Wild Thoughts Were No Match for a Fight

When the report on the Orks' appearance and the summary of the follow-up handling reached Huron, it contained only a few short lines.

Seeing the conclusion, "complete eradication accomplished," Huron relaxed.

As long as it had not turned into a security war, Huron did not care.

What was more, the frontline forces had reacted swiftly this time. They had immediately requested support when the unexpected situation arose, and the superior officers had not treated the lives of ordinary soldiers as tools for earning merit. They had handled it very well.

As for the Purifying Fire cult, its handling had also ended with every member killed.

Whenever he thought of those lunatics, Huron felt speechless.

That cult approved of the Astral Claws' Public Trials of nobles, but they approved a little too much. They began clamoring to judge anyone connected to the nobility.

Then they started setting up private courts and carrying out lynchings against Underhive workers, killing quite a few people.

They were then branded an extremist cult and severely beaten down by the Special Operations Division's Iron Fist. Most of them surrendered and accepted labor reform.

Only the most extreme diehards escaped into the Deep Hive. They believed the Special Operations Division had been corrupted by noble bribes and planned to relocate before continuing their judgments.

Huron had been speechless when he first read that report. By that insane cult's standards, anyone who had ever worked for a noble deserved to die.

If they truly did things their way, it was doubtful Badab could even produce a hundred million innocent people.

Now that those psychopaths had been brought to justice, one of Huron's worries had finally been eased.

However, when he looked at the vast red areas marked as Deep Hive territory, then at the scattered green dots representing controlled zones, he could not help rubbing his brow.

Although those green dots represented areas spanning hundreds or thousands of square kilometers, compared to the Deep Hive's millions of square kilometers, its several-kilometer height, and its dozens of layers, they were little more than drops in the ocean.

Still, there was nothing Huron could do about it.

Although they had seized many Bolters during the confiscations and established production lines for Bolters and Exoskeletons, not much time had passed. The Special Operations Division had only set up a little over twenty units, totaling just over five hundred thousand personnel.

That number was naturally more than sufficient for fleet Breacher Teams, but scattered into the Deep Hive, it was no different from dust falling into the sea.

Even with two Great Companies deployed around the clock, the cleanup could not proceed quickly.

They had to wait for subsequent infrastructure and armed settlers to catch up. Otherwise, the moment the troops left, the monsters and freaks of the Deep Hive would come crawling back at the scent.

Fortunately, the previous Emperor's Epiphany Ritual had worked astonishingly well. The Chaos Cults of the Deep Hive had been wiped out completely, removing one troublesome enemy.

But everything still required time.

"Time... Sigh. Am I being too impatient?"

Huron calmed his emotions.

To be fair, the more than two thousand Astartes and several hundred thousand Special Operations Division troops might not have changed the tide of battle if deployed on Cadia, but they still counted as a significant force.

Besides, he had only been in this world for a year. This progress was already considered fast.

With that thought, he continued reading the other summary reports.

"Today's Public Trial involved more than sixteen thousand people. More than ten thousand were sentenced to death. More than one hundred million criminals remain awaiting Public Trial. The primary crimes of today's defendants were..."

The major nobles were personally judged by the Astral Claws, such as when Odinson judged the Salome Family.

The reason was that some of those great nobles had their servants do everything for them. They had no need to dirty their own hands, or even meet their victims.

Just like that Battle Sister. Until her death, she never knew she had been livestock raised by the Watt Family.

Without victims coming forward to testify, the Astral Claws could only judge them according to Imperial law.

However, the remaining minor nobles and the lackeys who committed evil while attached to the nobility had come into contact with many victims. Plenty of people were willing to identify their crimes.

Those people were therefore temporarily detained, waiting for victims to come forward and identify them before they faced Public Trial.

On one hand, this was to establish the force and authority of the Badab Codex. On the other, it was to educate the watching public about the law.

Although the nobles were all vile bastards, many residents living in the twisted environment of the Underhive were not much better themselves.

Those guilty of heinous crimes were also publicly tried and executed. As for lesser offenses such as theft and brawling, Huron decided to let them go and give them a chance to start over.

But most Hive City residents were both illiterate and ignorant of the law. If the law was not properly explained to them, they would probably break it and still think themselves wronged.

However, after reading the major charges against today's defendants, Huron felt his blood pressure rising again.

The charges alone gave him the absurd feeling of seeing words arranged in combinations that should not exist. Reading the actual details would have been cardiovascular exercise for him.

The anxiety he had just suppressed rose again.

Besides Palatus, the largest Hive City on Badab Primus, the other thirteen Hive Cities probably held a combined population of thirty or forty billion.

Although those Hive Cities had surrendered at the first sign of trouble, Huron had only dispatched a total of ten million Auxilia personnel to maintain order because of manpower shortages.

He did not need to think to know that similar events were likely continuing to unfold throughout those Hive Cities.

Theoretically, those matters had nothing to do with Huron and could not be blamed on him.

But the values he had developed in his previous life, combined with the system's immense power, instead gave him a pathological sense of responsibility. He felt that every problem he knew about but could not solve was partly his burden.

Fortunately, Odinson and the other Astartes officials were capable enough, and the system's functions were efficient enough. Otherwise, his conflicted state of mind might have caused serious trouble.

After struggling with it for a while, Huron chose to stop thinking and rose to head for the dueling pit.

Thanks to the Emperor's Gaze buff, Huron now stood two and a half meters tall in Power Armour, and his combat strength was steadily rising as well.

He had beaten Corian and every Battle-Brother of the Tiger Claws Bloodline more than once. That was also one reason Corian and the others behaved themselves so obediently.

The Chapter Master was simply too good at fighting.

When he arrived at the dueling pit, several Tiger Claws who had just returned from duty and had not fought to their satisfaction were dueling in the pit. Many Tiger Claws and Astral Claws were watching from around them.

"Chapter Master, you're here." One Tiger Claw spotted Huron and immediately snapped to attention.

"Chapter Master." The others greeted him as well.

"Good afternoon, everyone. Anyone want to keep dueling? Come fight me later." Huron had already changed into training gear and stepped into the dueling pit.

"Count me in. All of you, come at me!" Huron shouted at the several Tiger Claws in the pit.

The Tiger Claws reflexively snapped to attention, then realized what he had said and charged Huron with howls.

Huron waited until they surrounded him, then suddenly lunged forward and sent one Tiger Claw flying with a direct collision.

Then he twisted aside, evading two Chainswords slashing at him. He seized the two Tiger Claws whose movements had become unbalanced from overexertion and flung them away.

Next, he picked up two Chainswords and charged the remaining three Tiger Claws like a mad dog.

The three immediately prepared to defend themselves, raising their Chainswords to block Huron's strikes.

Huron continued hacking, growing faster and faster. Violent sparks burst from the clashing Chainswords, making it difficult for the three Tiger Claws to hold their ground.

Crack. Huron's Chainswords and those of the three Tiger Claws snapped apart.

He hurled the two hilts at the Tiger Claws, then hooked one Tiger Claw under each arm and began swinging them around like a windmill.

The remaining Tiger Claw was battered senseless by his two Battle-Brothers. Before he could even beg for mercy, he collapsed and fell asleep.

In just a few seconds, all six Tiger Claws in the pit had been injured.

Huron put down the two Tiger Claws in his hands. "Apothecary, examine them!"

The Apothecary watching nearby immediately entered the dueling pit and used his instruments to check the Battle-Brothers' injuries.

Huron felt utterly refreshed. He stopped thinking about everything else and looked up toward the stands.

"Anyone else want to come down?"