before the subspace of this system was completely closed by the Hive Shadow, only half of the Blood Angels company managed to come to support. But even these biological warfare weapons designed by the Emperor himself, which can still maintain combat effectiveness in various extremely harsh environments, obviously cannot maintain their advantages when facing the Tyranids all over the mountains. If Sanguinor had not appeared here, the Emperor's Angels of Death would have been annihilated here - and even if the Living Saint came, there were only twelve angel descendants who successfully survived to the end, and one complete corpse.

From the beginning, they were late.

"What are you thinking about?" Fujimaru Ritsuka's voice came from behind her, "The smell of Tyrone's burning body is not pleasant. I strongly suspect that the gas produced by the burning is poisonous."

Kellya ignored the obviously teasing remark at the end and only answered the first question: "I was wondering, what did we win?"

She had already asked this question to some other people. Inquisitor Hastings answered her that they had “eliminated a group of aliens that could continue to harm the Empire”; Captain Zaentik Aphrodite of the Dreadwing, who was a professional match here, answered her that they had “successfully protected the Empire’s territory from the ravages of the aliens”; Yago Sevitarion, who seemed to be doing nothing on the edge of the battlefield, gave a slightly off-topic answer. He asked Kylia in return: “Shouldn’t these man-eating monsters be punished?”

Kellya didn't know how to answer. She was still too young. She wanted to ask the guards again, but then she gave up the idea: in the past six months or so of contact, she could already guess what these guards of the emperor would say to her.

And Fujimaru Ritsuka's reaction was beyond her expectations - she asked Kaelia in return: "So, what do you think we lost here?"

Kellya was stunned for a moment, then immediately replied: "Everyone on this planet has already..."

She didn't finish her words. The sadness brought by her strong empathy choked her throat, but this did not prevent Fujimaru Ritsuka from understanding. Once again, contrary to Kylia's expectations, the latter nodded: "Indeed, this is a serious failure. We came too late. Not to mention the people on the planet, we didn't even preserve much of Skelos' history and culture."

Fujimaru Ritsuka pointed to the burning ruins and wilderness in front of them - they were not originally ruins and wilderness. From the records preserved in the local thinker array, there was an extremely prosperous and huge city at this longitude and latitude. It was like any imperial metropolis, with a large area, advanced infrastructure, and a dense population. Buildings of various purposes should have been lined up here, but under the rampage of the Tyranids, it has become a desolate dead place.

The Tyranids' "digestive system" is so terrible that even inorganic materials such as ceramic, steel, earth and stone can be corroded and reduced to some kind of "biomass" such as stinking mud or mucus that is only enough for them to use. The magnificent man-made buildings that should have stood here were also razed to the ground by countless insect swarms, and the ones that were left were unrecognizable.

No wonder some people in the empire call it the "Civilization Devourer."

"But victory and failure are relative. It's easy to drive yourself crazy if you only focus on your failures." Fujimaru Ritsuka added in a scripted tone, "There is no doubt that Skelos is completely destroyed. Even if the Mechanicus can restore the ecology here and the Empire sends a new batch of colonists here, the culture and civilization of this planet will be completely cut off. Skelos will no longer be the same Skelos in the future - but we finally succeeded in wiping out this hive fleet, forever cutting off the possibility of it bringing similar disasters to other Imperial worlds."

"..."

Kaylia paused subtly for a moment, then asked, "Sister, do you really think so now?"

"Not entirely." Fujimaru Ritsuka answered, but his answer was off topic: "I'm wondering now, if you see too many things like this in the future, when will you become a judge like Sibyl who says 'all aliens must die'..."

"Sister Lixiang..."

"Okay, what I just said is the 'official' view. If you want to ask me what I actually think, it's actually 'it's never too late to mend the fold after the sheep have been lost'." Fujimaru Ritsuka said with a wry smile, "What happened on Skelos is indeed very sad, but the dead are dead, and the things that are gone are gone - the past is the past, and we can't easily go back to the past to change it all, so what we have to do next is to plan for the future. Although it's helpless, this 'victory' is the best result we can achieve."

With a tiny hope—or rather, a lucky mentality—Kelia tentatively asked, "…is there no better way to do it?"

"I can't do that anymore." Fujimaru Ritsuka shook his head. "Could it be that our journey has been too smooth, giving you the illusion that 'Chaldea is omnipotent'?"

"But just like this time, facing a Hive Fleet that left Skelos completely defenseless, we only took five standard days to successfully settle the situation..."

"That's because the forces we have are indeed too powerful. Although there are few people, judging from the effectiveness, Chaldea can undoubtedly still serve as the spearhead force in a war." Fujimaru Ritsuka replied, "Even so, you must remember that in a conventional war, the role that a small number of elite spearhead forces can play is still limited. The reason we were able to end the battle of Skelos so quickly is because our opponent was the Tyranid Swarm. Their habits determine that as long as we successfully remove their 'Headquarters' and 'Heralds', the rest will not be a big deal."

She paused, then added: "Don't forget, in the final analysis, we are just 'field workers' who exist to allow the Emperor to take the stage. In this universe, there are many things that even the Emperor cannot do anything about. It is better for you and me to accept the fact that 'human power is limited' as soon as possible."

Dejected, Kaylia was silent for a while, then added: "I always feel that if I work harder, I can do better..."

"It's a good idea to have this idea, but if the gap between the ideal state you expect and the reality is too big, one day you will drive yourself crazy." Fujimaru Ritsuka sighed, "However, this is a problem that every Inquisitor must face - again, be careful not to become Hastings -"

"What's wrong with becoming me?" Judge Hastings' dissatisfied voice came from behind the two girls.

Half a year shouldn't have left too many marks on a grown-up man, but now, Inquisitor Hastings has more wrinkles on his face than half a year ago. It's obvious that his life on the Storm's Edge is not very satisfactory, at least he frowns much more frequently than before.

——But at least, he finally learned to keep his own opinions to a certain extent, although he still spoke to Fujimaru Ritsuka in a cold and unfriendly manner, and no one knew what he thought of this "Imperial Saint" now.

"You shouldn't have turned off the communication system on your armor. Your doctor is looking for you about the Blood Angels." The Inquisitor said this to Fujimaru Ritsuka in a very stiff manner, and then turned to Kaelia, "Have you finished your homework today? Come with me to the simulation room. I want to check your meditation progress."

Upon hearing this, all the sadness on Kellya's face, who had officially become an "Acolyte of the Inquisitor" in every sense, disappeared instantly: instead, there was the natural fear of a student for the teacher who was about to check the homework.

Meow (peaceful)

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 225: Blood Angels' Minor Problem

Just as Fujimaru Ritsuka walked near the infirmary, Asclepius, who was obviously angry, appeared in the corridor from his spiritual state along with a burst of golden light converted from ether.

"What did you put into my infirmary again?" This efficiency-oriented person asked a very dissatisfied question right away, leaving Fujimaru Ritsuka, who was still unaware of the whole situation, confused:

"What? Lanmalok asked his pharmacists to bring up the Tyranid corpses for dissection?"

This was the most likely action she could think of to irritate the Greek God of Medicine, but then she realized from his expression that this was not the case.

Asclepius did indeed let out a breath of anger and replied, "Not so."But after all his efforts, he failed again. Although he still looked angry, when he spoke again, he at least knew that he should clearly highlight the key points:

"I'm talking about the twelve red-armored cyborgs that came later." There was clear disgust in his tone. "They've been here for so long, and the 'Astartes' or 'Curie' created by the Emperor are no longer enough to surprise and disgust me. But they--"

"--they." While correcting the other party's pronouns, Fujimaru Ritsuka also sighed, "Okay, I know what you are going to say. This matter--"

"So, what is it?"

Another voice interrupted Fujimaru Ritsuka's speech and inevitably attracted their attention. The two people who were talking turned their heads warily and found a holy blood priest with white shoulder armor standing at the door of the infirmary.

"Mr. Decker." Fujimaru Ritsuka calmly nodded to the only remaining pharmacist in the Blood Angels company who came to support him, but Asclepius's reaction was not so calm:

"I remember I suggested that all of you rest as much as possible. Your transformed bodies do have resilience and self-repair capabilities far beyond those of ordinary people, but that doesn't mean they can continue to function like that forever." The God of Medicine's tone was sinister, "And you even serve as a military doctor--"

"——I know, but I really can't fall asleep!" Perhaps it was because of Asclepius's aura that was a little scary, the firstborn warrior of the Blood Angels unconsciously raised his voice while defending himself. "We have been through too much in the past few hours... and then I heard some things about me and my brothers——"

"——It has nothing to do with you!" Asclepius interrupted him rudely, "I don't want to hear these excuses. Go back to bed now!"

"I think it's better to forget it, Doctor Asclepius." Fujimaru Ritsuka sighed again, "You can't let him know that there's 'something wrong' between him and his brother, then send him off to rest and recover without telling him exactly what the problem is - there's no way he can sleep when he's in such a state of doubt."

"I have a sedative." Asclepius didn't think twice. "Astartes-grade."

Although he said this, he obviously had no intention of really getting the sedative. Decker, who was hesitating at the door of the infirmary, obviously realized this, and he was more confident when he asked again: "So, what happened to us? Please tell me directly - I can accept bad news. I mean, after all, we have been fighting the Tyranids on this planet for seven years, and we know very well how fast they evolve, and they may -"

"Stop, stop, stop, both of us have zero points in alien physiology." Fujimaru Ritsuka quickly made the "pause" gesture in Baal culture, "Stop scaring yourself, you have not been genetically contaminated by Tyranids. , if you are worried about this, go and ask the Lion's Mane to borrow some equipment to test your own blood. This is not the 'problem' we are talking about."

Asclepius still commented unhappily: "If it is really this kind of 'acquired pollution', it is actually easy to solve."

This comment puzzled Decker, and Fujimaru Ritsuka followed up with a question that seemed unrelated to the current topic: "Has Sanguino left?"

Decker nodded in confusion. "He showed us the direction of the ship and then disappeared."

"...Busy man." Fujimaru Ritsuka complained in a low voice, then turned to Decker again, "The 'problem' that Doctor Asclepius and I wanted to discuss - it's not so much 'your' problem as it is the 'Blood Angels' problem. Many details of this problem should be discussed at your Chapter Council. We can assure you that you don't have any problems other than 'being the offspring of Sanguinius' (she looked at Asclepius inquiringly, and the latter hesitated for a moment, then nodded angrily to confirm), but since Sanguinius is not here, whether the specific details can be disclosed to the members of the Chapter and the Retrograde, I must first ask Chapter Master Dante's opinion."

This sentence did interrupt Decker's thoughts that were sliding in a bad direction, but it also seemed to make his thoughts slide in another bad direction: "-What? The Blood Angels'-problem?"

"Mr. Decker, you are a Blood Priest." Fujimaru Ritsuka hinted, "No one in your chapter knows the problem of the Blood Angels better than the Blood Priest."

This statement seemed to completely scare the relatively young Chapter Apothecary.

-

After persuading Decker to leave, Asclepius finally remembered to find a less public setting to start his temper again:

"It's fine if they're just cyborgs with two hearts and three lungs and a lot of organs that shouldn't exist!" He yelled at Fujimaru Ritsuka in a room that was completely soundproofed by magic - or rather, at the Emperor from a distance. "What about the vampires? He used this stuff to form an army to 'protect humanity'? How is this different from using wild wolves that could go wild at any time to herd sheep?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka sighed again.

"The Blood Angels are not Dead Apostles - while they have a similar blood-sucking urge, they are clearly not 'dead', and..."

The Master of Chaldea turned around in a circle in frustration.

She couldn't explain it, at least not in simple words. If Asclepius could first fully understand what kind of people Sanguinius, or the Blood Angels, were, he might be able to look at their "Red Thirst" defect more objectively - but there is no if.

"Let's start from the beginning." Fujimaru Ritsuka stopped walking and resisted the urge to sigh again. He spoke with determination, "In a sense, the 'template' of the Astartes is the corresponding Primarch. You are aware of this, right?"

Asclepius nodded. It was not like he had never seen a Primarch before, and he had even treated Primarchs and Astartes who were related to them in terms of base sequence, so he had a general understanding of the physical and psychic problems involved.

"As for the Primarch of the Blood Angels, Sanguinius, I have studied his design and structure in detail. After all, I also have the task of using the Aether to help him rebuild his spiritual base." Fujimaru Ritsuka finally couldn't help but sighed again. "I don't know why, in the Emperor's original design, I thought it was a coincidence, but I was worried, so I asked Miss Elquet and Senior Mustard. They also felt that after excluding all possibilities, this could only be a coincidence, but it was too coincidental."

"What are you trying to say?" Asclepius asked impatiently.

"Tell me something that can't be explained." Fujimaru Ritsuka clasped his hands together nervously. "I don't know why, but the design of Sanguinius looks very close to... the True Ancestor."

"...What? Do you know what you are talking about?" The God of Medicine was indeed surprised by this. "'True Ancestor' is a being like an elf or a fairy. It is a sense of touch or terminal generated by the planet to interfere with the primates on the surface of the earth with its own will. Theoretically, it is impossible for any researcher to-"

“So I say, this matter cannot be explained! Most of the star souls in this universe do not even have the ability to defend themselves! Moreover, even if we infer from the environment of the earth ten thousand years ago, Gaia should have fallen into a deep sleep long ago - but the Emperor is - this matter cannot be explained!”

Even as an outsider who has only just begun to learn about magic, Fujimaru Ritsuka feels that this is very outrageous:

"Just from the perspective of design and structure, in our theory, Sanguinius can somehow qualify as an 'Archetype', and the structural similarity to Miss Arquette reaches an astonishing 30% - just because of this The universe itself does not have corresponding rules, he is - what the hell am I talking about, I don’t know what I’m talking about!!”

Feeling that his knowledge was insufficient, the Master of Chaldea pulled his hair in pain and began to scream.

Meow (peaceful)

Fabricated.jpg

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 226: Achievement of Celestial Beings

When Fujimaru Ritsuka first discovered this problem, he had this doubt: Are there only a few excellent designs or structures in the world? If you want a certain aspect of a creature's function to achieve a certain effect, then the designer will unconsciously also include similar defects.

Otherwise, she really couldn't understand why the Emperor didn't remove the "blood-sucking impulse" or "red thirst" defect of No. 9 during the initial design and construction stage. This could only be because there were other advantages that were more beneficial than this defect, making this defect tolerable in the eyes of the Emperor.

Don't say that the emperor didn't realize this problem. Anyway, Fujimaru Ritsuka didn't believe it.

Under the premise that the Emperor himself kept silent about the cause and effect of this design, Fujimaru Ritsuka, who had no idea of ​​the designer's true motives, simply let this question go after a few guesses. It would be good to know the truth, but she couldn't continue her work without this answer. In this case, she didn't have to know.

The reason why this could only be a coincidence is that she had summoned the Archetype "Elquit Brunstad" of the Earth during this process, and after obtaining the other party's consent, she calculated its spiritual base concept. After comparing the results with the design drawings of Sanguinius, it can be clearly seen that although the final results presented on the surface are very similar, the deep-level operating logic ultimately resulted in this "similar" design itself. Even if the most broad judgment standard is adopted, the similarity is only 29.84%.

Even in this 29.84%, it can be seen that although the overall design ideas are roughly the same, the two structures do have their own merits in terms of detail processing. It is difficult to say who is copying who. The similarity between the two is closer to the concept of "convergent evolution" - the purpose of the Emperor to create the Primarch is indeed to create a biological weapon that can function perfectly under any extreme circumstances. If he could know some knowledge of the world where Fujimaru Ritsuka originally lived, he would find that the end of this research path is of course "Ultimate One".

From this perspective, Sanguinius may, in a sense, be the Primarch "closest to the correct answer".

So, after a brief discussion with the Emperor, Fujimaru Ritsuka didn't mind using this "coincidence" to get Sanguinius "closer to the correct answer."

——On the question of how difficult it is to kill a proper "One of the Originals", no one has a better say than Ritsuka Fujimaru: because even she, when faced with the greatly weakened "One of the Originals" from the Oort Cloud, after completely destroying almost all of the records of the spirit-based portraits - still failed to kill the opponent who kept resurrecting.

Conceptually, there is no such thing as "death" for this thing. In the end, it was ORT's own heart that was dug out and transformed into "Kukulkan" because of his faith in the Lostbelt. After understanding the shining points of humans to a certain extent, he chose to stand on the side of Chaldea's "human reason", which completely "eliminated" ORT itself.

Technically speaking, the threat posed by this thing is not something that Chaldea can resolve on its own. If she hadn't been lucky...

Fujimaru Ritsuka believes that this desperate battle has left her with a considerable psychological shadow, and she hopes that all the monsters who want to attack "humanity" in this universe can feel this psychological shadow that makes her unable to sleep at night.

But even so, "making Sanguinius one of the 'Originals'" is fundamentally impossible to achieve - and both the Emperor and Fujimaru Ritsuka will not allow this to happen for various reasons. Therefore, the ultimate goal of the "Chaldean Lighthouse" plan in this part is at most to "successfully resurrect Sanguinius and connect him to Baal's star soul to directly call on the planet's resources." In other words, it is hoped that Sanguinius can, in a sense, become the "Archetype: Baal" in Baal's three-star system.

After all, there is no such concept in this universe, so Fujimaru Ritsuka himself can't say whether this will succeed. But at least the part of "resurrecting Sanguinius" was decided from the beginning and must be done no matter what. This part of the project also involves the celestial movement of the three stars of Baal and historical legends, etc.... I'm getting off topic.

"In short, as the descendants of Sanguinius, the Blood Angels are essentially nothing more than Astartes," Fujimaru Ritsuka concluded to Asclepius. "The defect of 'Red Thirst' is simply because their genetic father is too similar to the 'True Progenitor' in structure, and thus it is a genetic trait that is stubbornly retained after the functional degradation. If we have to make an analogy, it is more of a reverberation of a certain 'characteristic' than a 'congenital disease'. However, in the past ten thousand years of the Empire's history, the Blood Angels themselves have repeatedly proved that they can fight against this defect with their own noble character..."

"...But it's impossible for all Blood Angels to succeed." Asclepius, who had calmed down a little, retorted, "I know very well how difficult it is to resist things written in genes and instincts. Even if the Emperor's 'bioalchemy' successfully strengthened the physiological tolerance and will of the Astartes, how many people can starve themselves to death when there is food within reach?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka fell silent. She really couldn't refute it. After reading the general history of the empire, she certainly had many examples to cite - but at the same time, she was also very clear that there were counterexamples.

After a brief silence, it was Asclepius who sighed first: "Forget it. It's better to let the people of the Empire do such things as generalizing and making sweeping decisions. Since you think it's possible to cooperate with this group of people, I will treat them as human beings just like I treat other Astartes and Custodians... You really know how to give me some troublesome topics."

Although she felt that she hadn't done anything yet, she still heard the meaning of "all clear" from this sentence and laughed awkwardly. Unfortunately, before she could finish laughing two or three times, she was caught by the snake on the snake staff beside her attending physician and was about to be dragged into the infirmary for examination:

"It's fine that you simulated the spirit base of the Hun king, but you also deliberately spent resources to enhance the skill of 'Nature's Body' - do you realize that the reason she possesses this skill is that she is a completely different creature from humans!"

"Of course I know! To be honest, under the circumstances at the time, after discovering that the 'Sword of the God of War', which is directly related to human civilization, played a smaller role than I thought, I wanted to directly simulate Sefalu rather than Attila's spiritual base—"

Asclepius' fist, which was tucked into his overly long sleeves, landed on Fujimaru Ritsuka's head with a "bang".

"——Okay. According to the calculations of the Sheba Lens and Trismegistus, it will take some time for the Warp shadow brought by the Hive to completely dissipate. This time I will cut open your skull and see how much water is stored in the place where the brain should be!"

"No--"

Knowing that the other party was just threatening and would not really do it, Ritsuka Fujimaru's fearless fake crying was echoing in the corridors of the Storm Edge today.

Meow (six o'clock)

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 227 Divination Accident

After being examined by Asclepius in retaliation using various tests that did not give him a very good physical sense, and after undergoing another updated round of oral medicines and injections, Fujimaru Ritsuka changed into a simple uniform, tiptoed out of the innermost compartment, and escaped from the infirmary after passing the Blood Angels who were still resting.