"Hand him over, priest, I know the investigator is in there." A man said.

He looked quite old, bald, wearing a piece of stitched leather armor and carrying a trench shotgun that he had gotten out of nowhere.

He was followed by the rest of the twenty men, which was already quite a small gang, and everyone had guns. They stood behind the bald man with serious expressions, and none of them crossed him or grabbed words after he had spoken, and strengthened him.

They all had shaved heads, wore the same stitched armor, and pitch-black platform boots. These boots are not a bargain in the nest, and many people are willing to sell what little they have for a good pair of shoes

Tujea slowly withdrew his gaze from the gap in the side door.

"I repeat, I need my gun." He said to Gore. "These people are clearly well-trained, and there must be someone behind the trained people who is providing financial support. This means that these people will never give up until they achieve their goal. ”

Moreover, they were obviously not the same as the fools who were chasing me just now, and Tujea silently added in his heart.

This time, however, Gore ignored him. The people of Chaodu stood up straight with a pale face and left the side door, their movements suddenly becoming stiff.

"What the hell did you do?" She looked at Tujea and asked incredulously. "You've been in Litatra for less than a day, and you've been able to provoke this bastard Graham? Do you know who he does things for? ”

"A certain nobleman?" Tujea guessed cautiously.

Gore gave him the answer with a dry smile.

That's great. Tujea sighed. What started as a simple investigative mission quickly developed into a horrific conspiracy by an aristocrat to murder an investigator in less than twenty hours.

No, maybe it wasn't necessarily murder, maybe it was just trying to take him away, torture him, and imprison him.

Whichever nobleman chooses, however, his or her actions are no different from treason. A person who has the guts to do such a thing is either a fool or a conspirator with the ability and ambition.

Tujea covered the wound in his abdomen and began to look outside the church through the gap in the side door again.

In the dim light of the streetlights, he saw some dark shadows that almost merged with the night. His heart sank at once—it was clear that the nobleman was the latter.

The twenty men brought with him by the name of Graham were only 'delegations' sent out to negotiate, and the real army was probably already firmly encircling the church.

But why?

Tujea frowned incomprehensibly.

The assignments he received from his superiors were merely routine patrols, and the investigators in charge of such missions were usually stationed on a planet to send back information on a regular basis.

Moreover, such positions will only be assigned to those important worlds that deserve to be treated as such. Not every planet that belongs to the Empire deserves this kind of attention.

In the ordinary world, many times, the Ministry of Justice doesn't even bother to pay attention to them, and it is quite 'lucky' to get one of these planets once in thirty years.

Why did a routine inspection come to this?

"But why?"

At this moment, the priest standing outside the door of the church asked the same question. He even slowly raised his hands to show that he had no ill intentions.

Graham sighed.

"Listen, pastor, put your hands down." He shook his head. "I don't want to make things difficult for you, this matter is an order from above."

"You can probably see these brothers behind me, we are all devout believers in the Emperor, and it is absolutely impossible for us to do anything to His ministers. But we have to eat after all, and the God Emperor has never given us a bite to eat. ”

"So, pastor, if you have to stop us, I'm afraid we'll have to do something irrational."

"You're going to trespass on the Emperor's church?" The priest asked, still calm, his hands still in the air.

"I'm afraid so." Graham said. "I don't want to do it either, but-"

He raised his gun, pointed it at the sky, and fired a shot. The flames erupted and the gunfire rang out, and they spread far into the night, but the night remained silent, and no other sound appeared.

"—if you have to make us do that, we will."

"He has nothing to do with you, does he? He was just a lackey of a bureaucratic old man who wanted to run away to Litatra to make a fortune. I didn't ask you to kill him, or to lie, cheat, or do anything else. ”

"In the same way, priest, I have not lied to you, nor have I killed in front of you, nor have I done anything to you. I will neither harm you nor ask you to violate any doctrine. So, why don't you hand him over to me? It's good for everyone. ”

Graham patiently reasoned and stood in a different position, the muzzle of the gun still pointed at the sky, but his expression had become serious.

"Actually, there is, and there are two doctrines." The priest replied slowly.

"Which two?"

"First, shelter the innocent." The pastor lowered his hand. "Second, it's Sunday, and you've been bothering me for a long time."

Graham frowned, suddenly smiled, and lowered the muzzle of the gun.

"Ah, I see." He said slowly. "You're clever, aren't you? The Emperor's Sunday was obviously yesterday, are you taking me for a fool? Also, you think that investigator is an innocent person? ”

"Yes." The pastor said.

He turned and walked towards the side door in front of them. Gore and Tujea hurriedly got out of the way and hid in the dark. With a creak, the side door was pushed open, the priest calmly walked back, and Graham's shouts were heard.

"I'll give you the last five minutes!" He seemed a little angry. "Do you hear me, Reverend? The last five minutes! ”

The priest gently closed the door.

He looked at Tujea.

"Mr. Investigator, are you proud of your work?"

Tujea was stunned for a moment, he had thought that this strange priest would ask something else, but he answered anyway, and he answered very seriously: "No." ”

"Do you like your job?" The pastor asked, walking back inside the church.

The candles flickered, and the statues of the emperor had their eyes closed and their faces tinged with compassion, looking sacred and calming in the candlelight. The pastor's footsteps echoed calmly and calmly, and he walked all the way back to the pulpit before Tujea answered.

"No, I don't like it either." Tujea replied cautiously.

"So, why do you keep doing this job?" The pastor asked again.

He then crouched down and began to hammer with his hands a stone slab under the pulpit.

His strength grew stronger and stronger, and the dull sound echoed throughout the church, striking between the statue of the Emperor, the banner of the Imperial Double-headed Eagle, and the long stone pillars, gradually turning into a distorted echo that sounded extremely strange.

Graham was still shouting outside.

"Why do you care, Pastor?" Tujea asked, he was a little confused about what the priest was doing.

"Because it's rare to see people like you." The priest replied, still intently tapping the stone slab, which was so hard that it was abnormally hard.

"Me? Who am I? ”

"First of all, you don't kill innocents indiscriminately."

"I've killed some."

"And they're not innocent, there's no blood on your hands, I can see it. At the same time, you are not greedy for money. Your clothes are cheap, and the most expensive fedora won't cost more than forty Imperial Coins. ”

"Do you like to eat cheap sweets, probably out of compensation for your childhood? And that's the highest level of compensation you can afford. ”

"The most expensive thing you have is the modified Katahan MK3 revolver provided by the Ministry of Justice, you take good care of it, but it's also very old. The most important thing is that you don't have any worries. ”

"Mr. Investigator, you don't really care about the standards of the Ministry of Justice, you do things according to your own principles. There is no need to refute, you and I both know that I am telling the truth. ”

The priest slowly stood up, holding a long, gray black box in his hand. He blew the dust away and placed it on the pulpit. With a soft click, he opened the box.

Tujea was silent for a while, and then glanced back at Gore, who was completely confused, before answering the priest.

"Who are you? My peers? ”

The pastor looked up, smiled, and said, "No, I don't do anything for the legal department. ”

He stepped out of the pulpit, with a black pamphlet and two shiny straight knives in his hand. As if by magic, the two knives silently disappeared into his cuffs, without a trace.

Tujea tensed his muscles, waiting for him to get closer, but was not struck by the attack. The priest simply shoved the black pamphlet into his hand and patted him on the shoulder.

"That's right, Mr. Investigator. I have been in Litatra for eleven years, and every day of those eleven years I have done only for the emperor. It is only at midnight that I do this special kind of worship and sermon. ”

"In eleven years, you are the second person to participate in this kind of sermon, Ms. Gore's father was the first, but he died in a street attack, and you"

The pastor narrowed his eyes, stretched out his hand, and slowly spread out the pamphlet. Tujea held it up and looked down, and a blood-dripping blade burst into his eyes.

"You have a lot of potential." The priest said calmly. "When you're fine, you can read this book. By the way, have you ever heard a saying, Mr. Investigator? ”

"You're trying to co-opt an investigator into the cult, Your Excellency." Tujea looked up at him. "Do you know how this kind of thing is described in law?"

"Avengers are everywhere, and it is difficult to find revenge." The pastor replied disapprovingly, and finished his words to himself.

Tujea looked at him solemnly.

"Who the hell are you?" He asked.

"You'll know." The pastor said.

He walked to the side door and exited the church through it. The door remained unclosed and unclosed.

Tujea watched him go, full of questions. Gore, a native of Chaodu, stood beside him in a daze, his face full of confusion, as if he was a low-level servant whose thinking circuit had gone wrong.

Tujea ignored her, he hesitated, he wanted to go back behind the hidden side door, to observe the outside world through the gap it had been left behind, but, for some reason, he didn't.

A chill from nowhere buried deep in his heart.

This chill is not fear, but it is far more than fear. It was it that kept Tujea from walking towards the side door, and it was it that made Gore's body slowly tremble.

The people of Chaodu slowly spoke: "I-"

— and she wasn't finished.

Outside the church, a terrible noise suddenly came. Gunshots, roars, and screams mingle together to form a noisy composition.

Tujea immediately threw down the booklet in his hand, and he was about to turn around and walk to the side door to check on the situation. But before he could turn his head, he heard a loud closing of the door.

Then there was the wind, the wind that was incomprehensibly cold.

It extinguished the burning candle and took away the heat of Tujea and Gore. It's so incomprehensible, like a supernatural being. Tujea, however, was not sure if it was or not. This time, his gifted nose didn't smell that peculiar stench.

But he did smell blood.

Very strong, very terrible smell of blood.

Tujea slowly looked up at the statue behind the pulpit. It's about six meters high, not very tall, but it's more than enough for the chapel, which has reached the stained glass that sits on the ceiling.

But it wasn't an emperor's statue, at least not yet. It is an eccentric figure wearing a hood and holding a sharp blade. Tujea couldn't see the ghost's face, but he could clearly see the huge amount of blood pouring out of the statue's eyes.

It looked down on him, shedding tears of blood.

Tujea trembled and clenched his fists, but suddenly saw the ghost's empty eyes

He saw a black shard, glittering between the blood that flowed sideways.

——

【31】

[Our plan has finally come to this point, old friend. I'm sorry it took me so long to do this. I don't know how long you've been enduring it in the dark, and I don't know how long you're going to have to endure it, I don't have an answer]

[But we will succeed, the gods do not need armor, only humans need it to protect themselves.] Can you hear me, Karil Lohals? Protect yourself in the dark. 】

[We'll find you.] 】

- The diary of a nameless person, used to preserve humanity.

31, Holy Terra is attacked by demons, and the Iron Warriors and Imperial Fist repel them. In the same year, the brilliance of the torch diminished again. ”

"This year has been called the Year of Calamity, not only because of the attack on Terra and the shaking of the light of the Torch, but also because of the dark rain of fire that burned through the sky and then disappeared without a trace."

- The Secret History of the Empire

(End of chapter)

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