The thick, toxic industrial clouds were torn apart by the void ship's bow, and the entire land of Terra was directly exposed before Alexander's eyes.
The first thing that entered Alexander's vision was the sprawling complex of buildings that spanned the entire central Eurasian continent.
From the Himalayas to ancient Mesopotamia, from Kathmandu to the Taklamakan Desert, as far as the eye could see were spires piercing the void, continuous metal dome fortresses, and thick city walls wide enough to dock starships.
Alexander wanted to use 'magnificent' to describe the architecture before him, but he simply couldn't.
Perhaps when these building complexes were first constructed, they were a perfect blend of practicality, order, and art.
But now, practicality had given way to the accumulated complexities of ten thousand years, order had succumbed to ever-growing chaos, and art, naturally, was long gone.
Supernatural storms raged across the ground, kicking up 황 dust that beat against the scorched, blackened city walls. The exquisite Aquila carvings on the towering walls had become ugly and unsightly, and the sacred angel carvings served as platforms for barbaric metal gun emplacements. Disorderly growing defensive works clung like metallic slime to the wide walls, which were spacious enough for Titans to run upon.
And within those walls, most areas were dilapidated, no different from the hive city of Ashford. Or rather, this place, known as the Terra Imperial Palace, was an ugly, distorted hive city.
It was like a microcosm of the Imperium's millions of other hive cities, a symbol of the Imperium's decay, depravity, and chaos.
However, this hive city didn't produce industrial goods, weapons, and ammunition, but rather decrees, laws, and tithe bills.
"Dorn once built this place perfectly, one of humanity's greatest creations. Even Lorgar's city of Perfectio or Guilliman's Magna Macragge couldn't compare, so perfect that it even made Fulgrim envious and Perturabo feel admiration."
Sanguinius' voice was as calm as water, but anyone could feel the sadness in his words:
"But now, all I see is devastation. All of humanity's beauty has dissolved in war."
Roboute Guilliman silently turned his head away.
It was he who, after the Great Heresy, dismantled the grand buildings of the Imperial Palace, replacing them with cold defensive lines, steel, and dense structures.
But according to the history recounted by Tieron, Guilliman knew that the Imperial Palace had not suffered any true, large-scale invasion over the past ten thousand years.
In other words, the cold defensive lines Guilliman built had been gathering dust for ten thousand years. During this time, they had served no other purpose than occupying valuable areas within the Terra Imperial Palace.
Even now, those defensive lines were not of much use.
Over ten thousand years, galactic affairs had continuously piled up in the Terra Imperial Palace. The space needed to store these parchments grew, the manpower required to process affairs increased, and the demand for administrative space naturally also grew.
As a result, the defensive lines Guilliman built had long been buried deep within the hive city over ten thousand years, making them difficult to excavate.
"Look on the bright side, the city of Perfectio was bombed, the Terra Imperial Palace was dismantled, so our Magna Macragge in Great Ultramar is once again the most magnificent and tidy city in the galaxy." Alexander said, standing beside Sanguinius.
"Ah, ambitious." Sanguinius glanced at Guilliman and said.
"Ambitious, ambitious." Alexander nodded in agreement.
"Perturabo is still alive, Mortarion, Magnus, Lorgar… they are all still alive."
Guilliman said with a touch of melancholy:
"I wondered what if they came back to fight? Who knew they would just settle in the Warp and do nothing significant for ten thousand years."
"I want to know, did Dorn not stop you?" Alexander couldn't help but ask.
Guilliman's expression immediately became even more despondent.
"At that time, Dorn was immersed in self-flagellation and penitent Expeditions. He blamed himself for the tragedy of the Emperor's fall, attempting to atone through suffering, and was mostly not on Terra."
"When he later saw the Imperial Palace after my modifications, he only said one thing."
"'The suffering your repairs to the Imperial Palace have caused, at least it's enough to atone for half of my sins.'"
"It's a good thing the Imperial Palace was built by Dorn," Alexander commented, nodding. "If it were Perturabo, he'd already be bombing Macragge."
As the ship continuously approached the ground, the situation on Terra's surface became clearer to Alexander's eyes.
Compared to other areas on Terra, the Imperial Palace was a Paradise World.
Burning, entire swathes of land were burning. As far as the eye could see, countless buildings within the hundreds and thousands of layers of hive cities spread across the entire planet's surface were ablaze.
Blood flowed like rivers, corpses piled up like mountains. Those nobles who once ruled a region, whose wealth could buy several Paradise Worlds, were hung from the tops of hive city spires, fluttering like bloody battle flags.
But seeing corpses was already a good sign; most bodies had been gnawed away by hungry people, leaving not even stark white bones.
Riots were spreading across the land, and humanity's homeworld seemed to have returned to the chaos of the Old Night, even more bloody and chaotic than the Old Night era.
At least during the Old Night era, a few regions on Earth, such as the Achaemenid Imperium, the Dragon States, and the Ameri-Ca hive city, still maintained a basic level of order.
Although they had prepared themselves mentally, Alexander and Sanguinius' expressions still twitched involuntarily.
Guilliman's expression, on the other hand, remained relatively stable, as if everything before him was not too bad.
"At least it's better than ten thousand years ago."
Guilliman replied calmly:
"Guess what kind of scene I saw when I arrived at Terra ten thousand years ago?"
"Did you see a distraught Dorn, holding Ferrus' head in one hand, a bucket containing Sanguinius in the other, and the dying Emperor on his back?" Alexander asked, raising an eyebrow.
"..That's right, the current scene is far less despairing than it was then." Guilliman nodded slightly and said, "At least we weren't late."
Compared to the trio, Tieron was even more apprehensive.
He witnessed three sacred souls being dragged into the cesspool built by them, these Terra bureaucrats, to wallow. The current state of Terra caused him almost palpable pain from shame.
This was his dereliction of duty, and that of the High Lords.
"Tieron." Guilliman called softly.
The Imperial Chancellor quickly rose, standing beside Guilliman like a humble acolyte.
"Tell me, why is Terra like this?" Guilliman asked in a gentle tone.
Tieron's mouth opened slightly, many answers flashing through his mind.
Was it because of the gods in the Warp? The followers of the Blood God had been secretly transporting blasphemous relics to Terra for the past ten thousand years, secretly developing cults in the hive cities.
Was it because of the dimming of the Astronomicon? Blasphemous Warp powers should not have been able to manifest on Terra, as the light of the Astronomicon was enough to eradicate all daemons.
Or was it due to a lack of faith? Should he condemn the common people for abandoning their faith in the Emperor and turning to the Chaos Gods?
Too many reasons flashed through Tieron's mind, but the answer he finally gave was so simple that it made him feel somewhat uneasy.
"Hunger, my lord." Tieron lowered his head and said, "Hunger led to the chaos."
This was the most superficial yet most realistic reason.
Terra was the core of the entire Imperium of Man's trade system.
She extracted food, industrial goods, parchments, water, and even air from a million other planets across the galaxy.
In return, she exported decrees, faith, laws, offices, and tithe bills—Terra produced nothing else.
Without trade routes, this wasteland planet of Terra could never sustain its quadrillion inhabitants.
But the opening of the Great Rift tore apart the trade routes, completely severing Terra's connection with planets outside the Solar System, and hunger descended upon this planet.
First it was water, then food, then air; these essentials for survival gradually disappeared from the lives of the common people.
They watched in horror as the price of a gram of corpse starch soared to astronomical levels, saw with dread the bodies of their starved neighbors being gnawed away by hungry people, and witnessed with terror the hallucinations caused by dehydration. Even so, in the initial years of the Blind Days, the common people were still able to endure through faith.
Until they finally discovered that the nobles, bureaucrats, and priests of the Adeptus Ministorum could still maintain their past extravagant lifestyles, until they found out that merchants and nobles colluded to hoard goods, until they could no longer tolerate it, then unrest broke out.
And those Chaos cultists, lurking in the darkness, merely seized the opportunity to rise.
Guilliman seemed satisfied with Tieron's answer, nodding slightly in approval.
"Damn it, how did our Terra get into such a mess?" Alexander couldn't help but say.
The only thing that comforted Alexander was that the current situation was something he could resolve.
Food, water, air… Alexander could bring all these to Terra.
Just as Alexander began browsing the Future Department Store for suitable items, a sudden burst of static erupted in the ship's communications.
This chaotic communication conveyed only one meaning: the ship was required to hover in the air and undergo strict inspection; otherwise, it would not be allowed to land within the Imperial Palace.
At the same time, a considerable number of gunboats appeared around the ship, clearly intending to force them to stop.
Alexander was somewhat bewildered by this rather abstract scene. Who was so bold?
Tieron was also startled, and he quickly began to ponder who could possibly have the nerve to do this.
It must be a High Lord. The Inquisition Representative, the Astra Telepathica Grand Master, and the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes were his own people. The Astronomicon Court Grand Master was dead, and the Grand Master of the Assassinorum was often seen as neutral...
The Adeptus Administratum, the Ministry of Justice, Mars, the Imperial Navy, the Adeptus Ministorum... Who could it be?
Unable to figure it out immediately, Tieron decided to address the immediate problem.
He planned to use his old method again, asking the pilots if they wanted to know how quickly a kill team could pinpoint their entire family's location.
But before Tieron could speak, the ship and the surrounding gunboats suddenly gave a slight shudder.
Alexander subtly raised his eyelids, his will extending in all directions.