After pulling himself away from the mountains of administrative paperwork and tabletop wargames, Lorgar finally decided to set foot on the surface of Colchis and see with his own eyes the land into which he had poured his heart and soul, yet had not visited for decades.
There was no grand procession, no announcement, not even Seras or Hercules at his side.
He simply changed into an unremarkable dark gray hooded robe, no different from those worn by the city's senior clerks or scholars, and raised the hood to conceal his conspicuous long black hair and sharply defined features. Like a drop of water entering the ocean, he slipped silently into the vast, ceaseless crowds of the City of Holy Edict.
Walking along broad, neatly planned streets paved with sturdy alloys and self-cleaning stone, passing between towering skyscrapers whose surfaces shimmered with energy-efficient light, Lorgar sometimes slowed his steps, sometimes stopped altogether.
His gaze passed over the clean, brightly lit shop windows on either side, displaying cleverly designed household goods and ornaments that were not necessities for survival.
It passed over children playing and elderly people strolling through parks amid the streets. Their faces bore no sickly pallor of hunger, only the serenity of peaceful times, even if that serenity rested upon conquests among distant stars.
It passed over the programs cycling across public screens, offering both educational content and entertainment news.
It took in the air, no longer thick with the stench of decay and overcrowding, but fresh from circulating purification systems, with occasional wafts of food from roadside stalls.
So much had changed.
Fragments of memory occasionally surfaced in his mind, overlapping with the scenes before him, throwing their differences into relief.
When he had left Colchis, his iron rule and foresight had ended the ceaseless tribal wars