Warhammer: Filial Piety Makes Power

Chapter 323 Being a Parent Who Doesn't Disappoint

Azmodari is right, Mordred is indeed old, his mindset is still stuck 10,000 years ago, completely out of touch with the present empire.

As the Great Rift unfolded, the human empire was torn in two, and Alfred, where Mordred and his companions were located, happened to be in the dark side of the empire.

This is why Azmodari's investigation team is stuck in this star system; it's not that they don't want to leave, but that they can't.

The Milky Way is not a simple plane, but a giant rugby ball, with a z-axis in addition to the x-axis and y-axis.

If you include warp travel, you also need to consider the abstract element of time. Otherwise, if you plunge into warp travel and arrive 300 years ahead, wouldn't that be ridiculous?
In order to travel between stars, humanity must find a reference point, and that reference point is the Star Torch of Holy Terra. This is why the center of all the star charts of the Empire is Holy Terra.

However, with the formation of the Great Rift, the already unstable subspace navigation became even more abstract. Navigators would strain their third eye to find the starlight's location and could only navigate by experience.

As we all know, when something that requires extremely high precision needs to be balanced by experience, it means it's unreliable.

Large fleets are better off, as their high-powered oracles have a chance to make mistakes, but for a small boat, it's all down to luck.

Azmodan could take Mordred to the Stone Fortress, but he dared not. It was a small matter if something happened to him, but if he lost the Lion King, that would be a much bigger problem.

It's better to call in reinforcements than to gamble on luck.

As a chapter inquisitor, Azmodari's vehicle is a Luna-class cruiser called the Oath of Loyalty. Don't underestimate it just because it's a cruiser; it's a steel behemoth with a length of 5 kilometers, and can be called a lifelong enemy by the Tau.

It possesses considerable shipborne firepower, an exceptionally thick Void Shield array, and even six-tube torpedo launchers, with a crew capacity starting at 10.

What's even more remarkable is that this ship is cheap and durable. It belongs to a model that the Empire still has a large number of construction blueprints for after tens of thousands of years, making it comparable to the Leman Russ among warships.

There were just a few Space Marines; there was only one company, less than 300 men.

“Father, 300 people is quite a lot. It’s only because we Dark Angels are a newly formed group that we have this much. If it were a regular sub-group, 300 people would be a third of the entire group’s personnel limit.”

"Oh! You're getting proud of yourself now?"

"That's right, that's right, how dare you speak to your father like that? Aren't you being disloyal?"

The speaker was none other than Lazarus, the company commander of the Fifth Company of the Dark Angels.

In fact, when Mordred first arrived on the Loyal Oath, Lazarus was extremely wary of her and even tested her with the inner ring code.

After all, when Zhuang Sen returned to the Legion, the Legion's veterans were still shooting him in the back. How could they possibly trust a creature that had been given a female knight skin and was suspected to be a Genesis?
But within two days, Lazarus had completely succumbed and become a staunch lackey, breathing furiously on anyone who dared to speak ill of Mordred, to the point of becoming somewhat pathological.

As for why Mordred knew so much about the First Legion's secrets, that's because it's the Second Legion's secret.

After all, Brian had contributed to the establishment of the First Legion's inner ring back then. If Mordred hadn't returned early, Brian might have become a Grand Master by now.

The Lion King was found by Mordred. In order to control the legion, Mordred did not give him any bad advice. Many of the codes were made up by Mordred and Johnson together.

“Lazarus, how many times have I told you, there are no traitors within the Legion, only loyal subjects! You are all my proudest offspring.”

"Father!"

"Good boy!"

Watching Lazarus, with his fleshy face and four golden nails in his head, whimpering and enjoying Mordred's head pats, the group of dark angels beside them were practically green with envy.

As an observer, Jeanne suddenly felt something break, something completely different from the angel of death her mother had told her about.

Aren't death angels supposed to be a group of ruthless killers who eat children alive all the time and feel restless if they don't kill someone every day? How did they turn out like this!
The thought that Mordred wasn't their father at all, but a big liar, made Jeanne feel that her future was bleak. If the lie was exposed, she would be finished.

What do you mean by "it's all over"? What are you panicking about? Although I'm not Zhuang Sen, I'm Zhuang Sen's second brother, which makes me their second uncle.

I think you're just bored. Since you have time to daydream, you might as well get up and do some practice problems. Have you finished the test paper I sent you yesterday?

"without!"

"Then why don't you get back to doing your homework? How can you sleep at your age? Although you won't affect my academic standing, you will cause my educational standing to plummet."

“Father, are you talking to the owner of this body again? Or…” Lazarus made a throat-slitting gesture and looked at the blonde girl in front of him.

This wasn't the first time "Lion King" had talked to himself. Mordred had no intention of hiding it, after all, he really didn't trust Jeanne, that little fool.

Instead of hiding it, it's better to take preventative measures in advance, which can also make all your unreasonable aspects seem reasonable.

Modd waved for Lazarus to come closer, rubbed his head, and then slapped him across the face.
"Kid, I think you need to be taught a lesson. This is my personal disciple. You know perfectly well that I share a body with her, yet you still want to cause trouble. Do you have a problem with me?"

“No, Father, I was just thinking of you.” Lazarus felt a little aggrieved, but he was more afraid than anything else.

After spending these few days together, not only him, but almost all the Dark Angels felt a lack of security.

It might sound unbelievable, but it's true. After that inexplicable rebellion, the Dark Angels, who already had many secrets, became suspicious and easily agitated. In this vicious cycle that lasted for millennia, the first lesson the Dark Angels learned wasn't to kill aliens, but to be wary of allies. You never know how many small factions exist within the legion.

Although it's not Johnson, since Atlas can infiltrate every legion, Mordred, as the Lord of Genes, certainly can too. In fact, with his extraordinary charisma, disguising himself as the Primarch would be no problem.

But seeing Lazarus so frightened and uneasy just because of a single sentence from her, Mordred couldn't help but sigh:

"Sigh~ This is the last time, but as punishment, give me a foot massage!"

Upon hearing this, all the dark angels looked at Lazarus differently, filled with regret, wondering why they had rewarded him.

“Your Highness, would you like me to give you a shoulder massage?” Azmodan asked Mordred with a longing look on his face.

"That's kind of you, then come over!"

Seeing that Azmodai was so shameless in order to win the prince's favor, the other canned goods also began their performance.

Soon, Mordred was given a full range of services, including foot massage, leg pounding, and shoulder rubbing, and there were even a few guys grilling skewers for her.

With nothing to do and no one daring to let the Primarch roam freely, Mordred summoned all the Dark Angels to kill time, eating and drinking while using them to learn about the current state of the Empire.

The Primarch is extremely lethal to Space Marines, even if Mordred is just a meal replacement, a meal replacement can still satisfy hunger.

Especially after discovering that their original host was not as difficult to get along with as the records suggested, the little cans completely let loose.

The greatest distance is that of longing; people only see what they want to see.

The Dark Angels can sense a faint connection within the gene seed, which is the most important anti-counterfeiting mark. They can also respond fluently to Mordred's inner code words and even walk on the grassland in a one-to-one replica.

You might say Mordred's disguise was incredibly clever, but who wouldn't want an approachable, witty, protective, and supportive parent?

The only thing that made it a little hard for these little darlings to break down was that the adults always liked to talk about dirty secrets, but this only proved that Mordred was the Lion King. After all, no one but the Lion King could know so many little secrets.

While eating meat skewers and drinking orange juice, Mordred patted Azmodan beside her and asked the small cans gathered in a circle:

"You mean you're trapped here because you went on a support mission, and the target was a group of blue-skinned aliens who called themselves Titanium?"

"Yes, sir. These blue-skinned aliens are extremely despicable, completely different from the aliens we have encountered before. They even use a mind weapon called the Path of Supreme Goodness to bewitch humans."

"The highest path of goodness?" Mordred asked, puzzled.

"That's right!"

To prove his point, Azmodari placed an observation report in Mordred's hands, which detailed the intelligence uncovered by the Dark Angels spies.

More abstractly, the Dark Angel also solemnly listed those humans who betrayed the Empire, especially the current situation of these traitors.

Well, after watching it, Mordred felt very mocked. It's not that these Tau people are particularly strong; they're just at the level of an average alien race. But they made the Empire look like a clown.

The Tau people weren't discovered recently; the Empire discovered these blue-skinned aliens as early as 6 years ago. At that time, the Tau people were still a primitive tribe, so they didn't take them seriously.

But these Titans actually developed, and in just 6000 years, they transformed from a group of hairy, blood-drinking primitives into an alien race that now spans multiple star sectors.

Then the abstract thing happened: the Empire hadn't discovered these blue-skinned Titans, but it found something suspicious in the eleventh tax.

The reason for this discovery was even more abstract: it was simply because the National Day tax was collected on time. The Ministry of the Interior decided to increase the tax, and then discovered that even after the tax increase, the tax was still collected on time.

Then the Ministry of Internal Affairs saw the human traitors working alongside the Tau people.

Upon discovering that someone dared to collude with the aliens, the Empire was in a state of extreme alarm. However, their first action was not to exterminate the Tau people, but to carry out a massive purge of the human world bordering the Tau, issuing mass extermination orders.

However, this is not the most abstract part. The Empire's actions directly drove the humans of those worlds into rebellion, and they were even defeated when they tried to exterminate the Tau people.

If you ask why they never fought, the answer is that the empire had its own internal affairs. When it launched the Damocles' expedition, it was still fighting among itself. Every single one of them was considered good if they didn't stab their own allies in the back.

If it weren't for the Terran attack, they might have been overtaken.

"It's incredibly powerful, so incredibly powerful that I can't even tell which side is the enemy. They've completely lost all sense of shame."

Just as Mordred was questioning the meaning of life because of how pathetic the Empire was, she felt as if the sky had fallen when she looked at Azrael's interstellar message in her hand.

"Oh no, what am I going to do? What if Father finds out that I was the one who blew up Caliban..."

Ugh (;Д`), Azmodari, you tricked me!

(End of this chapter)