第9章 帝皇:这定是未知力量作祟!

On the other side, after Odinson left the meeting room with his government team, he didn't go straight down to the lower hive to press people into service. Instead, he came to the Space Marine thralls' quarters and dragged all the idle Space Marine thralls off to serve as engineering managers.

When the personnel were all present, Odinson led the team up to the upper hive, pressed a bolter against a noble's head, and laid out the stakes in stark terms.

The noble immediately saw the error of his ways and brought Odinson to several power brokers in the lower hive.

Odinson pressed his bolter against the heads of these individuals as well, laid out the stakes, and demanded that they assemble a labor force of at least one hundred million for engineering construction—all while using gentle methods. If anyone died, their entire household would be beheaded.

The men immediately repented and agreed wholeheartedly.

Under the influence of the civil factories—or rather, the system's enhancement—these people were completely drained of courage, with no intent whatsoever to muddle through or resort to deceit.

They immediately summoned their subordinates, told them to notify the various gangs in the lower hive to scrape together a workforce of one hundred million, and specifically emphasized that the men must be young and strong.

At the same time, they stated that the methods must be gentle, and anyone who dared to cause a fatality would have their entire household beheaded.

These subordinates were also scared out of their wits, tumbling and crawling as they went to notify the various gang bosses and repeating every word the power brokers had said.

Consequently, these bosses were also scared out of their wits. Terrified of incurring the Emperor's angels' anexcommunication, they immediately summoned their underlings to begin assigning tasks, repeating the exact words spoken by the power brokers' subordinates.

Thus, these usually arrogant and domineering gang members were also scared out of their wits. Trembling with fear, they began knocking on doors and calling out to people from house to house, carefully avoiding any fatalities for fear that the Emperor's angels were watching them...

Driven by fear, these gang members operated with extreme efficiency, and soon the entire lower hive erupted into a vigorous yet cautious operation to press men into service.

Watching the entire process unfold from the shadows, the Emperor slowly spat out a question mark: "?"

As the Master of Mankind, He had a great deal of say in this matter.

Fear could indeed increase efficiency, but it also caused the transmission and execution of orders to become distorted.

As it turned out, not a single one of these people falsely claimed an imperial decree, and not even a single instance of misremembering occurred. This situation was simply not right.

Moreover, among so many people, from top to bottom, not a single one held any wishful thinking. No matter how arrogant they used to be, they were now terrified of being exposed for doing a poor job, treading on thin ice as if they had always been timid and cautious people.

The problem was, if you were truly timid and cautious, could you have survived in the lower hive until now? How could that possibly be!

If fear really worked this well, He would have directly given full support to Curze and Corax back then!

This was undoubtedly caused by that unknown force. It intensified these people's fear while keeping them rational, causing them to display ultra-high efficiency amidst that very fear.

Yet He could not tell at all how this force accomplished this, and failed to discover even a shred of disharmony in these people.

This filled Him with a trace of fear.

One had to remember that He was now a genuine human racial god, and He was even stuck on the path to godhood, possessing a trace of the power of the Chaos Octed. Furthermore, these people included quite a few fanatical Ecclesiarchy believers.

Under such circumstances, how could He fail entirely to detect how that unknown force was influencing these people? How could this put His mind at ease?

If ordinary people could be influenced now without leaving a trace, would it be possible later to influence Space Marines, Custodians, Primarchs, or even... Himself?

The very thought that His own awakening was also related to this unknown force cast a shadow over His heart.

(ps: Actually, they were influenced long ago, the Empress just hasn't noticed yet (smothering a laugh.jpg).)

Yet He was now weaker than ever before and could do nothing, so He could only secretly heighten His vigilance.

Meanwhile, the gangs' round-up of laborers caused the destinies of countless people to undergo drastic changes.

Lower hive, Castor District, Hyena Gang territory.

"Bang, bang, bang! Door opening!"

The violent knocking and shouting woke Old John. He instinctively held his breath, trying to pretend he was not home.

Yet the gang members outside seemed to already know someone was inside. They kept pounding on the door and even began trying to break it down directly.

A door made of two sheet-iron panels naturally could not stop prepared gang members. Before long, the main entrance was smashed open, and two gang members barged straight in.

Old John instinctively hugged his head and curled into a ball, preparing to welcome the ensuing beating.

In the lower hive, daring to disrespect these gang members meant beatings were just the baseline, with no upper limit.

For someone disobedient like him, a severe beating could even be considered lucky.

Yet the anticipated fists and clubs did not land on his body. Instead, he was yanked straight up by the collar from his bed.

"Sleep, sleep, sleep! You only know how to sleep! Are your ears deaf when I tell you to open the door?!"

Another gang member paced back and forth, roaring anxiously at Old John, who was standing at attention.

"M... milords, I really am hard of hearing. I truly didn't hear you." Although he didn't know why the mafia's temper was so good today, Old John quickly seized the chance to back down.

The thug who had yanked him from the bed hesitated upon hearing this: "Hard of hearing? Can a person like this be handed over? What if it angers the angel lords and ruins our whole family's chances at prosperity and wealth?"

The other thug abruptly stopped pacing: "Hard of hearing my ass! Goddamn it, I found out ages ago that this son of a bitch was carrying loads two days ago and ran like lightning when he heard the news about getting paid! Hard of hearing my ass!"

As a well-trained lower-hive resident, Old John understood the implication behind the words. He immediately took out the Hyena Coin he had just received: "Milords, these are as a tribute to you."

The thug who had grabbed him lit up and reached out to take them, but he was slapped by the anxious thug: "You fucking want your whole family to enjoy prosperity and wealth right now, don't you? If he goes to complain to the angel lord, not a single one of your family members will escape."

The grabbing thug aggrievedly clutched his face, not daring to talk back. His previous action had been pure muscular instinct, bypassing his brain entirely; now, fear had reoccupied the high ground of his brain and taken control of his muscles again.

Old John was left utterly bewildered by the pair's actions, his hand holding the money suspended mid-air—it felt wrong to offer it, but wrong to pull it back either.

The anxious thug attempted an explanation instead: "There's a massive engineering project for you to work on, the biggest kind there is. Are you going or not?"

Old John said cautiously, "Um... can I not go? I can pay money instead."

Inwardly, he cursed, Some bullshit massive project, the biggest kind there is. It's obviously some unpaid drudgery for the nobles that might even get people killed.

This sort of thing had happened more than once or twice. Whenever the nobles wanted to make a big move, they rounded up labor everywhere. If you were lucky, you brought your own dry rations and did unpaid labor; if you were unlucky, you simply vanished from the face of the earth. Only an idiot would go!

"You fucking—" The anxious thug began to feel anxious again, but if he didn't mention the angel lord, the boss had explicitly stated that anyone who failed to scrape together enough people to hand over would be directly beheaded!

If the angel lord hadn't specifically named and demanded that no gang members be taken, he would have wanted to turn himself in.

Suppressing his anger and fear, he explained patiently, "This time we're not working for the nobles. The Emperor's angel lords are expanding the starch factory. Not only do they provide all meals, but there are also extra starch and vitamin pills given as wages and bonuses. I hear that if you're lucky, you might even get selected for some kind of military force and serve the angel lords directly. This is a heavenly blessing!"

Seeing that the man was actually keeping his temper and explaining things to him, Old John remained half-in-doubt: "Such a good thing—why don't you go yourself?"

"Because the angel lord looks down on people like us!" The thug wore an aggrieved expression. When he heard he could directly serve the angel lord, he had wanted to sign up, only to be met with this world-shattering news.

Old John hesitated. Not a single word out of these gang members' mouths could be trusted, but they shouldn't have the guts to blaspheme the Emperor's angels.

Besides, the temptation of vitamin pills made him waver somewhat.

Vitamin pills were called vitamins, but they were actually a type of nano-medical serum capable of treating the vast majority of common ailments. Even if they couldn't regenerate severed limbs, they were no different from miraculous elixirs to a lower-hive dweller like him.

After all, which lower-hive resident didn't suffer from a whole body full of illnesses? Having this stuff was no different from being born again.

Old John hesitated for a long while. The anxious thug began pacing back and forth again, even wondering whether he should go find the next household first.

Thinking of the stories and great reputation of the angels, Old John felt that perhaps this matter was true, so he nodded in agreement: "Fine, I'll do it. When do we set off?"

Joy spread across the anxious thug's face, his entire body relaxing: "Wait for my news. I'm going to visit a few more households to gather enough people, and then we'll depart."

With that, he led the grabbing thug out the door and headed for the next house.

Old John looked at the sheet-iron door with its punched-out hole, then down at the Hyena Coin in his hand, feeling that this matter must be real.

Watching the whole process from start to finish, the Emperor said: "6"

This was clearly that unknown force reinforcing this man's trust in the Astral Claws; otherwise, relying merely on a moniker that only appeared in mythological stories, how could it possibly make a lower-hive resident trust the gang members?

Yet the Emperor still failed to detect a shred of anything amiss. Everything felt natural, without the slightest abnormality.

Furthermore, such events were happening simultaneously in thousands upon thousands of corners of the lower hive, all much of a muchness, making the Emperor feel that this force seemed rather kind to ordinary people.

Although it used fear to make the gangsters work, toward ordinary people it was primarily about strengthening trust.

Coupled with the fact that the Emperor knew Huron genuinely intended to fulfill his promise, all of this caused Him to raise His evaluation of that unknown force just a notch.

Hm, slightly higher than the Chaos Gods.