There was something we had always known perfectly well, yet no one had been willing to mention. Only under special circumstances would Sandora and I discuss it: after the fall of the Old Empire, just how much sin had those mad Fallen Apostles committed?
No one wanted to watch their former comrades-in-arms fall from glorious warriors into savage, twisted executioners. Especially for the Shilin Apostles, who regarded destroying the Abyss and fighting with honor as the highest glory of their lives, being controlled by the power of the Abyss and then turning to slaughter their former comrades or other warriors resisting the Abyss was simply the greatest disgrace and foulest act they could imagine. Therefore, whenever the fall of the Old Empire came up, what Sandora least wanted to mention was how many worlds from the same camp those mad Fallen Apostles had destroyed—even if those worlds had not been part of the massive military machine led by the Empire, their actions against the Abyss alone were enough to make them comrades. Yet once the Shilin Apostles went mad, these "comrades" were bound to be the first to suffer.
The Old Empire had been vast, ruling over countless worlds. Those worlds were not necessarily all Military Districts; there were also numerous colonial universes, resource worlds, logistics worlds, and homeworlds belonging purely to vassal races. The Old Empire had established innumerable military outposts and cosmic fortresses throughout those universes. In the past, these outposts had been solid lines of defense protecting the universe. A world could develop in peace because of an Imperial outpost. No matter how ruthless the iron-blooded Empire was in military matters, to the civilians of those worlds, those outposts were at least symbols of peaceful survival.
Yet when the Great Disaster erupted, the former protectors instantly became