The other knights remained silent, waiting for Azrael to continue.
Silence was the best camouflage; the more one spoke, the easier it was for their identity and thoughts to be perceived.
Only when everything had settled could they truly know each other's identities.
"The Dark Angels are mighty; we have existed for ten thousand years, and the blood of the Lion flows through us. However, Chaos and traitors have never given up the idea of dragging us into the abyss; they crave and seek our weaknesses. Those traitors are hidden within the Chapters, and the corrupted are hidden within the Chapters, like a festering bone infection."
Azrael said in a low voice.
The Horus Heresy was thwarted by the Loyalists.
After the traitors were forced to flee into the Eye of Terror.
Incidents of organized betrayal did not decrease as a result.
There were also multiple occurrences of traitors and Chaos corruption within the various Chapters.
During his years as Grand Master of the Dark Angels Chapter, Azrael had implicitly become aware of the problems within the Chapter.
Many had once believed the Rock to be impregnable, and Azrael was no different.
Since he became Grand Master, the Rock had been invaded several times.
Tens of thousands of people had lost their lives as a result.
Battle-Brothers, recruits, serfs, and the mortal Guard had suffered heavy casualties.
And a large number of precious Dark Angel relics had been stolen.
These invaders were extremely well-planned.
Their targets were the prisoners located deep within the Rock's dungeons.
That was the greatest traitor of the past, Lord Cypher - Luther.
Although the plans of these invaders were ultimately foiled by the Dark Angels.
They still caused damage to the Rock.
Assisting some prisoners in their cells to escape their confinement.
Of course, most prisoners had either been executed or returned to their cells.
But to this day, some prisoners are still hiding somewhere within the Rock, evading the Dark Angels' pursuit.
From time to time, serfs and mortals would disappear within the fortress.
And their bodies would be discovered a few days later.
Covered in horrific wounds, their bloodless faces often bore expressions of extreme pain and distortion.
The Dark Angels had carried out several cleansing operations within the fortress, but the results were not satisfactory.
The enemy seemed to possess precognitive abilities, leaving before they arrived, leaving behind only blasphemous words and empty hiding places.
This led Azrael to suspect that the Chapter had been infiltrated.
To this end, he devised numerous plans to capture them.
He founded six closed-loop Chapters in the name of secrecy and participated in them, executing counter-espionage plans.
Now, the Chapter he was currently in was just one of the ones he had secretly established.
He used an extremely complex structure and asymmetrical information to ensure that even if there were infiltrators and corrupted individuals within the six Chapters.
He could still ensure that these six Chapters would carry out the counter-espionage plan according to his will.
Guilliman's arrival was a perfect entry point.
The enemy wanted them to turn against each other, plunging the Imperium back into chaos.
And Azrael would use this point.
As for the matter of Guilliman destroying the Dark Angels Chapter.
Azrael trusted the judgment of the primarch - the Lion.
In some secrets, information that only the Grand Master's authority could access, he learned some things from ten thousand years ago.
The Lion, Guilliman, and Sanguinius worked together to establish the human stronghold - the Imperium Secundus, hoping to preserve the spark of humanity.
Learning that Terra had not yet fallen, and the Imperium had not been destroyed.
They jointly defeated the traitors, quelled the Ruinstorm, and reinforced the Imperium from Ultramar.
Furthermore, the Lion fell into slumber before Guilliman did, and as the Imperial Regent, it was impossible for Guilliman to be completely unaware of the events on Caliban.
Perhaps he didn't know much, but he definitely would have heard something.
Therefore, the daemons attempting to sow discord between the Dark Angels and Guilliman was, in Azrael's mind, merely a joke.
But he couldn't say it openly.
The things involved were very complex, and revealing everything would easily cause chaos.
This world was not black and white.
Some things should not have a truth.
However, Azrael knew that Guilliman was trustworthy.
Based on one point alone, his primarch - the Lion - had trusted Guilliman during the Great Heresy, when the Four Gods invaded the material universe through the hand of Horus.
Moreover, after Guilliman's awakening, the allocation of various resources to the Chapter indicated his reliance on it.
Azrael believed that even if Guilliman knew the full story of the Caliban incident, his reaction would at most be fury, certainly not severe enough to destroy the entire Dark Angels Chapter.
Destroying a First Founding Chapter would only cause all Chapters to become fearful for themselves.
It had been ten thousand years; who didn't have some secrets?
The wolves of Fenris, the vampires of Baal.
Who could be sure they wouldn't be next?
If they could act against the Dark Angels, who could be sure they wouldn't become the next victim?
To date, Guilliman's most severe actions have been directed only at the corrupt bureaucratic system; other issues have generally been handled with a light touch, focusing on guidance.
The forces of daemons and traitors wanted to use Guilliman's hand to incite civil war within the Imperium.
And Azrael would guide this point to lure those individuals into revealing themselves.
Playing schemes against the Dark Angels.
Those fools? They weren't worthy.
Azrael took a moment to elaborate on the plan.
"Guilliman's arrival has already caused various factions to stir; their objective is obvious, which is to provoke conflict between the Dark Angels and the awakened primarch, thereby inciting a civil war."
His explanation took some time, and he detailed the complex plan.
Once the four knights had all nodded, confirming the mission details.
They made their vows and concluded the meeting.
"After today, we shall no longer gather, even if the conspiracy is revealed and the tumor is cleansed, there will be no more days of assembly," Azrael said.
Walking in darkness, protecting the light, was their duty.
There were no rewards, no promises; loyalty was the only recompense.
"The Chapter never existed," one knight responded.
"Secrets are our sanctuary," Azrael said, "They are how we defend the Imperium."
The three knights nodded.
The meeting ended, and they each departed.
Azrael took time separately to gather the members of the other Chapters, giving them different accounts to ensure the smooth progression of the plan.
Besides himself, no one could know all the secrets.
And no one would know how strictly this entire operation was running, with each part interlocking.
Any traitor who disrupted the plan would become the prey of this plan.
Every traitor, daemon, and xenos should die.
Regardless of the reason, this was the case.
This was Inquisitor Grey's standard operating procedure.
As an Inquisitor of the Imperium, she had once been captured by the necron Overlord - Trazyn the Infinite.
And was imprisoned in a stasis field that warped time.
It wasn't until the outbreak of the Cadian War that Trazyn the Infinite released a portion of his Imperial collection to assist the Imperium against Chaos, avoiding interference with the necrons' plans.
During this period, Grey was able to escape his clutches.
Every day, she pondered how to exact revenge upon Trazyn the Infinite, but she also knew that now was not the optimal time for vengeance.
The most important task now was to heal the scars inflicted upon the Imperium by the Great Rift.
To this end, Grey could only unleash her wrath upon traitors and xenos.
Because she had worked with Cawl, Celestine, and others to travel to Macragge to resurrect the primarch.
Based on the primarch's trust, she was also given an expeditionary fleet, traveling far and wide to crusade against worlds occupied by daemons and traitors, while simultaneously suppressing the powerful families who resisted reform.
Out of fervent faith in the Emperor and adoration for Guilliman, any family or magnate attempting to oppose the reforms was purged by her without hesitation.
The Imperium was vast, scattered with the remnants of ambition and war.
Some were the last remaining works of the Golden Age builders, while others were gigantic structures created by insane members of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Hell Five was a transit station located in the void.
Constructed from void-borne asteroids and steel, it was extremely majestic and massive, with a diameter of fifteen hundred kilometers.
Possessing a population of nearly ten billion, it was a very famous Warp transit hub in the Naphelian Sector.
Every warp route had special nodes.
These intermediate node stations, as long as the rulers weren't foolish, could generally utilize the large number of passing Warp fleets to become prosperous colonies.
The Hell Five transit station flourished precisely because of this.
Merchants greatly favored this route; it was fast, safe, and highly discreet.
They could hire some wild, unofficial navigators to assist them in navigating this route, greatly reducing costs.
At its peak, Hell Five handled the transit of goods for nearly a hundred star systems, reaching the height of prosperity.
Until the arrival of the Great Rift.
Everything shattered, the glory was gone, and it rapidly declined.
Now, no ship could undertake Warp travel without an officially certified navigator.
Wild navigators also possessed a third eye and could glimpse the Warp currents, but they were not skilled at capturing the Emperor's light and were extremely prone to getting lost in the vast etheric ocean.
Today, fleet trade began to gradually decrease, and even those daring souls seeking fortune through risk no longer dared to take this route.
Hell Five provided services such as repair, entertainment, and rest for passing ships.
And the passing ships provided it with food and industrial goods from various planets, contributing to its prosperity.
After the Warp storms erupted, fewer and fewer ships passed through.
Even Navy warships and supply fleets stopped coming due to concerns about casualties.
Leaving this extremely prosperous spiral-shaped void structure with only emptiness and echoes.
It had even reached a semi-abandoned state, filled with a large number of smugglers and slaves.
The power of the Adeptus Arbites was also slowly weakening.
Making this place a lawless zone where even those with not-so-strong wills could easily find various temptations.
Grey led a massive fleet, simultaneously suppressing rebellious noble factions and hunting daemons and xenos there.
A cult named Sturm had incited a rebellion.
Grey easily quelled the rebellion, captured numerous cultists, and learned that Sturm was an evil cult worshipping the Ouroboros.
Before those cultists died, she obtained clues about the Hell Five intermediate station.
She pursued them all the way to Hell Five, attempting to utterly destroy this evil cult in one fell swoop, eliminating a great enemy for the Emperor and the primarch.
With the power of the expeditionary fleet, she swept away and destroyed all resistance.
The cleansing operation proceeded quickly.
Inside the Hell Five transit station, nobles involved in the cult incident and the cultists who had been rooted out knelt densely on the space station's port platform.
These people were all trembling, restlessly clutching at their clothes, fearful of their impending fate.
Grey's gaze was cold; she had no mercy for traitors.
Just as she was about to pass judgment, the communication device built into her ear rang with the voice of a subordinate.
"Madam, you should come and see this."
The other person's voice carried a hint of fear, clearly startled by something.
"What is it?" Grey asked, puzzled, over the comms.
"What's here involves the Dark Angels," the subordinate said.
Grey was momentarily stunned upon hearing the voice on the comms.
Cultists and Dark Angels could be linked?
"Secure the scene, don't let anyone near."
"Understood, Lord Inquisitor," her subordinate replied.
Grey ordered the others to continue interrogating the traitors, then took a few trusted retainers towards the location reported by her subordinate.
It was a massive metal chamber.
With complex mechanical devices controlling the door.
The heavy iron door had been melted by a thermal beam and then solidified again into smooth iron.
Grey stepped inside, where dozens of bodies lay scattered.
There were bodies of loyalists and bodies of cultists.
Loyalist bodies were generally treated with respect.
cultist bodies were usually gathered and burned to prevent contamination.
Grey paid no attention to these, walking directly past the thralls and servitors who were moving the bodies.
Looking at these bodies, Grey, with her Inquisitorial keenness, could tell that these enemies possessed better weapons and equipment.
Clearly, they were high-ranking Fallen.
From their bodies in tattered armor, Grey glimpsed their disgusting, mutated forms.
They were morbidly pale, with some repulsive bone spurs and tiny fleshy growths.
These individuals had lost themselves in the worship of wicked entities and become abominations.
Several soldiers in full exoskeleton suits stood with weapons, surrounding a control console.
A high-ranking non-commissioned officer walked over; he was the one who had just reported to Grey.
"What's going on?" Grey looked at him, her bionic eyes embedded in their sockets locking onto his face, performing a full analysis and retrieving data on this subordinate from the database.
"We captured a high-ranking cultist and seized some encrypted files, which have been decrypted," the officer said.
There was joy in his eyes, and his voice was excited.
Clearly, capturing such an important figure would bring unimaginable benefits to his career.
Grey walked over, where several soldiers were holding a man.
He was kneeling on the ground, his face filled with terror.
Seeing Grey approach and recognizing her as an Inquisitor, he trembled even more violently.
In the Imperium, Inquisitors were undoubtedly the most terrifying existence.
They were also the most dreadful nightmare for many nobles.
Once you fell into an Inquisitor's hands, the treatment was truly equal for all; the tortures were unthinkable.
As the man trembled, the fat on his body also jiggled.
Overall, the man was very fat, his body wrapped in layers of stacked fat.
This kind of synthetic fat was usually designed to help people withstand the cold of space work.
He was wearing a large, loose administrator's uniform.
On his shoulder was a red and gold Imperial Aquila, indicating his rank.
"An Administratum official?" Grey glanced at the badge on his chest and spoke.
Her gaze was fixed on the man, not missing a single detail.
Through this bloated, repulsive body, she saw a corrupted soul.
Soon, a large amount of information was retrieved from the database.
After analysis, all the results were obtained.
Information about the man quickly appeared in Grey's vision.
This was a man who had once been full of hope.
The man's name was Salad.
Salad used the political capital inherited from his father to start his career in politics.
He was intelligent, resilient, decisive, and quick, a top-tier human elite.
Entering politics, full of passion, he witnessed the corruption of the Imperium and the inefficiency of the bureaucracy, and he resolved to become a reformer, to reverse the tragic fate of humanity.
"If I cannot dedicate everything to the Emperor and humanity, what is the meaning of my entry into politics?" The young Salad declared solemnly when he first took office, addressing the old power brokers.
At that time, Salad was full of idealism and conviction, determined to make a big difference.
However, the iron fist of reality soon showed him just how terrifying Imperial politics could be.
The Imperium of Man was the most powerful regime in human history, its territory occupying more than two-thirds of the galaxy.
Spanning tens of thousands of light-years, one can imagine how vast this territory was.
And the power struggles were the greatest in human history.
Not only were there conspiracies between family factions and corporate powers, but political infighting even went so far as to use the citizens of the Imperium and its many worlds as bargaining chips and pawns.
Large regiments of the Astra Militarum were thrown into battle as political capital, and victory and defeat both became tools to attack political opponents.
The enemy's victory was not only determined by their strength but also by the internal struggles within the Imperium.
Just what Salad knew of, there were over a dozen system-level campaigns deliberately sabotaged to suppress political opponents and damage the Imperium's chances of victory.
One can imagine the extent of their madness for power and family interests.
To suppress political opponents, they allowed Chaos and xenos to run rampant, weakening the opponent's image and bringing them down from their careers.
Salad had personally visited a battlefield; it was an exceptionally brutal struggle.
Millions of Astra Militarum soldiers were treated as pawns in a political game.
Some factions even secretly ordered the Imperial Navy to use fleets to eliminate a portion of ground forces.
Using Lance strikes to wipe out troops supporting political opponents, and then describing it as a friendly fire incident.
To strike at a rising political star, they used the battlefield to smear their reputation.
Even more terrifying was allowing Chaos to run rampant, labeling political opponents as Chaos cultists or human traitors to damage their prestige.
In the eyes of those power brokers, the army was just a bargaining chip for them to gain political capital.
Salad's passion was quickly doused with cold water.
In Imperial politics, loyalty to humanity and loyalty to the Emperor were useless.
What mattered was influence, what mattered was background.
Salad realized the corruption of the Imperial bureaucracy, the distortion of the Imperial system, and later even the truth that humanity would never have a future as long as the Imperium endured.
The Imperium needed a great fire to cleanse it; only then could humanity be reborn from the ashes.
With this realization, Salad quickly dedicated himself to the anti-Imperial underground cause.
During this time, the cult of the Ouroboros also quietly emerged.
Salad was recruited and became one of its members.
The doctrine of the Ouroboros was that everything is a cycle, and only through this can there be eternity.
The Imperium had existed for ten thousand years; it was time for a cycle to come.
The Emperor was a symbol of tyranny and oppression, and the High Lords of Terra were utterly corrupt, having achieved nothing.
Developing to this point, the highly corrupt and autocratic Imperial bureaucracy was like a merciless, bloody machine.
Its cogs had no thought or soul, merely turning relentlessly, constantly exacerbating the Imperium's absurd, extreme, and bloody totalitarianism.
This situation had to be improved.
"Overthrowing the Emperor's divine authority and the tyrannical rule of the High Lords of Terra is imminent. If we do not break the caldrons and sink the boats, humanity is doomed," Salad said to the believers after joining the cult of the Ouroboros.
This speech earned him greater authority within the cult and more substantial funds, and with these resources, he quickly rose in officialdom, his position becoming higher and higher.
"Lackeys of the Corpse-Emperor," Salad looked up, trembling, trying his best to remain calm as he spoke. "Kill one of me, and there are thousands more. You cannot kill us all. Countless ambitious individuals will overthrow the tyrannical rule of you executioners."
"Foolish," Grey glanced at him and then withdrew her gaze.
There was no need to waste time on the foolish and ignorant; they were beyond redemption.
Any truth, goodness, and beauty detached from reality was poison.
Many humans were limited by their short lives and meager knowledge.
They simply could not realize how lonely humanity was in the terrifying galaxy, enveloped by endless malice.
In this universe, any beauty, as it progresses, will turn into tragedy.
"I will tell you nothing. A true martyr will not yield to your torture," Salad tried to put on a look of contempt, attempting to express his bravery through this method.
Grey showed a hint of a mocking smile, raised her hand, and waved, saying, "Burn him."
Salad thought he would be interrogated and tortured; he had already planned how to uphold his loyalty to the cult and the Ouroboros under their torture.
But they were going to burn him to death right away!
At least interrogate me a little.
That tone, that attitude, it felt like he wasn't important at all.
Salad wanted to say something more, to appear tougher.
The retainer beside Grey directly pulled the trigger of the flamer, and scorching flames surged out, engulfing the man.
Screams of agony followed.
The man's body twisted and convulsed in the flames, finally turning into a black charred lump.
After executing the man, the retainer shut off the flamer.
Grey stood patiently to the side, waiting for the heat to dissipate.
She stepped past the charred corpse and examined the files on the control console.
The files were Warp route charts, detailing various parameters and transit data.
There was also a very complex, never-before-seen stellar calendar system.
This stellar calendar system predicted the activity of the Warp etheric currents.
Grey acutely noticed that the Warp route charts all pointed towards the Dark Angels' Fortress-monastery, The Rock.
The Rock moved around the galaxy.
Sometimes even Terra didn't know The Rock's location.
But the star charts depicted The Rock's detailed route.
Clearly, this wicked cult had been observing the Dark Angels Chapter for a long time.
Otherwise, how could they have such detailed data?
After reviewing them, Grey's expression became increasingly serious.
In addition to various data targeting the Dark Angels Chapter, Grey saw the emblem of the Thirteenth Primarch's flagship, Macragge's Glory, also appearing on the map.
All feasible Warp routes between the two were marked.
Clearly, the enemy had also included them in their wicked plan.
The Dark Angels, the Lord Regent of the Imperium.
Why would a cult be so interested in the relationship between the two?
Grey flipped through the seized intelligence, looking for any clues.
Soon, she found a video recording of a speech.
A white-haired, wrinkled cultist in robes was frantically preaching the doctrine of the cult of the Ouroboros to those fools who believed they would bring salvation to humanity.
"The gears of fate are about to turn, and the sleeping Old Gods will return. This is humanity's best moment for salvation."
Grey's face was slightly pale, illuminated by the holographic video projection.
She frowned slightly, her tone heavy.
"What are they trying to do?"
No one could give her an answer.
The information was limited; no one knew why these cultists would link the Thirteenth Primarch and the Dark Angels together.