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

Chapter 300 Li Gui and Li Kui

"How long have we been stuck here?" asked a bored Akuldona.

"I don't know." Santo answered. In the subspace environment, the irregular numbers on the timer made no sense - it was not the timer's problem, Santo was sure they were all intact, but the two timers in his power armor, the Akuldona power armor, and the "Prototype No. 1" had slightly different readings on each. Science that followed the laws of physics was almost meaningless in the tide of the Supreme Heaven.

"If you ask me subjectively," Akurdona continued nonchalantly, "I think we've been stranded for about three Terran days."

Santo understood the implication, but he still responded, “I don’t know. Our subjective feelings have no meaning in the current environment.”

"At least it's more meaningful than the numbers jumping back and forth on the timer," Akurdona retorted. "It's necessary to have a rough grasp of time no matter where you are."

"If we really can't fix this thing, then there's no need." Santo retorted, "Don't think I don't know why you calculate time. We don't even need to really repair this thing - this is the subspace, and we are no longer a purely material existence. As long as I copy its data storage unit and ensure that the experimental data is not lost, we can rely on our instincts to follow the guidance of the Astronomican and leave this predicament."

Akurdona sighed and turned his gaze to the direct cause of the dilemma: the only conscious creature present who still relied on actual biological structures rather than the accumulation of souls, ether and concepts to survive; the one who looked like his genetic father and gave him similar feelings; the one who sat on a lonely stone a little way away, thinking about something in front of a caramel-colored skull candy in his hand.

"What a sin Fabius has committed..." This low sigh slipped out of his lips unconsciously, and then, Santo's slightly dissatisfied voice sounded on the side:

"Pay attention, he can hear you." The Iron Hand's dissatisfaction did not seem to be due to Akuldona's sentimentality, because his next sentence was almost directed to the person who did not join the conversation: "If his physiological functions are consistent with the Primarch."

This judgment was soon proved to be correct, because after the man in the distance finished speaking, he quickly came out of his thoughts, raised his head, and glared in the direction of the Astartes.

Akurdona sighed again.

"I am very grateful to you, Gabriel." The Sword Master among the Emperor's Children racked his brains and tried to use his limited emotional intelligence to "solve" the problem at hand. "I know you don't agree with my decision to bring him back, but you are still willing to repair this shuttle for this decision."

"I still insist that we can just leave him here and go back by ourselves." Santo made a statement that contradicted his current actions. "The reason I am still trying to repair it is that I must find out the specific cause of the failure of the imaginary engine, and by the way, find the security loophole that allowed the 'something' called 'Tezcatlipoca' to quietly drill into the hull. During the research and development stage of a device, tracing the source of the failed data is often also very important."

"I understand your subtle hostility towards me." The man in the ornate armor that was of no practical use stood up and said loudly, "Since this is essentially a test that the man who calls himself 'Tezcatlipoca' has asked me alone, I can certainly complete it alone-"

“—but you don’t even have a decent sword!” Akuldona screamed before he finished speaking, “and we have no idea what kind of challenge we will face next!”

"That doesn't matter." The other party retorted, "The real 'Fulgrim' should be able to perfectly deal with all emergencies without the support of intelligence. I will successfully complete this so-called 'trial' and prove to everyone that I am worthy of the title of 'Purple Phoenix'!"

Gabriel rolled his eyes clearly with his one good eye and turned to complain to Akurdona, "Well, he didn't listen to a word you said to him before."

Unfortunately, Akuldona ignored him. The Emperor's Child's attention was still on the man who was cloned based on his Primarch's template. "That's not how it works! You are just putting yourself in danger by taking a gamble!"

"Perhaps so, but if this can prove my identity and qualifications to you——"

"What on earth are you trying to prove!" Akultuna cried in despair. "By the throne, you said you had to prove yourself worthy of the name 'Fulgrim', but that's just a name! The real Fulgrim never had to prove that he was called that name! Don't you realize? From the moment you said that, you have realized that you are not 'Fulgrim' at all!"

This straightforward statement was like a thunderbolt from the blue sky, causing the color to fade from Fulgrim's flawless face, and he stood there for a moment. No one knew what kind of turmoil had been stirred up in his heart by this, and Santo did not care about it at all. He just said to the Emperor's Child beside him again: "Well done. But where did you learn this argument from?"

Akurdona turned around and glared at the other person before answering, "I heard it when I was chatting with Fujimaru Ritsuka."

Then, he raised his head and looked in the direction of the clone, muttering to himself a little worriedly: "Did I say something a little too harsh?"

"If you ask me, you should just punch him in the face," Santo said mercilessly. "I understand that you will be particularly tolerant of him because of his face, but please also understand that I will be particularly mean to him because of his face."

Akuldona instinctively wanted to refute something, but he opened his mouth, but in the end he couldn't pour out any meaningful words from his stomach - except for a dry "It's not like that", he couldn't say anything. During this period of time, a series of thinking iterations had obviously occurred in the clone's original brain. His gray face did not recover, but he still asked Akuldona: "If I am not 'Fulgrim', then who am I?"

Perhaps if someone else were here, he or she would be able to give a more gentle and tactful answer, but Akuldona couldn't do it. This self-evident question to him blocked the Emperor's child's language center for a moment, and then he successfully answered: "How should I know, you are you!"

At the same time, he began to try to kick Santo's mechanical legs inconspicuously, to make a hint of "I can't talk about philosophy, help me quickly, brother." The latter sighed helplessly, closed the inspection hatch of "Prototype No. 1", got up from the ground, and announced:

"Let's try again." He had no intention of getting involved in the family ethics drama of the Emperor's children, so he chose to change the subject for them. "If the organization still cannot successfully enter the virtual number submerged state this time, it means that the problem should be that the operating environment is not compatible. I may have to spend some time collecting and comparing environmental data again for debugging. The worst result may be to rewrite the entire operating system of the Pondering Array."

He pinched his waist and turned around, his back facing the square "Prototype No. 1", and said to the other two purple-gold men: "In other words, if you fail this time, Akurdona, you really have to consider wandering around in this wasteland and looking for supplies that can be used by living people. Although I have doubts about whether there is absolutely safe food and water in the current environment."

The Emperor's Child was surprised. "How did you know I was thinking about this?"

Santo didn't bother to talk to him, and threw down a sentence "Isn't this why you pay attention to time?" and went into the cockpit. It turned out that the captain of the Iron Hands did not succeed in saving Akuldona from the dilemma of philosophical problems. After the hatch was completely closed, Akuldona immediately found that he was the only one facing Fulgrim's clone.

At this moment, his longing for Fujimaru Ritsuka was particularly strong.

-

"You have read the Nostramo Grimoire." Conrad Curze's whispers, like a venomous snake, hissed in the darkness. "That's something that's easy to see. I admit that you have learned well, but unfortunately, not well enough."

The man he was talking to was fixed to a stake. Harkon the World-Taker was undoubtedly still alive, but in a way that he himself did not want. This general under Abaddon the Great Reaver was no longer able to make his speech to anyone - his vocal cords had been physically destroyed by the cruel punishment, his ribs had been turned open, and his organs, which had been slightly mutated after being blessed by Chaos, were directly exposed to the air that the High Heaven did not know whether it actually existed. They were weakly beating under the instinct of bioelectricity, barely maintaining his life that had become a living annotation of a chapter in the Nostramo Grimoire.

If it weren't for the blessing of Chaos, Hakon would have died hours ago under the cruel and varied tortures of the Night Lords Astartes. But it is not known whether it is a blessing or a curse, he is still alive, so the Night Children who realized something was wrong presented him to the Night Lord in this form of being impaled on a pillar, and as soon as the latter met him, he tore out the captive's vocal cords with his own hands without any explanation.

"My descendants and the crow cubs may want to dig something out of you." Curze acted very happy. Perhaps the fear and confusion in the prisoner's eyes, which were so strong that they were almost tangible, amused him very well. "But I don't need you to speak. You just stay there and be my audience. I haven't had the opportunity to do this for a while, so you'd better listen to me quietly."

From the depths of darkness came the sound of feathers rubbing against each other. Haken had no idea what was happening. His bloody neck had lost all feeling except pain. He could not turn his head which was fixed in place. The view he could get by moving his eyes was very limited. He could only see the two solemn and terrifying statues of the Midnight Lords standing on his left and right.

Now, even the pain was gradually becoming numb, and Haken didn't know whether he should be relieved or panic. No matter what, it was useless to him. He couldn't even beg anyone around him to give him a quick death.

A slight sound of footsteps lingered around Hakkon. Rather than "hearing", it was more like a whisper of favor from the Warp to him after receiving the blessing. The footsteps of the Lord of Night in the darkness were no louder than the falling night. Even the Leman Ear of the Astartes could not capture the exact vibration in the material world.

"The naval battles of the past two years have been very interesting. You are a good commander." Curze, who was very interested, did not stop talking. "Although you undoubtedly followed the wrong master, and you showed foolish recklessness and assumptions when you were trying to stop a chariot with your arms, but for an Astartes, you still fought well. At least in comparison, the samples I have are enough for me to draw such a conclusion."

Harken realized that the two Night Lords beside him had tensed up. Curze was praising his command ability in a roundabout way to scold his own offspring for being incompetent - perhaps only the Nostramo people who spoke in a more advanced context ten thousand years ago could understand this roundabout rebuke, but the Night Lords did not need to understand. Somehow, at this distance, they could instinctively sense the dissatisfaction of their genetic father.

Fortunately, Curze did not dwell on this topic for too long: "The flow of time in the warp is strange and irregular." He said, "I think we have been fighting for about two Terran years. This has also been successfully agreed upon in my fleet. I wonder what your method of timekeeping says?"

According to the Terran calendar, it was two years, four months, fifteen days and twenty-one hours. The above numbers appeared in Haken's mind instinctively. At least, at the moment when he was rushed into the bridge by the boarding team, he calculated the time silently in his heart.

He couldn't speak, but Curze seemed to have heard something. The voice in the dark chuckled and said "I understand", and then a pale face came closer to Harken's eyes.

Haken, who was fixed on the stake, had no eyelids, so he could not escape the gaze of the dark eyes of the Night Haunter, which seemed to lock the soul, by simply closing his eyes. The only light source he had was the natural light emitted by the eyepieces of the two Astartes masks around him, but it was enough for his eyes to confirm the outline of the other party at such a close distance.

This is a Primarch, no doubt about it. The size and the features may be faked, but the natural elegance cannot. That was Hakon's first thought, and then he realized: he could hear what I was thinking.

After these two thoughts appeared in his mind, which was confused by the torture, he soon felt even more desperate. At this moment, Coze showed a malicious sense of humor:

"Don't think like that. Be optimistic. After all, your current situation is as bad as it can be. Nothing can make it worse."

Actually, there are. Haken thought uncontrollably, and then immediately focused his mind and moved his thoughts away from those "more terrible consequences" to prevent the Primarch of the Night Lords from drawing new inspiration from his thoughts in an ingenious way.

“Don’t be so conceited.” Curze’s pale face disappeared from his sight, and the Primarch chuckled again after shrinking back into the darkness. “But this makes me realize that you still have a clear and firm will. This is very interesting.”

The Night Lord to Harkon's left shifted uncomfortably. "We certainly haven't been lazy on this matter, my lord."

"I can see that." Koz's voice drifted away, and a little echo floated in the vast darkness that had no end. "Who said that so far, this is the only thing you can consciously devote 120% of your energy to. Torturing others should not be fun."

The Midnight Lord who had spoken shrank back. Haken tried to calculate the size of the dark room through the echo of Curze's words, but he soon failed. The naval battles he had experienced for more than two years should have made him realize that the High Heavens no longer only favored the Chaos Lords' troops, but that there was also some supernatural energy on the Empire's side that could fight against them - but at this moment, he truly realized that he was beginning to make some mistakes that the Imperial Astartes often made, which was to be too superstitious about physics and matter.

"In this room, your mind is free." The first half of Curze's voice seemed to come from farther away, and the second half became very close. "I am willing to give you this freedom, and I don't need to really destroy your will to make you submit. The Nostramo Grimoire is indeed effective, but I find it is outdated nowadays. There are far more sophisticated ways to control a person's mind than fear. Although you will obviously be a good student, I don't intend to share this knowledge with you before we completely conquer this planet once called 'Jiaxu Star'."

As the words fell, a light source suddenly appeared in the room. Haken instinctively turned his eyes to look at that location, and then another deeper despair suddenly surged into his heart:

What lit up was a projection of a regional star map, and the planet highlighted on it was the location of an important logistics base of the Black Legion - one of the planets that Haken was ordered to protect in the Great Rift after Abaddon left.

For a moment, he even hoped that he could be crushed to ashes right now.

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 301 Warrior of Light, Please Come to the Lion's Mane

"Is there something we have to talk about here?" Fujimaru Ritsuka complained with a hint of resentment in his tone, "I just finished a meal. Lanmalok, you have to know that if you let me come here through the subspace at this time, there is a chance that I will vomit on your ship."

Almost as soon as she returned to Storm's Edge, a communication from the Lion's Mane rang "very coincidentally". Fujimaru Ritsuka, who thought she could rest today, sighed a little, but she quickly ate a silver apple to restore her strength and then ran over.

Then, she discovered that Lanmarok's mental state was still not very good. Although he still looked like he was wearing a tightly fitted power armor, Fujimaru Ritsuka could subtly sense that he was obviously a little depressed.

After taking a glance at the two guards beside Lanmarok who were definitely not on the Lion's Mane - they were in black armor and red robes, silent, and most importantly, they were Primaris Space Marines - Fujimaru Ritsuka chose a relatively safe question to ask: "Has your 'internal meeting' come to a conclusion?"

"It seems so." Lanmarok answered vaguely, but at least he answered, which was good news. "At present, it seems that in most cases, I am still the one who has the final say on this ship."

"Isn't this good?" Fujimaru Ritsuka chose not to delve deeper. "At least for me, this is the case. I don't have to adapt to a new contact person."

Lanmarok did not comment, and changed the subject to "business" in a somewhat awkward manner: "I have obtained some information here, and the Primarch thinks you should know about it."

He gestured sideways, then led his guests down from the transport platform and toward the video strategy room. Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at Sigismund, who was obviously evaluating the two new Primaris warriors on the Lion's Mane, tapped his arm armor lightly, and then took the lead to follow Lanmarok's back. Just like usual.

"You are a little too lax about your own safety." Sigismund looked like he wanted to grab Fujimaru Ritsuka right behind him, or if Lanmarok wasn't here, he would have done so. "You don't even know the names of these people who appeared out of nowhere."

"If I need to know, they have already introduced themselves to me." Fujimaru Ritsuka said calmly, "There is no need to make things so clear about the Dark Angels. I believe they can handle their own problems. We only need to know that 'these new Primaris soldiers are support sent by the Lion King'."

"Thank you for your open-minded attitude and full trust." Lanmarok said dryly, "But sometimes I also feel that you can ask more questions."

"So, is there anything that happened in the past few days that I really need to know?" Fujimaru Ritsuka followed suit, but it was obvious that she had deliberately misinterpreted it. This was obviously not what Lanmarok meant.

The newly arrived Primaris warriors said nothing, but just watched everything that happened in front of them silently. No one present knew what they were thinking, just as no one knew their names or what kind of faces they had under their armor.

"Your tolerance and generosity sometimes make me feel uneasy." Lanmalok sighed, but still followed the other party's words and started the topic, "As you may have guessed, our Primarch appeared out of thin air again not long ago. He brought more than thirty "new brothers" as reinforcements for us."

He paused here and gestured to the Primaris warriors who followed him: "I can't say that we get along very well, but at least the Primarch has established some common goals for us."

"I won't ask what these 'common goals' are specifically." Fujimaru Ritsuka responded very self-awarely, "My only request is that if you suddenly disappear from Baal's orbit one day, please tell me first."

"You'd better ask this, because this is what I have been ordered to show you next." said Lanmalok.

As they were talking, they had already moved to the nearest imaging strategy room. Two Siluji monks were debugging the imaging equipment, and the 3D projection above was showing a star map.

"Do you know anything about the name 'Vashtor'?" Lanmalok asked.

Fujimaru Ritsuka thought for a few seconds before digging out this name from the corners of his memory: "This is recorded in the Emperor's database. He is considered to be a secondary god in the warp that corresponds to concepts such as science and technology and innovative inventions. He controls the technology of forging demon engines and can influence mechanical products in the real universe to a certain extent."

Lanmarok sighed with a feeling that was either relief or disappointment: "Your profound knowledge has saved us a lot of trouble. Adjust your perspective."

Following Lanmarok's orders, the Siluji monks began to change the projection angles and marked the parts of the star map that needed to be focused on. During this time, Fujimaru Ritsuka speculated: "Did he appear somewhere recently and cause trouble?"

"It's not just any 'trouble'." Lanmalok said gloomily, "I learned from my new brothers that the current Dark Angels Army... the Chapter, is trying its best to track down Vashtor. Before this, there had been a series of conflicts between the two, and Vashtor was obviously not fighting alone. His team was obviously mixed with other Chaos forces and traitors of the Empire. In the end, the Chapter failed to completely stop the evil plot of the Warp, and he used his evil knowledge and skills to successfully forge a... demon world engine."

The perspective of the star map projection locked onto a local point, and the artificially added annotation showed that it was called the "Dream Galaxy". Then, the camera quickly zoomed in - and even someone like Fujimaru Ritsuka, who had only a limited knowledge of a specific place in the vast territory of the empire, could realize through basic common sense that there was something in the void that obviously shouldn't exist:

A planetary world burning majestically in bright flames, with strange fleets and wrecks, or other orbital defense facilities, winding around it gracefully along the geomagnetic lines like a jewel necklace. It swallowed and exhaled bright phosphorescent fire in the dark void, freely showing its evil light, and then soon, the space around it was distorted - just like being photographed by a fish-eye lens, its image and the surrounding space were neatly pulled and shrunk, sinking into a dimension that was beyond the reach of the existence in the real universe, leaving a hideous gap in the original place, a scar that glowed in reality.

"Dragon Forest Star." Lanmarok's voice was filled with obvious hatred, anger and shame. "The Primarch is leading most of the other brothers in the chapter to hunt it down. If possible, he hopes to get help from Chaldea."

The last sentence seemed a bit redundant, because Fujimaru Ritsuka was staring at every detail in the 3D projection in front of him, and he was obviously already in working mode: "Is this a real-life video?"

"This was restored using the footage taken by the Paladin and the data recorded by the Auger array," Lanmaroc responded. "If you need the original data, we can also provide a backup."

"I think I need a copy to take back to Storm Edge for detailed calculations." Fujimaru Ritsuka crossed his hands unconsciously while thinking, "The means it used to leave the real universe seem quite unconventional. Please rewind a little and play it again at 0.25 times the speed. I want to watch the whole process again carefully."

Silujimon turned his gaze (or camera) towards Lanmarok, and after receiving a positive signal, he replayed the video recording according to Fujimaru Ritsuka's instructions. The second rough observation lasted for five minutes, during which she called for two pauses and gave a formula to ask Silujimon to calculate five parameters for her, and finally came to the conclusion:

"Judging from the way it moves, it will be difficult to catch. It's not that we can't rely on certain signs to predict its landing point, but it takes too much intelligence gathering and computing power to find these so-called "signs" in the vast universe. The observation angle of the Sheba Lens is only at the planetary level after all, and it can't be used on this scale; Trismegistus also has other things to calculate; psychic divination can only collect some information in the subspace sporadically, and it is not certain whether it is true or false; the Empire may not have so many resources to be completely concentrated on this one thing - it's too uneconomical. If this is all the information we have now, the best I can give is a guarantee of 'try your luck'."

Lanmarok's Primaris brothers looked at each other. He could sense the doubts hidden under the MK10 armor, but he himself had long been accustomed to the magical nature of Fujimaru Ritsuka, who could "respond to even things that sound impossible", so he was not too surprised: "We have also summarized some of the places where it has appeared."

The Fire Wing Grand Master waved his hand towards the Si Lu Ji Monk, and the perspective in the projection was enlarged again as he suggested. The observable range returned to the size of the entire star region with these changes, and several locations where the "Dragon Forest Star" had appeared were specially highlighted.

"In that case, I might be able to try to calculate its trajectory. But I don't know much about criminal geography, so I'll have to leave the detailed analysis to you guys." Fujimaru Ritsuka's tone was uncertain, "But what is it trying to do by running around like this? Is there any strategic point of the empire near where it appeared?"

"So far, there is no solid speculation." Lanmalok replied, "Some Inquisitors believe that the Eldar may know something, because the movement of the Dragon Forest Star is similar to those of the aliens in the eyes of the Mechanicus. The interrogators of the Chapter also got some untrue and false statements from the Chaos Worshipers. They believe that 'Vashtol is looking for something called a 'lock', but we still don't know what this 'lock' is."

"I think we can ignore the Eldar," said Fujimaru Ritsuka. "I have some other intelligence sources. They should be fighting each other for some other things. Under this premise, even if they want to exert influence on Chaos or the Empire, the energy they can mobilize is very small. Moreover, no matter how Vashtor made this world engine, its technology and output level are obviously more advanced than that of the Eldar. The latter can obviously only use the existing Webway plane to travel through space, but Vashtor's, if there is no Webway entrance at its location in the void, then it is obvious that it has carved out a path for itself to pass through in space."

"'Something else,'" Lanmaroc repeated suspiciously.

"The mess between the Eldar God and Salishi can't burn the Empire." Fujimaru Ritsuka, who felt it was too troublesome to explain the story of the Goddess of Life, chose to give a simple conclusion, "When they are done fighting, they will come back and thank us."

After saying this, Fujimaru Ritsuka thought for a moment, then spoke again, trying to infer from the result: "As for the 'lock', since there is a 'lock', there must be a 'key'. Now Vashtor is looking for the 'lock', so according to normal logic, the 'key' must be under his control - unless He intends to stare at the 'lock'. The problem is that there must be something 'locked' behind this 'lock', and perhaps that is His real purpose. But what exactly does He want to do..."

"There is already a Lord Inquisitor of the Holy Hammer Order and his team following up on this issue." Lanmalok interrupted the other party's thoughts, which might not produce any results. "If they make any progress, I will make sure you know it immediately."

"Now I get a headache whenever I hear the phrase 'Lord Inquisitor'," Fujimaru Ritsuka complained. "It would be better to just let them study this problem. I'm tied to Baal now and can't leave. Obviously, the channels for me to obtain intelligence are much fewer than those of an active Inquisitor. But thinking about it the other way around, I have a different strategy: We don't care what Vashtor wants to do, we just need to force him not to do it."

"What do you want to do?" Lanmalok suddenly asked with a bad premonition.

"You know, Chaos demons are never united. Especially those Chaos creatures who are not under the command of the Four Gods." Fujimaru Ritsuka said, "In fact, I don't know if this will work, but anyway, there will be no loss if it doesn't work: as long as I spread the news to the subspace, saying that 'the fifth god of the High Heaven will ascend the throne in Baal', the demons of Vashtor will definitely hear the news and want to join in the fun."

"Apart from all the causes and consequences," Sigismund, who had been silent for the whole journey, spoke quickly after he finished speaking, "your idea is really a terrible one."

Fujimaru Ritsuka shrugged. "Of course I know the actual effect is doubtful. It's hard to predict the effect of a rumor. But the worst result is nothing happens. We don't need to do anything. There's no harm in trying. As long as Vashtor's army loses one demon, I win."

"The premise is that the 'Fifth God of the High Heaven will ascend the throne in Baal' is indeed not true." The Black Knight replied firmly.

"You don't believe in my plan!" Fujimaru Ritsuka immediately put on a pitiful look, "When did I say I was going to promote the fifth god to the throne! Although from an overall perspective I am indeed doing something similar, is the planetary mind a god? Don't slander Sanguinius!"

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 302 The conclusion we came to is that we did not come to any conclusion

"That's not the question." Sigismund retorted bluntly, "In the warp, you must understand the principles of 'disaster comes from the mouth' and 'self-fulfilling prophecy' better than me. Even if this sentence seems false now, once it is really transmitted to the warp, it will be beyond our control."

"You have a point," Fujimaru Ritsuka responded, "but the Emperor (the fifth god) has already occupied the corresponding seat ten thousand years ago. Whether I decide to spread this rumor at this moment or not, this is a problem I will have to face sooner or later."

Lanmarok began to realize that something was wrong. He quickly waved his hand and instructed the Siluji monks present to turn off their sensory units that received external intelligence and enter standby mode. However, Sigismund still refuted without realizing it: "The only thing you need to consider now is how to build the Chaldean Lighthouse."

"That makes sense. If we really need a 'Fifth God' to take over, Dioscuri might be a good choice." Fujimaru Ritsuka's mind had obviously jumped to a direction that others could not catch up with. Fortunately, she quickly jumped back. "In short, we can't let the Emperor truly 'ascend to the throne'. Although the Chaldea Lighthouse is our current construction goal, it is ultimately just a transitional means, a preparation for a larger-scale plan. My task may be just to build it and ensure that it can be put into operation in a perfect state, but I must also consider what will happen after that at the level of the overall plan."

"I don't see how this has anything to do with our previous topic," said Sigismund.

"Because too many things are covered by the confidentiality agreement." Fujimaru Ritsuka covered his mouth and thought for a few seconds, then said, "I can't tell you our ultimate goal. At least at this stage, the Emperor forbids me to talk about this issue under any circumstances. However, in order to achieve this ultimate goal, I must first find a way to cut off the connection between the Emperor and the throne of the Fifth God. The current progress is initially effective, but it is far from enough."

Sigismund didn't know what the meaning behind her words was, but he realized one thing: at the beginning, Fujimaru Ritsuka just made a casual suggestion and didn't expect it to be actually implemented; but now, she has obviously begun to think deeply about this issue.