The highest authority in the Hero's Tower was a cardinal of the Imperial Cult, only one step below its supreme pontiff.
After several priests escorted Li Qinwu to a reception room, it was not the cardinal who came to see him.
The cardinal held roughly the same status as Sigurd. Li Qinwu's current official identity was merely that of a junior-grade Inquisitor, which did not qualify him for an audience.
Instead, he was received by a priest responsible for the tower's external affairs.
They sat facing each other in the reception room, and the priest, who looked to be in his seventies, asked:
"My lord, what business brings you to the Hero's Tower?"
Rather than explain his business, Li Qinwu asked:
"Father, as I understand it, when an Astartes Chapter is destroyed, the Bell of Lost Souls must toll a full thousand times to honor the Imperium's heroic spirits. That is the rule, correct?"
The priest nodded.
"My lord, that is indeed the rule. If every member of an Astartes Chapter is confirmed dead, and it has lost its recruiting grounds or its Warship Monastery, the entire Chapter is deemed destroyed.
The Bell of Lost Souls will toll a full thousand times for the thousand Adeptus Astartes, sounding their requiem!"
Li Qinwu nodded, then placed the map case he had been carrying on the table under the priest's puzzled gaze.
The map case was a cylinder about a meter and a half long, designed to hold rolled-up maps or similar items!
Li Qinwu pulled several banners from it. Some were riddled with bullet holes, while others had been burned down to scraps along their edges. Not one remained intact.
These belonged to the Broken-Winged Angel Chapter: seven company banners and one Astartes Chapter banner, eight in total.
There were only