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

Chapter 394: Evelyne Must Regroup Her Forces
After all the Eldar had left the room, Guilliman frowned and glared at Fujimaru Ritsuka: "It seems that you have hidden a lot of things from me."

It was strange that this little girl, who had shown a courage disproportionate to her body when facing Eldarad, sat on the chair like a deflated balloon when faced with the Primarch's question, which was not a strong one: "... because you didn't ask..."

Once again, Guilliman gave a look of disapproval, but this time, his look was inevitably less powerful because of the many threads running in the background, taking up large amounts of memory.

The Ultramarines Primarch's way of thinking is quite flexible. Although he was often regarded as old-fashioned and boring by his brothers in his early years, his flexibility of thinking is indeed unmatched among all the Primarchs. During the time when Fujimaru Ritsuka was talking to Eldarad and he was forced to remain silent because he could not seize the initiative in the conversation, he had already quickly sorted out and accepted the new information in his mind.

Of course, the fact that Fujimaru Ritsuka could bring this up meant that the Emperor had approved of this plan that would almost certainly split the Empire. Did his other brothers know about this and agree with it? Conrad, as a reformed traitor, certainly had no say in the matter, but it was uncertain whether he knew about it and whether he had informed Corvos of it; Ferrus, Ferrus obviously knew about it and would see it as another challenge after a brief psychological struggle, as evidenced by the research being conducted by his former First Captain Gabriel Santo; Sanguinius's status was questionable, so let's not talk about it for now; Dorn and himself were kept in the dark before today; and then there was Leon, whose name only appeared in Fujimaru Ritsuka's report...

Part of his mind was thinking about whether he should agree to this plan, part of it was simulating what would happen if his other brothers disagreed, part of it was making plans for the mess that would inevitably occur if this plan successfully achieved its goal, and part of it was calculating what to do if the plan failed. Even though he was the Primarch, he felt that his brain was almost filled with so many thoughts. Guilliman had to take the initiative to clear out some unrealistic ideas that were gradually drifting away in pure speculation due to the lack of information currently available, and tried to bring at least part of his attention back to reality.

"I'm pretty sure I missed a lot of things." He stared at Fujimaru Ritsuka, who was shrinking in his chair. "Now, I'm asking."

"Oh, um... where do we start..." The little girl awkwardly took out her tablet from under her skirt again, and as if escaping from it, she lowered her head and tapped and poked at it.
-
"What did you tell them?"

On the Macragge's Glory, in the cabin area allocated to the Death Army, in a corridor that was not very suitable for a conversation, Evelyne stopped the returning Aidalad and asked him questions almost forcefully.

As the one being questioned, Adalaide remained calm and showed no signs of guilt: "I just confirmed the facts I should confirm. This is for the future of our tribe, sister."

Evelene ignored the intimate name that was obviously trying to get closer to her. Normally she would not do this, just as she would not rudely interrupt a prophet to talk in a corridor that was always filled with noisy mechanical operations for the Eldar. In her rage, she cast her burning gaze behind Eldarad - the few supporters led by the prophet also came from the Death Army. Now, they all looked away in shame because they felt the anger and disappointment of their leader.

"We do need to use the power of humans to achieve our plan." Aidalad tried to draw Evelyne's attention back to himself, "But we can't let humans' stupid and arrogant plans destroy the lives and souls of our entire race."

"Prophet Eldarad, you are preventing something that was bound to happen, something you had even planned." Evelyne's beautiful tone was filled with indignation. "When you awakened the Whispering God on that crystal satellite, didn't you foresee the end result like this?"

The corners of Aidalad's mouth twitched unnaturally. Indeed, he was the one who planned the birth and awakening of the Eldar Death God, but strictly speaking, the ritual failed. If the ritual had not failed due to external interference, then more than 90% of the existing Ark Eldar population and the souls of all the prophets would have become the price and sacrifice for "making Inieid completely reborn". Perhaps Aidalad himself would be glad for this failure when he looked back later, and even many people in the Death God Army had similar thoughts - otherwise, they would not have embarked on the "Seventh Path" to find the opportunity to "make the Death God truly reborn without killing all the tribe members".

This accusation did embarrass the instigator, but the embarrassment was short-lived. When Adalad spoke again, his tone was as steady as ever: "This is a different time, daughter of the god of death. Aren't we working together for the same goal of 'preserving as many of our people as possible'?"

"Stop beating around the bush with sweet words, Eldarad." Furious, Evelyne had already placed her hand on the hilt of the knife at her waist. "What did you talk about with the prophet chosen by the Lord of Mankind? What are you planning next?"

Eldalad was silent for two seconds before he spoke reluctantly: "The Emperor's puppets want to separate reality from the Supreme Heaven forever, and we can't stop them."

"——We shouldn't have a say in this matter!" Evelyne's anger became even stronger due to her excitement. "The Death Army is isolated and helpless among the Eldar. If they want to continue to go deeper into the Path, they must rely on the power of the Empire! We need to form an alliance with humans more than any other Ark, but you still insisted on raising a topic that is likely to affect the relationship of the Covenant even though all of us clearly opposed it!"

"—Does your own knowledge and the whispers of the gods fail to make you understand how our race will slowly perish in agony if those monkeys succeed?"

"——Any plan needs time to work! Prophet! Especially a plan of this magnitude!" Evelyne almost roared, "This is a ceremony that is even more massive than the one that created the gods. I don't think that with the psychic attainments of the human race as a whole, they are capable of finding a way to succeed before us!"

"They are already on the road to success." Eldalad responded calmly and sadly, "After this sudden meeting today, I can be very sure of this: the Chosen Ones of the Emperor of Mankind are not just His Chosen Ones."

There was something in his words, and Eveleene had no doubt caught it. She turned her gaze away from the Prophet and looked around quickly and carefully. There was nothing around them, except for the noise that the Imperial ships would inevitably make even when they were on standby, but the Eldar senses and the whispers of the God of Death still made Eveleene realize something:
"Where was Lyris?" she asked Aidalad calmly. "You were gone much longer than a conversation should take. Did you really talk for that long? Or did you do something else during this time?"

Aidalad did not answer the question, but gently reminded: "We should go." "Go? Where to?" Evelyne's voice quickly returned to its cold and hard state. Her anger still existed, but the blazing flames had been restrained by the chains of reason. She no longer tried to entangle the prophet in front of her, but gave an order to the void around her: "Visaqi, I need you to take people to control him. We will discuss and review your actions in detail later, Prophet Aidalad."

A team of nightmare warriors walked out of the shadows and darkness of the corridor, as if they appeared out of thin air. It seemed that Adalad had expected this scene. He did not resist and maintained his noble demeanor. He only asked a question when Evelyne turned around like a whirlwind and moved towards the inside of the cabin: "Daughter of the God of Death, where are you going?"

"Go and restore the Empire's trust in the Death Army as much as possible."

Evelyne answered without turning her head.
-
When Fujimaru Ritsuka was released by Guilliman, it was already late at night in Macragge. This story tells us that if you have a colleague who is very competitive, efficiency-oriented, and good at making promises, then even if you don't want to be competitive, you will sometimes be led to death by the competitive spirit without knowing it.

This was the case with Fujimaru Ritsuka, who hadn't slept all night. When she stood up from her chair and felt dizzy, she realized that she seemed to have been thrown into a drum washing machine and rolled over and over again. But she looked around and soon found that except for her, a "mortal" with very standard physiological indicators, everyone in the room was very energetic, as if their physiological state was not affected at all by this eight-hour meeting marathon. Whether it was real or fake, it made her feel unbalanced and angry.

Physical fatigue slightly exacerbated the negative emotions in the parties involved, but what made them even more angry was that this eight-hour meeting marathon failed to successfully solve all the problems - it was not that there was a problem with efficiency, but that there were too many issues involved in their agenda, and it was almost impossible to discuss them all in detail. Therefore, Guilliman only selected the most important ones and decided to put the remaining details aside for later.

For some reason that the parties involved were unwilling to elaborate, Guilliman suddenly showed an inexplicable insistence on "Let Chaldea return to Baal as soon as possible". Before the arrival of the Prophet, they had already discussed the expedition of Curze and Corax to "Planet of Appreciation" in the warp. Guilliman had already read the war report that Curze sent to Fujimaru Ritsuka. Considering that the Empire actually did not need any output from this planet that had been occupied by the Black Legion and used as a transit station, the "proper" battle in this expedition had already ended after the naval battle. What the Imperial Army needed to do next was to clean up the air port facilities that needed to be retained, and then directly use nuclear bombs to wash the ground, waiting for the belated Mechanicus to carry out earthwork on it. Of course, it was a complete surprise that the coalition forces picked up the Nightfall in the process. In addition to checking the current situation, this part of the discussion mainly focused on how to deal with this once rebellious Queen of Glory-class battleship.

After the prophet left, their topic shifted from "how did you receive the message from the Great Rift" to "when will the psychic Muggle Guilliman join the Primarch's work group?" In fact, this problem has been mostly solved by Santo, and the prototype is still in a special room under the fortress. In essence, there is only the problem of accessing the band that needs to be solved. As the patent holder of the prototype technology and the server manager in actual application, Fujimaru Ritsuka felt that she could stay for a few more days to completely solve this problem before leaving. But Guilliman still insisted that "you should not stay in Macragge", and his choice was to detain Santo alone.

Santo himself had no objection, so the matter was settled, but Fujimaru Ritsuka still sought one more day of stay for herself - no matter what, she had to go downstairs to see the current condition of Fulgrim's clone. The Imperial Saint and the Imperial Regent argued over this issue for more than ten minutes, and in the end the Imperial Saint won by playing the family card.

Next, regarding the Second Astronomican that Baal was building, Guilliman let it go after he understood the basic situation because Ferrus would soon come to give instructions. Then came the main event: the Emperor's previously very self-evident request to "remove Guilliman from the position of Regent of the Empire and put Dorn in his place" was now a humorous request.

Of course, Fujimaru Ritsuka did not repeat the exact words. Her IQ and EQ did not allow her to do so. On the contrary, she transformed the Emperor's will into the core "another project" itself, briefly stated the reasons and requirements, and tactfully reminded Guilliman: I'm afraid you will have to take the time out of your busy schedule to return to Terra and personally lead the expedition.

In short, the Emperor re-proposed the inexplicable order of "restoring the ecological environment of Holy Terra". In fact, at the very beginning, this was something that Fujimaru Ritsuka had just landed in the Astronomican and watched the Emperor's real-time psychic image of the current "Earth" environment through the veil of the warp. She immediately began to argue spontaneously in pain and disbelief. But as she gradually deepened her understanding of the current situation of the Empire, and the Emperor also said that "there are many more important things to do", she temporarily gave up.

——Nothing else, the current population of Holy Terra is at least 200 billion, and the huge nest cities that are almost densely spread on the surface of the planet without a single empty space have made it impossible to start any environmental transformation plan. In addition, Holy Terra is the administrative center of the entire empire and an absolute holy place. The power of countless bureaucrats is intertwined here. Not to mention the cost issue, it is basically impossible to accomplish this without bloodshed. Fujimaru Ritsuka highly doubts that even if Guilliman really starts to do this, with his political skills that are unrivaled in the empire, it can only be said that there is little hope to achieve the goal without fighting; and once this plan starts, the initial evacuation and resettlement work alone may take about a century.

The time span of this project was really beyond the reach of Fujimaru Ritsuka, but this time the Emperor's standards (which became compromised under Fujimaru Ritsuka's refutation and pulling) were not that high: he did not need to change the overall environment, as long as a small "sea" appeared on Terra to satisfy the metaphysical symbolism. Fujimaru Ritsuka therefore thought that this matter should be able to be completed in about ten years, although she was not very clear about what the Emperor wanted this symbol for.

In short, she handed the feasibility plan to Guilliman, and then explained some reasons such as "the human race originated from Terra, and Terran life originated from the ocean, so in the sense of the subspace, the symbol of this 'source' will affect the prosperity of humanity itself." To be honest, if this was put in her era, Fujimaru Ritsuka would definitely believe it, but in this era when human footprints have almost spread all over the galaxy, this statement seems suspicious.

If nothing else, Terra's oceans have disappeared since the Unification Wars (never mind why they disappeared in the Warp), but it's a stretch to relate that to the fact that the Imperium has been in decline for 10,000 years since the Heresy ended.

Obviously, Guilliman didn't believe this, and Fujimaru Ritsuka couldn't convince a Primarch on a topic he didn't believe in. Fortunately, he was used to receiving some inexplicable and incomprehensible missions from the Emperor during the Great Crusade, and the one conveyed by Fujimaru Ritsuka was not too excessive. Therefore, after the other party brought up the Emperor, he didn't have much objection to it, but only discussed many details with the other party in terms of execution.

In the last bit of time, they talked about Dorne. Guilliman heard what happened before his landing this time, and he also thought that Fujimaru Ritsuka and his brother should get to know each other more formally. But when Fujimaru Ritsuka tried to extend his stay, the Imperial Regent still refused very seriously. He insisted that Fujimaru Ritsuka should only take a look at Fulgrim's clone, who was said to have some mental abnormalities, during this visit - if Chaldea could handle his condition, he would be put on the Storm's Edge and taken to Baal; if Chaldea could not handle it, he would continue to be imprisoned in the basement of Hera Fortress, leaving Guilliman with a headache.

In short, this extra-long meeting marathon ended with these topics. Before the end, the Imperial Regent reminded Fujimaru Ritsuka not to forget to bring Sigismund with her when she left, and then announced that she could be released after serving her sentence. After the meeting, Fujimaru Ritsuka walked out of the room in a daze, took two breaths of fresh air and yawned. He tried to use his tired brain on the spot, then raised his hand and patted his face:

"I'm not going to sleep." She rubbed her eyes, forced herself to be alert, and said to Akurdona beside her, "After meeting the person downstairs, I have to see what Sigismund is stuck with - why is the schedule so rushed for no reason!"

(End of this chapter)