"The Emperor." Joan pointed at Nobita, her words brief, but Alexander understood their meaning.
Alexander looked, not surprised, at Nobita, or rather, Emperor Nobita, Neoth Bita, standing in the corner.
He had sensed something was amiss early on.
When sparring with Sanguinius, Alexander noticed a foreign sensation within Nobita's body, as if another will was hidden within that physique.
Later, Alexander would occasionally feel a faint foreign sensation entering Nobita's body.
However, this feeling was not clear, and at first, Alexander even wondered if it was his own illusion.
But even without these mental foreign sensations, even if this feeling was Alexander's illusion,
A full stomach, damn it, wouldn't lie, would it?!
Alexander's will swept through Nobita's body, feeling a stomach full of dorayaki, and was instantly speechless.
Did Emperor Nobita think that with a stomach full of dorayaki, Alexander wouldn't notice?
Alas, old fellows from the Erosion and Destruction domain just don't have the digestive power of us from the Greed and Dissolution domain.
The reason Alexander discovered his presence but didn't speak was because he wanted to secretly observe Emperor Nobita and confirm his condition.
The Emperor was no longer an independent individual; his consciousness was filled with billions of human souls; he was the King of Ages, the collective of humanity.
And most of those human souls were filled with strong self-destructive tendencies: madness, brokenness, pain.
Alexander was unsure whether the Emperor's will, squeezed into Emperor Nobita's body, was closer to the Emperor of 30k or the God-Emperor of 40k.
If it was the 30k one, he was a scumbag.
If it was the 40k one, he was an Chaos God.
Now it seemed, this old rascal was clearly closer to that 30k scumbag.
Alexander glanced at Emperor Nobita, and Alexander's will surged into that body.
A bit of light emerged from Emperor Nobita's somewhat hollow eyes.
"I am neither the Emperor of 30k nor the God-Emperor of 40k."
Emperor Nobita looked a bit helplessly at Joan, who had unhesitatingly sold him out, then said to Alexander:
"Perhaps it's because you subconsciously believe I have similarities with Nobita, so I can, to a certain extent, insert my will into this body, it's just that my priority isn't as high as yours."
"But this body is, after all, your Greater Daemon; its form has been shaped by your subconscious, completely becoming your shape."
"Only a will that matches my image in your subconscious, fits the Nobita shell, and has been filtered, can enter it."
As he spoke, Emperor Nobita's tone carried a hint of resentment: "In a sense, I am the Emperor of your stereotype, the Emperor you perceive, the Emperor Nobita you conceived in your subconscious."
"But, Your Majesty." Before Alexander could speak, Joan softly said, "This shell merely filters, it does not create. The will itself is still your own; you inherently possess these wills, and Alexander did not modify your will."
Joan said with a slight hesitation, "At least I believe Alexander filtered out your bad parts. You can at least speak rationally and clearly now."
"And not like before, mad, terrifying, acerbic, and ferocious, and self-contradictory when speaking."
"Right, right, if you dislike this body, I can take it back," Alexander said, glancing at Emperor Nobita.
When Alexander's will was within Nobita's body, the Emperor's will existed at most as a foreign object. Alexander believed that as long as he consciously tried to expel the foreign object, he could push the Emperor's will out.
In fact, Alexander was already doing that.
Have you paid the rent?! And you just move in!?
"How can you be so selfish!" Emperor Nobita suddenly took a step back and waved his hand, saying.
Alexander looked at him with disdain: "When exactly did you discover you could enter this body? When Sanguinius and I were sparring?"
"Probably around the time of Lion's Gate…" Nobita's gaze shifted slightly.
Wasn't that right at the beginning?!
Alexander instantly remembered his diligent work these past few days, and this troublesome fellow had been hiding inside Nobita's body, watching. A surge of nameless anger rose within him.
Damn it, he could move, and he didn't come down to help him wield the whip?!
"How can you be so lazy!" Alexander sternly rebuked, "Don't you know there's still a lot of work waiting for you in this Imperium?!"
"I was not born for work!"
Emperor Nobita instinctively retorted, then he said:
"Furthermore, I can only allow my will to penetrate this body a little when I am in a relatively good state; it's not as free as you imagine."
"Most of my will is projected into the Warp, resisting the waves stirred up by the Four Gods in the Warp and various parts of the physical universe. The will that can squeeze into this body is already degraded and no better than Guilliman."
"And I've been working on the Golden Throne all this time! Unlike a certain Blue Cat who just whips my Custodes in the crypt!"
"Hey! You!" Alexander's brow suddenly twitched: "Do you think my work is easy?! Then you go feed the entire population of Terra! Why can't you do it?!"
"The esteemed Lord of Terra can't even make Terra self-sufficient! Is this your work ethic?!"
"Do you think I don't want to? Do you know how much Warp energy those beasts in North Africa and Ursh released on Terra during the Unification Wars? The Gods induced them into a magical arms race, making them sacrifice Terra's land bit by bit. The damage to Terra is almost permanent; without me, Terra would have even more daemons!"
Emperor Nobita raised his voice in protest.
Joan, beside them, silently picked up the unconscious Ereite and placed her on the bed.
The sight of the Emperor and Saint Doraemon arguing was too much for a young child.
The Emperor and Alexander silently watched this scene.
"Don't make me handle state affairs for Guilliman, I'll do anything else!" Emperor Nobita sighed and said.
"You're overthinking it. Don't I know how terrible your political management skills are? Back then, a million worlds across the Imperium's five star sectors were carried on Malcador's shoulders," Alexander said with disdain.
When the Great Crusade of 30 millennia was not yet fully concluded, the Emperor's move to kick the Astartes out of the imperial governing apparatus was evident.
It's not that the decision to remove the Astartes from the imperial governing apparatus was wrong; it's just that the Emperor did it too obviously and stiffly, which inevitably made the Astartes feel like 'when the cunning rabbit is dead, the good hound is cooked.'
"Whatever you want me to do, please remember first that I can only enter this body when I am in a good state, and not always."
"Or rather, you have shaped this body to only allow my clear, rational consciousness to enter, and I am not allowed to enter when I am chaotic and fragmented."
"Finally, I hope you don't expose my existence. A body that allows me to move is too valuable. If we can hide it from the gaze of the Gods, we might be able to replicate our last feat of breaking the Blood God's knees."
"As long as they dare to expose their domain before this body, I will have a chance to do it."
"In that case…" Alexander's lips curved into a slight smile. He took a pen and a stack of blank parchment from his four-dimensional pocket.
Outside the Inquisitorial Fortress,
The cold wind near the Antarctic ice cap blew across Inquisitor Ers' face, slightly relaxing her weary mind.
Ers often felt fortunate about her identity, not because of the power brought by being an Inquisitorial Representative.
In reality, all Inquisitors within the Inquisition are theoretically equal in rank; the title of Grand Inquisitor is theoretically just an honorary one, and within the Inquisition, an Inquisitorial Representative has no more power than a Grand Inquisitor.
The Inquisitorial Representative is merely a representative, the voice of the Inquisition within the High Lord Council, nothing more.
Ers was precisely fortunate for this reason, because the term of an Inquisitorial Representative is a maximum of five years, and Ers would not need to die suddenly, be assassinated, or get caught in political conspiracies to retire peacefully and continue her duties as a regular Inquisitor.
Several High Lords had privately expressed their envy of Ers.
But future retirement could not alleviate present fatigue, and Ers still felt tired from her current work.
There were two main reasons:
The first was that the Inquisition theoretically had unlimited power, and theoretically also had the right to monitor Primarchs, but the problem was that a group of people within the Inquisition took this theory seriously and truly believed they could monitor Primarchs.
The second was the Conservative Party faction within the Inquisition, namely the Amalas Faction. This faction believed that the Emperor had long ago devised a grand plan for the Imperium, and the Inquisition only needed to maintain the stability of the Imperium, allowing the Emperor's magnificent plan to unfold as he foresaw, eliminating all possible changes.
The Amalas Faction was the largest faction within the entire Inquisition, and Ers herself actually belonged to this faction.
But now, a divergence had appeared within the Amalas Faction: whether the return of the Primarchs and the appearance of Saint Doraemon were undesirable changes or part of the Emperor's arrangement.
Ers devoutly believed this was part of the Emperor's grand plan; after all, both the Primarchs and Saint Doraemon had met the Emperor in the Imperial Palace. Wasn't this obvious?
However, many members of the Amalas Faction failed to see this, and the entire faction consequently split into the Dora Amalas Faction, led by Ers, and the Pure Amalas Faction, led by the current Inquisitorial Fortress Lord.
Now, that Inquisitorial Fortress Lord stood beside Ers, waiting with her for the visit of those two.
Sanguinius and Saint Doraemon were going to visit the Inquisitorial Fortress. Ers understood this was to suppress opposition to the Primarchs and Saint Doraemon within the Inquisition, to suppress those of the Pure Amalas Faction.
But Ers still felt worried, fearing the escalation of conflict, especially since those two adults might demand to interrogate some prisoners —
The creak of a door suddenly echoed from the pale Antarctic ice cap, and a pinkish-red wooden door appeared before Ers and the Inquisitorial Fortress Lord.