Compared to his meeting with Cawl, Qin Mo's encounter with Lord Inquisitor Horst was far more formal.
It felt less like a conversation and more like a high-level strategic council, where every glance carried the weight of doctrine and consequence.
Present were the Lord of Talon, Qin Mo; Lord Admiral of the Talon Fleet, Adam; and Grey, representative of both the First Legion and the Thunderborns.
Though this gathering would not decide the fate of the Imperium entire, it would determine whether 172 billion Imperial citizens across three worlds would soon be plunged into internecine war.
In the command spire of New Kato, within its austere war room, Inquisitor Horst sat face-to-face with Qin Mo's delegation. The chamber was a blend of Imperial and Talon design, machine-sermon purity mixed with functional modernity.
"I'm well aware that a brutal civil conflict tore through the Talon System a year ago. Loyalists versus Heretics. I know most in this system have no desire to see war return."
Horst's voice was calm, his eyes lowered as he read through the dataslates spread before him. His tone was dry, as though each word were extracted from an autopsy report.
"But you still went too far," he continued. "You may be entitled to contest the Inquisition's investigations, yes, but you have no right to interdict our agents at the system's edge. And most certainly not to deploy an entire battlegroup to stare down one of our voidships."
Horst cast a sidelong glance at Admiral Adam.
Adam, composed as ever, returned the look without flinching. He had stood his ground during the standoff, issuing a now-infamous order: "If their ship crosses the line, we fire before the fortress does."
The memory of that moment still burned in every officer of the Talon Fleet, a testament to how far they were willing to go to defend their sovereignty.
Horst's voice dropped. "Everything you've done since this investigation began has only poured more promethium on the fire."
At that, Horst snapped his fingers.
One of his robed acolytes stepped forward, produced a small, ornate case from his belt, and respectfully opened it.
Inside was a beautifully crafted, ancient-pattern revolver and six etched rounds. Despite its baroque and slightly anachronistic design, the weapon bore a distinctly high-tech flair, clearly a collector's piece.
"This once belonged to a Tyrant I executed," Horst said as he retrieved the revolver from its case. "I kept it as a trophy. A reminder."
As he began loading rounds into the chamber, Horst continued speaking.
"Every move you've made is like loading another bullet into this cylinder. Intercepting the Inquisition's ships. Harboring members of the Lamenters Astartes Chapter, who, I might add, should currently be on a penitent Crusade. Each of these oversteps is one more bullet in the chamber."
Mentioning the Lamenters made Grey stiffen, a reaction not lost on Horst. The Lamenters were cursed by fate itself, survivors of the Badab War, shunned and beleaguered, yet incapable of abandoning their oaths. That they were here, among Qin Mo's allies, said more than words ever could.
When he had loaded five rounds, he paused. With a practiced flick of his wrist, the cylinder clicked back into place, the weapon now primed.
"If I pull the trigger now," Horst said, raising the barrel and aiming directly at Qin Mo, "a round might fire... or it might not. But with five in the chamber, the odds are heavily against you."
Grey and Adam tensed but didn't intervene. They knew well: if a firefight erupted, Qin Mo would be the last one needing protection.
The silence that followed was suffocating, broken only by the subtle whirr of servo-skulls circling overhead, recording every word.
Qin Mo looked down the barrel without flinching. He understood the metaphor perfectly.
This was ancient Terran roulette, a deadly game of chance.
Horst's message was clear, every act of defiance was another pull of the trigger. Every challenge to Inquisition loaded another bullet. And with each one, the chance of inevitable doom rose.
"This revolver is yours," Horst said suddenly, loosening his grip and letting the weapon tilt downward in offering.
"Thank you," Qin Mo replied. He accepted the gun, flipped open the cylinder, and then calmly stood up.
He calmly picked up the sixth and final round from the case and loaded it in.
Now the chamber was fully loaded. No chance left. No space for mercy. Just certainty.
Horst looked on, puzzled. He didn't understand what Qin Mo was trying to prove.
Qin Mo flicked the revolver to lock the cylinder in place. Then, without hesitation, he pressed the barrel to his own head.
"I understand everything you've said," Qin Mo said quietly. "But I choose to bet on a misfire."
"No... this type of weapon doesn't misfire," Horst replied flatly.
"Then I'll bet it misfires anyway," Qin Mo replied and pulled the trigger.
Horst's acolytes surged forward, attempting to intervene, but Horst himself remained stoic, though even he couldn't completely hide his tension.
"Click∼."
No shot fired.
Qin Mo pulled the trigger again. "Click∼." Again. "Click∼."
No bullets fired. Not one.
Horst narrowed his eyes. He now suspected Qin Mo had used some trickery to inhibit the weapon's mechanism, until the deeper meaning struck him. Qin Mo wasn't just making a stunt. He was declaring that he could force the Inquisition itself to misfire.
It was audacious. Borderline heretical. But then again, if Qin Mo were wrong, Horst wouldn't have delivered the Inquisition's verdict in person.
"You're lucky," Horst finally said, voice low. Though part of him wondered if luck had anything to do with it. He drew forth a parchment sealed with red wax, marked by the sigil of the Inquisition, and extended it. "The Inquisition finds you not guilty. You are now officially appointed by the Imperium as the new Lord Governor. The rightful Master of Talon, ruler of three worlds and over one hundred billion Imperial citizens, accountable to the Throne and no lesser authority."
Qin Mo accepted the parchment and set it aside. He neither smiled nor bowed. The title was formality; he already commanded more than most Imperial Governors dreamed of.
Horst continued, detailing the obligations of an Imperial Governor: war levies, manpower for the Astra Militarum, and, most important of all, the Tithe.
The Tithe was one of the most sacred and immutable demands of the Imperium. Every world, from agri-planet to forge world, was required to pay its due, whether in raw materials, technology, psykers, soldiers, or currency. It was the lifeblood that kept the galaxy-spanning Imperium functional, feeding the God-Emperor's endless war machine.
Failure to pay a Tithe was not seen as mere neglect, it was viewed as rebellion. Sectors that defaulted on their obligations often found themselves blockaded, invaded, or even exterminated.
It was clear where Horst's emphasis lay.
Before arriving, he had attended a high-level meeting. Representatives of the Inquisition and the High Lords had debated how Talon should pay its Tithe. The outcome: it must pay. But the form was negotiable. With the Imperium besieged by crisis on every front, a rebellion here would be a disaster.
The compromise was not born of trust, but of necessity. Talon's military strength had surged following the civil war, and its fleets were no longer mere provincial forces. They could contest voidspace against most Segmentum commands. But more dangerous still was Talon's mind: its technologies.
This wasn't concession. It was containment. A desperate calculus: give Talon legitimacy before it sought it by conquest.
"Talon will pay its Tithe in one form only," Qin Mo declared. "The Dimensional Engine."
"You mean the non-Warp-based FTL tech?" Horst asked.
"That's right," Qin Mo nodded. "A system that owes no debt to the Warp."
Horst paused, considering.
This was no longer just a regional matter. It was a pivot point for the entire Imperium.
His mind raced, not with suspicion, but with implications.
The Imperium had long been chained to the Warp: a psychic ocean of nightmares, daemons, and madness. The Navigators, the Astropaths, the Warp drives, they were all necessary evils. And now, this man dared to offer freedom from it.
For the first time in centuries, Horst felt something stir within him: hope.
The kind the Imperium hadn't felt in ten thousand years.
It made perfect sense. It was not only acceptable, it was brilliant.
Such a stable form of faster-than-light travel could someday wean the Imperium off its Warp dependency.
And more importantly, it was a contribution unlike any other, a technological leap rather than a stockpile of corpses or grain. A Tithe of innovation.
He imagined the ripple effects: sectors no longer beholden to Warp storms; colonies safely reached without psychic escorts; the Eye of Terror, bypassed entirely. The Ecclesiarchy would rage. The Navigators would resist. The Mechanicus might demand the tech be buried. But if it worked... if it truly worked...
He would remember this moment as the first breath of a new era. Or perhaps, the first gasp before the drowning began.
He had originally worried that Qin Mo would hoard his technology, but those concerns now evaporated.
Still, he had one last question. "Why offer it voluntarily? Why not use it as leverage?"
"Because the Warp is a sewer," Qin Mo said coldly. "And humanity must stop diving into it headfirst, only to drag the filth back into the Materium."
At that, Horst realized something.
Qin Mo did stand for humanity. Whether or not he stood for the Imperium... was still uncertain.
Of course, the Dimensional Engine wouldn't be easy to distribute.
"Then so be it. The Imperium will accept your Tithe. But be warned most of the Imperium doesn't trust your tech. Many within the Inquisition see it as heretical poison," Horst admitted. "Adoption may be slow. But if it's truly reliable and untainted, it will replace Warp drives someday."
And if it did... the stars themselves might finally belong to mankind, not its daemons.
Their discussion about the Tithe concluded, Qin Mo remained silent. He had said everything he intended to say.
But Horst had one last issue to raise.
"There's a plague I'm investigating," he said gravely. "I'll need your cooperation. Because only two regions are suffering from it, the Cadia Sector… and this Sector. That's more than coincidence."
Qin Mo frowned. A bad feeling crawled up his spine.
"This is our compiled report," Horst said, handing over a thick sheaf of hand-written documents. "I believe what you'll find within is no mere epidemic."
Qin Mo flipped through the pages quickly, reading in silence. The patterns were clear.
The plague-stricken regions shared two things in common:
Plague outbreaks following warp disturbances, reports of Poxwalker infestations.
The rise of new heretical cults that claimed the Imperium had abandoned the Emperor's will, and that the plague was His divine punishment.
Even before the plague took root, there had been a sharp increase in derelict voidships, xenos sightings, and raids by heretical fleets.
The signs were unmistakable. Not merely the workings of Chaos, but of something coordinated.
Something with a will.
A plague with a prophet. A heresy with a strategist.
"The Plague of the Faithless, The Plague of Unbelief." Qin Mo muttered, eyes locked on Horst with sudden intensity. "A crusade targeting the Cadian Gate… is about to begin."
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