You Say I'm a Traitor? Where's the Evidence?

The process of investigating traitors was conducted with care and caution.

Even the most paranoid Inquisitor would not casually brand someone a traitor. You could suspect anyone of abandoning the Emperor's light and turning to the powers of destruction, but you had to produce evidence proving that they truly were a traitor.

If someone stood before you, calling a certain person or group hateful traitors without being able to produce any evidence, then their own behavior was already highly suspicious.

There had been no shortage of cases where Loyalists were branded traitors and eliminated to make things easier for someone else. Creed had witnessed dozens of such incidents in his forty years of life alone.

But finding evidence was not especially difficult, either. Rebels would reveal their contempt for and blasphemy against Imperium regulations through the details.

Tattoos, decorations on uniforms, the cleanliness of the Aquila markings on weapons—any of these could make a commissar suspect that a military force was falling to corruption.

Yet Chapter Master Colvin of the Raven Guard said that, during his covert observation of the Vostroyan Rough Riders, he had discovered no abnormalities whatsoever. Even Wodhaus said that when he used psychic power to probe the Vostroyans' minds, he had detected no trace of an evil shadow.

The Vostroyans still wore crisp, immaculate red uniforms. Every one of them kept his weapon polished to a gleaming shine, and every one could recite the Emperor's teachings backward and forward.

Had he not kept Lin Fan's warning firmly in mind, Colvin would never have suspected an army with such stern and disciplined bearing.

In truth, Colvin had already begun to waver. He felt that the internal turmoil caused by rashly wiping out a "Loyal legion" numbering several million would be far more serious than an actual legion's