Interlude: Triumph Ceremony (I)

The shuttle landed once more. As the hatch lowered, Karyl jumped down with a document case in hand.

He had no time to wait for the shuttle's steps to descend—yes, he had become this greedy now, clutching even these insignificant few seconds tightly in his grasp.

The moment his boots touched the ground, he began to run. Their hard clacks against the floor were soon swallowed by another sound, one grand and deafening, echoing without cease.

It came from two enormous horns made of pure gold and jewels, whose annual maintenance alone cost a staggering sum. Their creator had been an artist of distinguished lineage, one of whose ancestors had once carved ornaments for The Emperor's Dream.

To avoid disgracing that legacy, the family had labored for generations in the hope of one day creating a work worthy of their ancestor's name. This artist had perhaps come closer than any of them.

He had been commissioned to make them three centuries ago. To forge these two golden horns, each twenty meters tall, he had exhausted all the wealth and connections his family had accumulated over the years, only to fall ill and die from overwork during the final stage.

After his death, the local nobility jointly presented the two horns to Sanguinius during that year's Emperor's Ascension Day. They even wrote a lengthy letter, earnestly hoping that the Angel might accept the gift on the Emperor's behalf. Its language was so sincere it was nearly enough to bring one to tears.

Yet the artist's name was never mentioned in that letter.

In the end, Sanguinius replied with a letter of his own, equally earnest in tone, but making no mention of whether he accepted the gift. He merely said that he hoped the horns could remain in the homeland of