[Emperor Descent]

As Rika Fujimaru saw in her own foresight, shortly after her domination of the entire planet began, the Great Expedition launched by the Human Emperor advanced to the edge of the Nostramo system.

Soon, Fogham, Ferus Manus, Roger Dorn, and Loga Aurelian, along with the Emperor, led a negotiating party to the surface of the night of Nostramoyong in a golden light. The inhabitants of this planet were unable to look directly at the golden light shining around the emperor because they had lived in darkness for a long time. Many people wept because of the light reflected between the walls and the rain, and those who dared to look directly at its source were blinded by the too strong light.

In this way, the negotiating team walked straight to the palace of the current ruler of the planet in the golden light, and Fujimaru Rika had expected this, standing alone in front of the palace and waiting. And the moment she saw the delegation arrive, she uncontrollably foresaw a great deal of real, perhaps the most violent and painful prophetic illusion of her life. Fujimaru Rika never spoke of what kind of future she saw at that time, but from her actions afterwards, it was possible that at that time, she had foreseen the tragic end of the great cause of the Great Expedition, which the emperor had done.

As she was tormented by this painful prophetic vision, the Emperor leaned down and comforted his only daughter. He said, "Fujimaru Ritsuka, calm down, don't worry, I'll take you home." But after struggling from the pain, Rika Fujimaru responded: "My current home is here, but I will go with you." Not because of your request, but because I will meet my own destiny. ”

This response caused the other primordials present at the time to have some different opinions about her, but Fujimaru Ritsuka herself didn't really care. The Emperor and the others soon realized that they didn't need to take the team behind them that was only for negotiation: Nostramo's master seemed to have made the decision to leave long ago, and had already arranged everything that would happen after that. What the Empire needed here more than negotiation was government officials who could directly take over the management and handling of the business.

[Great Expedition]

Under Fogrim's tutelage, Rika Fujimaru quickly embraced the guiding ideology of "Imperial Truth" – at least on the surface. In the process, both Vogrim and Rika Fujimaru realized that they were almost completely different in their personalities, preferences, and goals. But even with such a big gap between the two, the two primordials still formed a deep friendship.

After completing a series of studies, Rika Fujimaru finally took the leadership of the Eighth Legion and renamed it "Lord Midnight". Prior to the return of the Primordials, the earliest members of the Eighth Legion came from the infamous ancient prisons of Holy Terra, and fought frequently at the behest of the Emperor—often not simply conquered, but brutally punished. After getting to know each other well, Forgrim suggested that Fujimaru Rika write to the emperor to free his legion from this cruel duty so that he could receive some more glorious and honorable feats, but the latter refused. Because "the empire needs not only the sons of emperors, but also the lords of midnight." And don't forget, under what circumstances I managed to rule my home planet. I believe that I and my soldiers are up to the job. ”

Over the next few years, the Midnight Lords quickly embraced the philosophical ideas brought about by their return to the original form. In the course of the expedition, when the human ruling pocket empire had to be confronted, "negotiation" was also put on the agenda as a necessary tool. If there is a defeat at this stage, and the entire Legion has to switch to a war posture, the enemy will find that the Eighth Legion still does not focus on honor. But in contrast to the reckless brutality of the past, they gradually began to use a variety of nimble strategies and tactics, even despised by other primitives, in order to increase efficiency in the war and reduce any losses that the primordials deemed unnecessary, whether their own or the enemy's. After successfully incorporating these planets into the empire, Rika Fujimaru also always tended to spend a lot of time adapting to the appropriate laws to help them integrate smoothly into the empire while maintaining the most stable life possible.

However, if the enemy is an alien race, or if the Emperor needs them to go to suppress some planets that have been obedient but have raised their flags, the Midnight Lord will show a hideous side at the behest of the Primordials. The sons of the Eighth Legion tend to have a cold paranoia about "justice", and the Nostramo soldiers who join with the returning original form give the entire Legion more "ingenuity" when it comes to punishment and warnings for justice. The Midnight Lords will also make similar wars end efficiently and neatly, which can be very fruitful, but even for the allies who fight alongside them, the process is far from pleasant or even avoidable.

After repeating similar acts many times, the Legion's notoriety began to float through the galaxy. Rumors of the Midnight Lord's imminent arrival alone will cause the system governor to pay more than the usual taxes out of fear, even the criminal activities of civilians will cease in an instant, and mutants and heretics who are not allowed to exist under the laws of the empire will be immediately dug out of their hideouts and immediately executed. Even some brothers who had never met the original voxel of the Eighth Legion had some bad impressions of her because of this.

This embarrassed the Legion's prestige within the Empire, but it was an acceptable negative effect for Rika Fujimaru, who also didn't value honor or reputation: fear was not a proper means of domination, but there was no better tool to use when it came time to destroy the enemy's will to fight, and it was also appropriate as a punishment for "betraying the Empire." We need to keep reminding our enemies of the price they will have to pay when they decide in the direction of the Empire's advance.

Although the Midnight Lord's methods of fighting were often too harsh, after listening to Fujimaru Ritsuka's explanations from other primordials, and being able to patiently learn from the Legion's battle records, that such a terrifying and brutal battlefield was only a few of the few, they could barely agree with her. One of the most surprising of these is Roger Dorn: during the initial meeting, Dorn had made rather heated accusations against Fujimaru Rika in person, while the latter calmly and calmly explained every challenge raised by the former, and thanked the other for the omissions and inadequacies pointed out in her plan. Since then, the relationship between the two Primordials has not been very close, but there is still no one who will say that their relationship is not good - Rog Dorn even allocated thirty recruits who had completed the transformation of the Imperial Fist Astarte at the request of Rika Fujimaru, so that they could join the Midnight Lord Legion permanently. Among them was Sigismund, the future Chief Prosecutor of the Midnight Lord.

But things like this don't always go so well, and Vulcan, the lord of the fire dragon, has never been able to agree with the fear tactics that Fujimaru Rika has instructed. The two had a number of uneventful conversations on this issue, and finally, after both thoroughly realizing that they could not convince each other, regretfully said goodbye to each other, and avoided appearing on the same occasion as much as possible. The Raven Lord Corvacs Koraks also complained about this, but given the similarities in their origins and tactics, both sides felt that they had benefited a lot after several exchanges. Rika Fujimaru had praised Corax's tactics in public, and the latter had publicly stated that he did not dislike the former himself, but until the Great Rebellion, they and their legions had not fought together again.

Compared to the other legions, the Midnight Lord's expedition speed is "unremarkable" - that is, neither commendably fast nor slow enough to be rushed. This may be related to the philosophy of the original body itself to "pursue the golden mean", but it cannot be said that the speed of such an expedition has not been slowed down by the original parent planet at all. In the course of the hundred-year expedition, there have been several uprisings, restorations, corruption, rebellions and other accidents on the evil star Nostramo, and due to the speed of information transmission in the galaxy, when Fujimaru Rika learned of this, things often became out of control, and even affected the supply of troops to the legion on two occasions. Again and again, the Primordial had to take a break from the Great Expedition and return to their home planet to quell the rebellion on Nostramo.

Miwoo (crawling around again)

(End of chapter)