Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 896 His Majesty the Emperor is fooling you!
Gavial Locken now believes that his mind has been tempered by the series of events that occurred after the Istvan III arrived at the roaming port, to the point that he is "unfazed by anything and the strange things will naturally disappear."

Because he was now standing in a completely unfamiliar cabin that had appeared out of nowhere, and he was still foolishly holding the book he had picked up before he was "switched" here.

He found the [Cthunian swear words] utterly unbelievable.

Oh, by the way, he heard this from a pastor he met at the library when he was reminiscing about the past and looking for recommended books.

Although he was a little confused at the time about when this new pastor had arrived and when he had become a librarian,
But look, he knows everything about Wandering Harbor, the Ironblood, the Primarchs, and himself, and his attitude is friendly with a relaxed intimacy—he must know someone, or perhaps the owner of the Ironblood has swindled someone out of somewhere without their knowledge—no, no, he must have recruited a new batch of talent from somewhere.

After all, strictly speaking, there are only three proper Astartes priests working in this area, which is far from enough to meet the needs of so many fighting brothers and mortals.

When the priests are too busy, members of the Primarch Guard will be temporarily pulled in to serve as altar assistants.

They weren't pastors, so preaching to people wasn't really appropriate for them. It was originally just a temporary measure for the pastors to prolong the waiting time, but it unexpectedly became quite popular and even received rave reviews.

Hmm, imagine this: a handsome, calm, reliable, and powerful warrior with battle scars is sitting in front of you. He could tear you to pieces with one hand, but he listens kindly and silently to your stories of frustrations, discomforts, anger, sadness, or incomprehensible little things. He might even reach out and comfort you...?
Basically, over 90% of ordinary visitors become relatively calm and leave satisfied after the conversation, while the remaining 9% are able to recover after receiving a reassuring gesture.

In rare cases, Astartes, who was in charge of assisting at the altar that day, would also receive letters and gifts that were written very devoutly, but included a three-page parchment map of the Yan Kingdom, requesting to establish relations.

Of course, all these letters and gifts were properly registered and handed over to the pastors. The gifts were returned discreetly, and the replies were handled politely and elegantly by the robotic writing system.

So, in this situation where "the weather is perfect today. Think tanks? Almost nonexistent. Priests? Absolutely scarce," it's not really his fault for not being wary of this extra priest brother... right?

In short, the pastor was quite learned and refined, and enthusiastically recommended many interesting books to him. He had no idea that a warship's library could have so many interesting books, and that they were open to them.

Examples include "The Complete Anatomy of Alien Species", "How to Quickly Identify the Units Belonging to a Primal and Include Direct Contact Information", "108 Examples of Garden-Style Cooking", "What to Eat to Stay Lucky? Food Combinations to Bring You Daily Positive Energy", "Wilderness Survival Tips - 30 Examples of Quickly Summoning a Savior from the Sky", and "Walking with Primarchs".

He was holding a copy of "The Complete Guide to Void Cooking" that the other party had recommended.

When he saw the book, it was placed diagonally in the most conspicuous position on a bookshelf, but there was another book next to it that was slightly higher on the shelf, which seemed to be the result of a careless previous borrower not pushing it back.

Judging from the worn and faded leather spine, worn by hands and fingers, this thick book must have been read many times. The blurry dark brown font reveals specks of silver, and the spine is decorated with teardrop-shaped gems, with words like "Klein" written indistinctly.

Out of a subtle human instinct, Loken did not leave immediately after getting the book he wanted. Instead, he naturally reached out and tried to push the bulging ancient book back onto the shelf.

Then, everything changed.

--------

So, where is he now? What exactly happened? Did he accidentally touch something he shouldn't have, or did he fall into some kind of deliberately set trap?
Anyway, it's not teleportation.

The feeling of the body and soul being torn apart and reassembled during the transfer is not like this.

Gavial Loken had been teleported countless times and knew that feeling all too well.

He blinked again.

The air felt both strange and familiar: the smells of promethium, engine oil, preservatives, ammunition, and metal from traditional imperial warships wafted past his nose.

...The terrible recirculated air quality was so nostalgic that his sensory nerves, third lung, pebble kidneys, and so on immediately came back to life and began to work vigorously.

He then realized that even the air in the void where he had been was sweeter than that of the Empire's ships.

So what exactly is this?
He turned around, but for a moment he even stopped breathing:
The vengeful spirit, the warship he had lived most of his life on and that haunted his dreams, was now right there, its ominous and enormous shadow projected onto the screen before him.

Loken froze, feeling an electric current coursing through his limbs and muscles. A numb sensation spread from his fingertips to his arms. He stood there, staring, unable to utter a single word.

She was so beautiful and radiant that he missed her; yet she was also so terrifying and ugly, filled with a desire for destruction and ruin.

Why is he here?

For some reason, the words that the priest brother had spoken to him under his skull helmet when they parted suddenly rang clearly in his ears: "I think you should perhaps take a look at topology; the Möbius strip and the Klein bottle are very interesting things."

—This certainly doesn't sound as appealing to employees as "The Complete Book of Void Cooking" as delicious and nutritious food.

So what was his answer back then?

"Thank you, I'll take a look when I have time. Terra, brother pastor."

“That’s good.” The priest seemed to smile beneath his skull mask, the skull face appearing as if it were a second skin. “Remember, he protects you, Gavial Loken.”

--------

"If, as Alyvia said, she could sense the destruction of the Guardians' creations, then the 'Warmaster' must have obtained all the memories from before the Emperor's last departure from Moro. No matter how strange his strategic moves may be, they must be an explanation for this part of his actions."

On the speeding Galenus, the Pale King listened to the conversation coming from the Spartan tank's communicator.

“We’re running out of time. I’m not entirely sure what he did after gaining this memory and before reaching the ‘door.’ But I’m sure he didn’t waste much time. So our best option is to get to the ‘door’ as quickly as possible.”

He turned to Alivia, who had recovered enough from her heart repair surgery to sit up.

"By the time we reach the mountains, you should be healed enough to lead us down."

Pallas and Ruth stared at the seemingly ordinary, thin woman with strange looks: her appearance was unremarkable in a crowd, but her eyes and brows carried a ruthlessness that only those who had taken lives could understand. Her completely unremarkable appearance made it difficult to associate her with terms like "immortal" or "walking with the emperor."

Alivia nodded, a lingering doubt on her brow, but what could she do now? If her original escape route for herself and her family had an 80% chance of success, then with this man's small team, it was 100%—provided he didn't break his promise. She tried moving her arms and waist; it was fine, no numbness, seemingly recovering normally.

“Okay,” she said, and as she was about to say something more, Uta-Dagon, who was piloting the Galenas behind Russ, spoke his own synthesized voice from the medical vehicle’s public loudspeaker.

"Betrayal!" he roared in fury. "Shameful betrayal! These traitors!"

"What's wrong? What happened?" Pallas walked over.

Then they heard a string of binary language burst forth like a raging flood.

"Great, I don't understand a single word. I thought that connecting it with other words would help me understand."

“I already said you only provided the power from your reactor for some of his organs and life support,” Pallas said. “Let me translate…”

"You even understand these digital gadgets of those red-robed robots?" Ruth asked in surprise.

"That's not surprising, is it? Peturabo and Magna also speak binary language, right? But I learned it at Medusa, which allows me to listen in on the debates between the Iron Council and the Martian envoy."

"He even lets you sit in on this?" The Wolf King raised an eyebrow.

"so what."

Pallas mumbled.

“I even built a special steel camp on Medusa to lock up and reform any Imperial Sons I captured who were still somewhat salvageable. Do you know how difficult it was for me to go to each clan one by one to persuade them to accept me? Even with Feralas's endorsement, it was still a hellish difficulty you can't even imagine! Do you know how awful those undead machines are?! If I weren't the Primarch, I would have died eight hundred times over in that Medusa environment!”

"It seems that Felus is really planning to retire behind the scenes." This was the Wolf King's nonsensical comment.

The steel hand's efforts to diminish its presence were failing amidst the trembling, but thankfully, the turbulence made it unnoticed.

Pallas extracted the key points from Uta-Dagon's angry logical denunciation.

"He received some fragments of communications from the Mechanicus Titan Order, from which he learned that an unforgivable betrayal had occurred, and the Imperial Titan 'Terra Exemplar' was under fierce attack from the Imperial forces."

“Beautiful shit,” Ruth said. “Which faction?”

"Moro's knight mech cluster. The report states that they seem to have fallen into some kind of intense collective hallucination, frantically believing that the Terra Exemplar is the enemy, launching a suicidal charge against it, and that they themselves are some kind of noble paladins."

“It can only be Forgrim,” said the Pale King. “According to the few rumors and whispers that circulated after the war, this is what he accomplished here. No sons of the Emperor joined the ground battle; they just spent a long time here having fun with the remaining Moroes.”

Mortarian wore a look of considerable disgust. "Sometimes even the Death Guards can't stand it."

"It seems his infiltration operation was ultimately successful. Horus summoned him to detonate this hidden network. Although I don't know how he did it, it undoubtedly reveals the significant consequences of neglecting matters of faith at crucial moments."

"Major consequences" is such an understatement.

"Then I can also say that 'building spiritual civilization' is an extremely important and ongoing long-term task. It will establish sound moral norms for citizens, cultivate public order and good customs, reduce ignorant and backward ideas and uncivilized behaviors, improve the natural principles, legal awareness and moral standards of imperial citizens, and make imperial society more orderly and harmonious..."

"Stop, stop, stop! My head is starting to hurt!"

"Now what?"

"What else can we do? There's only one Terra Exemplary."

"But closing the gates is clearly more important! The Emperor Titans can simply let the Terravat family rebuild!"

Alyvia finally couldn't hold back any longer and spoke up. She had absolutely no desire to get involved in the mission to rescue the Emperor Titans. All she wanted was to quickly resolve the "Gate" matter, then take the children to the "Death" ship for refuge and leave this place as soon as possible to a safe destination she wanted, such as Terra.

The angry binary profanities blaring from the loudspeaker suddenly stopped, and Uta-Dagon's voice sounded strange: "The Terravat family? Why are you mentioning that deleted name of the rebels? And what is their connection to the Divine Machine?"

"Rebellion?!"

Alivia Sureka, who had accompanied the Emperor to this place, asked in surprise.

"The Terrawatt family is an ancient, native technological family of Terra, isn't it? After they were persuaded by him, didn't they provide us with a large number of original Titan prototypes, blueprints, and manufacturing methods? The Terra Exemplar was also designed and built by them, which is why I'm saying this! That's why it was named the Terra Exemplar!"

"Utter nonsense!!!"

Uta-Dagon shouted angrily, his voice, mixed with binary profanities, echoing in the crew cabin.

"Mars designed and built the Titan Machine! The traitors of the Terravat family have long been defeated by our legion and other legions! In the name of Om Messiah! We have achieved victory! The traitors and related data have been completely deleted!"

Alyvia looked dumbfounded and bewildered, a blank expression on her face indicating that her mind was rapidly and chaotically processing some kind of thought process.

--------

"The Pale King was right about one thing."

Ramizann, who was sitting next to the crystal ball in the office, looked up from his book and couldn't help but speak after hearing the conversation.

"This immortal being is one of the few who knows your early history and is still alive, so finding her is really useful. Now we know that His Majesty the Emperor has indeed been deceiving you all along."

(End of this chapter)