122: A new king rises in the city! Amidst the ruins, power is transferred!

Ilaria's gaze drifted past the ruins before her, fixing on the colossal steel city in the distance that was becoming clearer in the morning light.

The Valerius Family had fallen.

The Hive City no longer had a master.

Zhang Yuan ignored the deeper meaning in Ilaria's eyes; he simply stood there, watching his soldiers busy themselves over the ruins like a swarm of ants.

Medics were rushing about, engineers were clearing debris, and surviving soldiers were collecting the remains of their fallen comrades.

After the clamor of victory, a heavy silence, characteristic of the aftermath of battle, enveloped everyone.

Just then, the sound of chaotic footsteps came from the distance.

A detachment was approaching Zhang Yuan, moving from the rear positions of the battlefield, picking their way through the carnage of corpses and armored wreckage.

At their head was an old man wearing a scorched and tattered Planetary Defence Force officer's uniform. His arm was wrapped in a blood-stained bandage, and his face was covered in soot and exhaustion, yet his back remained ramrod straight.

Behind him followed dozens of surviving Planetary Defence Force soldiers and Hive City Arbiters.

They were among the few who had survived the collapse of the front line during this bloody battle.

They had witnessed the devastating bombardment of the thor mecha, the closing of the Warp rift, and the man who stood atop the ruins and mastered it all.

The old officer stopped ten meters away from Zhang Yuan.

He did not speak, but simply fixed his cloudy yet sharp eyes on Zhang Yuan, looking at him deeply.

Then, to the astonishment of everyone, he suddenly dropped to one knee and bowed his proud head.

Behind him, those surviving, proud Planetary Defence Force soldiers and Arbiters did not hesitate in the slightest, all dropping to one knee in unison.

Metal kneepads collided with the vitrified ground, creating a crisp yet dull sound.

"I, Commander of the 17th Regiment of the Planetary Defence Force of the Hive City, Roderick von Kane, offer you our loyalty on behalf of all surviving soldiers."

The old officer's voice was hoarse, yet every word rang with conviction.

"You saved us, and you saved this Hive City. From this moment on, our guns shall only fire for you!"

These words were like a boulder dropped into a calm lake.

All the busy Space Marines stopped what they were doing and looked over.

Ilaria's pupils constricted. She glanced at the kneeling Roderick, then at the expressionless Zhang Yuan.

The transfer of power had begun, in the most primitive and direct way, upon this ruin of blood and fire.

Zhang Yuan looked at the people kneeling before him; the cold metal identification tag pressed painfully into his palm.

A guardian? The embodiment of order? A bitter, self-deprecating thought rose within him.

All he wanted was to survive, but reality had pushed him onto this throne built from countless corpses.

He knew that accepting this loyalty meant taking responsibility for the lives of everyone who remained, and that he was now irrevocably bound to this dark Hive City, with no way back.

He looked at Roderick's aged yet resolute face, seeing the remnant of pride and the act of entrusting one's fate in the old man's eyes.

Refuse? That would instantly chill everyone's hearts.

"Rise."

Zhang Yuan's voice carried a subtle, imperceptible heaviness.

Roderick looked up, his eyes fixed firmly on him, but he did not move.

Zhang Yuan stepped forward and personally helped him up.

"Take the wounded away," Zhang Yuan said, brushing the dust from the old officer's shoulder. "Your soldiers need rest."

Roderick's body trembled slightly. He looked at Zhang Yuan, his lips moving, but in the end, he only nodded heavily.

"Yes, Commander!"

After Roderick led his subordinates away, a brief power vacuum appeared on the battlefield.

The look in the eyes of the surviving soldiers as they watched Zhang Yuan had changed from simple adoration to a mix of reverence and obedience.

Ilaria walked to his side and whispered a reminder: "Roderick is a distant branch of the Kane family and holds great prestige within the Planetary Defence Force. His allegiance is more valuable than you imagine… and more dangerous."

Zhang Yuan gave a grunt of acknowledgment, his gaze sweeping over the corpses being loaded onto transport vehicles, but he said nothing.

Value and danger—he knew them all too well.

Just as he was contemplating how to integrate this newly joined armed force, a commotion in the distance interrupted his thoughts.

Another group of people was cautiously approaching from the other side of the battlefield.

They wore a motley assortment of clothing; some in oil-stained work overalls, others in silk robes, but all looked disheveled and wretched.

They were representatives of the Eight Great Guilds.

When the Valerius Family and the Governors Mansion were transformed into a palace of flesh by The Keeper of Secrets, these shrewd merchants had been lucky enough to hide in a safe area in the rear.

They were the veins and nerves of the Hive City.

Promethium, water, corpses, slaves, currency, electricity, steel, air… they controlled everything the city relied on to survive.

A middle-aged man who looked like an accountant stepped out from the crowd and bowed deeply to Zhang Yuan.

The middle-aged man, who identified himself as an agent of the Coin Guild, wore a smile so humble it bordered on sycophantic, but deep in his eyes lay an undisguisable fear of the two smoking thor mechas behind Zhang Yuan.

When he spoke, he didn't even dare to look Zhang Yuan in the eye.

"……The Eight Great Guilds have unanimously elected you as the new Governor of Varak Hive City." After saying this, he bowed deeply, his body trembling slightly.

Ilaria stood to the side, a flash of disdain crossing her ice-blue eyes.

She could practically smell the mixture of fear and greed on them.

This was not allegiance; it was offering tribute to a new, more powerful predator in the face of disaster to ensure their own survival.

She looked at Zhang Yuan, wanting to see how this man from an "unknown world" would handle such dirty political dealings.

This was the naked reality.

The power Zhang Yuan had displayed had completely shattered all their wishful thinking.

Rather than waiting to be purged, it was better to proactively surrender and trade for a position under the new order.

Zhang Yuan did not respond immediately.

His gaze passed over these cowering merchants and looked further into the distance.

There, a group of black-robed clergy were walking toward them, escorted by several Space Marines.

Seeing them, the previously noisy crowd instantly fell silent, and the faces of the surviving Planetary Defence Force soldiers and civilians simultaneously wore expressions mixed with awe and fanaticism.

At their head was the Ecclesiarchy Arch-deacon who had luckily escaped from the Upper Hive.

He looked even older than before, but his eyes burned with a nearly insane fire.

His gaze did not linger on Zhang Yuan, but instead passed over everyone, fixing intently on a small, thin figure protected by several soldiers behind the crowd: Ayla.

The girl felt that searing gaze and hid fearfully behind Enos.

The Arch-deacon did not approach; he stopped a long way from the crowd, and then, to the confusion of everyone, he prostrated himself on the ground in the direction of Ayla.

"A miracle! It is a miracle of the Emperor!"

"She is a Saint sent by the Emperor to save us! A Living Saint!"

The Arch-deacon's voice trembled with excitement, filled with weeping.

"In the deepest darkness, amidst that corrupt symphony of pleasure, I heard it! I heard the holy light of the Emperor emanating from that child's soul!"

The words "Living Saint" were like a red-hot branding iron, searing into everyone's eardrums.

The color drained from Ilaria's face instantly, turning it paler than her silver hair.

She knew better than anyone what the title of "Living Saint" meant in the Imperium—it was not an honor, but a one-way ticket to being pushed onto an altar and burned by the most fanatical flames until even the ashes were used up.

As for Zhang Yuan, his heart didn't just sink; it felt as if it had been gripped tightly by an invisible hand, making it hard for him to breathe for a moment.

"Fuck!" He cursed in his native language in the depths of his heart.

The thing he feared most, the thing he least wanted to see, that quintessential 40K-style bullshit luck had fucking happened!

Saint Celestine, Saint Sabbat… Names famous in the lore flashed through his mind, along with the endless fanaticism, sacrifice, conspiracy, and tragic fates that followed them.

He looked at the girl trembling behind Marcus, then at the Arch-deacon, who looked like a madman, and the surrounding crowd that was beginning to grow fanatical.

He knew that from this moment on, the trouble he faced had officially escalated from a Hive City power struggle to a religious event that could attract the attention of the entire sector.

"I propose!" The Arch-deacon gathered all his strength, scrambled up from the ground, raised his hands high, and shouted in his most inflammatory voice to all the survivors around him.

"That the Emperor's Living Saint, and the Saint's guardian, Commander Zhang Yuan, jointly rule Varak Hive City!"

"For the Emperor! For the Saint! For the Commander!"

A tsunami of fanatical shouts erupted from the mouths of the surviving soldiers and civilians.

Planetary Defence Force, Guilds, Ecclesiarchy……

Military power, financial power, religious power.

Upon this ruin, in an absurd yet realistic way, it all converged in Zhang Yuan's hands.

He looked at those fanatical faces, at Ayla trembling behind Enos, and at Ilaria, in whose eyes a flicker of worry flashed.

He knew he had been pushed to a position from which he could not retreat.

"I accept," Zhang Yuan's voice, amplified by the loudspeaker, drowned out all the shouting, "the position of interim Governor."

He turned and walked toward the wrecked command vehicle.

"But for now, what we must do is save people, collect the dead, and rebuild our home."

"Not here, crowning me."