Chapter 405: Dawnbreaker Fleet on Standby
"My lord!"
Enduring the envious gazes of the Custodians still trapped at their workstations 'repaying their debt', and waiting for the Assassin Temple bodyguards lurking in the shadows—a security system he had personally spearheaded—to verify his identity, Drakus strode into the administrative hall.
The man wore a slightly oversized cloak, his gauntlets placed casually aside. His arm rested on a desk once again filled with floating documents, correcting them. Beside him was a slightly blurred projection whose face was indistinct.
He was staring at the data on the holographic projection, slightly lost in thought.
Drakus nodded to the 'Preserver' assisting with calculations and followed the Regent's gaze.
Where his gaze fell were the names of soldiers, workers, civilians, and their wives and children; families of those who did not survive, the dead, the missing, and the unaccounted for.
Those who would never return.
"Drakus, you're back."
Romulus looked up, the hand that had been signing approvals seemingly never stopping.
"Yes, my lord."
The Chief Steward placed a hand on his chest in salute, breathing a sigh of relief.
Judging by his voice alone, the Regent maintained high morale.
After a simple greeting to the 'Preserver', the Chief Steward did not rush forward but yielded his position to the Tribune.
At the same time, Dawnstar's massive processing system was allocating a small portion of its computing power to satisfy various distress calls from across the sector.
Even in the Primarch's private office, over one thousand three hundred staff members were working around him.
Operators of communication systems, War Council staff around augur arrays, Marshals and Generals belonging to the Dawn Guard, officers, administrators, and Astropaths shuttled back and forth.
Orders were implemented, and expectations gathered from the efforts and sweat of countless humans were bearing fruit.
Colquan took a deep breath to prevent his accumulated resentment from making his words too sharp, then stepped forward.
Then he saw a book Romulus had placed on the desk.
On the Emperor's Custodians
"Each of the Ten Thousand is a compendium of ancient and modern genetic knowledge. Ordinary people could study for generations without glimpsing its mysteries. Each of you is unique, a treasure of human history that can never be replicated. I spend the lives of others without hesitation, but I alone am stingy with yours."
—The Emperor.
With the stabilization of the Dawnstar Sector and the growing power of the Dawnbreakers, a series of textbooks and declassified materials were gradually made available to the citizens of the Dawnstar Sector.
Even a pile of secrets, naturally including the Adeptus Custodes.
Although the travelers had no good impression of the Custodians, this book described the news about the Adeptus Custodes that the general public could know with a fairly objective attitude.
Yet the publication of this book still made countless Custodians who no longer buried their heads in the sand, and truly realized they had not understood the Emperor's will, feel their faces burning.
Report! The Primarchs are slandering and smearing the Custodians again!
I knew these arch-traitors were up to no good. Speak, how did they slander us!
They described our actions over the past ten thousand years.
"..."
Tribune Colquan was silent for a long while.
Thud!
He placed the document on the table, then silently turned and left.
Just as no Custodian would truly be thick-skinned enough to stay in the Palace enduring the Emperor's psychic slaps and nagging every day, no Custodian would remain unmoved when these words were placed before them.
They cared about nothing, not the Imperium, not humanity...
And precisely because of this, they only cared about the Emperor.
Their actions had failed the Emperor's expectations.
Drakus stepped aside, letting the turning Custodian pass, stepped forward, put the book just placed on the table back into the mezzanine beside the long table, and then assisted the Regent with statistics.
Here, various forms of information were calculated and summarized with the assistance of loyal computational aids, and finally decisions were made by a single voice.
This was the brain and nervous system of the entire Dawnstar Sector, monitoring and supervising the wars, troop allocations, logistical needs, social stability of planets, and intelligence sent back from various places in thousands of dispersed areas within the sector...
But everyone was ignorant of what the Dawnbreakers truly cared about.
The true information about 'Chronos Key' would not appear in any paper documents. To prevent Chaos mischief, except for the humans who boarded that planet and very few people, everyone only knew it was a fortress wrapped in massive amounts of Blackstone.
No one knew that just north of Dawnstar, that hell hidden beneath the rift of the material universe was about to unveil something.
Even Romulus felt restless.
Tap~ Tap~
The Regent tapped his fingers lightly. Drakus glanced at his hand.
Look, what a rare, human gesture.
Drakus couldn't help but lower his head and smile.
"Perhaps I should break this habit?"
Romulus obviously noticed this detail too, saying jokingly.
"Please do not stop, my lord."
Drakus replied: "I am glad. Now I know I am not the only one nervous."
"We are just waiting."
Romulus corrected: "Ninety-nine percent of a warrior's life is waiting. Regardless of the outcome, we will act again."
The people around laughed.
Even Romulus smiled.
Drakus had seen this one complain, but after every complaint about the incompetence of allies and the shamelessness of enemies, he could muster confidence again and face the next problem with a more positive attitude.
Since allies became more like humans due to the Dawnbreakers' expanding influence, the Dawnbreakers' psychological endurance skyrocketed.
This was the good thing about travelers. Having seen how shitty the world was without them, they wouldn't fall into mental friction due to all kinds of inexplicable bad jobs, nor doubt themselves because of the cruel invasion deliberately created by Chaos. Their mentality got better and better as they held more power.
And this attitude naturally infected those around them.
They waited for the final result with a positive attitude.
"If you ask me, the resilience those Nurgle followers are so proud of is bullshit."
A familiar voice sounded; no need to guess who it was.
"A bunch of things that got by on filters. Now that the blessings are gone, they all kneel. Nurgle's minions are simply the easiest to bully besides Slaanesh's. I could grab any Ecclesiarchy believer from the bottom of a hive city in the Solar Segmentum and they'd be tougher than them."
And when did the average living standard of the Solar Segmentum become the bottom of the Imperium?
"This time we definitely have to unclog Nurgle's sewer. Fast forward to every Evil God having their own toilet seat; can't let Old Man Gold be lonely."
Drakus, who was originally worried about morale, barely managed to keep a straight face.
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