Armour

"We can't just sit here and wait to die!"

"Go to the underhive!"

"What underhive?! The Planetary Defense Force stationed there lost contact with us ages ago!"

"Why did they lose contact? How could hundreds of thousands of soldiers just disappear without a trace? Those Butchers never even went to the underhive..."

"Rebels! The rebels!"

The nobles screamed at one another.

Only then did the governor realize she was completely out of options.

Word of the rebels had spread long ago, along with the rebels' prophecy.

[The Emperor closes his eyes and saves no one; Lu Jin opens his eyes and slaughters the masses.]

It wasn't that nobody cared or did anything. The Planetary Defense Force had even been deployed to the underhive. If they couldn't put down the rebellion, what else could they do?

The governor felt only despair.

She looked up at the statue of the God-Emperor, its eyes closed.

Perhaps out of guilt, the governor a hundred years ago had established a rule: every statue of the God-Emperor erected on this world had to have its eyes tightly shut.

The Emperor had not punished this world, even though the nobles had grown somewhat decadent...

But who could have guessed that, a hundred years later, something more terrifying than divine retribution would appear?

It was an accident.

The governor felt that everything was an accident.

The Inquisitor had tried to create the Fierce Angels, failed, and fled. That was an accident.

Manros had originally only involved the local nobles in the Inquisitor's plans. But now rebels had appeared too, cutting off the retreat from the spire to the lower levels of the hive.

That was another accident.

The governor increasingly felt she should never have listened to that Inquisitor... Manros was caught between the Imperium and the Red Corsairs. Choosing one side while helping the other was a grave taboo.

Like the governor, everyone fell silent. They didn't know what else to say—or whether anything they said would survive as their final words.

In the dead silence, a gunshot rang out.

Shouts and gunfire suddenly sounded outside the church.

Everyone tensed, frozen in terror.

Were the rebels outside fighting the guards?

Were they slaves?

Or were they the Fierce Angels led by Lu Jin?

The answer came quickly.

A moment later, the church doors swung open. A ragged man stood outside, holding a firebomb. Blood streamed from the gunshot wound in his stomach.

Behind him, slaves and guards were still fighting each other... At least there were no Space Marines.

"For... for..." The man clutched his wound, so weak that his words came in broken fragments. "For all those... all those who've been abused... on Manros for ten thousand years..."

He threw the firebomb into the church, then shut the doors.

Gunfire sounded outside, and a bullet hole appeared in the church doors.

The man had clearly been killed, but in all the chaos, no one could spare any attention for what had happened at the church.

Amid the screams, flames spread through the church.

Within a few breaths, everyone was surrounded by fire. Smoke billowed, and the air grew scorching hot.

Some wet their clothes with urine and covered their noses. Some lay on the ground. Others simply screamed as the flames swallowed them.

Then someone shouted:

"There's no fire beneath the God-Emperor's statue!"

The governor heard the cry and looked toward the statue. Seeing that it was true, she immediately raced over.

Those still alive did the same.

Standing beneath the statue, the governor watched the flames... For some reason, the fire really wasn't spreading toward it.

"Praise the God-Emperor! Praise the God-Emperor!"

The people wept with gratitude.

The governor murmured words of praise too, then glanced up at the statue of the God-Emperor.

The statue's eyes were no longer shut. Its golden pupils gazed down at everyone below.

The governor blinked again. As before, the statue's eyes were no longer open. It had all been an illusion.

The sounds of fighting outside continued without end.

The flames had stopped spreading around the statue, but no one knew what fate awaited them.

"Ah!!!"

A scream pierced the governor's ears. She looked over.

A man kneeling at the statue's feet in prayer recoiled as if he'd seen a ghost. He screamed and stumbled backward into the fire, where he died screaming.

More people were drawn by the bizarre scene and looked toward the statue.

The governor looked too.

There was a statue, yes... but it wasn't the God-Emperor's!

The marble and gold were gone, replaced by brass.

A Chainaxe, a Power Hammer... Muscular arms gripped the two heavy weapons. A broad, terrifyingly powerful body—and its owner, Lu Jin.

The statue held the two weapons upright and crossed before it. At its feet lay the dead, screaming in agony.

Its expression was even more vicious than the images the rabble had once hung, if such a thing were possible!

"Die!!!!!"

The brass statue roared.

Its roar drowned out every scream.

Everyone, including the governor, fled in panic in the opposite direction. They would rather run into the fire than look back.

The governor didn't feel herself being burned. Driven only by instinct, she charged into the flames—and then realized everything around her had changed.

There was no smooth marble floor. When she looked down, she saw only mountains of skulls.

She looked around. Others were there with her.

But besides the people who had once stood by her, there were crimson Daemons, carrying swords or chains heated until they were nearly molten. They ran toward her, tongues lolling as they laughed wildly.

To those outside the governor's group, however, everything looked different.

When a guard finally smashed through the doors, all he saw was a statue of the God-Emperor with its eyes closed, while everyone else rolled about in the flames.

Then a rough longsword pierced his chest.

Many things happened on Manros that day.

When order finally returned to this world, people would investigate and make records.

The chroniclers would learn of those supernatural events... Images that opened their eyes. Rebels across the world who saw Lu Jin on the battlefield, following his likeness as it smashed through one defensive line after another. People who prayed before images in their homes, silently recalling past injustices and the names of their enemies, only to see those enemies appear beneath the Lu Jin depicted in the images...

Whether any of it was true or false, real or imagined, no one could say for certain except the dead.

It was all like a dream, like an illusion.

Only one thing could be confirmed.

The Lu Jin of the prophecy had come to Manros. He had purged the hatred that shrouded the planet.

The man later known as the Lord of Retribution had severed the past with his Chainaxe on that day, and crushed the abuse and enslavement that had flourished across the planet with his Power Hammer.

Twenty-two solar hours later.

The spire of the hive city had been reduced to ruins.

The Rebel Army forces that had converged on the church from every direction met there.

Lu Jin hadn't arrived ahead of any of them. He had only just reached the church himself. But the slaves had already cleared the place out, and there was no one left for him to execute. So he could only stand amid the ruins and consider what to do next.

Kao and the other fourteen Fierce Angels stood scattered around Lu Jin, holding Chainaxes and gripping Bolters in one hand.

They faced the Rebel Army, wary of the locals out of basic caution.

They could see the familiar warding images, the same kind commonly found aboard ships, engraved on the rebels' vehicles and banners.

"Is it all over?"

Lu Jin suddenly asked.

Several rebel commanders checked with one another, then one stepped forward and nodded to Lu Jin. "It's all over."

Lu Jin looked at them.

The commanders gradually lowered their heads and knelt on one knee.

Then the rebels lowered their heads and knelt on one knee.

The slaves watching from farther back did the same.

"Were you fighting that governor?" Lu Jin raised his Warhammer and pointed ahead. "If not, get up."

Only then did the people slowly rise.

Lu Jin walked down from the ruins.

The rebel commanders followed behind the "symbol" around which they had rallied, the one that kept their faith alive.

Someone came to Lu Jin's side and reported, "Some of the slaves don't want their masters executed."

Lu Jin looked ahead.

A group of slaves surrounded several richly dressed nobles. They stood with their backs to their masters, facing the rebels.

"Why shouldn't they die?" Lu Jin stopped and asked the slaves.

"They treated us well, unlike the other nobles," one slave answered.

Lu Jin wasn't surprised.

Humanity was just that bizarre. There were always a few oddballs in any group.

There were bound to be people of utmost evil in the most virtuous places, and vice versa.

"Then they won't die, as long as they behave." Lu Jin stopped looking at the slaves and walked straight into the church.

He had no particular reason for entering the church. He simply felt an inexplicable urge to go inside.

Looking at the statue of the Emperor, Lu Jin thought back over everyone he had met since Little Damian and all the things he had experienced. Suddenly, he felt a deep sense of emotion.

Unlike the other statues of the Emperor on Manros, this one had its eyes open.

Maybe its eyes were open because it had been locked in here, Lu Jin thought.

The statue gazed down at everyone, including Lu Jin, its gilded eyes reflecting the sunlight.

"We'll help you establish order."

Lu Jin turned to face the rebel commanders.

He would see this through to the end, just as he hadn't simply rescued the surviving Fierce Angels and left.

He knew that killing and slaughtering alone couldn't save people. If he truly cared about them, he had to see things through.

"Don't let word of what happened here get out. Pay the regular tithe, and the Imperium won't send forces to suppress you," Lu Jin said. "Let this uprising be vaguely defined as a transfer of power."

The rebels nodded one after another.

An elderly slave stepped forward. "My lords, I know the secret of this church. Something's buried underground."

Then he gathered a few people and went to the back of the church.

A short while later, people carried some dust-covered components into the church.

Lu Jin realized they were parts of Ironclad Terminator Armour.

This was probably what Huron had been searching for. But it looked very plain. Apart from the red paint on its limbs, it had none of the adornments associated with the Red Butcher.

None of those ornate objects or decorative pieces were there.

Still, there was nothing to be done. It was better than nothing.

"If any of you are going to lead the new order," Lu Jin said, looking over the rebel commanders, "could you give me this armour?"

"It's not worthy of you," said a disfigured rebel commander with one eye. "But we'll make it worthy of you. We'll make it shine, make it look like the equipment Manros's savior deserves..."

Lu Jin nodded in agreement.

Then he suddenly realized...

The worlds within and beyond the Maelstrom were separate, and even their timelines weren't synchronized.

Did that mean the armour, after the Manrosans had modified it, was the very armour in the image Huron had given him?

Was that armour not in the present, but in the future?