Terra's Past, the Pitiful Seeker of Knowledge?!
"The enemy of truth is not falsehood, but absolute correctness. I found the truth, but it is far from enough."
The old man stooped, clutching the Parchment Map in his arms as though it were an incomparable treasure.
His eyes were bloodshot. He muttered to himself as he walked up a stairway with no end, flanked on both sides by ever-changing rooms filled with books.
"Emperor, I can find it. I can find the truth of the Imperium and the exit from the labyrinth—"
This aged being struggled to seek the truth—or rather, the knowledge—the Imperium needed.
Yet that truth was like these stairs: endless, with no exit in sight, enough to drive one to despair.
His name was Hermann von, an Imperial historian over two hundred years old and the keeper of knowledge for the Terran Court.
Hermann was undoubtedly loyal.
After the Great Rift appeared, the Imperium's situation had grown ever more difficult. Even Terra faced savage enemies, and everything seemed so helpless.
He watched helplessly as humanity's domains fell, one star sector after another plunged into darkness. He knew the Imperium stood on the brink of collapse, about to fall into an irretrievable Abyss.
It was not merely Imperial territory. The minds of the Emperor's subjects had fallen as well. Faith was collapsing, thought had become chaotic, and even the high officials of the Terran Court no longer remained steadfast.
They needed the guidance of knowledge. They needed to reclaim the technologies of old and the Imperial Truth.
The Emperor had once left behind a great wealth of precious knowledge, yet his descendants had lost it—and no longer believed in it.
That was the root of the chaos.
Hermann did not know when this thought had first taken root in