Warhammer 40K in a box

Chapter 423 The Empire on the Back of a Corpse
Perhaps in the two millennia when the embers of the Great Rebellion were just beginning to die down and the Primarchs were still guiding the way, the Empire still retained a glimmer of its golden age, stumbling but determined on the road to reconstruction.

The foundries of that time were just as large, but the occasional conversations of the workers could still be heard on the assembly lines; the mechanical priests of that time were just as fanatical, but at least they remembered that the essence of technology was to serve humanity rather than enslave it.

However, with the "War of the Beasts" taking away the last Primarch, the out-of-control chariot of the Empire, like a mad horse with its reins cut off or a death wagon with its brakes removed, irreversibly accelerated its slide into the abyss of decay and destruction.

Without the guidance of the Primarch, the Empire's bureaucracy began to multiply on its own, with each department creating more forms, more regulations, and more red tape, spreading like cancer cells.

The high lords throughout history have not failed to try to reverse course, but when the history of the empire is piled up in "millennia," its weight is enough to crush any attempt to correct it.

Those reformers are like fools trying to stop an avalanche with their bare hands; they will either be assimilated by the system or crushed by it.

A high lord once wanted to simplify administrative procedures, but the reforms he initiated resulted in the creation of thirty-seven new approval departments.

Inertia itself has become the most powerful tyrant.

It silently ruled every corner of the empire, keeping every gear turning in the same way for millennia, even though that turning had long since lost its meaning.

The foundry's archives still preserve production standards established three thousand years ago, and no one dares to question whether these standards are still applicable today.

All these deeply entrenched and irreversible consequences are now laid bare before Chen Xi's eyes.

He stood on the observation platform of the station, looking down at the absurd scene made of flesh and blood, and felt a wave of physical nausea.

The train doors swung open, and a tsunami of people surged out.

This is neither the warmth of returning home after get off work nor the vigor of going to work; it is a torrent of flesh and blood.

The workers wore identical gray-blue uniforms, and each of them wore the same numb expression, as if they were living parts mass-produced from the same mold.

Countless workers, dressed in uniform but with indistinct faces, crowded every inch of the platform, like an ant colony driven by an invisible force, silently and rapidly surging toward the various exits.

They are then broken down and transported by even smaller commuting vehicles, eventually ending up deep inside the factory's tireless steel digestive system.

The small railcars, like ravenous pythons, swallowed the crowd in sections and then spat them out again.

Workers are precisely assigned to their respective work positions, just as accurately as parts on an assembly line are installed in their designated locations.

Looking down from the cold dome, the surging crowd lost its individual outlines, leaving only a gray, writhing, deathly "blanket".

Occasionally, a worker would look up at the dome, but his eyes were as empty as two dark holes, devoid of any human brilliance.

They resemble worker ants swarming out of their nest, or even... zombies.

Chen Xi couldn't help but recall those records about ancient zombies. At least the zombies still retained some primal desires, while these workers had even had those desires systematically erased.

They walk, they work, they breathe, but they can no longer be considered alive.

Some say that an empire is a nation built on corpses and sustained by devouring them.

This metaphor is more real than anyone could imagine; it is not merely a dark allegory, but the stark reality of the empire's daily operations.

This is by no means just referring to the withered god-emperor on the throne who maintains the warp space route.

While the mummified corpse that had been enshrined on the Golden Throne for millennia was indeed the most sacred remains of the Empire, the Empire's cannibalistic nature ran far deeper than this symbolic body. It more profoundly revealed the nauseating cycle upon which the Empire depended for survival: from the "corpse starch" that provided daily sustenance to the "machine servants" who undertook countless dirty, repetitive, and deadly tasks for the Empire, everything in the Empire was tainted with the stench of decaying corpses.

In the food processing plants at the bottom of the Nest City, tons of organic matter are fed into decomposition tanks and, after a series of "purification" processes, are turned into grayish-white nutrient blocks; in the sacred temple of the Mechanic Church, mutilated bodies are fitted with mechanical parts and become slave laborers without self-awareness.

Even these workers who are still breathing, these living people whose spirits have long been extinguished and whose existence is equivalent to that of tools, are in a sense no different from walking corpses waiting to be "reclaimed".

Every day, they dragged their weary bodies back and forth between the factory and their dormitory, their eyes vacant, their souls withered, having long lost their essence as human beings, leaving only their practical value in maintaining the empire's operation.

This is the foundry of the Mechanicus.

In this religious system made of gears and steel, efficiency is faith, output is prayer, and human life... is nothing more than a renewable resource.

Those who perform "outstandingly" will receive a "gift"—being "sacredly" transformed into machine servants, permanently welded to their workstations, becoming part of the assembly line, and "serving" for hundreds of years in a state between life and death.

Their anterior lobes were precisely removed, and their neural and mechanical systems were perfectly integrated, making them perfect tools that neither tire nor complain.

The factory's public address system broadcasts their "glorious deeds" to inspire other workers to follow suit.

Poor performance or depleted value?

Then it enters an efficient "recycling" process, where its flesh and bones are crushed, purified, and transformed into "corpse starch" and nutrient paste, which are then fed to other members of its kind who are still struggling.

The slogan in the recycling workshop reads: "Your sacrifice will perpetuate the empire's eternity," but in reality, this is merely an economic consideration to maximize the use of every gram of biomass.

The cold chain, perfectly fitted.

From birth to death, from death to rebirth, every citizen of the empire is perfectly incorporated into this never-ending cycle of cannibalism.

No waste, no pity, only eternal efficiency and ruthless pragmatism.

In this system, even death is not the end, but a link in the resource cycle.

The governor of the Rostov sub-sector's slight mercy could not shake this iron law deeply rooted in the empire's marrow.

Chen Xi's meager sense of pity was as laughable as trying to melt a glacier with a candle flame in the face of the empire's millennia-old, cold mechanisms.

Even if he orders improvements to workers' conditions, those reform plans written on parchment will eventually be worn away in the labyrinth of the bureaucratic system.

Even the direct managers of the foundry, number 32, deeply resented this but were powerless to change it.

The human glint in her mechanical eyes witnessed every day this endless feast of flesh and blood.

As a high-ranking member of the Cult of the Machine God, she knew better than anyone that every gear in this factory was lubricated with human blood.

Any attempt could be labeled "heretic" and erased.

The flamethrowers of the Inquisition are always faster and more violent than any well-intentioned reform.

(End of this chapter)