The End of the Unification War

Two years slipped quietly by beneath the alternating rise and fall of Colchis's Pale Twins.

The benefits brought by unification were enormous. The barriers that had obstructed trade were torn down, and technologies and resources once held separately began to circulate and integrate. Centered on Ralte and the former Southern Highlands, an administrative network and Work-Point System economy radiating across the entire planet had begun to take shape. Though the land remained poor, reports of people starving to death had become rare. The roads were no longer filled with refugees fleeing disaster, but caravans transporting supplies and civil servants in uniform.

Earthly Heaven was no longer merely a slogan. It began, clumsily yet resolutely, to leave its mark upon the land.

During a resource survey of the northern mountains, Lorgar personally led the team. Deep within an exceptionally hidden canyon, relying on his Primarch's extraordinary senses and instinctive understanding of geological structures, he actually unearthed the wreckage of a massive starship beneath thick layers of rock and ice.

It was dark gray from end to end, with harsh, rigid lines. Its style was entirely unlike anything made in modern Colchis—or in any known era of the Covenant Church—and possessed the aesthetic beauty of some lost technology. The hull was severely damaged, its internal systems long since completely silent, and its engines had become incomprehensible lumps of metal.

With Colchis's current technology, they could not even understand its basic principles, let alone restore it.

Yet this vessel from the Age of Strife held far greater symbolic value than practical value. After discussion, it was not dismantled for research—because nothing could have been learned from it anyway—but instead transported intact back to the Southern Settlement, which had become the planet's capital.

When Lorgar proposed renaming the capital Perfect City, Zhou Beichen was drinking water. Upon hearing it, the corner of his mouth twitched uncontrollably. He gave Lorgar a complicated look, then merely hummed noncommittally. He neither approved nor objected.

Lorgar noticed that fleeting abnormality, but did not ask. He knew that within his father's soul, which had come from another world, were too many memories and emotions he could never fully understand. In the end, the capital was officially renamed Perfect City. The starship was carefully placed in the largest square at the center of the city, surrounded by walkways and green space, becoming a magnificent monument. A line of large words was carved into its base, written by Lorgar himself:

"To commemorate humanity's undying spirit of exploration, and the courage to face the unknown."

This monument silently reminded every Colchian that their world was not the center of the universe, and that their ancestors had once dreamed of touching the sea of stars.

Over those two years, Lorgar grew even faster than Colchis itself was being rebuilt. All the random "stories" and concepts Zhou Beichen fed him were absorbed, refined, and transformed by his Primarch intellect. Without a teacher, he came to understand what history called the art of rulership.

He no longer relied solely on personal charisma and a sacred aura. When establishing and balancing the government's structure, he displayed astonishing political skill.

When appointing the chairman of the Resource Coordination Committee, the crucial department responsible for allocating supplies, he did not choose Lavoisier, who had the longest seniority and the strongest support. Instead, he promoted a young former member of the Lackeys, someone skilled at calculation and with the deepest understanding of the Work-Point System. At the same time, he gave the power to supervise and audit the committee to another old-school official known for his upright nature and impartiality. One focused on expanding efficiency, while the other focused on rules and balance, creating a subtle counterweight.

When some early followers began forming new interest groups during the implementation of the Work-Point System, attempting to monopolize work-point pricing in certain industries through their seniority, Lorgar did not suppress them directly. Instead, he swiftly established the Work-Point Exchange and the Anti-Monopoly Inspection Squad, introducing a degree of market competition and regulatory mechanisms, strangling these potential hereditary factions in the cradle.

He understood how to use rules and institutions to guide and restrain human nature, rather than relying purely on faith or brute power.

Sometimes, Zhou Beichen watched Lorgar skillfully employ concepts Zhou Beichen had once taught him—"checks and balances," "incentives," and "risk diversification"—during government meetings. Lorgar managed a group of subordinates with varied personalities and considerable ability until they were completely obedient, ensuring efficiency while preventing any one of them from becoming too powerful. Zhou Beichen could not help clicking his tongue inwardly.

This brat was getting more and more like Capital Jia.

As a religious leader, he understood how to command his subordinates through the lens of modern management and economics, maximizing "organizational efficiency." At the same time, he never loosened the spiritual banner of the New Covenant Church, using worship of the Son of God and the shared vision of Earthly Heaven to unite people's hearts and reduce management costs.

This ability to combine pragmatic capitalist logic with transcendent religious sentiment made even Zhou Beichen, his old teacher, feel that the younger generation was formidable.

As the various levels of administration were gradually established and operations became increasingly smooth, Zhou Beichen made a decision.

He resigned from every official position in the Earthly Heaven government.

"I'm tired. It's time to retire and enjoy life," he told Lorgar and the core leadership, wearing his usual smile that made it impossible to tell truth from falsehood. "From now on, discuss the specifics among yourselves. Unless the sky comes falling down, don't bother me."

No one dared truly regard him as an ordinary retiree. He remained Lorgar's publicly acknowledged father and one of the original founders of Earthly Heaven's ideals. His influence was everywhere; it had merely moved from the front stage to behind the scenes.

After stepping down, Zhou Beichen did not remain in his comfortable residence in Perfect City. Instead, he brought Lorgar along on a purposeless journey that covered all of Colchis. They notified no local officials, traveled with no ceremonial escort, and had no guards. Like two ordinary travelers, they wore inconspicuous travel cloaks and mingled among caravans and migrating crowds, using their own eyes to observe and their own ears to listen, to see what the world they had personally pushed into transformation had truly become in its smallest details.

They passed battlefields where brutal offensives and defenses had once taken place. Large collective farms and livestock pens now stood there. On newly reclaimed land, lush improved crops thrived beneath the pale sunlight. Workers labored in the fields according to work-point teams, then gathered around water buckets to drink and chat during breaks. Their faces no longer held numbness, but a busy energy filled with hope.

They passed through areas once corrupted by Bishop Lot's Chaos power, then purified by Lorgar. The fleshy tumors and multicolored mist had long vanished from the land, though the soil remained relatively barren. They saw lecturers from the Faith and Order Defense Bureau organizing villagers to learn new agricultural techniques, repeatedly emphasizing equal exchange and the need to beware the temptation of gaining something for nothing. In some villagers' homes, small statues of Lorgar were still worshipped in humble shrines.

At newly established border trade markets, they saw merchants from different former dioceses bargaining in accented common speech. The mediums of exchange were all kinds of work-point vouchers and credit notes backed by work points. Occasionally, minor disputes arose, but grassroots mediators with white armbands quickly came to handle them.

They also saw many problems. The Work-Point System faced resistance in remote areas. Some local officials understood it too rigidly and practiced egalitarianism, dampening people's enthusiasm. Conflicts between old and new ideas occurred often. Over a lost Sand Beast, villagers who believed in the New Covenant could argue with neighbors still clinging to old religious ideas for half a day. Educational resources remained scarce. The compulsory education promoted by Lavoisier could barely cover towns, while many rural children were still left to fend for themselves.

In a village that had just suffered a locust plague, they saw villagers, organized by local grassroots officials, collectively replanting disaster-resistant crops with new seeds promoted by the agricultural department. The losses remained severe, but no one starved to death, and there was no mass flight. A loudspeaker hanging at the village entrance played notices on repeat, encouraging production and self-rescue while announcing policies for disaster work-point subsidies.

Lorgar silently watched all of it. He saw new crops growing from land his Purifying Flame had once burned. He saw how the systems he had helped design affected ordinary people's lives on the smallest scale. He saw a complex picture where hope and hardship intertwined. It was more real, and heavier, than any government report.

The two traveled on, speaking less than they remained silent, yet an unspoken understanding settled between them during the journey. They witnessed the pulse of Colchis and felt its rebirth amid labor pains.

That day, at dusk, they walked along the edge of a vast desert that had just been included in a land-reclamation plan. The pale daylight gradually dimmed. In the distance, toward Perfect City, scattered points of light appeared—lighting that had only gradually become widespread over the past two years, powered by windmills and simple chemical batteries.

Zhou Beichen stopped and gazed at those stubborn glimmers flickering in the darkness.

"Lorgar," he suddenly said, his voice slightly hoarse, "after all this trouble, what exactly are we doing it for?"

Lorgar stood beside him, his tall body like a mountain beneath the twilight. He looked into the distance, the lights of humanity reflected in his violet eyes. After a moment of silence, he slowly said:

"I don't know. But at least they have lights at night now."

Zhou Beichen froze for a moment, then gave a derisive snort, shook his head, and said nothing more.

The two simply stood there in silence, watching the still-weak flame of civilization they had lit with their own hands burn stubbornly beneath Colchis's cold night sky.

After a long while, Zhou Beichen straightened up.

"Let's go. It's getting dark. Find somewhere to rest."

He turned and headed toward a wanderers' supply station faintly visible deep in the desert. Lorgar gave the distant lights one last look, then silently turned and followed Zhou Beichen's footsteps.

One tall and one short, the two figures gradually melted into the vast twilight and endless sea of sand, leaving behind only two shallow trails of footprints leading into the distance.