Dedicate loyalty to the good empire

Chapter 537 The Gods Bless Skadi

*Skardi, a star region that can even be said to be too small compared to the vast territory of the empire, and an isolated star system.

Only a three-planet star system has successfully given birth to life, which is obviously quite difficult, and Skadi was once so full of birdsong and flowers.

This place is like a legendary utopia, where people live and work in peace and contentment, with inexhaustible resources and supplies, until a war pushes the entire planet off its original orbit.

That war was recorded during the Horus Heresy, so the truth and falsehood of it have become like myths, passed down in the ancient poetry of the Skadi.

Now this is a cold world, cold enough to turn all life into ice, except for humans and a very small number of rodents or life that originally lived in cold places.

There used to be small shrubs and large moose here, but after the Empire settled here, there are now only countless hive cities and towering man-made ruins, sealed tightly under the glacier.

The empire's attitude towards this place has always been ambiguous.

Previously, the Mechanicus had tried to curry favor with the Skadi in exchange for permission to conduct archaeological excavations, and after using both kindness and force, they were able to set foot on the ruins here.

They took away all the stc heritage, leaving only empty, tomb-like ruins for the Skadi people.

At the same time, the increase in the empire's 11 taxes successfully made them unable to make ends meet, and the resources that were originally insufficient to feed everyone were exhausted due to the empire's sustainable development.

And it was thanks to the foolishness of the Imperial officials that this was only realized 20 centuries after the Horus Heresy.

This place, which has been almost killed by the severe cold, can no longer recruit resources according to the Empire's garden world standards, that is, the second-level special standard.

The population of Skadi has dropped from 30 billion to 6 million due to the severe cold and lack of resources.

This is a place of suffering and poverty.

The former glory and honor are long gone, and the remaining Skadi were wiped out long ago, becoming the price paid for the empire's continued growth.

Those who remained were quite hardworking and had a commendable spirit. They were brave and good at fighting, and they had earned some reputation.

But no one will respect you just because your soldiers are good at fighting. After all, there is no shortage of people in the entire universe.

Unless you are as famous for your fighting ability as the Cadians, or as powerful and terrifying as the Catachans.

But the Skadi were only poor and hungry, and at most had a strong desire to leave their homeland.

Perhaps this is something that people born on Macragge or Terra, or even those born on any special or advanced 11-tax world, cannot understand.

It's also a place of honor like Catachan or Valhalla. In comparison, Cadia has too little.

Apart from cold and pain, there are few warm memories. It can even be said that even Taylor himself cannot face his own emotions.

Even to this day Taylor can't figure out what he was thinking, exactly.

He didn't miss his hometown, but he couldn't let it go.

Now it is difficult for him to judge what he thinks of his hometown, which is so cold and lonely.

He was already a Macragge, the best Core Worlds denizen of the Imperium, and clearly he shouldn't have considered himself to belong there.

But he couldn't let it go, he really wanted to find out what Skadi looked like now.

Did it fall to ruins at the hands of the great Chaos enemy, or did it survive the horrors of the Imperium's dark side, like Valhalla?

Or is it, as it is today, a cold and lonely place in ruins?
Skadi had been out of touch with the Empire for decades, and even the locals' situation had become hazy. Taylor looked out the battleship's bridge window at the white planet with a touch of unease.

It hangs there like a pure white gem, looking incredibly beautiful and at peace with the world.

But only those who have lived there know that the natural resources above have long been drained, and the mineral layers below have also been hollowed out, and the white snow is all toxic industrial substances.

This world has long lost its value to the empire, so no one is interested in it, but for Taylor, this place is still his hometown.

Secondly, as one of the few planets nearby, it can be used as a resting place to ensure that the fleet continues to move forward.

He needs this place, or rather, the empire needs this place.

Although he was at the end of the expeditionary force, supply troops would still pass through here, and there were also a large number of troops responsible for the aftermath.

How to deal with Skadi, his former hometown, made Taylor feel confused for the first time when dealing with the development of a world.

Maximizing their value would, of course, be to transform them into a fortress world, just like the countless worlds that have devoted themselves to the Empire; that is their value.

Or can Taylor inject selfish motives into it, bring production lines and key equipment here, and make this place one of the core strongholds of the empire?

Taylor's mind was in a mess, but he had made up his mind vaguely.

He will continue to breathe life into this land as long as it exists, there is no doubt about that.

At this moment, he took the initiative to ask to communicate with Skadi, but the person who received the signal was not a local, but someone who had passed through the troops before.

And they quickly and accurately told Taylor the expected news.

First of all, war broke out here. To be precise, almost all the imperial worlds have experienced more or less wars during the Dark Side of the Empire.

War is not surprising; the problem is the severity of this war.

The Skadi were more resilient than one might imagine even the most resolute Imperial army could be. No one was willing to accede to Chaos's proposals, and the defense was going extremely well.

Under such circumstances, the Chaos invasion here has been unable to end the war for a long time, and those guys have no patience in most cases.

They were frustrated by the long delay in taking the front line, so they used heavy atmospheric incineration bombs to melt all the snow.

In other words, a lot of the snow on the mountains started melting, like a giant flood.

Under normal circumstances, this would not be fatal, but unfortunately, the temperature in Cardia is terrifying enough.

Now, Taylor has received news that the heavy snow layer in Skadi has turned into glaciers, and countless cities have been frozen, becoming huge ice museums.

Countless lives died and left, turning into eternal collections in endless huge blocks of ice.

The entire Skadi became a world almost covered by ice except for the tips of the protruding mountains.

Everyone is dead, there is nothing left here...

Except for the cold and loneliness.

(End of this chapter)