Warhammer: Striving to Be a Grinding Man

Chapter 135 Execution

Invernus. The Cathedral of the Middle Nest.

When Cohen withdrew his consciousness from Enp, he was standing on the top floor of the cathedral. His grey-white power armor was covered by a crimson sage's robe, and his helmet hung at his waist. He stood for a moment, then turned and walked down the stairs. In this world, smiles and vulnerability were luxuries. Survive, and then change it as much as possible.

Sunlight streamed down from the cracks in the dome, casting a bluish-white glow on the Void Shield. Cohen arrived at the command post entrance, his gaze falling on the sand table. The two dark red arrows of orc reinforcements had advanced further; the greenskin vanguard of the Fire Wasteland had crossed the middle of the wasteland, while the savage tribes of the Equatorial Jungle were still moving through the dense forest.

The courtroom's identification station was located on the side wing of the elevator plaza. A courtroom agent stood behind a folding table, his fingers resting on the scanner's sampling port, his grey robes billowing in the wind. Before him stood the first wave of evacuees rising from the bottom nest; thousands of faces squinted in the sunlight, their expressions one of utter panic and helplessness. Some had collapsed to the ground and were being carried by militiamen. The scanner emitted a short beep, and the green standby light flickered before turning red.

The agent glanced down at the waveform on the screen, without asking any questions or hesitating. He raised his right hand, removed his fingertips from the sampling port, and gestured to the combat nun behind him—a thumb slicing across her throat.

A grenade fired. The middle-aged man, who had just stepped out of the elevator, didn't even have time to turn his head before his head exploded from the impact. His body slammed heavily against the metal grille, dark red blood gushing from his shattered skull and dripping down the grille's seams. The surrounding civilians screamed and recoiled, the crowd shrinking back like a swarm of scalded insects. Several coalition soldiers instinctively raised their guns, but didn't know where to point them. No one explained, no one announced the crime. The agent lowered his hand, his gaze sweeping across the crowd, his tone as calm as announcing a time: "Next."

The combat nun retrieved her explosive gun, the muzzle still emitting blue smoke.

Ulf stood at the command post at the square entrance, his fingers gripping the handle of the explosive pistol, his knuckles white. He stared at the fallen figure—an ordinary middle-aged man, dressed in filthy overalls, his hair graying, his face smudged with grime, like an ordinary civilian who had been hiding in the underworld for months. When the explosive grenade blew his head away, he didn't even utter a scream. Ulf's hands began to tremble. Not from fear, but from his ignorance. What had the scanner detected? What kind of pollution did that wave pattern signify? Was that man—that man who looked like an ordinary worker—truly a slave of the aliens?

Or had he simply been exposed to the darkness of this hive for too long, acquiring some inexplicable mark? He didn't know.

He'll never know. The court doesn't need him to know. He just needs to pull the trigger when the verdict is announced—or watch someone else pull it.

His hand didn't leave the grip, but his thumb moved off the safety.

Patriarch Augustus Valens emerged from the cathedral's side aisle and witnessed the scene. The echo of the bomb still reverberated among the columns, and the headless corpse continued to twitch. He paused at the entrance to the nave, then looked away and walked straight to the sacristy in the side wing. The inquisitor cadet stood in the shadows of a column, his gaze lingering on him—a gaze devoid of inquiry or probing, only a cold, procedural confirmation.

The priest entered the sacristy; the door was ajar. The intern interrogator followed. The armored door was half-open, light filtering through the crack. Outside in the plaza, service aircraft were dragging away corpses, bloodstains covered with disinfectant, and the next evacuee was being pushed in front of the scanner.

"—A miracle?" The interrogator's trainee voice was low and restrained.

"I don't know if it was a miracle," Mu Zheng said softly. "I'm just stating what I saw."

"You made a gesture resembling a gear and skull."

"The Emperor's messenger, what should I mark?"

Silence. The interrogator's apprentice's fingers paused on the interrogation badge on his chest, his thumb pressing against the edge of the sacred symbol.

"You're avoiding my question."

"No," Maki's voice was calm. "I am stating the facts. Cohen Severus walked through the medical station, and those who shouldn't have lived lived. I don't know the Emperor's place in it, perhaps he is the God of All Machines, perhaps neither. I cannot answer, nor am I worthy to answer."

"Do you believe me now?"

Mu Zheng was silent for a few seconds. "I believe you. Not because the evidence is sufficient, but because I dare not disbelieve you anymore."

The interrogator trainee removed his fingers from the interrogation manual and let them hang at his side. His gaze shifted from Mu Zheng's face to the blackened imperial statue, lingered for a moment, and then returned to his own.

"I will write the report. Your testimony is a statement of facts, without conclusions or characterization of Cohen Severo's identity. You neither claim he is a living saint nor deny it."

Mu Zheng did not answer.

The intern interrogator turned and left the sacristy. He didn't look at Cohen as he passed the nave, heading straight for the makeshift communications room in the side corridor. The armored door closed behind him, and an encrypted channel began establishing a link. He stood in front of the communications panel for a long time, his finger pressed on the send button. The data—the medical records of the medical nuns, the testimony of the sheriff, the name spreading among the survivors, and the waveform that had just appeared on the scanner from the corpse—piled up on his data panel, forming an endless report. Cohen Severus was no ordinary man; he commanded a Titan legion, a forged world. Whether his report would close the case or detonate it, he couldn't tell. Higher privileges were required.

He pressed the send button. The binary pulse was sent to the Amighiddon Tribunal branch, then switched to interstellar communication and entered subspace, heading towards the First Tribunal's secret meeting with Calithis. The last line of the report had been revised multiple times: "Unable to confirm, unable to deny, higher-level intervention recommended."

Deep within the lair, Sister Valeria retrieved her chainsaw sword.

Blood was still dripping from the blade, a dark purple that wasn't the blood of the green-skinned beast, but the bodily fluids of a gene-stealer, evaporating in the high temperature to produce a pungent, sour stench. She stood at the crossroads of the lower level of the hive, dozens of grayish-purple carapace corpses lying across the six passageways around her. Purebloods, the largest being a pureblood patriarch, as large as two ordinary orcs, lay at her feet. The tearing claws had been sliced ​​open at the joints by the chainsaw sword, and the gash on its carapace, extending from its shoulder blade to its waist, was still oozing blood.

Valeria didn't look at the corpses. Her gaze pierced through the dark, collapsed tunnels, landing deeper where something was still moving, and more than one. Behind her, the battle nuns were counting ammunition, spent shell casings piling up at their feet. No one spoke, no hymns, no prayers. They fought, and then they continued to fight.

She lifted her foot and stepped on the skull of the pureblood sergeant. The carapace shattered. She did not bow her head.

Behind him, the psionic scout's voice came from the darkness: "Sister, twelve heat source signals in the north passage are moving towards the surface."

Valeria turned and walked toward the north passage. The serrated teeth of the chainsaw spun in the air, the remaining bodily fluids on the blade whirring and splashing onto the metal grille, hissing and smoking.

She didn't turn around.

After the intern interrogator left the sacristy, Mu Zheng stood alone before the Emperor's statue. The cold gleam of adamant gold danced on the Emperor's right hand and the tip of his sword. He closed his eyes. His lips moved, not reciting a prayer, but the words crossed out in ink from the tattered scroll: "The pool asks not for worship, but for obedience."

Mu Zheng's fingers clenched tightly at the cuffs of his robe. He dared not think any further.

Outside in the corridor, the bells were still ringing.

Invernus slowly, painfully, inch by inch, rose from the ruins. In the darkness of the underbelly, over a billion people still waited. The elevators were still running. The inquisition's identification station was still operating. Ulf's fingers never left the grip of the dynamite, but his thumb remained on the safety—a hesitation he himself couldn't explain.