"Are you suggesting that the Emperor's brilliance is being coerced by something else?"

Perhaps this is an intolerable accusation for any loyalist Space Marine. Even if it was a girl who had been certified as an "important person" by the director of the Ultramarines' think tank, the think tank present couldn't help but ask questions. Killman, who was also in the room, stopped his inappropriate emotional output, but the original said, "You should explain this in detail." ”

"First of all, I'm not 'hinting' that what I'm saying is the truth – at least, I and the Emperor think it's the truth." Fujimaru Rika said calmly, "Secondly, the things that enveloped him are there, and as long as he lives in the empire, he will more or less be able to touch them." ”

The girl gestured to the old and worn book that had been put back in the box by the think tank, the faded Gothic letters on the cover that looked like jagged fangs.

"The Emperor's Sacred Words." Killiman understood the implications, but his inherent thinking made him inclined to seek a tangible source for the whole thing, "You mean, the state religion? But it's not logical—"

"Faith, to be exact." Prophet Natas nodded, "That makes sense. ”

"Explain, what's 'that makes sense'?" Even though he hid it well, the Imperial Regent did start to feel a little irritated when faced with too many topics that weren't precise enough.

"Faith is perhaps the most powerful force in the universe." The Prophet said, "It can even shape a god and be the bread of the gods." Not all gods need faith to survive, just like the Star God and the four overly powerful Chaos Gods, but even those who are strong enough to sustain themselves often do not reject the power that will increase them. For some lesser, lesser gods, faith is important. Without worship, they would collapse into formlessness, into a vortex of unconscious emotions. If they become unstable, they will die.

"And other gods, who were originally mortal beings like ordinary people, have become the source of faith for many more because of some circumstances. Faith gradually arises from faith, and faith is brought together to become a human being, depending on them, elevating them, changing them—if the total amount of faith is large enough, it will eventually make a mortal become a god. ”

Prophet Natas gave a slightly mean-spirited smile in the direction of Rika Fujimaru: "I think the faith formed by the trillions of mortals of the entire empire, I think it should be enough. ”

The girl in the wheelchair ignored the other person's provocation and began to use another, more colloquial expression to explain: "Remember Greenskin's psychic field?" As long as many greenskins feel that a car can drive fast, then even if the car itself is difficult to start, it can drive fast if there are enough greenskins nearby. It's much like this that happened to the emperor. ”

This obviously somewhat shocking analogy made everyone present look a little resistant, but Fujimaru Rika was completely unimpressed: "To explain it in a more 'logical' way, that is, 'humans also have the potential to become a psionic race'. This has been proven by the very existence of psionics, as well as by the fact that the number of psionics proliferated after the Great Rift unfolded. Although the vast majority of people have little psionic talent, as the Prophet Natas said, when the number of people who 'believe that the emperor is a god' expands to the scale of 'all mankind', the emperor's own will becomes less important. ”

Here the prophet Natas interjected: "So your master is also a god. ”

"I didn't say that. He did get very close to God because of this, but not yet. Fujimaru Rika retorted, "The matter of ascending to the gods has a special meaning in the occult, not that it can cause changes caused by qualitative changes through simple quantitative changes, but also requires corresponding rituals - I will make it clear, don't force me to remind you what happened to the spirit clan when he ascended to the gods." ”

The unrefutable Prophet of Natas reluctantly shut her mouth, allowing Rika Fujimaru to continue her statement: "The one currently trapped on the throne, well, putting aside the Emperor's own mental problems, the vast majority of his thread is occupied by intractable pain and prayers, and not always has the spare time to interfere with reality. And when too many prayers are gathered in a person, even if they do not directly create a god, they can more than enough to distort the way a person exists. I've seen a lot of examples of this.

"After removing the pretending to be a ghost, some of the so-called 'Emperor miracles' may indeed be of his own will, but some have nothing to do with his own will, but are just natural phenomena caused by the pious prayers of the locals forming ripples in the subspace, triggering some of the Emperor's similar 'auto-reply' mechanism - I borrowed the Emperor's psionic sorcery in my daily life, which is the use of the latter's principle. If it weren't for Pameño's special situation, he himself had already been left before I arrived, and I wouldn't have even tried to contact him, because even I wouldn't have been able to determine 'which one he was'. ”

After that, there was a brief silence in the room. Subsequently, Killiman, who had done everything he could, reconfirmed: "You mean that some of the emperor's thoughts and actions were perhaps not his own, but were influenced by the beliefs that pointed to him?" ”

"That's pretty much the case." Rika Fujimaru confirmed, "I do have some attempts to solve this problem. I'm sure it will have some effect, but it's hard to say what will turn out in the end. ”

"What did you do?" Somewhat surprisingly, it was not Kiliman who asked the question, but the Prophet Natas, who had suddenly become vigilant.

"It's nothing, it's just the occasional unknown way to save a planet or two." Rika Fujimaru obviously didn't really want to answer directly, "The whole galaxy is a huge mess, and the choices we all face in it are nothing more than picking and choosing between 'bad option A' and 'bad option B'. If they're all bad options, why care about how bad they end up be? ”

- She is indeed trying to justify human beings, and then extracting from the emperor the concept of the "collective unconscious that mankind wants to survive" and making it work as a repressive force of alayya. But this is already another universe after all, and the rules it runs on are also significantly different from the one that Fujimaru Rika was familiar with. Even if she is herself, sometimes she can't help but wonder: Will the whole thing really go so well?

Perhaps this will be an attempt to separate faith from the emperor and pull him back from the brink of godhood, or perhaps this act will create another subspace existence that is almost like a god, bringing new problems to humanity.

But if nothing is done, should the emperor be left to sit on the golden throne and be consumed by countless faiths, pains, pleadings and prayers? Rika Fujimaru asked herself, she couldn't do something like that. She was very conscious of the fact that she was on the edge of the barrier, and no matter how many times she came, she would choose to take responsibility and pull the lever to try.

At least for now, everything is going well. At this point in time, Rika Fujimaru can still comfort herself like this.

“…… Boil the ocean. The Prophet Natas seemed to pick up something from Rikka Fujimaru's vague reply, and made a surprisingly suggestive suggestion, "I don't know the details, but from the few words you have revealed, I can think of some of the stories that have been passed down among my people, and the protagonists in them often do not end well. ”

The latter did not react negatively to this, but smiled in return: "If I were looking for a 'good ending', then I would not be in this world." ”

"IMHO," interjected the somewhat unsettling think tank, "in our measurements, 'giving one's life for the Empire' is also considered a 'good ending'." No matter what end point the parties end up in this framework. ”

"I don't know, I think I'm more likely to die halfway through." Rika Fujimaru said lightly, "After all, as a subsidy device used to maintain the survival of the human race, the Emperor estimates that my life span will be about twenty years. ”

As Motarian had said before, the Emperor's overly violent psionic energy did consume its carrier unconsciously. But this is not to say that "Fujimaru Rika can only live for twenty years", the body and soul that have been reinforced by the imitation of the third method are not so fragile - this "service life" actually means that:

Twenty years later, is she really Rika Fujimaru?

Miwoo (none)

(Eyes move and whistle and flee into the ice cave)

(End of chapter)