"You seem to be playing tricks on us, dear Lord Alpha."

A low call from the darkness opened Hydra's pupils: for he knew that the one who spoke was Conrad, who lived in his bunk.

Conrad was not a good person to talk to in every sense of the word, he always liked to mix high-sounding discussions with hidden temptations, and even Alfaris had to be careful in the exchange of words with him.

"What do you mean by that, Lord Conrad?"

Hydra kept the flatness and confusion in his tone as much as possible, and then, he heard the subtle turning sound from the lower bunk very clearly: it turned out that the presence of a genetic protoplasm less than two meters away from him in a straight line could indeed sharpen anyone's senses like never before.

"How long has it been since we joined Johnson and their fleet, then separated, and then headed south alone under your guidance?"

"Fourteen Terra standard days based on the time on this ship."

Alfaris gave a precise answer, turning his head to look at the alarm clock placed at the head of his bed, which pointed to the number [X.I.].

Eleven o'clock in the evening is indeed a time for mortals to rest, but to Hydra's surprise, on this [Dawning Goddess], Morgan's heirs also seem to abide by the same routine as mortals: just after eleven o'clock, the entire battleship has fallen into a deep silence, except for the slight footsteps of the night guards, and the constant arguments and cacophony in the distant strategic meetings, even Conrad is no exception.

It's funny.

Hydra's pupils flickered.

Alpharis boasted that he had traveled to many legions, including legions like Ultramarines or Salamanders, but even they weren't close enough to keep a routine similar to that of mortals.

Equally close to the people, in the heirs of Killiman and Vulcan, Alpharis could easily feel the kindness that came from the disparity in power, but among this group of dawnbreakers, the people had another explanation: it was the habit of Astarte to be no different from mortals, it was the pride, fearlessness and confidence of the mortal servants who only regarded these imperial warriors as their own larger kind.

Thinking of this, Alfaris couldn't help blinking, he somewhat understood why those subordinates who [died before they were born] always emphasized the closeness of the Daybreaker in their espionage: this is indeed an extremely conspicuous feature of the Second Legion, and in Alfaris's eyes, this feature undoubtedly contains some hidden ambition of Morgan.

Hydra had never believed that his Ava blood relative would be as soft and even weak as the rumors: those who believed in such rumors would surely suffer greatly in front of Morgan.

Hydra had a lot of thoughts, and in his lower bunk, Conrad's questions were going on in an orderly manner.

"yes, like you said. It's been fourteen days, and we're almost touching the edge of this dead star, and we're leaving the war zone any further: but we're still not at the destination you're talking about, are we? ”

"Won't you give me an explanation?"

“……”

Hearing this, Hydra was silent for a moment, it didn't seem to be a question he could perfunctory.

"Did Lord Morgan ask you to ask?"

As soon as Alfaris's words came out, they drew Conrad's contemptuous laughter in the dark.

"How much do you look down on me: I'm a genetic proto, and the long voyages and whispers in the corridors are my sources of information: if you want to deceive me about this, give it a try."

“…… Can't. ”

"I don't dare."

Conrad snorted, and both of them fell silent until a moment later Midnight Ghost seemingly casually brought up another topic.

"That's right, Alpha. Some people have mentioned to me that you seem to be particularly fond of going to the working quarters and even the living quarters of the mortal assistants on ships: do you have any more interest in those mortals? ”

“…… Mortal auxiliaries? ”

"In your legions, they should be called mortal servants, but the Daybreakers will call any mortal who works for them a mortal auxiliary, and so will the auxiliaries, and so will the navy, and even the councillors who have signed the papers on Avalon: they are the same."

Alpharis was silent for a moment, and he took a moment to think about Conrad's purpose in opening the topic: he didn't believe that the Midnight Ghost was really hearsay, after all, he had been feeling the shadow falling behind him all the time during the past few days of action.

Conrad kept an eye on him: needless to say, who was behind it.

A spider queen's desire to control everything under her command was almost pathological: Hydra had come to this conclusion after temporarily losing thirty of her subordinates and five times as many mortal spies.

These elites who once served in the Hydra Legion now live in solitude at the offices of the Dawnbreaker Legion in Holy Terra or at patrol posts on the northern border of the Avalonian Federation.

If it weren't for the fact that every nail he planted couldn't escape Morgan's never-ending soul search day after day, Alfaris wouldn't have to be as passive as he is now, he couldn't find a single place to stay on Morgan's battleship, and he had only experienced such a sense of helplessness in the Dark Angel and the Space Wolf.

"To answer my question, fellow of the Twentieth Legion, how did you grind and chirp?"

Conrad in the shadows seemed to be getting a little impatient, and he was even kicking the bed, and as long as his left leg was extended, he could kick Alfaris sleeping on the top bunk to stagger.

“……”

Hydra had to pause his thinking and choose the safest way to answer that people couldn't pick out the mistakes.

"I'm just curious about how the Legion of the Dawnbreaker gets along with mortals, after all, the Second Legion is almost the most accessible of the Astartes in rumors."

"It doesn't have anything to do with you as an ordinary soldier, does it?"

"But I have a right to be curious, don't I?"

After a question and answer, the two roommates in the upper and lower bunks were silent for a moment, and then let out a tacit embarrassed laugh.

"You're right: you can be curious, ordinary soldier."

In the last four words, Midnight Ghost deliberately embellished it with the heaviest tones, almost showing his suspicions and speculations, but Alfaris was not confused by this: he knew very well that as long as he revealed his true identity, almost every one of his brothers would recognize him, they were the emperor's heirs, and they had the same genetic mod in their blood.

Oh, except for Johnson: before he could recognize Alpharis, he was distracted by the word "marshal" thrown by Hydra.

"So, after so many days of observation, what have you observed?"

Midnight Ghost then asked, rolling over his bed, changing sleeping positions: Conrad wasn't an honest sleeper, and at the same time, he was a light sleeper, and the combination of the two made being in the same bunk with him a very torturous torture.

Alpharis had to endure the occasional shaking sensation from the lower bunk, and he himself had to be cautious, because the slightest movement would wake Conrad suddenly: after a few days, Hydra discovered that it was much more difficult to be a roommate with Conrad than it was to spy on the Aurora.

It's torture.

Alpharis sighed, and he simply removed the cautious disguise from his body, and answered the Midnight Wraith's question in a flat and objective tone.

"I've found that the relationship between the Dawnbreaker Legion and mortals is too stable."

“……”

"What's so bad about stability?"

Conrad could hear the disagreement in Alfaris's tone.

"There's nothing wrong with stability in itself, in fact, the relationship between the Daybreaker and mortals is the best solution I've ever seen, between Astarte and mortals: the extreme warriors' affinity is too ritualistic, and the salamander's affinity, although very real, never seems to have any foresight in mind."

"But the Daybreakers are different, they have bound themselves to the mortals of Avalon through their pervasive proximity to the people, and in the eyes of these mortal auxiliaries serving the Second Legion, the warriors of the Daybreakers are just one size larger than their kind, not another species completely different from them."

"This deep trust has given them the power, the means, and the credibility to build a new order with the primordial and Astarte at its core, with mortals as its wings: and it will undoubtedly be stable enough, mature enough, and hopeful enough."

"Enough ......"

"Replace the temporary system in force in the Great Expedition and become the new ruling system of the Human Empire, which can even continue for a long time, countless generations later, until mortals become accustomed to it."

"Because under this system, Astarte can coexist with mortals: Astarte warriors will be powerful superiors, with enough energy, ability, skill, and moral character to maintain a good social structure, and as long as they do not degenerate, this structure can continue for a long time, and Astarte will undoubtedly be the absolute core of this structure, and mortals will only be their dependents and ruled, and they will be the kind of willingly ruled."

“…… Isn't that good? ”

Conrad's quiet listener, who admits that Alpha is painting a future that makes him feel more and more incomprehensible, why should Alpha worry about the future of the system?

"In itself, of course, this system is very good, and in view of the increasing prosperity of the Far Eastern Frontier and the five hundred worlds, this system is even very feasible: but it is because it is so good, so feasible, that certain beings will never allow this system to be truly established, or even extended to the entire empire."

"Some existential ......"

"You mean the war council of mortals?"

"No"

Alpharis closed his eyes.

"It's a higher, bigger, higher, more powerful being."

“……”

“……”

"What do you mean ......"

"Machado?"

“……”

……

"Yes."

"It's Machado."

“……”

Conrad was silent for a moment.

"You're not lying to me, are you?"

“……”

"Of course: I'm Alpha."

Hydra crossed his fingers as he watched the clock slowly past twelve, and finally decided to do as the locals did, trying to sleep on the giant ship that had disturbed him: after all, he did need a rest now.

But just as Alfaris felt a heavy sleepiness for the first time in a long time, he suddenly felt the bed begin to shake: it was Clad who was getting up to leave, and he was muttering about his room, making a loud noise that woke Alfaris, and with the Midnight Ghost turning on the switch on the side at the same time, the blinding light also shot into the pupils of the Hydra in an instant.

“……”

Alfaris's eyes narrowed: the feeling of being dragged out of his half-asleep mind made Hydra very unhappy, and he looked in the direction of the light, only to see what Conrad was looking for in the corner of the room.

"What are you doing?"

Alfaris asked in a deep voice, forgetting to add a humble tone.

"I can't sleep a bit, so I'm looking for something to help me sleep."

"What is it?"

"Music."

“……”

"By the way, Alpha, I forgot to mention it before: I actually have a habit of grinding my teeth from time to time in my sleep, I wonder how this affects you?"

“…… No. ”

That's good.

Midnight Wraith let out a string of low laughs that made Hydra feel a little uneasy.

Then he saw the Midnight Wraith rummaging through the pile of debris, for a few moments, until Hydra heard a loud exclamation: it turned out to be Conrad pulling out a pair of shiny Seiko power claws from a pile of strangely shaped sculptural objects.

"It's a weapon I built myself."

Midnight Ghost flaunted triumphantly.

"Well, that's great."

"I call them honing and fangs: they symbolize two very important parts of my philosophy of life, and I rarely feel lost when I see these two names."

"That's pretty good."

Alpharis replied casually, he was now all he wanted to sleep.

But the moment he rolled over, Hydra suddenly realized something.

Hone...... Bucktooth...... Seiko Power Claw ......

……

Wait a minute.

Did Conrad just say that he likes to grind his teeth?

Before the thought could dissipate, an extremely piercing sound, like the claws of an eagle slowly slashing through a glass bottle, echoed in Hydra's ears for a long time.

And with that, Conrad's incomparably familiar murmur.

"This voice helps to decompress, my dear Brother Alpha."

“……”

——————

Alfaris felt that he really needed to speed things up.

——————

【……】

You're doing better than I thought you would, Conrad. 】

"Thanks for the compliment, sister."

[Dan...... I'm still a little curious: how the hell did you hang our Alfaris brothers...... Passionate about work? 】

"Perhaps, it's just some genuine brotherhood."

【……】

"Let's just think so. 】

Morgan shifted her gaze, more concerned about the lifeless planet in front of them than the answer Conrad had uttered, as if the secrets of all things were hidden in it.

On the sixteenth Terra Standard Day after separating from Johnson and Riemanruth, the Daybreaker's fleet, under the leadership of Alfaris, finally reached the borderland of the Dead Stars, just a stone's throw from the Empire's theoretical northern border, where a hidden nameless galaxy was the final destination.

The system is not large, and there are no civilizations or defenders on it, and the fleet of Daybreakers easily controls every world in the system, even every asteroid ring, and finally finds their target in a gray-white world.

In fact, as early as the moment she entered this galaxy, Morgan had already realized that this world was her goal, and for no other reason: if the rest of the Dead Stars was just a dark deep sea for the Navigator and the Think Tank, then this nameless galaxy was a huge iceberg that could freeze any psyker in its entirety.

And this gray-white star, which is the heart of the iceberg, is the birthplace of all icy aura, and the mere proximity to its low earth orbit has caused most of the Legion's think tanks and even the Navigator to fall into a temporary freeze: their third eye cannot be opened, their souls have become extremely weakened, and they have fallen into a kind of feigned death that is almost vegetative, and their reaction to the outside world is so slow that people have to worry about whether they are still alive.

Even the Dawnbreaker Legion's Chief Think Tank, Zosimus, and the Chief Navigator Cassia were also knocked down, and along with them, there were an unimaginable number of mortal supporters, as well as the Dawnbreakers, who accounted for half of the Legion's numbers.

As the only great psyker in the fleet who can still maintain regular activities and even use spells, Morgan knows the strangeness of this nameless world more clearly than everyone else.

If subspace is a turbulent sea with hidden murderous motives, then the place where they are now is a place that can be called the "pole": from the perspective of subspace, there is no ocean here, only one frozen ice floe after another, and those murderous monsters that were once active in the depths of the sea of souls seem to be reduced to a living dead thing frozen in it.

But that's not all: after all the navigators and think tanks were placed, the Daybreakers unleashed a large number of reconnaissance drones on the surface, and the thousands of photos that came back made the senior officers of the staff feel a kind of almost ridiculous jealousy.

This pale world is not without traces of civilization, or rather, this world once had a highly developed civilization, and although the high-rise buildings and noisy nests have been turned into ancient ruins scattered in all directions, it can still be seen that the prosperity of the past can still be seen.

However, none of these buildings seem to be a human art style, but more like some kind of alien civilization that has not yet been known.

The ground of the entire planet is relatively flat, and in the center of the only continent, there is a huge mountain range that is extremely unorthodox, and the source of those strange auras in subspace is also emanating from this mountain range: reconnaissance. The man-machine filmed every inch of the mountain range without any dead ends. But only the bare skin was photographed, countless caves that seemed to be hidden entrances, and ......

Scattered all over the mountains, the image is particularly distorted: sculpture.

The sculptures were so numerous, vivid and lifelike, but they were all extremely distorted, terrifying, and terrifying, as if they had been shaped to create terrible monsters that no human could ever have: no one among the Dawnbreaker warriors who could still remain awake could recognize what they were carved with.

But Morgan recognized.

[Demons.] 】

The first second she got the picture, the Spider Queen whispered the word, which made Conrad, who was standing on the sidelines, tilt his head and start asking her in a low voice.

"Demons?"

[Yes, demons, the same ones I told you about are the fallen creatures that live in the subspace: in fact, there are not only them, but there are countless other subspace creatures in these pictures, at the very least, I can recognize the enslavers and the dimensional beast named Kemore, and there are quite a few of them.] 】

Conrad blinked.

"What is our brother doing all this: is he caught up in the fanatical adoration of Roga and Magnus, longing to find some spiritual sustenance in subspace?"

Conrad laughed sarcastically, but this time, Morgan didn't laugh with him, her face was extremely serious.

[That guy wouldn't do such a pointless thing: obviously.] This should have been a base for his experiments, and from a location point of view, it should have been the first base he had set up since he fled here, and he should have done some research here, which eventually led to the emergence of the Dead Stars. 】

"Do you mean that the near-frozen subspace in front of us, and the annihilated alien civilization, is his masterpiece: and he's no longer here?"

[Not here, of course, but that doesn't mean we can't find some clues from his research site to deduce what exactly he has prepared to deal with us: I think we need to prepare for a small airborne landing.] 】

"Small-scale?"

"In the face of positional danger like this, it would be safer to press the entire legion up, right?"

[Quite the opposite.] 】

Morgan shook his head.

[Because the subspace activity of this galaxy has almost come to a standstill, all the think tanks under my command have fallen, and a considerable number of the remaining warriors have fallen into a state of depression and depression, unable to exert their combat effectiveness at all, only those Terra veterans are still worth looking forward to. 】

[But I also have to leave behind a large number of Terra veterans to disperse among the fleets, so that when I leave, the fleets will not be crushed by a surprise attack: Besides. Since all three of us will go down to explore, the combat power will simply overflow, and carrying too many people will be a drag. 】

“……”

"Makes sense: who are you going to bring?"

[Bayar is at the head: his second company will be enough.] 】

"Aren't you worried that your chief guard will be upset by this?"

[I need Lana to take care of the overall situation, and the role he can play by staying on it is undoubtedly greater than that of Bayar, and don't underestimate my Praetorian Guard, he will understand what I mean. 】

"I've never underestimated him."

Conrad answered, and left Morgan's throne, he needed to catch the Alpha wandering the battleship, and the genogen would be needed for the next airdrop operation.

And after the Midnight Ghost left, Morgan didn't immediately prepare, she just picked up the photos, looked at them and looked at them, and an indescribable sense of crisis continued to accumulate in her heart: in the end, the Spider Queen still made up her mind, she must know the situation on the ground in advance before the airdrop began.

After painfully consuming a batch of alien souls that were extremely precious to Morgan, the Spider Queen succeeded in making an infallible psionic probe appear in the subspace, piercing through the cold and dead silence that had struck down countless psionics in front of her, and then slammed all the way to the pale planet beneath her feet.

The process went smoothly, and the speed of the detection was very fast: when Conrad and Alpharis returned to the throne room, they found Morgan still sitting on the throne, and her face seemed to become even more ugly.

The two genogens looked at each other, and finally it was Midnight Ghost who stepped forward.

"What's wrong?"

【……】

Morgan didn't reply immediately, she lowered her head, letting her long hair hide the thoughts in her turquoise pupils, and it wasn't until a long silence that her hoarse voice reached the ears of the two primitives.

[I just checked the surface: very cursory. 】

[There are two new pieces of information that I hope you will pay attention to. 】

The primitives looked at each other again.

"What are they?"

Alpharis asked.

[First, I feel the breath of the gods on the surface of this planet. 】

“…… Which deity? ”

【……】

[None of them.] 】

[Four, neither.] 】

“……”

“……”

"That'...... And what about the second? ”

【Second ......】

[Those sculptures, they are not sculptures at all. 】

They are demons: a group of demons who are still alive. 】

“……”

"Which god's demon?"

【……】

[None of them.] 】

[Four, neither.] 】

(End of chapter)