"No matter what, I can finally get some proper rest. Nothing to worry about, nothing weighing me down…"
Listening to the pleasant sounds of play, Eden walked across the soft grass, warm and featherlike beneath his bare feet.
In the end, he had graciously accepted the local specialties sent over by the various segmentums and sectors.
After all, they represented the goodwill of the Imperial nobility and vassal species, as well as their loyalty. If he, the Savior, refused to accept them, that would be even worse and might damage harmony.
Eden continued forward. The sensation beneath his feet was excellent.
This grass had been cultivated using the latest biotechnology, and its comfort had been pushed to the absolute limit.
Simply put, it was a natural version of a Simmons mattress, capable of holding several hundred people rolling around or moving about on it at the same time.
Of course, this was still not the true limit of the mighty Savior. He was simply frugal, disciplined, and unwilling to be too extravagant or wasteful.
According to a certain historical scholar—
The great Savior, the Imperial Emperor, might be the kindest, most frugal, and most praiseworthy supreme ruler in the history of mankind.
He was practically a model of civilization.
After all, this supreme ruler did not consume large numbers of psykers every day like previous rulers had, nor did he have any peculiar hobbies that required vast amounts of resources.
He would not casually torment the civilized worlds under his rule either, such as by carrying out certain hunts or sacrificial rites.
Not only that, the Savior's temperament was extremely stable and kind. Under this supreme ruler, as long as one did not engage in excessive corruption or harm Imperial citizens, there was basically no need to worry about personal safety.
Nor was there any need to fear that one's efforts would go unrewarded.
That ruler loved nothing more than granting promotions, giving rewards, and throwing money around.
In short, the Savior merely liked local specialties. What could possibly be wrong with that? Besides, apart from this, he had no other hobbies.
Eden looked up.
At the center of the grassland, beside a small stream, more than a dozen figures were playing in the water. Their graceful forms each had their own charm. Some were slender and elegant, some were lively and adorable, and some were alluring and captivating.
Among them, only a few were pure humans. The rest were abhumans with animal ears or tails, as well as beautiful women with distinctive Aeldari and T'au features.
There was also a dark-skinned beauty of unknown species, like a black pearl, the most bewitching of them all.
In the stream, there was a beautiful being similar to a mermaid, likely from some ocean world.
One could only say that in a galaxy so vast, every kind of life existed.
These were all among the "local specialties" sent under the pretext of celebration by high-ranking nobles from across the Imperium or by the rulers of vassal species.
There were many kinds of local specialties, covering all sorts of things, including beautiful lives from various species.
They were most likely nobles themselves, or figures publicly selected locally as representatives of their region's highest standard of beauty.
According to the Tribunal, these gifts had not been coerced. After all, the great Savior disliked anything forced in nature.
"Your Majesty~"
"Supreme Savior~"
When those graceful figures who had been playing around saw the Savior arrive, they immediately made soft, delicate sounds as they bowed. They were both nervous and shy.
Just seeing the Savior, seeing that strong body as if forged from gleaming gold, made them tremble involuntarily, their faces flushing red.
They could barely stand.
It was a kind of overwhelming presence. After all, the Savior could already be considered the most captivating male in the Imperium. Wherever he went, all bowed before him.
Combined with the influence of the Authority of Pleasure, if he did not actively suppress it, there was no female life-form who could withstand him.
Even on the scale of the galaxy, was there any being in the galaxy now more powerful and virile than the Savior?
With Eden's current abilities, it could be said that very few lives could endure the full weight of his favor.
"By the Supreme Greater Good, is that His Majesty the Savior? How could I possibly bear such favor?"
The eldest daughter of the T'au Ethereal Caste knelt on the grass. As she watched the Savior approach, her smooth, well-proportioned body flushed faintly red, and she thought of a certain legend.
Legend said that His Majesty the Savior's favor was overwhelming.
Just as this beautiful Ethereal woman was worrying about that—
Eden picked up a petite Aeldari attendant, walked right past her, and jumped into the stream, startling the sea-born beauty into a series of soft cries.
Those graceful beings were all astonished. As expected of the existence who had defeated the Dark King!
Eden lay with his head on the lap of an abhuman princess, lightly kneading her fox tail while thinking about something.
This seemed to make the abhuman princess let out soft, muffled sounds, but he paid little attention to them.
At that moment, all of Eden's attention was focused on the latest report before him. As the Imperial Emperor, he still had important affairs to handle.
According to Webby's report, the Emperor and Dante had already gone to Ultima Segmentum, where they were reminiscing about the past in a city-state on a feudal Knight World.
"I wonder if the old man will remember his old wild life in ancient Rome, and his past as the she-wolf of Rome?"
Eden thought this to himself in secret.
However, the Emperor had already retired. As long as the old man did not run off into the Warp again, there was basically no problem, and Eden did not need to pay too much attention to him.
In a sense, the old Emperor was far safer than Eden himself.
Eden glanced over the Emperor's situation, then began focusing on the report concerning the overall state of the Imperium.
The galaxy was relatively peaceful now. There had been no large-scale wars, nor any major threats from xenos or heretics. There was also no important war that affected humanity's fate and required him, the Savior, to personally take the field.
The campaign against the Dark King had already ended. The remaining dark rifts did not pose much of a threat either. The disaster relief engineering teams had enough time and space to deal with them gradually.
Under these circumstances, the Imperium would not take the initiative to launch wars. What humanity needed to focus on more was the reconstruction of disaster zones and the resettlement of tens of thousands of trillions of refugees.
This was an immense project, requiring the investment of vast resources for restoration and reconstruction.
The royal court had already formed a temporary Post-Disaster Reconstruction Committee to handle this matter, doing everything possible to let the affected Imperial citizens return to normal life as quickly as possible.
Fortunately, the Imperium's economic system was already extremely complete. Reconstruction on such a large scale would not only avoid becoming too heavy a burden, but would instead further promote economic circulation and vitality.
That was the inevitable result.
At times, the ruins formed by war and disaster were both suffering and opportunity.
Under reasonable operation, especially after introducing a market economy, postwar and post-disaster reconstruction would generate massive demand and stimulate economic activity.
That meant unimaginable demand for materials, a vast market, and countless jobs.
The major conglomerates, Rogue Traders, and enterprises of the New Imperium were already rubbing their hands together, preparing to expand production.
These actions would create a large number of jobs, stimulate the employment market, and allow more Imperial citizens to benefit.
Wages in related industries would rise further as well.
When various resources and personnel flowed into disaster zones, discovering new markets and new demands, it would indirectly allow those disaster zones to recover quickly and help refugees return to normal life.
The Post-Disaster Reconstruction Committee would strictly supervise and handle all problems arising during the reconstruction process. It had also stipulated that relevant conglomerates, Rogue Traders, and enterprises had to give priority to recruiting refugees for production or reconstruction work.
"Not bad. At least this won't become a burden on the Imperium. The refugees will soon be able to emerge from their suffering…"
After browsing the information related to disaster-zone reconstruction, Eden finally let out a breath of relief, and a smile appeared on his face.
In this disaster, the Imperium had not weakened. Instead, it had expanded production and become even more prosperous.
Humanity did not fear turbulence. What it feared was becoming like the old Imperium, with regions sealed off from one another, stagnant and lifeless, trapped in endless internal consumption.
It was not that the old Imperium had no resources. It was that those resources had been greatly wasted under the crude Eleventh Tithe system and had never been circulated properly.
But the current Imperium could mobilize most resources on a massive scale and send them where they needed to go.
More importantly, the Imperium had helped the Warp resist the Black Tide and had received an enormous amount of resource compensation from that idealist realm. Not only could this make up for the losses of the disaster zones, it could even turn a profit.
"The Warp really is a treasure trove…"
Looking at the relevant data on resource gains, Eden could not help sighing.
In the past, he had always felt that the Warp was a terrifying place, full of demons and monsters, the source of humanity's disasters.
However, as his strength grew and his understanding of the Warp deepened, he felt that the Warp was no longer so frightening. Instead, it was a virgin land containing endless matter and energy.
Over the long ages, the Warp had accumulated unimaginable amounts of material. Countless races and civilizations had seen their machinery, technology, cities, and even planets fall into it, all waiting for humanity to excavate.
Moreover, the Warp itself was an endless reservoir of energy. If the chaotic energy within could be utilized—
Would humanity not gain eternal resources?
Of course, the premise of all this was that Eden could resist the threats from the Warp.
If the Chaos Gods did not all come out together to attack him, then for him, the King of Hell, the Warp was basically a back garden, a colony waiting to be developed.
Eden could stroll around inside the Warp because the lesser gods and Chaos beings feared him, the King of Hell, not because he feared them.
After all, he could now be counted among the five overlords of the Warp—or rather, one of the five great Chaos Gods. If someone displeased him, he could simply smack them with a great backhand and guarantee they would behave.
"In the previous struggle against the Dark King, the Chaos Gods basically exhausted their power. They are now hiding inside their divine realms, licking their wounds.
"This is humanity's window to expand in the Warp. We absolutely cannot miss this opportunity."
Eden thought this to himself.
Now that the Chaos Gods could not come out to stir up trouble, the only beings capable of threatening humanity were Greater Daemon-level existences. Humanity was fully capable of resisting them and relying on the Blackstone Fortresses stationed in the Warp to expand its territory.
As for why he did not take advantage of the Chaos Gods' weakness, transform into the King of Hell, and go beat those old Warp bastards at their door?
That was because Eden himself was weak too. The King of Hell was also recovering inside his divine realm.
In essence, the reason he had been able to critically strike the Dark King before was that he had gathered the power of the Chaos Gods, the King of Hell, and even more lesser gods.
The Chaos Gods and his own King of Hell aspect had basically burned themselves out and fallen into temporary weakness.
Fortunately, this exchange had not been a loss. Not only had he defeated the Dark King, but the King of Hell had also gained several Chaos-primarch chosen, gathered a massive number of Chaos daemon refugees, and seen his number of believers surge.
Humanity had also used the Blackstone Fortresses to establish footholds in the Warp. Those were equivalent to Imperial enclaves inside the Warp.
The growth of these territories and believers caused the power of the Hope Sun and his dark alternate identity to rise dramatically. His strength was already infinitely close to that of the Chaos Gods.
It was extremely formidable.
Of course, that was under the premise of fighting a Chaos God one-on-one. If he were surrounded and beaten by several at once, it would still be difficult to endure.
"Perhaps this window will determine who gains the final victory and wins the war in the Immaterium."
Eden pondered.
He knew exactly how precious this window of opportunity was.
Once the Chaos Gods recovered, not only would his expansion in the Warp be struck down, but he would also face their most ferocious siege.
If, by then, he had not gained enough faith and Chaos territory to obtain the power to beat the Chaos Gods into submission—
That would be troublesome.
After thinking this through, Eden solidified the Imperium's next development policy.
While restoring and rebuilding, the Imperium would vigorously develop and explore the Warp, expanding humanity's territories inside it. Ideally, it would achieve colonization.
At the same time, the Chaos forces controlled by the King of Hell—the Fear Legion and the Burning Legion—also had to develop rapidly and expand their Chaos territories.
He would also see whether Beastmen could be modified into Chaos Space Marines. This Warp species was still very powerful, and its numbers were abundant.
In short, it would be a two-pronged approach. Human power and the Hell-aligned Chaos forces would expand at the same time, reaching the point where they could stand as equals to the Chaos Gods—or even crush them.
"Hiss. The reports from these oil boys are way too complicated. They're making my head hurt. Damned binary language."
Eden flipped through the summary report submitted by the Adeptus Mechanicus concerning Warp development, his head buzzing.
With his current abilities, he could understand almost any knowledge, but he still instinctively rejected it.
Perhaps this was simply the nature of a bad student. He was allergic to complicated knowledge.
However, Eden still understood what the oil boys were trying to say.
Once all the complicated data and formulas were stripped from the report, the general conclusion was this:
It would not be easy for humanity to expand territory inside the Warp. With the existing technological barriers and Warp technologies, the rate of territorial expansion would be much slower than expected.
The main difficulty still lay in cleaning out and isolating Warp Chaos energy. Existing barriers also found it hard to resist violent Warp tides over the long term, and maintenance costs were relatively high.
This could already be seen from the experience of resisting the Black Tide.
In other words, if humanity wanted to expand rapidly, it needed a higher-level technology capable of isolating Warp Chaos energy.
After all, building territories inside the Warp where humans could survive was similar to building a city under the sea. One had to isolate the omnipresent Warp energy, much like seawater.
The best option would be a star-system-scale blackstone field capable of excluding Warp energy from within the field's range.
Only then could some regions of the Warp be cleansed of Chaos and turned into environments where humanity could survive.
At present, the basic Blackstone Fortress technology already existed, but the advanced technology was still under research. No one knew how long it would take to succeed.
According to the Adeptus Mechanicus report, they were already attempting to obtain more technology from the Old Ones and the Necrons.
After reading the reports related to Warp development, Eden was not particularly worried.
Although humanity's expansion speed was a bit slow, it was not impossible to expand. Besides, he believed the Adeptus Mechanicus could research better technology.
"Throw money at it!"
With a grand wave of his hand, Eden approved triple research funding for the Adeptus Mechanicus research units involved.
He did not understand technology, but he understood how to throw money at things.
The moment that wave of funding came down, the Archmagi of the relevant research institutes immediately sent communications.
They were overjoyed and deeply grateful, and they promised to produce satisfactory results for the great Savior, the Father of the Machine, as quickly as possible.
"These oil boys aren't very good at flattery, but at least their attitude is sincere."
After ending the communication with the Archmagi, Eden nodded in satisfaction.
The oil boys were indeed rigorous. They had even specified the dates for reporting results down to the hour, while also laying out what they would do and the possible predicted outcomes.
They were extremely eager to produce staged results as soon as possible. That way, he, the Savior, would increase the scale of his spending.
As a superior, Eden liked such rigorous work reports.
"Hey, Webby darling, are you having fun?"
Of course, Eden himself did not read the whole thing. Instead, he directly forwarded the several-hundred-terabyte file to Webby, his little darling, who was currently on vacation.
"Oh, you're watching Grandpa Emperor hunt giant beasts? I thought the old man would go to some public bathhouse.
"By the way, help me look over the data. After analyzing it, give me a summary under five hundred words…"
Although these materials would automatically be summarized by the secretarial department and then reported in the most concise way possible, Eden wanted to know the conclusion right now. That meant he could only ask Webby for help.
He had already grown used to treating Webby as his personal AI assistant.
"I've already finished processing it. Hehe, the outside world is so much fun!" After receiving the data, Webby quickly processed it and sent it back.
She was very happy that Father had given her such a long vacation, especially since she had gone very, very far away with Grandpa Emperor and Lazy Uncle Dante.
"Webby darling is so good. You have to be rewarded…" Eden browsed the data that had been sent back and was very satisfied.
"I'll give you another half-year of vacation. Have fun!"
"Wow! Webby loves you the most!" Webby became even happier when she heard that, bouncing wildly in midair through her virtual projection.
Eden was extremely generous when it came to increasing Webby's vacation time.
After all, as the Machine Goddess, even if Webby controlled a mechanical avatar to go out and play, her true body was still handling the entire Imperium's data calculations and maintaining the operation of the psychic network.
This counted as a vacation, but also somehow did not. It was a fake vacation.
In short, as long as Webby, his little darling, was happy, that was enough.
"You brat, you scared away all my giant beasts…"
However, before Eden could say much more, the Emperor came over in displeasure and cut off the communication, telling him not to trick children or disturb his retirement life.
Eden awkwardly ended the communication and lowered his head to look at the summary data Webby had sent back. The result was quite good.
The Adeptus Mechanicus research had a fairly high chance of success.
Satisfied, Eden lay back down on the pale, springy thighs of the fox abhuman princess and enjoyed the foot-bath service provided by the sea-born beauty.
The other graceful beings fed him drinks, regional specialty snacks, and the like.
It was extremely comfortable.
Eden toyed with the fluffy tail as he gazed out over the garden scenery, sighing with feeling. "What a scene of thriving vitality, of all things flourishing."
It had been a very long time since he had rested for this long. Everything was so beautiful.
But in the next moment, a piercing communication alarm rang out.
(End of Chapter)
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