Although she had already formed a few guesses in her heart, Gaia was still somewhat surprised when she heard the answer from Solomon.
If the coordinates indicated by that Man of Gold pointed to Holy Terra, then what exactly was the mountain peak he had mentioned?
The answer was obvious.
It had to be Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Holy Terra, in the Himalayas.
And near that place stood a structure of great importance to the Imperium of Man:
the Imperial Palace.
If the relic from Old Night was located on Mount Everest, then was that the reason the Emperor had built His palace nearby?
A series of bold speculations flashed through Gaia's mind.
According to the message left by that Man of Gold, humanity in the Golden Age, or rather the Dark Age of Technology, had realized the threat from the other side only when it was already on the brink of extinction.
And the solution they proposed was a return to purity.
Thinking it through carefully, the things the Emperor had done during the Great Crusade seemed strikingly similar to what those Men of Gold would have done after realizing the crisis of extinction.
The Emperor suppressed the development of psykers and even rejected the Legions' attempts to establish Librarius divisions.
Although He Himself was an immensely powerful psyker and did not reject psychic power altogether, His actions clearly showed an effort to prevent humanity from relying too heavily on that strength drawn from the Sea of Souls.
Beyond that, He strongly promoted the Imperial Truth, insisting that the world was material, that science and technology were the true engines of progress, and that behind every phenomenon there had to be objective laws that could explain its existence.
And the most important piece of evidence was the bodyguard force the Emperor created: the Custodians.
Compared to the Astartes, they were as far above Space Marines as Space Marines were above ordinary mortals. Every one of them had undergone highly customized, extremely advanced genetic enhancement, and they all shared one trait:
they possessed only weak psychic sensitivity.
It was hard not to suspect that the master of mankind, who now sat upon the Golden Throne enduring infinite torment, had already come into contact with the relics of Old Night.
At that thought, Gaia's eyes shifted slightly.
Whatever the truth might be, and no matter how urgently she wanted to travel to the summit of Terra and search for the relic from Old Night, all of that would have to wait until her current plan was complete.
Once she had successfully stopped Vandire from deceiving the Sisters of Battle, and entered Terra with the Confederation of Light to meet the Emperor, it would not be too late to begin investigating this matter.
"Holy Terra..."
"I really wonder what it's like."
"The place where the Emperor's Golden Throne rests, is it truly like the legends say? A heavenly world where everything is made of gold, the skies shine with eternal radiance, and everyone lives in peace and prosperity?"
Solomon's wistful words pulled Gaia out of her thoughts.
She lowered her head and looked at the yearning on his face.
Under the propaganda of the Imperial Creed, the Emperor had been deified, and Holy Terra itself had likewise been wrapped in a mythical halo.
At that moment, Gaia really wanted to shatter his idealized fantasy and tell him the truth without mercy:
Terra's natural environment was probably not much better than Igor III's, and its social environment was probably not much better than the lower decks of a voidship.
Sure, as the greatest fortress world of the Imperium, the people living there were usually a little safer in ordinary times, but if something ever went wrong, then nobody was getting out.
Still, considering that she was hoping to persuade Solomon to enter Terra with her and help cut down a certain treacherous villain, she chose a more measured truth instead.
"As far as I know, Terra was once a garden world with oceans covering seventy percent of its surface, with a mild climate and rich vegetation..."
She spoke at length, trying to inspire even greater longing in Solomon for Terra.
"That doesn't sound right. Priestess Lena told me something different."
"She said that when she looked at Terra from Mars during a period when the cosmic radiation storms weakened, all she could see through the instruments was a completely golden sphere."
Solomon raised an eyebrow and spoke with mild dissatisfaction.
Gaia had not even had time to feel awkward at being contradicted before her attention was caught by the detail in his words.
"Priestess Lena has been to Mars?"
"That's what she said the first time I met her."
Solomon nodded, looking completely certain.
Gaia could not help becoming somewhat curious about Priestess Lena.
Why would a Genetor who had once been to Mars be staying aboard Solomon's run-down ship?
Seeming to sense what Gaia was thinking, Solomon rolled his eyes and briefly explained how he had met Lena.
"At the time, I had only just gotten my free trader license not long before, and I was on an agri-world buying food supplies to resell to a more distant fortress world."
"Then, just because I happened to pick up a pouch of throne gelt by accident, I got treated like a thief and was chased around by enforcers for ages."
"While I was running, I ran into Priestess Lena, who was also running from something."
"She heard I had a ship, listened to my great deeds, and climbed aboard with me on the spot without even asking for wages."
At that point, Solomon smugly stroked his little mustache with one hand and planted the other on his hip.
Gaia, however, felt that the only thing Lena had probably cared about was that he had a ship.
"A Tech-Priest who has been to Mars and was also hiding from something..."
Gaia's eyes shifted slightly.
Her instincts told her that Priestess Lena was probably far more complicated than she appeared.
Come to think of it, Lena had hardly left the medical bay at all lately.
Gaia turned to look in the direction of the medicae station.
The two men who were still fighting their own resurrection match were lying there.
"I should go take a look at those two. And while I'm at it, maybe I can find out something about Priestess Lena's background... if she's willing to talk."
Gaia said goodbye to Solomon, who still needed to keep checking cargo and supplies and prepare for the voyage to Swuvi, then headed toward the medicae station.
...
A scorching burning sensation swept over him.
Under that unbearable heat, Horn felt as though he had returned to the final moments of that battle, when he had been caught in the sympathetic detonation of the Chimera armored vehicle.
But very soon, the burning sensation retreated, only to be replaced by a bitter cold so intense it made every muscle and bone in his body tremble.
Those two extremes, utterly opposite forms of agony, tormented both his body and mind at the same time, making him desperately want to scream.
But he found that he could not make a sound.
Under pain he could not resist, he felt as though his body was gradually splitting into two parts.
The part that belonged to him and the other part were crushing and tearing at one another, unleashing soundless roars.
This pain, born from his own body itself, was unbearable.
Give up.
If he just gave up, the torment would disappear.
Hand the body over to the newborn thing, and all of this would finally end.
That thought surfaced within Horn's battered consciousness.
But his will rejected it almost immediately.
His life was the Emperor's currency.
Until he died for the Lord of Mankind, he had to keep living...
...
Priestess Lena silently watched the machine that was monitoring Horn's brain activity.
Behind her small body wrapped in red robes, more than a dozen mechanical arms filled with different colored reagents swayed in a steady rhythm.
When she saw a brand-new waveform appear beneath the violently fluctuating line that had been there before, a strange blue light flashed through her eyes.
In the next instant, every mechanical arm behind her shot forward, injecting all kinds of doses that should have been lethally excessive into Horn's convulsing body.
(End of Chapter)
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