A New Plan for the Ecclesiarchy

"The Imperium's heretic was actually me."

Guilliman could imagine the expressions the Grey Knights and the Ordo Malleus would wear if they learned that the Primarch serving as Imperial Regent was preparing to cultivate Daemon informants.

But Guilliman had no choice. Having a deep understanding of the threat posed by the Four Gods, he knew that every possible method had to be used to ensure absolute victory.

Against those loathsome things, there was no way to win using proper methods alone.

This was a universe where whoever had the lower bottom line won.

Morality and rules mattered less than survival.

Humanity knew very little about Daemons, while Daemons knew humanity inside and out.

Moreover, key technologies that maintained the Imperium's unity—Psyker communications and faster-than-light travel—relied on the Warp.

The imbalance of information between humanity and the Chaos Gods was severe. The Imperium would have to be damned lucky to win.

This situation had to change.

Guilliman needed to ensure that the war between the Imperium of Man and the Warp was an equal one.

Daemons could enter reality and pile up mountains of corpses.

So why couldn't the Imperium enter the Warp and carry out massacres?

Cultivating a few Daemon collaborators was not entirely unacceptable.

Harboring heretical thoughts that would be enough to send him to the stake at the hands of the Ecclesiarchy and the Ordo Malleus, Guilliman left the secret chamber and used his code to enter the encrypted elevator again.

When he stepped out of the elevator, the Honor Guard was still faithfully guarding the entrance.

"My lord." Seeing Guilliman emerge, Phicris approached and bowed. "Sicarius just sent word. He wishes to see you and says he has the latest intelligence."

"Have him come to my reception room," Guilliman said. "We can deal with whatever problem he has encountered there."

"Understood." Phicris nodded and headed in the other direction to notify Sicarius.

"Let's go." Guilliman watched Phicris's back disappear down the corridor of the ship's passageway, then headed toward another passage.

The Honor Guard escorted their master away. Several Terminators remained behind, Bolters in hand, continuing to guard the door and forbidding anyone from approaching this area.

They had to ensure that no one could break into the secret place that belonged only to their lord.

After Guilliman left, the area sank back into darkness and silence.

The Terminators assigned to guard this place were all Ultramarines veterans.

They could endure loneliness and silence better.

They did not need to find something to say, as recruits did.

Like statues, they stood there in cold silence, faithfully carrying out the task their master had assigned them.

Guilliman's reception room was much larger than that of an ordinary commander, yet far simpler. Apart from the projector and data crystal pillars used for intelligence work, there were no other decorations. Everything was designed for simplicity and practicality.

To be honest, he disliked the Imperium's skull culture.

The nobles of the Imperium and the Adeptus Mechanicus now liked to shape everything like human skulls, using them to symbolize the purity of their humanity.

Over the long millennia, with the growth of the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition, the status of Mutants had steadily declined.

Those Mutants could basically only serve in the military. No world in the Imperium was permitted to be ruled by Mutants.

Once such a thing happened, that world would be regarded as rebellious by every faction of the Imperium.

By the time Guilliman returned to the reception room, Sicarius and Phicris had just arrived as well.

"My lord," Sicarius said respectfully.

"What happened?" Guilliman sat in the large chair reserved exclusively for him and gestured for Sicarius to find a seat.

Sicarius took another chair and moved the data crystals and books resting on it aside.

"News has come from the missionary world of Espandor. They hope that Lord Primarch can descend upon their world, so its residents may experience the Emperor's Mercy and radiance. Or the Primarch may designate a location, and they will travel there on pilgrimage," Sicarius said.

"A missionary world?" Guilliman's fingers tapped rhythmically upon the table before him, showing that he was deep in thought.

"Yes. This world suffered certain upheavals sixteen hundred years ago. Afterward, the Ecclesiarchy moved in, purged the heretics there, and remade it into a missionary world within Ultramar," Sicarius explained, giving an account of Espandor's situation.

Missionary worlds were also called church worlds, bishop worlds, and so on. They were populated by fanatical believers from countless different planets.

Like the Perfect City Guilliman had once burned, they were filled with poems and statues praising the Emperor—fanatically religious planets.

Much of the history from ten thousand years ago had already been lost. The present-day Ecclesiarchy probably did not know of Guilliman's burning of Monarchia.

Even if they did know, they would not publicize it widely.

If they investigated that period of history, they would learn that the Emperor disliked religion.

If the Emperor disliked religion, then what was the point of the Ecclesiarchy's existence?

No matter how one looked at it, Espandor should not know what Guilliman had done in the past. Otherwise, they would never dare invite him there.

What did they expect Guilliman to do there?

Were they not afraid of being burned again?

Guilliman pondered for a moment, then raised his head to look at Sicarius. "Reply to them. I will arrive at Espandor shortly."

"Very well, my lord. Do you have any other orders?" Sicarius asked.

"No. Go and send them the reply." Guilliman waved a hand, signaling Sicarius to attend to the task.

Sicarius withdrew from the reception room, the sound of his footsteps gradually fading away.

"My lord, why go in person? You could simply designate a world and have them come pay their respects to you," Phicris asked in confusion.

Guilliman rose and walked toward the viewport.

They were still in the Warp. Every viewport had been sealed to prevent crew members from succumbing to temptation, being beguiled by the Warp, and turning into twisted monsters.

Yet faint rays of light still leaked through the gaps in the shutters, strange and unnatural.

From Guilliman's memories, he knew that the Primarch had faced the Warp directly several times. Those bizarre scenes contained an unimaginable amount of information, enough to burn out a person's mind.

Only thanks to his powerful Primarch body had he escaped disaster.

An ordinary person would have died beyond saving long ago.

There were countless ways to die while traveling through the Warp, but dying from staring directly into it was undoubtedly one of the most foolish.

"I need to assess Espandor's value, Ecclesiarch," Guilliman said. "The Ecclesiarchy's faith has already taken deep root in people's hearts. Completely eradicating it is no longer possible. Besides, in this dark universe, the Imperium's citizens need some faith to support them through these difficult years."

"My lord, do you have a new plan for the Ecclesiarchy?" Phicris asked.

"I have an immature idea. The specific details can only be confirmed once we reach Espandor. I will find a way to bring the Ecclesiarchy under my control and reduce its influence on the Imperium to the lowest possible level," Guilliman said. "The Imperial Ecclesiarchy holds far too much power. It can even accuse a Chapter or a world of disloyalty and declare them rebels. That is too dangerous. Religion blinds people and strips them of reason. The Ecclesiarchy must be controlled."

Since its birth, the Ecclesiarchy had committed almost too many foolish acts to count.

It was true that saints such as Celestine had appeared and saved the fate of the Imperium of Man. Yet they had also contributed greatly to humanity's descent into ignorance.

In the thirty-second millennium, during the Beast Wars, the Ecclesiarchy incited believers to launch a fanatical crusade against the Orks' attack moon, resulting in massive casualties.

In the thirty-third millennium, a schism erupted within the Ecclesiarchy. The Temple Sect purged the Light Alliance and seized control of all religious activity in the Imperium. Humanity's reason gradually collapsed, and it entered an age of ignorance.

In the thirty-fourth millennium, the Ecclesiarchy formed the Frateris Militia and purged the Twin Empire—New Terra. The Imperium completely became a religious state.

In the thirty-sixth millennium, Vandire, the newly appointed Ecclesiarch of the Ecclesiarchy, began a bloody reign. During that time, he carried out Exterminatus on more than a hundred human worlds because they were insufficiently devout toward the Ecclesiarchy. Insufficient devotion included failing to build enough statues of the Emperor, failing to welcome Ecclesiarchy delegations enthusiastically enough, and failing to donate actively enough to religion.

He also launched a campaign against the Space Wolves because they upheld their own beliefs and refused to adopt the Ecclesiarchy's faith.

During that period, the Imperium fell into decline. Thousands of years of accumulation were exhausted by the ravages of religious activity.

In the thirty-seventh millennium, thirty Chapters and more than twenty thousand Space Marines were declared rebels by Ecclesiarchy saints and sent on the Abyssal Crusade. Aside from the surviving remnants of the Piercing Sword Chapter, who managed to return, every other Chapter was wiped out. More than half of them were completely corrupted.

These were merely some of the more representative events committed by the Ecclesiarchy. Many incidents had not been listed in detail, but they were equally horrifying.

The Emperor had been right. Every religious organization was a cancer.

Unfortunately, Guilliman did not dare burst this cancer directly either. That would destroy the entire Imperium.

He had a new plan. He would do everything possible to guide this fanatical faith onto the path he needed.