Mephiston was confused.

Although he had never thought of summoning the soul of his genetic father before, since someone else said that this was possible, he could naturally think along this line. If he were asked to design a psionic ritual for this purpose, he would probably first think in the direction of channeling, provide a calm water surface or a mirror or something like that as a vehicle for the soul of the Father of Genes, and then refer to, uh, don't make a noise here - refer to the ritual of demon summoning, change the various holy numbers and emblems to the symbols of the state religion and the emperor, and finally organize a think tank team of about ten people, all participants must be the sons of St. Giles, Finally, integrate everyone's psionic energy to accomplish this goal.

In this matter, Rika Fujimaru said euphemistically everything he showed unreservedly...... It's a bit too "unconventional".

Not to put it mildly, that looks like total nonsense.

The reason why the Holy Blood Angel didn't really say this comment in the chief think tank was mainly due to Fujimaru Rika's excessively prominent status. Of course, for Mephiston, the extra-long title that this little girl was repeatedly read by the servo skull and the forbidden army during the ceremony was certainly not a decisive factor, and what really made him recognize the "gold content" of the other party's identity was the golden soul of Fujimaru Rika in the psionic perspective.

She did try to hide the Emperor's Light in the depths of her soul, but it was a pity that her efforts to appear quite good among mortals were basically equal to nothing in the eyes of the original Astarte Think Tank master of Mephiston's level. Since Rika Fujimaru can naturally carry this kind of energy field in her soul that almost writes the word "loyalty", then even if she is really messing around, there is a high probability that she will not make any mess that is difficult to clean up from the perspective of the empire.

In addition, what makes the chief think tank open to the current "nonsense" is also because the current ceremony does not seem to be completely impossible to succeed. It's very ...... from the perspective of architecture Unusual, even a knowledgeable person like Mephiston could not think of any similar precedent from the dossier for a moment, but judging from the circle outlined on the ground with "special ink" and the faint spiritual energy in the lines, it should be able to turn.

At least from this circle, there are all the building blocks needed to support a psionic ritual operation.

Therefore, after a brief eye contact, Mephiston motioned for Kobro to place the bright red chalice in the designated position as Fujimaru Ritsuka requested. Then, the servo skull handed a sealed jar containing liquid to the head priest of the Holy Blood who had just risen, and Fujimaru Rika's voice came from the direction of the "altar" at the same time:

"Pour all the contents of the jar into the Holy Grail, and the ceremony will begin."

This time, Mephistopheles and Cobro looked at the little girl on the top of the altar with suspicion. The former was because the activation of the psionic ritual seemed too childish, and the latter was instinctively refusing to pour something strange into the warband's relics.

Fujimaru Rika apparently received the signal of the Holy Blood Priest's displeasure first, or rather, the problem on his side was easier to explain. She simply motioned to the other party to open the sealed jar and take a look: "Considering the tradition of your warband, it is a flavored blood wine mixed with a small amount of psionic energy, which may not be authentic, but it definitely has no harmful ingredients. ”

Kobro began sampling and examining the contents of the jar, and invited Mephiston to scan it with psionic powers. After a brief period of research, they were able to confirm that although the composition was slightly different from the usual blood wine in the warband, it was indeed a blood wine: the difference was mainly in the wine origin used as the base and the little psionic energy mixed in.

With this in mind, Mephiston's attention turned back to the ritual as a whole. He was already vaguely aware that the "wild way" that Fujimaru Rika had created was entirely because she herself had not received the slightest orthodox psionic education. For a professional background like the chief think tank, it is more down-to-earth for him to try to interpret the entire system with his own knowledge system than to listen to what Fujimaru Rika himself has to say about this seemingly unbridled ritual.

And after Mephiston took his attention away, Cobro, who didn't get the most crucial hint (whether to pour this thing into the Holy Grail or not), was a little at a loss for a while. This is unusual for a high-ranking Space Marine, but it is happening in the current scenario - the main reason is: is this the end of it?

There were no long incantations, no think tanks gathered to cast spells, no animal sacrifices, no incense, no psychedelic potions, no hymns and hymns. There wasn't any element that was stereotyped as supposed to be present at the scene of a "psionic ritual", he just had to pour the blood wine in his hand into the chalice in front of him - after completing this effortless task, the ritual would begin automatically?

That sounds so suspicious. It sounds even more suspicious than the empty promises that the Enemies of Chaos usually make.

Should he do something? What happens after that? What catastrophe could not even be predicted or even foreseen by their chief think tank? Or is it true, as Rika Fujimaru claims, that this ritual will bring back their deceased genetic father (part of, perhaps) back into the world?

This move may undoubtedly lead to two opposite outcomes, but for Cobro they carry the same unbearable weight in opposite senses. Rarely had he felt so hesitant to be so decisive in a matter that seemed so simple since he had been promoted to Chief Priest of the Holy Blood—or even earlier, he couldn't remember it himself. And maybe, just maybe, if this ritual must be initiated, it should be carried out by the leader of the Holy Blood Angel War, right?

In this hesitation, he looked inquiringly at the warlord to the side, hoping to get at least some psychological support, but he found that the direction of Dante's death mask was currently facing Mephiston. Mephistopheles didn't look at anyone, just stared at the patterns and symbols on the circle on the ground. The only person who could make eye contact with him was Rika Fujimaru on the altar opposite, and she didn't open her mouth to urge in this scene, and Cobro was thankful.

Thankfully, Rika Fujimaru is very good at reading the atmosphere, and this awkward silence of "thank God" was able to last for more than three minutes. Eventually, Mephiston looked up, and his tone sounding determined, "It's a very clever design, you've borrowed the land of Baal to power this ritual, making it very low in terms of barrier overall. ”

Specifically, it is a person who is so low that he does not really need psionic powers. As long as you get the right materials and sacrifices, and you can draw the circle correctly to perform the operation, even an Oglim can make the ritual start.

"Actually, it's 'the history of mankind in the land of Bal,' but it's no different in form and application." Rika Fujimaru responded calmly, not looking in a hurry at all.

"But this design makes the use of this ritual very limited."

"Considering the function, it's only problematic that the use of this ritual is not limited."

Mephistopheles tilted his head and thought about it, thinking it was right. So, he turned his head and briefly motioned to Kobro beside him: "Please." ”

The Holy Blood Priest Master held the sealed jar that had been unsealed blankly, and looked at the War Leader again inquiringly. This time, Dante's death mask looked at him as well, and a calm voice flowed from the mouth of St. Giles, who was screaming in pain on the golden mask:

"Go for it." Kobro heard this short sentence.

——

Sending a star message is actually a hassle. It's true that it's not like video calls or hard-wired telegraphs, which can be done with a few buttons and a few parameters, but in fact, it wouldn't be as troublesome as Hecelius saw now.

Considering that this was a directional star language that was about to pass through the Great Rift and reach the Maculag Relay Station, this procedural and ritual trouble seemed to be justified in the light of Johecelius' common sense.

The communication about the Star Whispering Ceremony was mainly carried out by Kylia and the Chief Star Whispering Master, and Jocelius just listened quietly on the side, taking advantage of his height to look down on the scroll in the little girl's hand that recorded the entire flow of the ceremony.

After the Great Rift unfolded, almost all of the Warband Think Tanks had received training courses on how to find beacons in subspace and how to send Star Language, after all, the current subspace environment was too tyrannical, and it was impossible to know when they would encounter the extreme situation where all the navigators or Star Whisperers on the starship would be consumed. Therefore, although Hecelius was not a professional in the Star Ceremony, he could at least see that most of the requests made by Kelia were actually scripted, which sounded very outrageous in scale, but it was indeed very feasible in terms of operation.

Of course, the premise is that the level of spiritual energy generated by the entire ritual can meet that outrageous scale.

The ongoing topic had not yet progressed to this point, but it did not prevent Jocelius from starting to calculate in advance: according to the scale of the ritual delineated on the scroll, even if this was the astral relay station of the main planet of Baal—a astral relay station with a large number of legitimate psionics in the dark side of the empire that was particularly favored by the policies of the Black Ship Alliance due to the important political and military functions of this world—it wanted to be mobilized, gather the personnel needed for the ceremony, and debug the venue, It will also take at least half a month for the relevant personnel to fast and meditate for the ritual, and to make time for the right time to actually send this star language after all of the above is completed.

It's no wonder that Rika Fujimaru chose not to complete these preliminary communication work in person. Jocelius thought boredly.

Just as he was about to begin studying the equipment and furnishings inside the relay station, he coincidentally noticed that Inquisitor Hastings was not far away and rolled his eyes for no apparent reason. Jocelius turned his attention to the Inquisitor, and realized that the other man's emotional reaction was not unfounded: he raised a hand to his ear, apparently whispering to someone on the other end of the communicator.

"Just throw him back, don't make things come to light, it's just going to make everyone ugly." Hastings' voice was low, almost just gas. This is a volume that is easy to ignore for ordinary people, but for a space fighter like Joheselius, the latter can still be heard clearly.

This undoubtedly aroused the attention, or rather, interest of the Holy Blood Angel Think Tank. Jocelius, who was a little too bored, pricked up one ear to try to capture more of the antecedents, but unfortunately the Inquisitor's communicator was obviously not leaking, and he had no way of knowing who was speaking on the other side of the communication, and what was being said. All he could see was a few dark angels quietly adjusting their formations to each other, seemingly completely motionless, and Hastings' face quickly becoming cloudy as time passed. After a few more seconds, he was almost angry, and his voice rose more than an octave:

"Nope! You can't-"

No one knew what the second half of the sentence he suddenly burst out of place and yelled at was there, but no one knew what he was trying to object to: the sentence was interrupted by a loud, continuous noise that sounded like someone was hiding in a wall, trying to physically make a way out of a tight space like a ventilation pipe. The subtle tremors of the relay building itself and the dust drifting down from the shaken structure are the real thing to say about the veracity of this conjecture.

The scary-sounding noise lasted for a short time, not even enough to completely panic the people present. Almost as soon as people realized where the noise was coming from, the gate of a freight passage on the side wall of the room had flown inward, revealing the black hole in the slide. Immediately afterward, a black-shielded Astarte dressed in Death Watch black armor was thrown into the room through the forcibly opened floodgates.

"Kaitraro! You can't do this! Hastings yelled angrily in that direction, "Rika Fujimaru told you to guard against assassinations, ambushes, and infiltrations in the shadows, and she didn't tell you to do that!" ”

A pair of blood-red eyepieces emerged from the darkness of the freight passage, and a gruff and eerie voice drifted in coldly after being filtered by machinery: "But she didn't say I couldn't do it. You civil servant pendant has no authority to dictate what I am going to do. ”

Hastings did not respond to the obvious provocative and insulting remark. His face was indeed still cloudy, but he was clearly already thinking about something else. After confirming that the person responsible for this unexpected incident was a "friend" (presumably), Kellia began to try to concentrate on calming the startled Star Whisperers, and Jocelius instinctively grabbed the staff and waited - at this time, it was one of the five dark angels who had been silent until this time who chose to speak in the direction of the freight passage:

"Can't you pterodactyls be quiet if you do something? Why do you have to make it known to everyone every time? Is it because they crave attention? ”

"Not craving your attention anyway." The voice in the darkness stabbed back first, and then made a further statement, "This is the Midnight Lord's housework, you don't care." I don't care who I'm causing trouble by doing this, I just know that I have to let the lady know that there's such a person around. ”

(End of chapter)