Elder Brother and the Commissar

Life at Loyalty Academy was harsh and monotonous. Everything here existed to forge children into the Imperium's most loyal, most resilient, and most ruthless tools. Every day consisted of endless prayers, study, and brutal militarized training. Any sign of individuality was treated as the budding of "heresy" and ruthlessly suppressed.

For any normal child, this place was hell.

But for Liu Zhipeng, this... was practically paradise.

He discovered that Loyalty Academy's soul-crushing, high-pressure educational system was the perfect "amplifier" for his two passive abilities.

Every child here was an orphan who had lost everything to war. Their hearts were filled with trauma, confusion, and a thirst for vengeance. They were the abandoned, the most vulnerable people, the ones most in need of "care" and "guidance."

The ability of The Father's Gaze and Love made Alexander the warmest light among these "desperate souls."

In the cafeteria, he would give his already meager portion of meat to the roommate whose malnutrition had stunted his growth. During brutal wilderness survival training, he would carry a girl who had sprained her ankle and wept that she wanted to give up, walking the final ten kilometers of mountain road with her on his back. Late at night, for companions awakened by nightmares and crying out for their fathers and mothers, he would softly hum the lullabies his mother had once sung in praise of the Emperor.

He never asked for anything in return. His giving seemed to stem from the instinct of an elder brother.

Before long, he became the undisputed center of their class. People naturally gathered around him, sharing their pain with one another, along with the tiny scraps of warmth they received from him.

And the ability of the Heretic Leader made him the pillar of their spirits.

"The instructors tell us to hate the enemy. That is right," he told the companions gathered around him after a simulated tactics class. "But why do we hate them? Not because of orders, not because of doctrine. It is because they took everything from us! They killed our parents and burned our homes! This hatred is our most precious, most sacred treasure! It is the flame of vengeance the Emperor bestowed upon us!"

"Do not suppress it! Do not fear it! Embrace it! Feel it! Let this flame burn in your hearts! Every punch, every shot, every breath should be for vengeance! That is the best comfort we can offer our departed loved ones! That is the ultimate loyalty to the Emperor!"

His words were like a key, unlocking the deepest shackles in these children's hearts.

Loyalty Academy taught them to obey, to suppress their emotions, and to become cold machines of war. But Alexander told them that their emotions, their pain, and their hatred were their most powerful weapons.

The theory sounded somewhat "unorthodox," but it perfectly matched the desires in their hearts.

They began throwing themselves into training with near-fanatical zeal. In every sparring match, they imagined their opponent was the enemy who had murdered their families; with every shot, they saw the target as the head of a Chaos daemon. Their performance improved by leaps and bounds. The confusion in their eyes, once that of orphans, became the resolve of avengers.

Naturally, Alexander's "out-of-line" behavior drew the attention of the academy instructors.

The one in charge of their class was an old commissar named Imran. One of his eyes and half his face had been replaced by machinery. In his remaining eye always glimmered a scrutinizing light as sharp as a razor.

He summoned Alexander to his office.

"Cadet Lawrence," the old commissar's voice rasped like two stones grinding together, "I have read your training reports and psychological evaluations. Excellent. Even... too excellent."

"You are very popular among your companions. They call you 'Elder Brother.' They are willing to follow you, even beyond their obedience to the instructors. Do you know that in a commissar's dictionary, the term 'cult of personality' is equivalent to 'treason'?"

Imran's single eye stared fixedly at Alexander, trying to find even the slightest trace of fear or guilt on his face.

But Alexander merely met his gaze calmly.

"Sir, I have never believed they worship me. What they worship is 'hope.'"

"Oh?" Imran's lips curled into a cold sneer.

"We are all orphans, sir. We have nothing. Only two things keep us alive: hatred for the past and hope for the future." Alexander answered neither humbly nor arrogantly. "The academy has taught us how to hate, and that is good. But I believe hatred alone is not enough. Hatred can burn a person to ashes, but hope can turn ashes into burning steel."

"All I have done is share with my 'brothers and sisters' the little warmth of 'family' and 'protection' that I received from my departed parents. I told them that we are not orphans. We are a new family. We fight for one another, and we fight for our shared 'patriarch'—The Emperor. If this kind of 'hope' looks like a 'cult of personality' to you, then I have nothing more to say."

Imran fell silent.

His mechanical eye flickered rapidly, analyzing every logical flaw in Alexander's words and the authenticity of every microexpression.

But the analysis returned nothing.

This young man's words were flawless. Every word rested upon absolute loyalty to the Imperium. He had even elevated his own actions to the irrefutable political correctness of "the Emperor's family."

"...Well said, Cadet." After a long while, Imran's voice, like metal scraping against stone, sounded again. His flickering mechanical eye stopped scanning, and a barely perceptible complicated emotion seemed to enter his cold gaze. "Hope is a double-edged sword. It can forge steel, but it can also invite rust. Your theory is dangerous, but... effective."

He took a thick black-covered book from the desk, its cover embossed with a double-headed eagle.

"This is the first edition of the Imperial Commissar's Handbook. It records not only regulations, but also the lessons countless old men like me bought with blood and life." Imran pushed the book toward Alexander. "You are very clever, Lawrence. On the battlefield, cleverness is the third most important thing."

"What are the first two, sir?" Alexander asked.

"First, making the people around you believe that you fear death less than they do. Second," Imran said, tapping the handbook on the desk with a metal finger, "making them believe that your death, or theirs, has meaning."

"You seem to have grasped the second point without a teacher. Now, I hope you can put your 'family theory' into a report more systematically, using official Imperial language." The old commissar leaned back in his chair. "Do not disappoint me, Cadet. The Imperium needs tools, but a thinking tool that knows how to sharpen itself will always be more valuable than a hammer that can only rust."