From Titan Corporation to the Empire of Man

Chapter 721

! ! ! !
Seeing this, several crew members of the Kellyon couldn't help but back away, but then they stopped in their tracks.

The feeling was like facing a group of "living" steel barriers, where any rash move would be instantly torn apart.

Candela's heart pounded like a drum, her eyes darted around, her lips were tightly pressed together, and her face was so pale it was almost transparent.

Compared to others, her fear seemed to be mixed with something else, as if some unspoken worry was weighing heavily on her heart.

Just then, an Astartes officer with a bright red plume on the top of his helmet stepped forward.

Thump, thump!

Each step was steady and powerful, like a hammer striking steel. The heavy soles of the boots struck the deck, the sound echoing around, each sound carrying a weight that shook the soul.

The sergeant walked to the front of the crowd, looking down at Hammond, Isaac, and Candela, among others.

His deep, resonant voice was like rolling thunder:

"Everyone, please come with me."

The voice was unquestionable, carrying an invisible sense of command.

The crew of the Kellyon exchanged glances, but no one dared to utter a word.

"."

Hammond nodded, took the lead, and followed the other man.

The others followed closely behind, surrounded by Imperial Soldiers, and slowly walked into the depths of the hangar, each step feeling heavy and oppressive, as if stepping on their hearts.

They knew that this unknown encounter had only just begun.

Some time later, in an interrogation room.

The room is simple and bright, with walls made of a glossy, hard, silver-white alloy, and almost no superfluous decorations.

The light strips on the ceiling emit a soft white glow, illuminating the interior with crystal clarity, making it difficult to hide even the finest dust particles in the air.

The tables and chairs were all made of metal and fixed to the deck, with straight lines and surfaces that reflected a cold light.

The entire space was completely silent, with only the slight hum of the air circulation system reminding us that this was not an illusion, but a real presence inside a ship of the Imperial Warrior Legion.

Elisa Vincent sat quietly in the chair.

She had changed into a clean and tidy white training uniform. The fabric looked ordinary, but it bore the marks of strict military regulations, and even the wrinkles were straightened out.

Clearly, after being taken away by Tychus Finley's heavily armored support troops, she underwent a thorough examination and cleaning by the Department of Biological Technicians.

The old jacket, stained with blood and tar, had long been stripped away, and now she looked exceptionally "neat," as if she had been deliberately severed from all the chaos and wreckage of the Ishimura in the past.

Her face was calm, but she was not entirely without fear.

A few deep shadows still lingered in Elisa's eyes, her gaze occasionally wandering, as if the bloody and chaotic moments on the Ishimura were still flickering in her memory.

As the security captain of an engineering ship, her mental fortitude far surpasses that of ordinary survivors. She will not completely lose her composure simply because of a change of environment or being surrounded by heavily armed soldiers, but deep down, the lingering sense of oppression still exists.

In particular, when she thinks of the Imperial Warriors Astartes, who wear heavy armor and have a physique far exceeding that of ordinary people, the question "Is this still human?" will involuntarily arise in her mind.

She sat there, waiting.
—Whoosh—!
The sound of the metal gate opening shattered the deathly silence, cold and heavy, as if announcing the imminent arrival of a new "examination".

The person who walked in was Tychus Finley.

At this moment, he was no longer wearing the iconic CMC power armor, but had changed into a dark officer's uniform.

Even without the heavy armor covering him, his figure still appeared imposing and intimidating. His broad shoulders and steel-like physique made the entire room seem smaller.

Tychus did not speak immediately, but went straight to another chair in front of the table and sat down.

His movements were crisp and rhythmic, characteristic of a soldier. His gaze swept over Elisa, from head to toe, from her eyes to her subtle expressions, as if trying to dissect her completely.

The air was so quiet that you could hear the faint hum of the lights.

Finally, Tychus spoke, his voice low and deep:

“Elisa Vincent, the security captain of the Ishimura, you know very well why we brought you here.”

A moment of hesitation flashed across Elisa's eyes before she calmly replied, "I can guess some of it, but the 'human empire' you speak of is still a foreign concept to me."

Her voice didn't tremble, but it carried a mixture of inquiry and wariness. Clearly, she wanted to understand her situation, yet she had to remain restrained and cautious.

Tychus's gaze never left him; his eyes seemed to carry weight, compelling one to reveal the truth.

He nodded slightly and continued, "What exactly happened to the Ishimura? Why did the entire ship lose contact, and why did we only find a few survivors?"

The moment those words were spoken, Elisa's breath hitched noticeably.

She clenched her hands instinctively, her knuckles turning white, and pain and struggle surfaced in her eyes.

She witnessed the tragedy of the Ishimura firsthand; the bloodstains, corpses, and the roars of monsters still linger deep in her mind.

Those scenes cannot be described casually, nor can they be easily let go of.

After a moment of silence, she spoke in a low voice: "We received a special mission from the company's higher-ups and trespassed into Aegis 7, which is a restricted area designated by the Earth Federation. On the surface, we were carrying out a routine planetary mining mission, but in reality, we were there to recover [the lost planets]."
The so-called divine seal was reclaimed.

Initially, everything was relatively normal, except for some small-scale bloodshed in the colonies, until those things appeared.

Her tone gradually lowered, as if even speaking was a form of torture.

His eyes flickered with lingering fear, and also with a certain restraint.

She knew that the soldiers of the Imperial Guard would not be deceived by falsehoods, and she understood that if she wanted to protect herself and the survivors, she had to tell the truth about the Ishimura.

Tychus didn't interrupt, but stared at her quietly with a cold, even indifferent expression, but his eyes silently compelled her to continue.

Elisa took a deep breath and continued, “The colonists discovered something that didn’t belong to us. Some kind of ancient ruin, or rather, some kind of object buried inside the planet. From then on, nothing was normal.”

At this point, she raised her eyes, looked directly at Tychus, and spoke with the same heavy tone, carrying undisguised caution:
"You ask me what it is? I don't know, but I'm certain it changed everyone. It brought the dead back to life and drove the living mad. It—"

The Ishimura became a living hell.

The atmosphere in the room suddenly became heavy as she described it; even though it was just a narration, it allowed one to imagine the bloody and desperate scenes on the Ishimura.

Tychus's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

His palm tapped the table lightly, the rhythm slow and firm, as if he were pondering or judging the truthfulness of Elisa's words.

After a moment of silence, Tychus slowly nodded.

That was a meaningful gesture, conveying both approval and caution.

In fact, the intelligence department had already submitted the general situation of the Ishimura to him, and the content almost matched Elisa's description.

Therefore, his nod was not merely a gesture of reassurance, but rather a confirmation that Elisa had not deliberately concealed or fabricated anything. In this brief moment of reassurance, Elisa seemed to gather her courage, about to ask:
"What exactly is this human empire you speak of—"

However, before she could voice her question, Tychus coldly interrupted her:

"After I get the answer I want, you will get the answer you want."

His voice was steady and carried an undeniable authority, like a pressing anvil, forcefully nailing her words back into her throat.

As he finished speaking, he raised his hand and activated a holographic projection on the table—

The light screen suddenly unfolded, and a cold blue-white glow flickered in the interrogation room, illuminating the faces of the two people even more clearly.

What appeared on the projector was a video that was playing.

In the video, a dark-skinned man is strapped to a fixed chair, and the layers of tight straitjackets make him look more like a prisoner.

Its eyes were bloodshot and its pupils were constricted. Its body was struggling wildly, as if the metal straps would break at any moment.

His mouth kept spewing screams, desperately trying to rouse him: "It...it wants our bodies! No! No! You don't understand! It's staring at us!"

A sharp scream, accompanied by audio from the holographic projection, echoed repeatedly in the interrogation room.

That kind of frenzied despair is chilling.

In the next scene, another person is shown being bound.

He was a middle-aged man who was overweight but still robust, with sallow skin and a calm yet eerie gaze.

He was also wearing a straitjacket, but his body was covered with some old ornaments, like remnants of some kind of "traditional attire".

The middle-aged man did not struggle, but instead murmured softly, as if in prayer: "We will eventually merge. We will surely evolve. Lord, forgive my sins."

His voice was deep, yet carried a kind of almost pious stubbornness; that tranquility was more chilling than madness.

!!!

Upon seeing the two people, Elisa's expression changed abruptly. She leaned forward, her eyes fixed on the projection.

Her voice was low and urgent: "What are you doing to them?!"

Tychus's expression remained unchanged; he simply asked a question in return, his tone revealing the coldness of an interrogator:

“We did nothing, we just observed, we wanted to know why they were different from the other survivors—”

Why do some act like madmen, while others seem to be driven by some kind of belief? Why do such mental abnormalities occur? This is something we must figure out.

His words were as cold and direct as iron, devoid of any emotion, yet enough to make Elisa's heart tighten.

She was silent for a moment, her eyes flickering slightly, as if trying to recall those moments that still made her heart pound.

Finally, she spoke in a low voice: "Maybe it's those things, those...corpses."

Her voice trembled, filled with unspeakable fear, yet she tried her best to remain calm.

"Those moving corpses, they attack people, not just tearing or killing, but more like... some kind of infection."

Or, to put it another way, assimilation.

Anyone who comes into contact with or is harmed by them will often soon exhibit similar symptoms.

Some people lose their minds, becoming violent and frantic, while others fall into a strange tranquility, as if their souls have been replaced by something else. I don't know the specific reasons; I can only speculate.

By the end, her brows were furrowed and her face was pale.

Even as the security captain, the memories of those who experienced it firsthand were still unbearable for her.

Tychus paused for a moment, then nodded again.

The action was exactly the same as before, and it was clear that Elisa's answer perfectly matched the information held by the intelligence department.

The interrogation room was still brightly lit, but the silence seemed to suffocate it. The screams and prayers projected on the screen echoed and intertwined with Elisa's words, filling the air with an inescapable gloom.

Tychus finally looked away, lightly touching the control panel in front of him. The projection immediately went out, and the room returned to silence.

Then he spoke in a low voice, his tone steady but like a cold, hard judgment: "The information you provided is very valuable, and now, I will tell you the answer you want."

After saying that, he raised his hand and operated the screen, which lit up again, and the cool-toned light instantly tinted the entire interrogation room with a layer of dark blue.

What appeared on the screen was no longer the horrific scene of the Ishimura, but rather a series of magnificent and solemn images—

In the boundless sea of ​​stars, a fleet of giant ships stretches out like a tide.
One magnificent starport after another resembles a floating continent;
Countless worlds were surrounded by shimmering energy shields, like fortresses bathed in holy light.

Then, the majestic outline of the imperial palace slowly appeared, its immense scale almost indescribable, like a projection of the divine kingdoms of the heavens in the mortal world.

Elisa stared at the screen, her heart, already shaken by the Ishimura incident, once again awestruck by its grandeur.

She had already guessed the significance of the so-called "empire" from Tychus's words, but when this vast order spanning the cosmic borders was actually revealed before her eyes, it still made her breath quicken and her pupils suddenly contract.

Even though she was mentally prepared, the reality before her still far exceeded her expectations.
Meanwhile, inside the ship.

Swish-!
The heavy alloy hatch opened automatically, and the glaring warning lights in the isolation zone flashed incessantly, casting intermittent red light spots.

The two survivors, still clad in straitjackets, remained strapped into the isolation chamber. One was convulsing, his pupils swollen, and he was screaming in a tearing voice.

"They want our corpses! No! No—!"

He was screaming at the top of his lungs, as if he was about to be swallowed up by madness.

Another stout middle-aged man was relatively calm, but his face bore a fanatical, almost holy air as he repeatedly murmured in a low, prayerful tone:

"We will eventually be united. Lord, forgive my sins. This is salvation."

Outside the thick bulkhead, the two Imperial Guards, Astartes, stood as still as statues, their demeanor calm and composed, like an unshakeable fortress.

The .75 caliber bolt carriers they held could annihilate the mutants inside the isolation chamber at any moment.

At that moment, the sound of footsteps, deep and powerful, came from the end of the corridor, accompanied by the sound of metal rubbing against armor, with a firm and composed rhythm.

The voice grew clearer as it approached, and soon two tall, imposing figures came into view.

Those were two war maidens clad in ancient Greek-style power armor.

The armor's lines are elegant yet powerful, and its metal surface is engraved with exquisite Greek symbols, making it seem, or rather, like a demigod from ancient mythology.

Their faces were stern yet beautiful, and their golden cloaks swayed slightly in the dim light, giving them a divine and otherworldly aura.

As their footsteps approached the quarantine zone, the previously noisy murmurs and roars suddenly subsided, as if suppressed by some invisible pressure.

Astartes nodded slightly to them at the gate, and the two maids nodded back. Then, they turned their gaze to the madness inside the isolation chamber.
(End of this chapter)