Hawk listened to the complaints of those people and sighed slightly.
"The Holy Emperor above, we are born in sin and should temper ourselves through suffering."
The preacher's voice echoed from the loudspeaker of the public vehicle.
They were always so noisy, as if just being loud could make people believe them.
The Emperor didn't have that much time to bother with these lunatics.
A slightly heretical thought surfaced in Hawk's mind.
He knew such thoughts were somewhat disrespectful, but he couldn't help himself.
Those priests said the Emperor loved everyone, but why was the disparity so great??
Some people had everything, while others had nothing.
Clearly, the Emperor simply couldn't oversee everyone.
Those guys were just using the Emperor's name to swindle people.
Hawk turned to look out the window, watching the neon lights flicker and the chaotic, multi-layered hive city, his eyes growing increasingly lost.
He didn't know what the meaning of his birth was??
Endless work, enclosed housing, and twelve hours of labor every day.
Besides these, he seemed to have nothing.
And those priests were still saying they were very happy.
Where exactly was the happiness??
Amidst Hawk's wild thoughts, the public vehicle stopped at a slightly dilapidated metal platform.
**District 36, Station 2 has arrived. Passengers going to Residential Area 2, please alight at this station.**
The mechanical broadcast sounded, interrupting Hawk's contemplation.
He quickly stood up and walked towards the door.
The moment he stepped out of the vehicle, he heard a 'ding' sound.
The credit points for the public vehicle ride were directly deducted and entered the account of the Public Transportation Committee.
Citizens living in Hawk Hive City would receive a data chip upon reaching adulthood, recording their various information and financial accounts.
This chip was not the private property of the citizen but belonged to the Mechanical Association.
The Mechanical Association was responsible for maintaining all the machinery in the hive city; all mechanical products were their responsibility.
The data chip was just something they leased to the citizens.
After a citizen died, the Mechanical Association would retrieve the chip from the body, format it, and then lease it to another person.
Hawk suspected his data chip was at least two hundred years old, perhaps longer, having gone through at least three or four generations.
Many things in the Empire were like this.
Their lifespan was much longer than that of ordinary people.
Coupled with the maintenance by the Mechanical Association, these things could often be used for hundreds, even thousands of years.
Just as Hawk stepped off the vehicle, he was jostled by a passenger getting on.
The other person didn't apologize but walked directly into the carriage, found a seat, and sat down.
Hawk had long been accustomed to this.
In this cold, cruel, and oppressive world, everyone was this numb.
Walking down the metal corridor that emitted the unique stench of metal, Hawk heard a buzzing sound. He looked up above him.
A luxurious private voidcar, etched with the Imperial double-headed eagle emblem and family crests, swept overhead, weaving between the tall buildings of the hive city.
Hawk's eyes showed envy; he watched the vehicle disappear into the distance, until it was out of sight.
These private voidcars were luxuries he couldn't afford in a lifetime of labor.
They belonged only to the nobles with deep family legacies.
Walking through the corridor connecting the metal platform, and a few hundred meters further on, was the crowded residential area.
People came and went here, the noise was deafening.
Some small vendors were loudly selling things: potions, meat, alcohol, etc., as well as contraband obtained through special channels.
In some places, there were also floating projections displaying advertisements from various conglomerates or trade associations.
In some dark corners, stood gang members with various patterns painted on their faces.
They often had good stuff on hand; as long as you had enough credit points, they could get you powerful plasma guns and well-maintained bionic limbs, or even various prohibited drugs.
Law enforcement officers moved through the crowd, occasionally stopping in front of a vendor to demand their cut.
To do business in the residential area, you had to pay taxes to the hive city, give a portion to the gangs, and another portion to law enforcement; only the remainder was what they earned themselves.
Each residential area was huge, capable of housing millions of people.
When people could work officially and had income, they would be forcibly assigned a house and charged rent.
Don't think about living with friends to save a little money.
House Glaus didn't like people who didn't support their real estate; law enforcement would check, and if caught, you'd be sentenced.
If you started a family and had children, you also had to improve your living environment, otherwise, you would be charged with child abuse.
Not having children would also result in a sentence.
What if you had no job or economic income??
Then you would end up like the guy in front of Hawk now, lying in a slightly dark place, putting out all his possessions, wrapped in a worn blanket, sleeping, becoming a vagrant despised by the upper levels, whom they wished they could humanely dispose of.
"Hey, Hawk." The vagrant saw Hawk and showed a smile.
"Hey, Ban."
Hawk greeted him, fumbled around on himself, and threw him an energy bar.
"Thanks, may the Holy Emperor bless you." The vagrant Ban tore open the energy bar, bit off half of it in one go, and thanked him indistinctly.
"How's your leg??" Hawk walked to the vagrant's side and asked.
"It's not flexible anymore, very difficult to use. The Mechanical Association said maintenance would cost twenty thousand to fix it. If I'm willing to sell it, they can also recycle it, the price is quite good. I've already made a plan, when the time comes, I'll sell this mechanical leg, get a crutch to use. Then, I can treat you to a good meal, Hawk."
Ban showed his mechanical leg, patted it, and it made a crisp sound.
Ban wasn't from this planet; he was originally a soldier stationed in another star sector, transferred here because of the war. Afterwards, when the war ended, he stayed here.
Originally, he could live on his soldier's pension.
Later, House Glaus took over as governor of the Natal system, saying the system government was in financial difficulty and couldn't continue, so they cancelled the pensions to let the retired veterans continue to display their loyalty to the Emperor.
Losing his source of income, Ban could only wander the streets.
"You're already having a hard time; won't it be even harder with a crutch?" Hawk asked, "Maybe you can ask the black market merchants; their prices are much cheaper, it's just that the goods might not be very good."
"Don't try to persuade me, Hawk. I've lived for forty years, participated in over twenty wars. I've seen orks, I've seen tyranids. I've lived enough. I don't want to live like this without dignity anymore. I used to be a warrior, but now I'm like a wandering beggar, scrounging for food everywhere."
Ban's words made Hawk freeze for a moment; he thought of some bad things.
"Are you going to kill yourself? Ban."
"Yes, I've had enough. I joined the army when I was seventeen, I fought for the Emperor my whole life, my medals are enough to cover my whole body. But now I'm a wandering beggar, my honor can't even get me a bite to eat."
"After I sell this mechanical leg, we'll go eat something good, and then you can collect my body. Put my medals with my body, that's the only thing I have. The money left over, if there's any after spending, will be for you."
Hawk listened to Ban's words, opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything.
Suicide wasn't anything new; people committed suicide every day.
Desperate ones, those who angered gangs, those who offended nobles.
There were all sorts of reasons.
Living in such an oppressive world, suicide was a form of liberation.
"Going back now." Hawk left as if fleeing; he didn't want to discuss such a heavy topic with Ban anymore.
Dragging his tired body, Hawk returned to his narrow dwelling, which was only thirty square meters.
The room was old and cold, the wooden floor was severely worn, the walls showed no trace of their former appearance, only shiny white patches could be seen.
The creaking ventilator shook its greasy blades, expelling the stuffy air and drawing in equally bad air from outside.
Hawk turned on his old holographic projector.
Before the official program started, an advertisement was played.
**Brave citizens of the Empire, be filled with passion again! Believe in the happy life House Glaus brings you! The Holy and Great Emperor said that a worker should die at his post, not on his sickbed. House Glaus proudly presents a brand new potion, Vitality No. 1 Potion, which stimulates the human nervous system and makes people full of vitality again!**
**What to do if you stay up late working and have no energy? Drink Vitality No. 1 Potion. What to do if your wife is not satisfied? Drink Vitality No. 1 Potion. What to do if you are sick and weak all over? Drink Vitality Potion.**
**Look for Glaus Vitality No. 1 Potion, guaranteed to be full of vitality!**
"Damn House Glaus!"
"You should all be burned at the stake, you disgusting vampires!"
Seeing the advertisement appear on the holographic projection, Hawk could no longer contain himself and let out a vicious curse.
But no matter how much he cursed, the holographic projector continued to play advertisements related to Glaus Family Vitality Potion No. 1.
After a moment, it finally began to play some time-killing TV dramas.
Hawk lay on the bed, trying his best to calm down and suppress his anger.
The power of House Glaus spanned several star systems, and to people like Hawk, they were an unimaginably terrifying existence.
Besides impotent rage, he could do nothing.
Being angry would only make his life more difficult.
Numbness was the best state.
Enough numbness meant not being too sad, and being able to immerse oneself in faith in the Emperor to endure this hopeless life.
He didn't know why he was angry.
Everyone was like this: born, worked, married, raised children, and then died early.
Their corpses were recycled by the Food Association, sent to processing plants, and turned into energy bars that could fill their stomachs.
For hundreds, even thousands of years, people had lived like this, generation after generation.
Why should he be angry??
But Hawk just wanted to be angry. He felt as if countless precious things had been taken from him by this vampire-like family through some unseen force.
If he had children, they would face the same fate as him.
If he didn't, he would be sentenced and then could only become a vagrant.
This kind of life was bleak and desperate, a stagnant pool with no chance of change.
Hawk turned over. He thought of another thing: Ban was going to die.
And the only thing he could do was collect his friend's body, hiding in a dark room and cursing at a projector.
Hawk was considering whether he should also commit suicide.
What was the point of struggling in this world??
"May the Holy Emperor burn you all."
Hawk cursed in a low voice.
After speaking, he looked bitter.
The priests wouldn't burn House Glaus; they would only burn poor wretches like Hawk who had no money to give to the church.
Outer orbit of the Natal star system.
Divination Probe Serial Number Natal-19-18 floated in the cold, silent void.
This was an Imperial monitoring satellite, constructed from machinery and human flesh.
The sole purpose of this divination probe was to monitor activity in the warp routes near the Natal star system.
This massive satellite had been hanging in the void for decades, having received countless starships.
With the opening of the Great Rift, the number of warp ships coming and going had decreased significantly.
After all, the existence of warp storms made warp travel extremely dangerous.
The divination probe had also been quiet for a long time.
Today was another quiet day.
The Machine Spirit was about to classify today as a day without major incidents when suddenly, an abnormal warp fluctuation impacted the real universe from the Empyrean, captured by the divination probe.
A large fleet was rapidly approaching the Natal star system.
The received data was automatically reviewed by the probe's artificial skin. The divination scanner responded to the Machine Spirit's command, sending a pulse into the warp and receiving feedback.
Upon receiving the feedback, the Machine Spirit quickly classified it as an urgent major event.
The relevant information was quickly transmitted to the relevant departments of the Natal star system government through the array emitter inscribed with the Aquila array.
At this time, the scribes responsible for information aggregation were inspecting transport ships inside and outside the star system.
In front of the data console, a scribe was using a data cable to access the information network.
His duty was to print out the relevant information from the data network and hand it over to other staff.
Accompanied by a clicking sound, the console made of brass and gilded metal made a noise, and the indicator light lit up, indicating that the console was receiving transmitted information.
The scribe twitched slightly as data flooded into his brain. He began to tap the shorthand machine hanging in front of his chest with his slender, bird-like fingers, his technique extremely skilled.
With a clang, the printing was completed.
The servitor responsible for paperwork walked over, collected and aggregated the printed information, and handed it to another supervisor.
The other person merely glanced at it with his mechanical eye and then rushed out in a hurry.
He didn't even bother with the work at hand.
Natal Star System Council.
"Guilliman, that fool, should open his eyes and see how loved and respected House Glaus is. We have ruled this planet for so many years, guiding the people of the Natal star system like the sun. They see us as their spiritual leaders and offer us their loyalty."
"And now, he actually wants to take back our power, completely disregarding the fact that those lost Imperial citizens need the protection of House Glaus."
The planetary governor sat in his seat, shouting loudly.
Below, none of the councilors spoke up.
If these words were heard by the Inquisition or the Ecclesiarchy, they would likely be sent to the stake on the spot.
Insulting a Primarch was undoubtedly a terrifying crime.
"Thinking of this, I can't help but shed tears. What a terrible life those foolish civilians will lead after losing House Glaus. They will be hungry, homeless, and ultimately face chaos."
When the planetary governor said this, he even couldn't help but shed a tear.
He waved his arms and continued to deliver his long speech.
"Guilliman is a daemon. He wants to usurp his father's throne, so he suppresses us loyalists who are loyal to the Emperor and wants to sweep all of us families who are willing to die for the Emperor into the trash heap. He promotes those useless people who will only lead humanity to destruction, simply because those people will be loyal to him."
"My lord, such words can easily cause trouble."
A councilor carefully chose his words, trying to stop the planetary governor's insane remarks.
If this fool continued to speak, the entire Natal Star System Council would be killed by him.
"Let the storm come more fiercely, let that damned daemon come! As a Primarch, he is so unqualified and so despicable. House Glaus is never afraid. We have the most devout faith and loyalty in the Empire. We constantly believe in the Emperor and are ready to sacrifice ourselves to defend His Empire."
The planetary governor stood up, his fat, layered body trembling, looking very agitated.
At this moment, a person walked quickly from the entrance of the council hall and said a few words in the planetary governor's ear, which immediately froze the excited planetary governor.
"What did you say?? The Holy Primarch will arrive soon? Isn't he still on his expedition, heading towards the Konnor Industrial System?" The planetary governor's face instantly turned pale.
"We don't know either. The diviner outside the star system scanned Macragge's Glory sailing in the warp. An entire fleet is approaching the Natal star system."
"Damn it, hurry! Have all the major families prepare to welcome the Primarch. Also, dispatch the planetary defense forces to drive the Imperial civilians away from the main roads. Just leave some wealthier people. At the same time, warn them to sing the praises of the great Glaus family."
The planetary governor quickly made various arrangements.
No matter how much he cursed, he knew that the Primarch's prestige could not be offended, otherwise the Emperor's Angels would make House Glaus disappear from this star system.
After instructing that person, the planetary governor's gaze swept across the council members present. "You know what to do, right?? As long as I hear any bad news, your entire family will disappear from the universe. House Glaus has stood for thousands of years. We are as immortal as this great Empire. Don't even think about offending House Glaus, otherwise, disaster will surely strike."
Leaving these words, the planetary governor hurried out.
The other council members looked at each other and then also ran out.