89: Chapter 89 The Carrion Game Under the Golden Throne (Part 1)

Trajann Valoris stood in the shadows.

He wore gilded armor—an ancient power relic whose intricate design stood out even among his Custodian brothers. The armor was engraved with the Emperor's sigil, a magnificent eagle-head crest and massive feathers, its patterns gleaming with a cold, hard luster in the dim light. This eagle-head image was the direct symbol of his authority as the Emperor's personal representative.

At this moment, the Emperor's crest on his chest made his expression seem even more grim. His gaze was as sharp as a blade, slicing through the hypocritical masks of everyone present.

He did not participate in this celebration; he didn't even spare a second glance at these decadent trifles.

In his eyes, these people were nothing more than a pack of hyenas in human skin, reveling around the carrion of power.

He simply patrolled along a fixed route, each step steady and devoid of any superfluous emotion.

This boisterous banquet hall was merely an insignificant waystation on his path to guarding the Golden Throne. He came to protect the Emperor and, incidentally, to show a modicum of respect to his new colleague, only because it was the Emperor's trust and Malcador's legacy.

He stopped behind a corridor pillar.

He stopped only because he needed this moment of pause.

He overlaid the scene before him with hundreds of nearly identical images from his memory, performing one more comparison.

That young man, standing in the center of the crowd, was wrapped in gold and silk.

He wore a robe with patterns so complex they could trigger trypophobia, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing that alloy signet ring.

This token, symbolizing the authority of the Master of Administratum, seemed to have become the source of his courage in his hands.

His spine was strained as he tried to stand straight, his body slightly tense, and the facial muscles he used to maintain a long-term smile had begun to tremble slightly.

His blood flow was twice the normal rate, and his heart rate had reached 120 beats per minute. This indicated that the mortal seemed to be undergoing intense exercise, yet he was merely standing there, wearing that ill-timed expression.

All of this indicated that The New Lord Chancellor was merely trying his best to maintain the composure of a superior, but ultimately failed to hide the panic revealed in his posture.

The nobles from the outskirts of Terra surrounded him, holding gilded wine chalices. The flattery in their words was like melted honey—cloying and hypocritical.

Some praised his youth and talent, while others obscurely mentioned their own sector interests or logistical channel demands.

Others cautiously tested his bottom line. Every word and every look hid naked calculation and opportunism.

They controlled resources but used them only to feed their own greed and dig for more; they yearned to obtain more tithe exemptions from this newcomer.

Trajann Valoris saw through it all.

They weren't paying homage; they were testing whether this newcomer had the ability to create wealth and understood the mechanisms of power.

At the same time, they were evaluating The New Lord Chancellor—assessing whether this fat sheep they would work hard to cultivate in the future was of high enough quality, estimating how many years it would take to fatten him up, and calculating how much inheritance he would leave after stepping down.

They calculated how much meat could be carved in the future from the wealth his family accumulated, the network spanning sectors, the logistical channels controlling half of Terra, the intricate political connections, and the minor peripheral lords and factions dependent on his family.

They looked forward to these things. The moment he stepped down, his corruption would become a certainty. The high and low nobles of Terra would always find countless ways to corrupt him, making him a follower of Slaanesh or Nurgle. Of course, occasionally encountering one who kept themselves clean made framing them an excellent alternative.

Trajann Valoris had seen the operations of men like him and his family too many times.

Every transition of power followed the same process.

A high-spirited young man would walk into this hall with aspirations for power, believing that by grasping the authority bestowed by the Imperium, he could control everything.

Yet 200 years later, there would always be a withered, exhausted old man whose family would leave not a single trace behind on Terra.

Then, the nobles would elegantly, reservedly, and quietly feast upon everything he left behind.

This was the metabolism of Terran politics permitted by the true Terran nobility—the Adeptus Mechanicus, Ecclesiarchy, Inquisition, Officio Assassinorum, Astropaths, Navigators, and even the Custodes. This was a distribution that conformed to the 'Rules of Terra'.

After all, Terra was a political and cultural center sustained by the entire Imperium. It produced nothing, only extracted. It needed this metabolic method to rotate, eliminate, and replenish fresh blood, thereby keeping Terra full of 'vitality' and preventing certain clever people from flooding in and creating a political impact on their status.

Doing this once every 200 years harvested wealth, replenished the consumption of the Terran nobles, and vacated many positions to incentivize more fools to fight desperately for the future of the Imperium.

And that old man who had just stepped down was now sitting in a corner's shadow.

Cut in half by the flickering candlelight, one half was his former majesty, the other his current humility.

Like a skeleton already picked clean, he curled up there silently, waiting to be swept into the trash bin, waiting to be completely forgotten by everyone.

There was no anger in his eyes, no resentment—only a desolate calm.

He seemed to have seen through the closed loop of power and realized the end for himself and his family, but he did not make a scene or any unnecessary movements. He simply accepted it silently; he was a truly loyal servant.

He had lived long enough—long enough to witness countless such cycles.

Long enough that this process had been etched into every gold brick of Terra, carved into the bones of every noble, becoming a part of the Imperium's operation.

Ever since following Guilliman to meet the Emperor, he had begun to vaguely understand that the order the Imperium had passed down for ten thousand years might have been wrong from its very foundation.

His right hand slightly tightened its grip on the haft of the Watcher's Axe.

The cold sensation of metal spread from his palm to his entire body.

He was enduring. They were the Emperor's most loyal guardians, yet these scum had begun to ignore the Emperor's authority.

But he was exercising restraint—restraining the disgust and anger surging from the depths of his mental conditioning.

That was the defense of the Emperor's sacred order etched into the Custodes' genes and memories.

These scavengers.

This pack of parasites clinging to the Imperium's blood vessels.

They produced nothing, understood nothing of war, could not manage administration, and didn't even possess basic survival skills.

Their only capital was being 'on Terra'—in this city close to the Emperor, on this land shrouded by a holy halo.

Anyone who wanted to get close to the Emperor had to pass through them.

Anyone who wanted to survive on Terra had to pay them tribute.

Anyone who wanted to control power had to negotiate interests with them.

They turned the Emperor's safety into their own toll booth and the Custodes' duties into their own protective umbrella.

They turned the flow of the Imperium's resources into their private pasture and the position of Master of Administratum into livestock to be fattened and then slaughtered.

Furthermore, they turned the lives of low-level mortals into stepping stones for their own pleasure.

Their proclamations of 'God's salvation' and 'protection by the elite' were merely a form of conditioning, used only to consolidate their own rule.

It would be one thing if they merely worked to keep mortals forever ignorant, incapable of thought, and perpetually submissive.

They had even begun to misappropriate the Emperor's silence, slandering that silence as his divine decree.

What they needed was only a god nailed to the Golden Throne, unable to speak. The Emperor's suffering could only be their sole sacred legacy, because the Emperor could no longer speak to refute everything they had fabricated for him.