novelraw Chapter 207: Bishop Barov
Chapter 207: Bishop Barov
The battlements of the Departmento Justitiae were dim and frigid. The fortress, constructed entirely from massive blocks of black granite, featured regular crenellations spread along the edge of the battlements like shadowy, incredibly dull teeth.
Surrounding it was a gloomy, decaying city that spread all the way to the grey-brown, barren plains in the far distance.
Perhaps this had once been a beautiful place, but ever since its abundant mineral resources were discovered, the entire world had been brought entirely to the brink of death.
From another perspective, however, the fortress itself truly possessed a terrifying imposing presence.
Within its steep, massive walls, heavy observation towers and gun emplacements guarded the colossal gatehouse foundations—guards standing watch day and night could be seen absolutely everywhere.
Soshyan stood entirely upon the battlements. His enhanced vision allowed him to catch a glimpse of the faintly flickering new dawn explicitly shimmering over the distant ocean on the horizon.
Massive platforms hovered securely above the sea's surface, looking in this moment like the thinnest of utterly silver threads.
Scattered lights flickered faintly throughout the Hive City, while the bone-chillingly cold wind howled fiercely as it swept across the battlements. He, however, barely even noticed the bitterly freezing air.
"Chapter Master, they found it!"
Armin shouted entirely against the roaring gale. Fully armed and armored, he was currently walking toward Sol, standing a full head taller than the raised merlons of the battlements."They found exactly what you were looking for."
He held a data-slate and a physical map directly in his hands.
"Excellent."
Soshyan took the data-slate first, scrutinizing it briefly—it officially recorded the complete life history of a certain individual.
Then he took the map. This was the map the Departmento Justitiae had found completely within the home of that Adeptus Mechanicus tech-priest, which might perhaps prove useful for their subsequent operations.
"We move out immediately. Is everyone fully prepared?"
"Ready to depart at any given moment."
Soshyan noticed scuff marks still remaining on Armin's armor. As the recruits' augmentation surgeries gradually approached their final stages, these former recruits were steadily intensifying their training regimens. Soshyan had thoroughly noticed this; they were trying to set a perfect example for the Chapter's completely fresh blood.
Every single Squad Leader was working incredibly hard to physically lead their subordinates in training, rigorously dedicating themselves day and night.
"Chapter Master, I feel this place is extremely strange. Do you genuinely know where the exact problem lies?"
Armin asked suddenly.
"I know exactly where we should start."
Soshyan responded with a slight smile:
"The Genestealers hid themselves incredibly well. They actually could have easily remained hidden indefinitely, yet they actively chose to thoroughly expose themselves. Although the Departmento Justitiae genuinely encountered obstruction, from my perspective, those obstructions seemed far more explicitly deliberate. That is the critical key point."
"The critical key point?"
Soshyan nodded, beginning to attempt to fully explain his train of thought to the warrior.
"We also definitively learned that the Genestealers ransacked the local Ecclesiarchy churches, stealing all the holy relics. They had persistently been smuggling holy relics for a very long time, even long before the Departmento Justitiae ever noticed entirely. This is an incredibly easy detail to explicitly overlook."
Soshyan paused completely for a moment.
"Furthermore... the area where the Arbitrator encountered the xenos was explicitly a mining sector that is still in fully active use. They absolutely could have hidden their stronghold in literally any other place, or perhaps an already abandoned mining sector—the entire planet is completely filled with places to hide. With merely their currently available manpower, it would be as difficult as incredibly ascending to the heavens for the Departmento Justitiae to actually find them. Yet they explicitly chose the most highly conspicuous location. Why is that?"
"Our enemies are xenos."
Armin responded briskly:
"They do not firmly require logic."
"But asking one more 'why' is absolutely never a bad idea."
Soshyan explicitly spread his arms, gesturing widely to absolutely everything around him.
"Do you still not completely understand? They explicitly want us to continually arrive, or rather, they wanted the Astartes to arrive?"
"Wanted us to arrive?"
Armin nodded, an expression of completely sudden realization fully dawning on his face.
Of course, whether he truly entirely understood or not was something only he strictly knew.
"They couldn't possibly not know exactly what we profoundly represent. But if they were truly willing to risk such massive, absolute danger just to actively explicitly draw us here, it firmly means there might be something even more utterly terrifying natively upon this world than us."
Soshyan raised the data-slate, which explicitly bore the completely marked name of a single individual.
"...The Raven Lord. I firmly believe a Bishop explicitly born in Mining Sector 14 absolutely, definitely knows a thing or two."
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Arch-Bishop Barov's office explicitly was a massive whirlwind of frantic activity. The liaison officer from the local Planetary Defense Force had thoroughly securely entrenched himself firmly in the side-hall, currently explicitly roaring absolute commands straight through his vox-caster, actively mobilizing forces from absolutely everywhere to violently quell the riots.
The three explicitly primary officials of the local Departmento Munitorum were completely utterly surrounded perfectly by massive cogitator-printers and towering stacks of requisition forms. Entirely huge crowds of utterly low-ranking bureaucrats scurried completely frantically between them, working incredibly exhaustingly to immediately solidly establish dedicated supply lines strictly for the suppression troops constantly newly arriving within the Hive City.
Meanwhile, strictly in front of the entirely massive cogitator array, explicitly the thoroughly dedicated representatives perfectly of the incredibly Adeptus Mechanicus continuously strictly transmitted an absolutely endless completely unbroken stream explicitly comprising entirely rapid ticking bleeps explicitly of binary code. However, absolutely precisely no one natively present knew exactly completely who firmly they explicitly were currently communicating directly entirely with.
Representatives from the various guilds paced frantically in the corridors and ante-chambers, desperately trying to find anyone to ask exactly what was going on.
Due to the highly unique political environment of Saphonius, in such a dire emergency, the only person genuinely capable of stepping out to properly take charge surprisingly turned out to be an actual representative of the Ecclesiarchy.
However, given the planet's unique local political structure, it did indeed seem that the Ecclesiarchy was the only entity fully capable of effectively coordinating all the various factions.
In his fundamental nature, Barov was an incredibly slow-witted, utterly cowardly individual—forcing him to handle a crisis of this magnitude was truly demanding far too much of him.
However, Saphonius was a highly critical mining world; no matter the exact cost, they had to firmly withstand this tide of utter turmoil.
Barov was the only person with the prestige and authority to effectively take over the entire planet. He had to organize the military defense forces, preparing to wage a desperate struggle against the massive numbers of enemies lurking strictly around them the exact moment the crisis truly erupted.
Yet personally, for a very long time, his only work had simply consisted of constantly preaching to his subordinates precisely about how the true reason the Ecclesiarchy held both temporal and spiritual authority lay entirely in its absolute ability to strictly uphold the unwavering faith of the Imperial citizens.
Now, the exact moment to truly test him had finally arrived—Saphonius explicitly needed faith now far more inherently than exactly at distinctly any definitively other purely strictly specific period. Saphonius needed faith now more than ever before, and the world profoundly needed the Arch-Bishop to step forward and turn the tide.
This was a war for the faith of Saphonius, rather than merely a simple riot.
But personally, he had absolutely no confidence in this at all.
The Ecclesiarchy's grand cathedral occupied several levels of the upper Hive City in Minas, which was also fundamentally the capital of Saphonius, where the headquarters of most mining guilds were established.
Barov's personal residence took up an entire floor of the cathedral; this was his own little kingdom, where only his favored advisors and explicitly invited representatives could step foot.
The rest was divided into several sections, respectively used to receive powerful dignitaries and private guests, along with numerous chapels serving the faith needs of the Hive City's upper class.
He had just finished meeting with the guild masters, who had contributed their personal guards and bodyguards, deploying them around the Hive City's exterior to reinforce the defensive perimeter.
Barov was extremely grateful for this and felt considerably more at ease, as after all, in this world, the guild masters were the ones holding true power.
Several military officers had also attempted to meddle in his small court to coordinate the deployment and garrison actions of the defense forces in the planet's hotspots. They expressed dissatisfaction and concern over Barov allowing private armed forces into the defense zone, but all of these doubts were firmly dismissed by the Arch-Bishop.
More importantly, just half a day ago, the Angels of the Emperor had descended.
The Astral Knights, under the leadership of their Chapter Master, had come to Saphonius to resolve the local issues—Barov had never believed there were any Genestealers anyway; it was all just the Departmento Justitiae's imagination, which was precisely why his relationship with the Departmento Justitiae was exceedingly poor.
Saphonius was obviously a peaceful world, so how could it possibly be completely crawling with xenos?
Absolutely impossible!
At this moment, the crisis genuinely seemed incredibly far away from them.