At the Savior's Sanctuary.
Eden stood on the terrace, gazing out at the azure sky.
He sighed with feeling.
"As expected, the burden on my shoulders really does need someone else to share it before life gets easier. I just wonder when I'll finally be able to retire."
Mainly because the Imperium simply did not have enough Primarchs to go around right now. Leon and the Khan were guarding the frontier against the Necrons, Perturabo had to focus on research, and Guilliman had gotten lost somewhere Emperor-knows-where.
Under those circumstances, the duty of guarding Holy Terra could only fall to him, the Savior.
Such an important region could not go without a Primarch overseeing it. Otherwise, it would be too easy for higher-tier beings to break through.
Fortunately, the Lord of the Mountain Fortress, Vigilant Dorn, had returned in time, giving Holy Terra a better guardian.
He was the Primarch best suited to defend Holy Terra.
So as soon as Dorn recovered physically, Eden hurriedly handed that defensive duty over to him.
That finally allowed him to free himself from Holy Terra's defenses and spare some energy for other matters.
Eden lifted his gaze to the heavens.
An eerie green xenos fleet was slowly withdrawing from the airspace. It was the fleet of the Kalozasa Dynasty.
The Necrodermis Governor, Phaeron Zhabok, along with many other high-ranking beings, had already been implanted with the emotion-virus.
On top of that, they had accepted a new religion: the Holy Soul Sect.
Zhabok and the others firmly believed that once the Holy Soul Sect's new god, the Star God Pluto disguised by the Sun of Hope, awakened, he would help the Necrons reshape both soul and body.
Now the Kalozasa Dynasty was beside itself with joy and was hurrying toward the Anti-Warp Dead Zone.
They were desperate to spread this gospel to even more "diseased" living metal beings.
After all, the more believers the new god gathered, the faster that great being would awaken.
More importantly, the new god's favor was not infinite. It was distributed according to the amount of faith one brought in.
The more believers you recruited, the more favor you received. Once the new god awakened, your psychic power and body would be all the more abundant.
As for those who failed to recruit believers or whose faith was not firm, they would be lucky to recover even a little.
Put simply, Eden had set up the Holy Soul Sect using a sort of multi-tier faith-distribution model.
Whoever brought in more believers was the more devout one.
It was brute force at its finest, and the believers' faith would remain extremely firm, continuing to spread and expand.
"The Silent King only just returned and still hasn't fully secured his footing. The ideological mutation brought by the Holy Soul Sect will be enough to make him swallow something truly bitter."
That was what Eden thought to himself.
Now the Kalozasa Dynasty had already gone to the Anti-Warp Dead Zone. The emotion-virus and the Holy Soul Sect needed time to ferment and spread.
But in the short term, the Imperium likely would not need to worry about the Necron threat. It could gather most of its strength to deal with Chaos instead.
Especially when it came to solving the Emperor's darkening problem.
Research into the Golden Throne restoration systems had already achieved breakthroughs one after another, and the final suppression technology had also reached a phased stage of progress.
He believed Cawl and the others would solve the issue within a year or two.
From that perspective, even though the Imperium's situation looked dangerous, things were still generally improving in a steady way.
They were not helpless.
"We've already made more than enough preparations. Surely we won't end up losing so badly that we're wiped out, right?"
Thinking that, Eden's mood improved a little.
He looked down over the beautiful scenery beneath the Sanctuary and the bustling crowds below, then could not help sighing again.
"No matter what, humanity has recovered in the end. Everything is full of life again.
Even Holy Terra has been armed as much as possible, with multiple defense systems and layered defensive lines.
It shouldn't suddenly turn into the burial ground of the Imperium... right?"
Yet the moment those words left his mouth, he received an emergency message from the Imperial Palace.
The message had been sent by the commander of the Throne Guard, and its tone was extremely urgent, asking him, the Savior, to come to the Palace at once.
For the sake of secrecy, the commander had not revealed any details, but the very existence of that message alone was enough to say a great deal.
"So something happened. And it's a disaster on a truly massive scale."
The instant Eden saw the message, his face darkened.
He turned and ordered Tarko, who had been waiting nearby,
"Prepare a secret flight route to the Palace immediately. There must be absolutely no exposure.
Most importantly, avoid the Lord of the Mountain Fortress at all costs!"
Whatever had gone wrong with the Golden Throne, Dorn absolutely could not be allowed to learn of it.
Otherwise, that stubborn mule might let his emotions get the better of him and ruin everything instead.
"Oh, and you're coming to the Palace with me."
After a moment's thought, Eden added the order.
He needed this deputy at his side to help discuss emergency measures.
Before long, Eden took Tarko with him and headed for the Himalayan Palace through a secret passage.
He even left behind a silicon-based biological double controlled through psychic power, making it appear as if he were still at the Sanctuary handling official work.
That counted as standard procedure for a ruler during a special period: conceal your movements.
Especially from the beings lurking in the Chaos Warp.
Eden even had a dedicated high-tier psyker team whose sole job was to use psychic power to disrupt the traces he left behind.
Beyond that, they had to borrow holy psychic power as much as possible to erase certain traces in the operation of things across Holy Terra.
That was to keep the Changer of Ways from learning too much about Holy Terra's internal condition and defensive state.
"What exactly happened?"
Eden hurried up the steps, asking the commander of the Throne Guard, who was keeping pace beside him.
"My lord's Throne suddenly developed a large number of cracks. The Archmagi ordered me to summon you here at once."
The commander looked calm on the surface, but the worry and unrest in his eyes were impossible to hide.
These veteran Custodes had guarded the Throne for ten thousand years. Suddenly discovering that the very thing they had sworn to protect was on the verge of total collapse was enough to shake anyone.
"I understand.
From this moment onward, I will take over all affairs within the Palace so the Throne can be repaired more effectively."
From those words, Eden roughly understood the situation. It was even worse than he had imagined.
Even so, he issued his orders in an orderly fashion, while also smoothly taking total control of the Palace.
That would make what came next much easier.
Eden had no time left to argue with those veteran Custodes.
From here on out, he intended to do whatever needed doing. Whether it was a violation, sacrilege, or taboo, every usable method would be used.
He would salvage as much as he could.
"Your Majesty..."
The commander of the Throne Guard instinctively tried to object, but the moment he met the Savior's warning gaze, his heart shuddered.
He fell silent and no longer dared interfere with the Savior's takeover of the Palace.
Part of that was because of the authority the Savior had built up over so many years, but more importantly, the Custodes had no means of dealing with what was happening now.
Nor did they have the ability to repair the Throne. Their only hope was the Savior, the Emperor of the Imperium.
Eden paid the commander no further attention.
He knew that under these circumstances, his total assumption of control over the Palace would meet with no real resistance.
The Machine Goddess would also move in fully, according to the earlier plan, and readjust the defensive lines.
At the same time, more specialized heavy Warp-machines would be installed.
In truth, the relevant devices had already been forged long ago. They had merely been waiting for the right time to be brought in and installed.
By now, the Imperium was practically a civilization of infrastructure madmen. Even a massive reconstruction like this would not consume too much time.
"But nothing looks different?"
Eden arrived at the Throne Room and stared at the magnificent mechanical Throne, unable to immediately spot anything wrong.
Not far away, in another section of the chamber, several enormous Mechanicus Archmagi were gathered together, chattering away in binary.
He had no idea what they were saying.
When the Archmagi saw Eden, the Savior and Emperor of the Imperium, arrive, they stopped speaking at once.
They bowed slightly in greeting.
"Machine Goddess above."
One of the Archmagi stepped forward and spoke in High Gothic.
"Your Majesty, please come with me. The Throne's damage is even worse than projected. All previous restoration measures have already been lost."
Eden frowned.
He followed the Archmagos toward a large area behind the Golden Throne.
That section was filled with flashing arcs of electricity, and the pressure there was astonishing.
Without being led in by a high-ranking tech-priest, it would have been difficult for him to enter the interior of that magnificent machine at all.
The Throne Research Institute of the Mechanicus had previously analyzed the Golden Throne's structure in great detail and had performed multiple rounds of repair and protective reinforcement.
They had done everything possible to stabilize the machine's operation and reduce the pressure within it.
Now it appeared that all those previous technical methods had failed.
Eden looked at the mechanical structure before him, covered in huge cracks and seeming as though it might collapse at any second.
He immediately sucked in a cold breath.
He had not expected the Emperor's state to be this dangerous. The golden toilet looked as if it might explode in the very next instant.
How was that any different from sitting on a volcano about to erupt?
Once the machinery failed, the suppressed Warp energy would erupt and blast the Emperor's rear clear off the Throne.
At that point, no matter how desperately the old man tried to control the dark warp power, he would not be able to contain it anymore.
"How long can these structures hold?"
Eden turned to ask the Archmagos beside him, and there was a faint tremor in his voice.
He was genuinely nervous now.
"Machine Goddess above, they can hold for at most one year, perhaps even less, with a margin of error of about one month.
That is the absolute limit of current detection methods. We cannot obtain a more precise time than that."
The Archmagos continued,
"The current data already lies outside the range of our experience.
Fortunately, the Honorary Archmagos Belisarius Cawl is already on his way and should arrive in approximately two Terran days..."
Hearing that Cawl would soon arrive, Eden relaxed somewhat.
That black-hearted grease-drinker might be unreliable at ordinary times, but at critical moments he could still solve problems.
Eden let out a deep breath.
"According to the previous plan, how much longer before we can carry out the final Throne restoration?"
"Five hundred and thirteen Terran days. In other words, a year and a half.
We still cannot confirm that the core suppression technology will be effective. More time is needed for verification."
The Archmagos gave an answer that nearly made Eden's heart stop, but after doing a quick calculation, he continued:
"Of course, that is the safest plan. The schedule can still be moved forward.
If the next phase of experiments proceeds smoothly, we may be able to carry out the final restoration within one year."
The weight hanging over Eden's heart finally eased. At least things had not yet reached the point of total disaster.
Now Cawl was on the way to take command, and the related experiments were also reaching the point where results should start appearing.
The odds of successfully restoring the Golden Throne were high. Once that happened, he would no longer have this looming fear hanging over him.
"Move the plan forward. The Throne must be repaired within one year!"
Eden issued the order to the Archmagi as a death command.
It was a task that absolutely had to be completed. Otherwise, Holy Terra would go skyward together with the Golden Throne, along with humanity's future and destiny.
And on top of that, the cost in lives would be beyond calculation.
Very soon, transport ships entered the Palace one after another under the pretext of restoring the fortress, bringing with them great quantities of machinery and engineering personnel.
Under the cover of numerous other engineering projects, the preparatory work for the Throne restoration began at full speed.
Eden also stationed himself inside the Palace, personally guarding this core region of the Imperium.
He could not risk any accident.
Right now, he did not dare go anywhere else. If the Golden Throne issue was not solved, how could he possibly sleep at night?
...
Imperial Palace.
Inside the temporary strategic chamber.
"These plans all come with losses that are far too severe. There's barely any real point to them..."
Eden stared at the emergency proposals projected in midair, his brows locked tightly together.
He was currently taking part in a special emergency planning session, discussing what should be done if the restoration plan failed and the Golden Throne completely spun out of control.
Those were necessary fallback plans. The Imperium had always prepared by assuming the worst.
The Archmagi had proposed a number of options.
One fairly conventional option was to use several miniature mechanical thrones and draw in the power of the Sun of Hope to suppress the outburst.
Another was to fire several hundred Cyclonic Torpedoes into the Palace's Throne sector, using the violent energy shockwaves to temporarily resist the eruption of the dark warp power.
Yet another involved using blackstone suppression devices to establish line after line of outer defenses in order to buy reaction time.
"Cancel the first plan."
Eden immediately rejected the proposal where he himself would sit on a toilet and trade blows with the Emperor transformed into the Dark King.
His chances of winning were not high.
And the risk was far too great. If anything went wrong, he too might ascend on the spot. At that point humanity would be caught between two supreme ruinous gods at once and be crushed from both sides.
As for the Cyclonic Torpedo and blackstone-seal proposals, they did not really mean much either.
The time they bought would not be enough to actually accomplish anything useful.
Still, Eden could understand it. The collapse of the Golden Throne was practically one of the hardest crises in the galaxy to respond to.
It was perfectly normal that the Archmagi could not come up with a truly workable countermeasure.
Even so, the meeting had to continue. Many of the Imperium's solutions had always been born from plan after plan colliding against one another.
Collective wisdom.
Eden slumped back in his chair, going through the proposals, looking somewhat drained.
Lately he constantly had the sense that a storm was about to break, and even more strongly that something was interfering with him.
Yet he could not quite put his finger on what it was.
"No doubt it's that shit-stirrer, the Changer of Ways, pulling something again."
That was what Eden thought to himself. When something felt wrong, pinning it on Tzeentch was usually a safe bet.
He knew that at a moment like this, he absolutely could not leave the Golden Throne sector. He had to protect the sleeping Emperor without fail.
If he was anxious, then the Chaos Gods were surely even more anxious, and far more eager to jump the gun and eliminate the threat posed by the old Emperor.
That possibility could not be ignored.
But as long as he remained in the Palace and refused to leave, what exactly could the Chaos Gods do?
No matter what trick Chaos tried, all he had to do was block it!
"Hiss..."
Eden suddenly saw a new proposal and sat upright at once, visibly more alert.
It was a contingency plan for after the Golden Throne collapsed, and it was extremely detailed and operational.
"Whose proposal is this?"
He swept his eyes across everyone in the chamber and could not help raising his voice.
"Who said we should eject the Imperial Palace and the Golden Throne?!"
There was no question that the proposal was bold. It could even be called rebellious and sacrilegious.
Its plan was that, at the instant the Golden Throne collapsed, special machinery would directly launch the Palace and the Golden Throne into the Warp.
More accurately speaking, it intended to fire the old Emperor straight into the domains of the Chaos Gods...
(End of Chapter)
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