Warhammer 40K in a box

Chapter 456 The Shadow Under Hope
With a swift, almost tactical evasive movement, Figesin abruptly but with extreme restraint withdrew from the old woman's withered, twig-like fingers, the power armor joints emitting a suppressed hydraulic creak.

He strode steadily back to his original monitoring position, as if the brief, non-combat contact had been an unexpected disturbance that required an immediate escape.

The old woman was quickly pulled into the surging crowd by her still-shaken granddaughter, her hunched figure instantly swallowed up by her tattered clothes and distorted silhouette.

In a deeper, more oppressive atmosphere, the crowd dispersed swiftly like the receding tide into the interlaced shadows of the shack area, leaving behind only messy footprints on the metal floor and the lingering smell of cheap fuel in the air.

Figsin stood alone, the power armor's servo system emitting a low, continuous hum, like some kind of tremor that she couldn't calm within.

The brief, icy touch of the old woman's fingertips, and the rambling, confused whispers, distorted by age, blindness, and mutation, were like a tiny pebble thrown into a frozen lake.

The ripples it stirred were silent, yet beneath the ice layer constructed by her steely beliefs, they spread out as strange and cold waves.

The cold touch and the chaotic whispers created an irreconcilable friction with her deep-seated beliefs.

Judge Chen Xi's words from not long ago echoed with unusual heaviness at this moment. Each word was like a pebble thrown into a lake of the heart, overlapping with the image of the little girl in the memory who licked the rough Holy Radiance Candy at the distribution point, her face filled with pure satisfaction.

A strange ripple of understanding gently spread across the edge of her steely will.

Almost instinctively, she placed her armored hand on the handle of the explosive gun engraved with "Fiona" at her waist.

The familiar cold, hard feeling came through the ceramic steel gloves; they were the lighthouse that guided her on her countless paths of purification, the anchor of her strength and duty.

She gripped it tightly, letting the solid touch calm her mind and dispel the unfamiliarity brought on by the unexpected contact and confused perception—it felt more like a kind of discomfort with Judge Chen Xi's unconventional approach.

Figsin's gaze, like a precise oracle, slowly swept across the space before him, reconstructed by the new policies.

The scene she witnessed prompted her to refocus her observations.

It is no longer just a series of potential threats that need to be isolated, identified, and, when necessary, purified.

A struggling, mutated group is being forcibly incorporated into an unprecedented management system.

The core of this system is "survival and utilization under surveillance" proposed by Judge Chen Xi, rather than "isolation or purification" as she is familiar with.

In order to sustain their sustenance, people began to habitually gather at prayer points, chanting in unison under the imperial eagle flag.

In exchange for medication to alleviate the pain of mutation, they stood in silent lines, cautiously handing over their names under the supervision of Ministry of Justice officials.

The imperial maxims sprayed on the walls stand out prominently under the new lighting, becoming a new spiritual landmark for this space.

Even the old canvas with the double-headed eagle of the Empire, which someone had dug out of the junkyard and was hanging high up, was still stubbornly waving in the wind, despite being covered in oil stains and tattered.

These scenes, like symbols of order forcibly implanted into the cold industrial ruins, proclaim the extension of imperial will in this place.

The scenes of carefully distributing rations; the fleeting glint in the old lame man's eyes as he received the medicine bottle; the Imperial Skyhawk banner hanging overhead... all of these constitute evidence of the New Deal's difficult implementation in this mutant community, a fragile symbiotic relationship formed between the need for survival and the order imposed by the Empire.

Her fingers remained as if welded to the handle of the explosive gun at her waist.

The fighting instinct etched into her bones, the eternal duty to defend her pure faith, Fiona's silent reminder on her shoulder—none of this has changed.

Driven by an almost obsessive devotion to the imperial order and the purity of humanity, she is now meticulously and rigorously overseeing the integration of Inquisitor Chen Xi's will with the newly formed framework of District D-7.

She wanted to implement this controversial policy as if it were an imperial law, inviolable.

Figesin clearly realized that every step of the road to rebuilding order in District D-7 was precisely on the boundary between the traditional creeds of the Empire and Chen Xi's new policies.

Within the policy framework defined by the judges, which allows "mutant citizens" to survive under close surveillance, her creed of resolving the mutation problem through thorough purification is facing an unprecedented and complex challenge at the implementation level.

This complexity, like the cool touch of an old woman's fingertips, like the focused attention of a little girl licking a candy, broadened her understanding, while her faith, like a tightly gripped gun handle, remained steadfast.
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The outline of Zone D-7 gradually became clear under the forced implementation of the order.

The daily prayers at dawn, noon, and twilight, like a regular pulse, began to inject a predictable rhythm into this long-silent industrial ruin.

The mutant residents gradually got used to gathering at specific times, in the shadow cast by the abandoned repair platform bearing the Imperial Eagle, to chant in unison the short and rigid words of the Basic Creed Prayer.

On the wall, the proverbs "Doubt is betrayal" and "Purity is strength" are clearly visible under the newly added xenon lights, emitting a cold light.

Sister Figueir's silver-white figure still stands beside the simple altar of emblems, her vigilance like an inextinguishable flame, the first bulwark protecting the new order.

However, in her sharp gaze, besides scrutinizing potential threats, there was also a subtle focus on how this new order would operate and how it would affect this "experimental field."

Her fingers rested habitually on the grip of the explosive gun engraved with a sacred rose pattern at her waist; behind her, "Fiona" leaned quietly against the power armor backplate, both reminding her that the shadow had not completely dissipated.

However, the establishment of a new order is like building a house on ruins; it is destined to be accompanied by the disturbance of the old dust.

Deep within the labyrinth of lower pipes, beyond the reach of the Imperial searchlights, in the few souls steeped in old despair and whose minds have been corrupted by long-standing resentment, the embers of chaos have not been completely extinguished.

Several blasphemous paintings, painted with cheap paint and smeared with blood, were secretly pasted on the rusty inner walls of the pipes, like ghosts.

This is the dying struggle of the old, chaotic faith, the final cry of those who are unwilling to lose their fertile ground for persuasion, under the ever-increasing pressure of the imperial order.

Their whispers clung to the souls still filled with doubt about their new life and bewildered by the pain of change: "The Empire's 'grace' is nothing but poison in sugar! They will always see you as outsiders!"

Only by returning to the embrace of the 'true God,' and reuniting flesh and blood, can we achieve true purification and liberation! Destroy this false prison!

(End of this chapter)