Machado could hear the voice, the roar. He listened too clearly.

The voice was a scream from an ancient savage age, originating from one of the earliest murders in human history, between two men, a pair of brothers, sons of the same mother.

The killer's weapon was a spear, a rough wooden stick with a polished tip and a sharp flint. Savage, primitive, but it still has the power to kill.

The killer stabbed his brother in the chest with the spear, and between the splatters of blood and the bloody battle between the two, the first murder was born.

For tens of thousands of years since, it has reverberated in subspace.

It should have been unremarkable, because it was by no means the first killing in human history, and it had been there since the years before language was invented.

At first fists and teeth, then sticks and stones, primitive people wore animal skins and hunted animals with spears and stone axes, obtained food to fill their stomachs, and grew their tribes and multiplied.

So this wasn't the first killing, and it wasn't even the first killing with hatred, although the murderer did harbor hatred for his brother — so why was it so special?

Machado knew why, and even knew what a malevolent nature it had been given in subspace.

He stood calmly, his robe swaying, and one spiritual energy after another burst from his chest, reaching the ears of some in the bone-chilling cold.

He has temporarily become the cornerstone of Terra's vast bureaucratic system, the only cornerstone, he exists, so the machine can continue to operate at this moment. But he didn't care.

He was thinking, to be precise, reflecting.

He thought that he had been planning for too long for today, but it still didn't seem to be enough.

But why? What makes the palm printer have such an idea? You know, he and the Lord of Mankind have been thinking about it for decades.

Humans are a race that cannot adapt to the idea of immortality, and some people can live forever, but they will still see the world in a short-lived way. Machado happens to be one of them, and decades are not dust that can be dissipated at his fingertips for decades.

Every day he spends, he's preparing for today.

Agents across the galaxy can prove it, secret orders from Terra's court can prove it, Robert Killiman's anti-psyker forces can prove it, and countless things can prove it to him.

However, not enough.

Inadequate.

It's still not enough, it's just not enough.

You are never prepared enough to deal with them. In the end, it can only be piled up with sacrifices, and the blood of the same race is exchanged for a bright future for the entire race.

How many people on Terra will die and die after today?

The Palm Printer asked himself this question in the snowstorm, and he tried to get the answer, and he got it.

His gaze was scattered at this moment, and in just a moment, thousands of different perspectives and images burst into his mind at the same time.

He saw the inhabitants of the Nest, who knew nothing about the situation, looking up at the gloomy sky cut by metal and cables on the filthy streets where sewage flowed.

There was black snow falling from the sky and into a child's eye.

She was dressed in shabby clothes, wore a knitted hat that was not too thick, and rubbed her eyes. Her father stood aside, pushing her mother, who was in a wheelchair, and the rest of the panicked crowd listened to the sheriff's words.

The sheriff is a middle-aged man with a straight mustache who has undergone implant surgery and one eye has been replaced with a mechanical prosthetic eye. He was standing on two wooden planks, speaking to thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people with the help of a megaphone.

He didn't receive notice from Machado, neither did his superiors, and neither did his superiors, who weren't of the rank enough. But he remained calm and spoke in a very calm tone.

He told the people that there was nothing to care about about that pillar of light, that it was just one of the emperor's countless creations at work. The emperor wanted the winter to pass quickly, so he created the pillar of light with an instrument, and the wind and snow would soon stop

Machado could tell what he really thought, and the sheriff didn't really know what he was talking about, but was just doing his duty and keeping the law and order. The people were panicking, and he couldn't let the panic develop into something even more terrible, so he chose to lie.

He made up for it with well-intentioned lies that he didn't know was true or not.

There are millions more sheriffs like him, scattered across Terra, trying to maintain order at the grassroots level of the Empire. The number of people in panic is several times or even ten times as many as theirs.

The lowest bottom of the vast bureaucratic system possessed by the human empire is slowly crumbling.

Then Machado saw the pilgrims who were still prostrating themselves in the snowstorm.

They still worship the gods born from the books compiled by Lorja Aurelian, and recite their teachings. The largest of them were praying at the outskirts of the Terra Palace, forming a long line in the snow.

Temperatures of minus forty degrees Celsius and still decreasing were the first enemies they had to face, and these people found the heaviest clothing they could put on, but still couldn't withstand the cold.

The wind was like an icy blade, destroying their exposed bodies, and even their eyes seemed to be cut. They kept prostrating in the direction of the palace, where a blinding pillar of light reached into the sky.

Makado probed their thoughts, and he saw the truest thoughts of these ascetics, from the old man who was dying to the fanatical teenager in his teens, from top to bottom, all had only one thought.

If this is the test of the gods, then we prove our piety with death.

Our faith is pure, and we will be the first martyrs so that the wind and snow may stop

And this is still not the end, the palm seal closed his eyes tightly, and saw a group of running guards, the guards of the palace.

They were dressed in black armor, with power swords swinging around their waists, and they were pitch black from head to toe, except for the golden Aquila shining on their chests. They are known as the Lucifer Blackguards, and the Aquila is a testament to their identity and one of the outward proofs of their glory guarding the palace.

They ran wildly, gradually merging with the great army, and then the blackness did not move, as if it were merging into the ocean. Armor and robes mingled, warriors stood shoulder to shoulder, armored vehicles and hoverboats whizzed by.

They rushed between the thrones, witnessed their arrival through the wide doors that the Wardog Titans could easily pass through, and the noisy hall with the massive instruments installed.

Scientists and laborers are screaming, and the fog escaping from the tunnels has robbed them of their minds, and few can resist it. A twisted entity has escaped from it, and the tide has already descended before the throne, why is this happening?

Could it be that the advance force has been completely destroyed?

Machado continued to dig deeper, and finally saw the first warriors to enter the depths of the network, and the answer was quite the opposite, they were not completely annihilated, they were valiant, and they pushed forward thousands of meters in the labyrinthine network.

However, this is not enough to change the tide of the battle, they can go deeper, and they can leave behind a mess of bloody demon corpses, and the demons don't care about it, because they are everywhere.

The fog that escaped from a breach in one place had completely filled the entire network channel, and the latecomers had to pass through them before they could move forward, and the forwards had no way to retreat, only to move forward.

The muzzles of the Titan's cannons had turned red, and the minions of the Ten Thousand Machine God were constantly praying that the machine soul would calm down their anger and stop for the time being, but the roar of the machine soul shook the heavens and the earth.

The golden armor of the forbidden army was covered with foul-smelling blood, red tassels fluttering, shredded flesh was spread under their feet, and blood formed rivers beside them.

The Silent Nun slaughtered without saying a word, confronting her enemies with explosive bullets and blades in the oldest human way. In the eyes of the silent sisters, there is only the will to destroy, incomparable, indescribable.

The mechanical priests and their cathars chanted mechanical prayers aloud, holding the line one after the other. Their unique creations interpret the beauty of machines and the followers of the Om Messiah in the slaughter that far exceeds human power.

They did this to the fullest, and even a fighter servant could shine with his own brilliance at a moment.

At least for this moment, they were the wrath of the Ten Thousand Machine Gods, not a single 01 number, a cluster, a cluster that fought only to kill. And their comrades-in-arms are the same, at this moment, there is no difference between the forbidden army and the servant.

They kill, they die, and they go after the other, without complaint.

Machado's thoughts began to go deeper and deeper, until he reached some kind of limit, not his limit, but the limit of what the network could allow to snoop, and then he finally saw it.

Even though it was only a brief glimpse, an insignificant moment, he saw it. Just behind the veil, they were gazing at the place.

"The Burning Galaxy?"

Between the blood-drenched feathers, a malicious eye looked at him.

"Do you really think we're going to care about this? No, that's not the point, even if 10,000 worlds burn at the same time, we don't care. Conquest is not the point, the point is here. ”

He chuckled.

"That's the point, Macardo." He said gently. "Our purpose has always been the same, and now that you know it, how do you feel?"

Through the thin curtain, the Palm Printmaker looked directly into the eye, and he didn't say anything, the only answer he could give was a contemptuous smile slowly curled up at the corners of his mouth.

Piercing laughter, low growls, quiet sighs, and indistinguishable, interested hums came from the darkness.

They were watching him, the gods were gazing at him, and the human Machado scoffed at it.

God?

There is no God in this world.

The Palm Sealer stirred the thin curtain with psionic energy, forcing it to be reminded of its duty. The eyes of the gods were forced away, but Machado remained.

It was a small victory, like every demon that had been slain before, a small victory for humanity. Makado didn't waste it, he seized the opportunity tightly, and the psionic energy shattered the thick fog like lightning.

This time, they didn't close immediately. The lightning bolt carried his mind into the depths of the net, in front of the one and only sun.

"Your Majesty!"

Machado's voice rang in the ears of the Lord of Humanity, not psionic communication, but the voice of the authentic one that belonged to the old man of the Palm Seal.

Decades of exhaustion, exhaustive calculations, ambitions, schemes, the past, tens of thousands of meetings for the end moment, deductions, countless unfinished chess games

At this moment, just this moment, they flashed in front of the palm print.

The last thing that came was a picture.

The Emperor—His Majesty—was stabbed in the chest with a spear in the chest, and came out of his back.

His gold armor seemed useless, molten metal dripping around the wound, as if the armor itself was bleeding.

The man who had done this had the same swarthy face as the Lord of Humanity, and his beard was dishevelled and almost obscured the lower half of his face, but that didn't stop him from smiling horribly and sickly.

His body was covered with ornaments made of all kinds of bones, and his eyes sparkled, reflecting the emperor's face, which was distorted by pain.

And Machado knew that he was not human. This thing that looks like a primitive tribal barbarian is not a man, it is a demon, and it is also a scream.

It has been tempered in the eternal storm of chaos in subspace—a storm in which time is meaningless, and in fact, nothing is meaningful in a storm of pain and malice.

Strip away its own meaning, remove its own name.

Draknion.

You don't have to know what the name means, how to interpret it, that's something that later generations of scholars need to worry about.

You don't have to care what it looks like, because even if it looks exactly like the barbarian who murdered its brother, it's not what it really is.

You just need to know that Dracnion is the enemy of humanity, the enemy of the Emperor, the end and destruction of the Empire.

The Lord of Humanity can do almost anything, he can unify Terra, bring humanity back to the galaxy, and become the only king on earth - but he can't stand against Dracenion.

How ridiculous, how ridiculous, but neither he nor Machado panicked.

The emperor was even smiling.

"Now is it, my friend." He said to Machado, his eyes shining brightly. "Call him back."

The Palm Seal carried out the orders of His Majesty, his sovereign. Loyal, swift, as always. The psionic energy used him as a starting point to rush all over Terra, and at this moment, countless people who had been prepared for it uttered a prayer with their common determination.

It's not a language, and it's hard to even tell how to pronounce it. Some roared and roared, others chanted it softly, some smiled, some cried, some broke down, and some were steadfast.

The wind and snow stopped, the thunder rang out, and black flames surged into the tunnels, and Karil Lohals emerged from the dark flames and grasped the spear.

There is also a chapter pinch, ten thousand today.

(End of chapter)