The Creators: From Night City

Page 483

The recapture of the air defense positions finally gave the PDF Navy in space room to operate. Without the support of ground firepower, the firepower of the orbital defense circle could not pose an effective threat to the fleet.

Moreover, the energy supply on the ground was quickly cut off, and PDF began to launch a counterattack from the ground in an orderly manner.

Under the combined attack from both inside and outside, the defensive formation of the orbital defense perimeter is rapidly disintegrating, and air superiority is gradually returning to the Empire's hands.

The 'Incinerate' strike ship did not participate much in the encirclement and suppression. Once the overall situation was settled, a Thunderhawk gunboat impatiently landed on the surface.

The navigator, attended by his family servants, stepped out of the cabin. Before he could even stand properly, his eyes, covered by metal goggles, were already fixed on the cathedral.

Inside the church, Jiang Bing and I seemed to be telepathically connected, simultaneously looking up at each other.

Chapter 979 The First Meeting Inside the Cathedral

Titus walked ahead with a complicated expression, and the entire killing squad was eerily quiet.

"Commander Cassius Valkan, stop here." The navigator gently pushed aside the attendant beside him and stood calmly at the church entrance.

The commander, who should have been the highest-ranking officer in the team, didn't object at all. He silently stared at his navigator, gave an unusual Eagle salute, and quietly stepped back.

Titus pushed open the doors of the Cathedral of the Crown of Martyrs. Jiang Bing was the only one in the empty hall. The tall guards had all left the place at some point.

The navigator calmly walked into the room and began a meeting that would determine the future fate of this war-torn galaxy.

"Good day, Your Excellency Sabur," the navigator greeted loudly from a distance.

Sunlight streamed through the skylight, passing over the emperor's statue's shoulder and falling on Jiang Bing's head, illuminating half of his body.

The 'craftsman' turned to look at the 'messenger'.

He flicked his fingers, and a flame burned quietly at his fingertips.

"It's me," Jiang Bing replied, seemingly out of nowhere.

Feeling that familiar fluctuation, the navigator breathed a sigh of relief, as if he had completed his life's mission and could finally put down the heavy burden he had carried.

She removed the metal blindfold, revealing two dark eye sockets, and quietly walked towards Jiang Bing.

A spark ignited, and amidst a painful groan, golden psionic energy illuminated her eyes.

Within the subspace, the star torches that had been burning silently for millions of years suddenly blazed brightly.

A loyal soul is ignited by golden psychic energy, in exchange for a temporary descent of a great consciousness.

"Hello, unplanned person." The navigator was radiating a golden glow, the Emperor's psychic energy eroding everything about her.

"Your Majesty, hello," Jiang Bing responded directly.

"I want to make a deal with you," the visitor said bluntly.

"No rush. I'm curious to know how you found me, since I thought I hid pretty well." To be honest, Jiang Bing had probably expected the Emperor to come looking for him, but he didn't expect the Emperor to find him so quickly.

Jiang Bing was genuinely surprised when Titus appeared before him in the plaza of the Mechanical Temple.

In Jiang Bing's estimation, even if a 'big commotion' were to be created, logically, the first to discover it should be the cunning one who controls the 'change' function.

The emperor's efficiency is indeed a bit too high, almost unscientific.

Psychic flames burned on the navigator, and a holy aura flowed around him, making the empty church seem as if the Holy Spirit had descended.

The visitor made no attempt to conceal the truth and frankly stated the facts.

"Despite my numerous denials, the current 'Emperor' is indeed the 'Lord of Mankind'."

Jiang Bing understood what the other party meant and couldn't help but curse the scoundrel in his heart.

The Emperor spoke very bluntly. As the 'Fifth Evil God' of the Warp, no matter how much he insisted that he was not a god, concepts related to humanity within the Warp continued to converge on his body. Over several millennia, he had already been labeled the 'Lord of Humanity'.

To put it bluntly, in this realm of the Milky Way, he governs everyone, regardless of their status; this is the 'authority' granted to the Emperor by the warp.

Although Jiang Bing is not human, he considers himself human. Under the influence of higher-dimensional power, as long as he is human, the 'information' he generates will not escape the emperor's observation.

When the etheric flames imbued with his 'information' first bloomed in the warp, the Emperor, with his racial advantage, noticed this 'human' who was absolutely different from everyone else.

"I want to make a deal with you in the not-too-distant future." The Emperor seemed to be in a hurry, ignoring Jiang Bing's complaints, and continued to explain his plans.

"Did you foresee something?" Jiang Bing's eyes also lit up with golden flames. From the perspective of the higher dimension, a holy figure surrounded by hundreds of millions of believers appeared in his field of vision.

As the most powerful psionicist in the human empire, foreseeing the future was not a difficult task for the Emperor.

"It's all an illusion," the emperor said bluntly.

"The future has never actually existed; everything is just a drop in a vast ocean of probability, and it doesn't matter," the Emperor replied.

Of course, his answer was full of riddles and extremely unbelievable.

After all, if there are 100 Minds in the Warhammer universe, the Emperor and Tzeentch would account for 110, while Khorne and Nurgle would be short 10.

"You don't believe in your own psychic abilities?" Jiang Bing suddenly became interested upon hearing the other party's answer.

"The future is unknowable, and even Tzeentch, the most gifted prophet among them, cannot be certain of it."

"Okay, what do you want to trade?"

"The future, the future of humanity." In the brief reply, thousands of overlapping voices began to echo together, and a hint of divinity appeared on the navigator's face, which should have been expressionless.

Although he didn't want to admit it, the Emperor was not in good condition at the moment. Even a wisp of spiritual energy refracted through the starlight torch revealed the Emperor's extremely chaotic and confused state of mind.

Tens of thousands of years of torment, tens of thousands of years of being steeped in the power of faith, tens of thousands of years of immeasurable human sacrifice, anger, hatred... have eroded the humanity of this 'Lord of Humanity' to the point of collapse and near destruction.

But he still used this body to cast his 'gaze' at Jiang Bing.

The two supreme beings looked at each other again at this moment.

Through a higher-dimensional 'vision', Jiang Bing saw countless killings, bloodshed, and sacrifices in the essence of the other party; he saw the history of the human race struggling to survive that burned throughout the entire galaxy; and he saw the endless darkness and revenge hidden behind it.

The other party, in turn, glimpsed some of 'His' true nature.

Within subspace.

The Emperor, who should have been in a state of dormancy, suddenly stirred up a massive storm in the chaotic subspace, drawing the attention of the four gods.

Countless schemes and plans began to flow among the gods once again.

"Then, what about the reward?" During the stalemate, the 'craftsman' asked again.

"Everything you wished for~"

The golden light illuminating the entire church began to fade, and the 'Emperor' sighed softly, "Come to Terra~ Come to me."

At this point, the navigator was completely burned out.

The psychic energy surging through her beautiful and slender body began to vanish rapidly. Her magnificent robes, fresh flesh and blood, the life-sustaining machines embedded in her body, and her loyal soul all silently turned to dust, drifting away with the wind and returning to nothingness.

To use a mortal body to bear the spiritual energy of an emperor is a far-fetched idea; not everyone can become a vessel to bear the emperor's power.

Among the billions of subjects within the empire's territory, the number of 'living saints' born is less than two hands''s worth.

The Emperor was not stingy with his power, but the souls qualified to bear it were even rarer than Ochrin, who could count to ten smoothly.

Therefore, the price for this forced divine intervention was the navigator's soul, and everything she had.

Like most other ordinary people in the empire who were 'forcibly manifested' by the Emperor, she would have everything she possessed burned away by the Emperor's vast and intense spiritual energy, completely dissipating from this world.

The navigator knew this was the outcome before she set off, but she chose to face it all with loyalty and fearlessness.

This meeting is absolutely necessary.

In reality, the deal mentioned by the Emperor was not his main objective. His true purpose in going to great lengths and traveling billions of light-years to project his consciousness from here was to personally verify Jiang Bing's 'true nature'.

After all, words can be false, but an existence's 'essence' will faithfully reflect everything.

In other words, the Emperor has come to open the 'box'.

Chapter 980 The Alliance of Peace and Commerce

The Young Master of All Changes is a good demon, and is deeply loved by Tzeentch.

This can be seen from its honorific title.

It was born in the crystal labyrinth atop the endless rainbow plateau, grew amidst endless conspiracies and betrayals, and was nourished by malice and corruption.

Its life was a great life, a fulfilling life, and a meaningful life.

It once disguised itself as Grand Master Samuel of Ravenwing, inciting the chapter to launch an orbital bombardment of the Space Wolves Chapter's homeworld; it also released many fallen angels from the 'Stone Fortress'; it once disguised itself as a Slaanesh Archdeacon to bewitch a governor of a rebellious planet by sacrificing his daughter, promising to summon reinforcements that turned out to be dark angels besieging the planet.

It was a mischievous demon, born great, creating countless 'great achievements,' but died rather hastily.

When the 'Elegy' exploded, it was setting up its final stage on the top floor of the Governor's Palace.

The grand finale featured a Chaos Egg mutated from a Star Speaker, with a portal to Nurgle Gardens engraved on its soul.

Once this Chaos Egg is destroyed, the activated portal will unleash tens of millions of tons of Nurgle sludge, which contains countless deadly viruses.

It imagined the wretched state of the emperor's retinue and couldn't help but laugh out loud, but the suddenly expanding sea of ​​flames caused it to be completely annihilated in this world in a very short time, turning into the purest nothingness.

There was no earth-shattering roar when the explosion occurred.

The black fissures, like a spreading spiderweb, instantly and completely erased any rocks, metals, humans, and demons they touched, both physically and informationally, as the 'veil' shattered.

The magnificent structure of the administrative district, including the governor's palace, which stretches for tens of kilometers, was like being thrown into a giant meat grinder. Everything was swallowed up, mixed, crushed, and ultimately turned into a chaotic vortex of energy by the distortion of space and the disintegration of matter.

Moments later, a new subspace rift was created in the material world, and the surging tide of energy formed a massive psionic storm.

Countless demons of the warp rejoiced, pouring out of the warp through this rare natural rift into the real world, their corrupt whispers echoing throughout the hive.

Viewed from above, the planet appears as if it has suddenly opened a black eye and is shedding blood-red tears.

But before the demons could even rejoice, the fiery new star that suddenly erupted from the atomic bomb silently flowed away.

These golden waves, like a hot iron, instantly smoothed out the wrinkles in space and began to burn fiercely, fueled by massive amounts of psionic energy and demonic energy.

Jiang Bing's calculations were successful.

This artificially created rift is like a gas well; with just a tiny spark, the flames will continue to burn fueled by the seemingly endless supply of psionic energy gushing from the warp rift.

The entire industrial world was illuminated, and the brilliant golden flames shot straight into the sky, blooming into a magnificent flower of fire in the atmosphere.

The towering golden flames burned for several days and nights before gradually dying down, and the endless light and heat even dyed the atmosphere of half the planet red at one point.

The great rift eventually healed itself through the world's own self-healing mechanism, returning to calm.

The big winner, Jiang Bing, finally got a full charge, and 'Ru Mi' began to sprout new life under the infusion of massive amounts of ether.

After the masterminds behind this 'demonic disaster' were all brought down, the suppression of the rebellion on the entire planet entered a long and tedious tug-of-war, a war of attrition.

The subspace storm surrounding the seventh sector began to subside, and subspace routes were reopened.

The various worlds, chapters, and imperial administrative bodies surrounding Vessos received reports of the Chaos invasion, but like hundreds of other invaded worlds, it did not attract much attention.

The emergence of a warband called "Anti-Entropy" also did not cause much of a stir. Requests to verify their identities were sent to Holy Terra according to the Empire's administrative procedures. However, the long distance and cumbersome administrative efficiency meant that the entire process would take hundreds of years. During this period, "Anti-Entropy" remained in a 'gray name' state.

In reality, the biggest impact of being a 'gray name' is that without an imperial membership, one cannot obtain supplies from the empire, but when has [Anti-Entropy] ever worried about this?

The hive cities ravaged by the bombardment began to be rebuilt one after another. Of the hundreds of billions of people on the entire planet, only a hundred survived. The social system had completely collapsed and it would take hundreds of years to heal the wounds and rebuild order.

The empire showed no intention of providing any support or assistance; on the contrary, it would continue to collect the elevenths tax as usual.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Vessos will enter a long recovery period.

Fortunately, it is an industrial planet.

The forces of chaos did not cause absolute destruction to the planet's industrial system. As long as the factories on the planet can still produce qualified products, Vessos, located at a subspace route node, can quickly recover.

Of course, this is the script that most of the worlds in the Empire, which were ravaged by chaos and then restored, received.

Vessos is actually slightly different.

Months after the subsidence of the warp storm, a cargo fleet from the Local System Merchant Alliance sailed into the star system under Vessos's jurisdiction.

Leading the pack was a Gothic-class freighter named "The Hardworking".

Gothic-class freighters are the most common and numerous interstellar freighters in the Empire, serving as exemplary models for revitalizing the human Empire's galactic economy.

The design of cargo ships has remained unchanged for tens of thousands of years. The simple structure, reliability, and ease of large-scale construction, along with all components, appearance, and materials, have been refined over time and are beyond alteration.

The Merchant Guild Alliance differs from the wandering merchants; they generally conduct business only within the Empire's known territories or even within a specific star system.

This loose alliance was formed by countless merchant fleets with interstellar travel capabilities. Compared to 'expanding territory' traveling merchants, they were more like caravans in the traditional sense.

The merchant alliance's fleets typically sail back and forth along several fixed, known, and secure routes controlled by the Empire, primarily profiting by transporting Tien Tax goods and common commodities between various planets.

Therefore, these cargo fleets are generally composed of civilian vessels. Even if they have armed frigates, they are mostly Endeavour-class light cruisers, Sword-class frigates, or Firestorm-class frigates.

These armed ships were the most numerous and versatile ordinary frigates in the Imperial Navy, and they were all second-hand ships that had been decommissioned or overhauled after major damage.