The less-than-brilliant sunlight shone on the soaring spiretop.
Overhead lay a somewhat fathomless daytime starscape, and below stretched a boundless sea of black clouds.
In a district of towering buildings near the center, a group walked briskly beneath imposing Gothic structures.
The buildings were so tall that the figures beneath them looked like a cluster of ants.
"My lord, the refugee district is just ahead."
Brunok led the way, with the most elite veterans surrounding Sith in the middle.
Sith looked up at the towering, sacred buildings around him.
As the residential district of the Hive City's uppermost elite, its buildings had been constructed with almost no regard for cost, making them exceptionally grand and magnificent.
The road beneath his feet was already several hundred meters wide, as though he were walking across an enormous, flat football field of a single color, yet before these buildings, even that road seemed narrow and cramped.
Lowering his gaze and ignoring the terrified eyes behind a few upper windows, Sith looked in the direction Brunok indicated.
A tall, expansive Ecclesiarchy cathedral stood there, its broad front plaza deserted, with only the cold wind at that height sweeping through and stirring up clouds of dust.
The dust then blew toward the Emperor's statue, settling over his mighty figure.
Looking past the statue, behind the Emperor, the cathedral doors swayed slightly, and a frightened figure ducked into the gap behind them.
Brunok looked slightly embarrassed:
"They've kept the doors shut. We've been several times, but they wouldn't open up."
This was the spiretop, after all, and the Ecclesiarchy besides. Even Brunok dared not show the slightest disrespect here.
All he could do was pay several polite visits.
Sith swept his gaze around, then suddenly strode toward the cathedral under the terrified gazes from behind the doors.
Brunok and the others moved to follow, but Sith raised a hand:
"Stay here."
As he spoke, Sith also removed his sidearm and saber in full view and handed them to Brunok.
Then Sith approached the Emperor's statue, took off his gloves, picked up the cleaning tools beside it, and, ignoring the bitter cold at that altitude, hammered through the frozen water with his bare hands to wipe the dust from the Emperor.
The sight stunned Brunok and the other veterans behind him, and then the respect in their eyes as they looked at Sith gained a measure of reverence.
Although the Emperor himself disliked it, faith was also an important pillar that had allowed the Imperium to endure to this day.
Even with his body enhanced a hundredfold, the bitter cold still turned Sith's hands red.
When the last of the clean water was used up, the statue, which had been gathering dust for who knew how long, finally looked as good as new.
Then Sith stood silently before the Emperor's statue in wordless prayer, until Brunok and the others grew ever more reverent, and the eyes behind the doors were no longer so fearful.
Sith opened his eyes, then walked toward the cathedral alone.
This time, as Sith's face, free of any mutation, came clearly into view, the doors that had remained closed for so long finally opened a crack.
An old man in clerical robes summoned his courage and stepped outside.
"Has the God-Emperor answered our prayers and sent you to take us away?"
The old man looked hopeful, while Sith raised his eyes to the cathedral behind him, which brightened as sunlight streamed inside.
Looking at the crowd packed beneath the towering vault, Sith turned back to the priest and slowly shook his head:
"The Emperor needs your loyal service."
Three days later.
With the cathedral at its center, the many surrounding buildings were filled with refugees.
Still more refugees converged along the broad avenues from every district of the spiretop.
A few scattered fires burned, with steaming water and starch bubbling in enormous iron pots above them.
Countless refugees formed lines with almost no end in sight, clutching coarse cloth around themselves in the cold wind as they waited for hot porridge with barely a trace of starch visible in it.
A group of soldiers in black uniforms maintained order around them.
The soldiers looked wary, afraid someone might snatch the food, until several figures approached the cathedral from a distance. Only then did the black-clad soldiers abruptly straighten and salute:
"Regimental commander, sir!"
Sith returned the salute casually, his steps not slowing in the slightest. He merely glanced at the soldiers' black uniforms, somewhat puzzled:
"Where did Ana find so many black uniforms?"
Sith had been churning out troops like mad, while the nobles had taken almost all the spiretop's supplies when they dusted off their backsides and left, leaving him unable to provide even one uniform per person.
Yet to Sith, uniforms were absolutely necessary, because only by putting someone in a standardized uniform could a civilian be transformed into a soldier in the most immediately visible way.
And after becoming part of the collective, they would gain a little morale as the Emperor's currency.
Whenever he thought of all the monsters and demons he would soon face, Sith refused to pass up any means of improving his soldiers' will to fight.
Still, even Sith was curious how Ana had conjured up the uniforms, and why they were black.
Brunok looked somewhat resigned. He cautiously checked that Ana was nowhere nearby before speaking, at a loss for words:
"These aren't uniforms at all. They're civilian clothes we collected that look similar to uniforms."
"Ana just mixed up dozens of pots of liquid fuel with promethium, dyed the clothes black, and issued them."
As he spoke, Brunok deliberately lifted his own 'brand-new uniform,' revealing the skin stained black beneath his cuff.
Sith froze.
Wasn't that the same as smearing 'petroleum' all over yourself?
He wanted to show a little speechless disbelief too, but looking at the uniformly black-clad soldiers around him, and how their matching uniforms really did make them look somewhat tough and capable, Sith pursed his lips and held it back.
Because in just these three days, Sith had expanded his army by a hundred thousand troops, a full twenty infantry regiments. Simply gathering enough uniforms had already been extraordinarily difficult.
Granted, in this apocalypse-level melee on Vigilus, twenty infantry regiments really did not amount to much.
But Sith had only two thousand veterans. One to fifty was already the limit of what the veterans could manage by shouting.
Not to mention how he was supposed to arm them without logistical support.
Even the spiretop's armories had been stripped completely bare when the noble lords evacuated.
Sith did not join in complaining about the 'petroleum uniforms.' Instead, as he passed a porridge pot and looked at the starch porridge so clear he could see the bottom, he changed the subject:
"Are the soldiers receiving their full rations?"
Brunok's expression grew even worse:
"By the minimum standard, the soldiers' supplies are barely sufficient."
"But the training is very intense, and the soldiers often wake up hungry in the latter half of the night."
As he spoke, Brunok looked at the bustling porridge distribution around them. After some thought, he still lowered his voice:
"Could we divert some of the civilians' rations?"
Brunok did not dare be too direct either, because apart from what they had brought from the supply station, even the food they were eating now came mostly from the Ecclesiarchy's stores.
Providing Sith with the vast majority of the food was already the limit of what the Ecclesiarchy could do.
After all, you could hardly expect faith in the Emperor to fill people's stomachs!
Sith did not state his thoughts outright, but the glare he directed at him made the answer clear.
As for the other, more direct and efficient option...
Sith looked at the soldiers hard at training. The thought had barely surfaced before he crushed it.
Among the refugees were quite a few soldiers' families.
Helplessly withdrawing his gaze from the recruits, Sith fell silent for a moment, then suddenly looked toward the deep passage leading into the depths of the Hive City.
"If the rebels can feed so many people, the supplies they have..."
"Should be considerable!"