Kenmyo Isayama had already witnessed two worlds destroyed by Exterminatus; truly, not a single living soul remained, and not a blade of grass grew.
When he heard that Horst-Eisenholm might be preparing to sign another Exterminatus, he felt nothing but helplessness.
"Uncle, you're practically wholesaling Exterminatus, aren't you?"
Even an Inquisitor Lord cannot sign an Exterminatus so arbitrarily; he would be held accountable. This matter would be managed (and take the blame) by the Daemonhunters, as it involved the Warp God Slaanesh.
Kenmyo Isayama received all information from Horst-Eisenholm. In short, the Inquisition had already suspected that the ruling high echelons of a Shrine World under the Imperial Cult's jurisdiction were compromised.
The Imperial Cult, or rather the Ecclesiarchy, is the Imperium of Man's sole official religion, responsible for spreading and maintaining the belief system that "the Emperor is the One True God."
It developed after the Emperor ascended the Golden Throne, and the Imperial Cult gained almost unrivaled power and influence within the Imperium. Any heretical sects opposing it would be cruelly punished.
This religion is directly managed by the Ecclesiarchy, and the Imperium's control over it is not very high.
Just how powerful is this Ecclesiarchy? The very initial purpose of the Inquisition's creation was to oversee this colossal entity, the Imperial Cult, whose influence spanned the entire Imperium, and to be vigilant against any intentions of betrayal or potential alignment with Chaos among its high-ranking members.
The Battle Sisters, partners of the Inquisition Inquisitors, are the direct combat forces of the Imperial Cult. Therefore, the Imperial Cult is essentially the "maiden family" of Kenmyo Isayama's adjutant, Elena.
However, due to a horrifying incident once carried out by the High Inquisitor Lord of the Inquisition, Inquisitor Karamazov, the head of the Inquisition...
Although this incident did not affect the cooperation between the Battle Sisters and the Inquisition, it certainly made the Inquisition and the headquarters of the Ecclesiarchy, which governs the Imperial Cult, not very "harmonious."
It is said that many high-ranking Archbishops were so furious they wished they could bite a piece of flesh off Karamazov and burn the old immortal alive as a heretic.
But the Imperium's High Lords of Terra rejected this demand from the Ecclesiarchy. Karamazov remained the High Inquisitor of the Inquisition, completely unaffected.
The High Lords of Terra is equivalent to a cabinet, composed of twelve highest-ranking officials from various categories. (All are ancient relics tens of thousands of years old).
So this "minor friction" was a persistent issue between the Inquisition headquarters and the Imperial Cult, like a bone stuck in the throat.
Therefore, Horst-Eisenholm, one of the Inquisitor Lords of the Inquisition, decided to dispatch the unlucky Inquisitor Tossak-Rome to infiltrate this Shrine World.
However, not long after, the news that arrived was not about the execution of a heretic deeply embedded within the Imperial Cult, but rather that Inquisitor Tossak-Rome had killed all his retinue, including Battle Sisters and servants—twenty people in total—and then disappeared.
These pieces of evidence were sufficient for the Inquisition's internal intelligence agency to conclude that he had betrayed the Inquisition.
Perhaps if the entire Inquisition Black Ship fleet had entered that Shrine World at the time, the outcome would have been very different.
However, Kenmyo Isayama's investigation revealed that Tossak-Rome did not willingly betray the Inquisition, but rather fell after enduring various torments from Slaanesh cultist Fallen Sisters.
Even the "Daughters of the Emperor," the Battle Sisters, were corrupted by Slaanesh, which shows how deeply this Shrine World has been corrupted by Chaos forces.
The situation was so troublesome that Horst-Eisenholm was weighing the pros and cons of initiating an Exterminatus, but the foolish Imperial Cult remained completely oblivious!
Kenmyo Isayama felt that if the Emperor were still alive, the Imperial Cult's current overwhelming power would not exist. Most of the Imperium's wealthiest worlds are within the Ecclesiarchy's sphere of influence, and the Ecclesiarchy spends unimaginable astronomical sums each year building shrines to the Emperor and promoting His divinity.
This, however, is the biggest black humor joke played on the Emperor, the Lord of the Imperium of Man, in the Warhammer World, and also the most serious blasphemy.
The Imperial Cult's doctrine:
"The Emperor is the One True God, and humanity must forget all past beliefs."
"The Emperor will rise from the Golden Throne and complete His unfinished grand endeavor, saving the faithful from the villains and scoundrels of the The Galaxy / Milky Way. While most will see it as a time of salvation, the Emperor will judge humanity, bringing down curses upon those who lack faith."
This fundamentally crushed the Emperor's ideals and humanity's hope, and the Emperor could only watch helplessly, unable to change anything.
Ignorant religious belief would bring no benefit to humanity; only the popularization of science and the Imperial Truth, the Emperor believed, were truly beneficial to humanity.
The Emperor most detested being treated as a god; He vehemently denied His divinity!
Even for His own sons, He would inflict the most severe punishment.
One of the twenty Primarchs, Lorgar, the Primarch of the Word Bearers Legion, once considered the most ideologically correct from the Imperium's perspective, built a city declaring the Emperor as the supreme God, all to show the Emperor his most loyal faith in his old father, the Emperor.
The "Perfect City" basically exhausted almost all the financial and material resources of the Word Bearers Legion.
The city was filled with temples of all sizes, and the largest temple housed a statue of the Emperor even larger than a Titan. Even the residents were faithful followers of the Emperor.
What Lorgar didn't expect was not praise from the Emperor, but unprecedented fury. The Emperor didn't even have the inclination to meet his son.
"Destroy the Perfect City!"
He directly ordered Papa Smurf Guilliman's Ultramarines Legion to conduct an orbital bombardment on the "Perfect City" that the Word Bearers had painstakingly built.
The orbital bombardment, save for not deploying cyclone torpedo, was basically on the same scale as an Exterminatus. Just how furious was the Emperor?
This incident planted the seeds of hatred in the heart of Lorgar, the Primarch of the Word Bearers Legion. This was blatant humiliation.
The Word Bearers Legion was the first to follow Warmaster Horus in betraying the Emperor, and then, during the rebellion, they lured the loyalist Ultramarines Legion to a designated planet for orbital bombardment. The Ultramarines Legion suffered heavy casualties, losing more than half its strength.
This war was the Battle of Calth.
Therefore, it is absolutely impossible for the Emperor to permit fanatical worship in His name.
If the Emperor had been alive, the Imperial Cult would definitely have been declared heretical, and those in charge would have been crushed by Him.
But the rise of the Imperial Cult benefited from opportune timing, favorable geography, and human factors. The Imperium of Man was ravaged by an unprecedented legionary civil war, and its people suffered immensely, thus desperately needing spiritual faith.
The Imperial Cult has grown wildly to become an organization even more terrifying than the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Emperor's "partners" from the time of His founding.
Although the Imperial Cult and the Inquisition are at odds, the situation has reached such a point that it is not the time to dwell on old grievances; drastic measures must be taken.
Horst-Eisenholm dispatched Kenmyo Isayama this time in the capacity of an Inquisition Oversight Team to the Shrine World of Kerigran, where Tossak-Rome had his incident.
He also dispatched the Black Templars Chapter, a Second Founding chapter of the Imperial Fists, as an escort.