Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 904

Chapter 897: Saints Purge

, the Word of Truth, is the Glorious Queen battleship of the Saints Chapter.

In its meditation room, Raymond Weiss sat in his exclusive seat with a serious expression.

The request to the Alliance leaders to talk to Gu Hang has been approved.

Raymond Weiss arrived two hours earlier than the agreed time and has been in deep thought. He rubbed his fingers with the untied power armor gloves, letting his knuckles bleed from the rough scripture relief. He

thought for a long time, until the holographic projectors hummed in the four corners of the cabin and Gu Hang’s shadow gradually took shape, and he came back to his senses.

“Hello, Captain Perk Raymond Weiss.” Gu Hang greeted him, and his attitude was quite cordial and friendly.

However, after the greeting, the next sentence he said had already entered the topic.

“I heard that you personally executed three sector bishops?”

“They instigated an accusation of heresy and manipulated the outcome of the accusation. The crazy believers used holy oil to burn down the Protestant missionary station.” The shoulder armor of the living saint reflected the red light of the skull candlestick, but his voice was more erratic than the candlelight, “So, I gave them the Emperor’s mercy.”

“Mercy? Ha!” Gu Hang sneered at this time, “During the rally, seventy-two Protestant priests and more than three thousand believers were burned to death. The Crusades blocked the door, and those who could escape were driven back. Right in front of the Emperor’s statue, the Emperor’s believers were burned to death in the raging fire. It is said that the Emperor’s statue, which is theoretically impervious to water and fire, collapsed in this tragic disaster.

“The Emperor was unwilling to witness that scene with his own eyes.”

“What was the result? It turned out that they even deserved mercy! ” It’s

just an execution. After the execution, the charges will not be announced. The body can be buried in the temple and receive secret offerings and worship…”

Raymond Weiss was silent for a long time, and then he said with difficulty: “This is not what I meant. I will order a thorough investigation to find out who it is that did not follow the proper instructions after the execution, deprived them of all their honors, and sheltered the traitor’s forces.”

Gu Hang’s projection took half a step forward, and the alliance emblem on the epaulettes suddenly became dazzlingly bright: “Is it necessary to investigate? Even I know who is standing behind this – the College of Cardinals of the Mesiphat Sect, the doctors of theology from twelve thousand-year-old families, and…”

At the end, he will deliberately prolong his voice and force Raymond Weiss to say it himself.

“And the warriors I brought out personally.” Raymond Weiss suddenly stood up, and the holy sword at his waist popped out half an inch in the movement, “But is this an unforgivable sin? They are practicing their beliefs, Protestantism… Protestantism of the Alliance…”

He gritted his teeth and finished his words, even though it might anger Gu Hang: “Isn’t the Protestantism of the Alliance a heresy that you concocted to seize the power of the state religion? We have tried our best to balance by tolerating the spread of Protestantism. Do you want to erase our faith in the Emperor?”

Gu Hang was not angry.

He just shook his head slightly and said, “Don’t put yourself together with those hopeless people. I want you to remember Chapter 7, Verse 2 of The Emperor’s Word…”

Gu Hang’s projection suddenly approached, and the illusory shadow transformed into a huge scripture scroll behind him, “Believers should practice what they preach and prove the truth with their lives. “

Raymond Weiss knew exactly what Gu Hang was going to say next, and his expression did not change because of this scene.

Gu Hang looked at him and stopped talking.

His theological attainments…so what. Debating with a living saint like Raymond Weiss is not his strong point.

So, he turned the conversation to things that happened in history.

And it was recent history.

“On the Valley Star, the Seven Star Corridors have been recaptured, the war is over, and the Protestant Church arranged for the Nurgle vaccine to be transported to the Valley Star in batches to contribute to the recovery of the planet’s agricultural production areas and avoid the impact of residual plague…”

“The Mesiphat sect actually absurdly believes that this is an unclean product. Not only are they blocking the distribution and vaccination of the vaccine, they even insist on executing all civilians who have been vaccinated with the Nurgle vaccine. As a result, the plague broke out on a large scale, and the war gang known as the ‘Plague Apocalypse Knights’ took advantage of the plague to spread, following the route of the penitential procession, and killed through six hives. “

The plague has caused a reduction in production on Valley Star. Protestant agricultural ships have been deployed to Valley Star, equipped with the latest ecological farm components. However, they were guarded by the Saint Warriors at the starport, preventing the ships from docking.”

“Your descendants would rather watch countless people on the planet starve to death in the barren fields than allow Protestant agricultural ships to dock at the orbital port.”

“When they used countless scriptures to crush the food transport ships, they were trampling on the true intention of the Emperor!”

Raymond Weiss couldn’t help but speak, his voice rising, like a dying Thunder Hawk gunboat making its final dive: “But the Protestant pastors tore up the “Saints’ Prayer”! They deleted the praise ceremony during their sermons! This

is a crucial manifestation of the contradiction.

What is the Prayer of the Saints? It is a religious text written four thousand years ago by a living Saint Chapter Master, a man who held immense influence on both the State Religion and the Saints. Its influence is so immense that it can almost be considered the mainstream text of the Imperium.

The so-called Mesiphatic sect upholds the Prayer of the Saints as its primary text; each member of the Saints Chapter, besides being a warrior, is also a staunch monk, and they naturally adhere to this text. To put it bluntly, the Mesiphatic sect is the most direct inheritor and disseminator of the Saints Chapter’s religious thought.

The conflict between the two sides lies in the fact that Protestantism rejects all content outside of the Word of the Emperor. This is a struggle for the right to interpret scripture. The Prayer of the Saints has already garnered such immense influence; it’s impossible to simply disown it.

“Faith should not be a shackle. Whether it’s the Mechanicus or the State Religion, it’s the same. Using doctrine to shackle productivity, using indulgences to squeeze out the last rations, so-called faith becomes poison. Are some things done for the sake of faith, for the God-Emperor, for the Imperium, for humanity, or are they due to prejudice, stubbornness, or even conflicts of interest? I believe you can see clearly. “

The Alliance’s religion is free; Protestantism is not the only religion. The Prayer of the Saints is not wrong, but no text can surpass the Word of the Emperor in doctrine. And nothing can be greater than the well-being of the Imperium of all humanity.” “

The captain’s fingers dug deep into the scripture relief, and blood flowed along the words “You shall not take the name of God in vain”.

Gu Hang’s voice made his mind rippling with things that happened hundreds of years ago that he thought he had long forgotten. That was his youth, he was not even a Space Marine yet, the golden waves of wheat were rippling in his hometown, his mortal father was a farmer, and he didn’t have too many thoughts at that time, but he felt that every time the harvest season came, the wafting wheat fragrance and the smiles on the faces of his uncles were moving.

Looking at the full warehouse of wheat and the smiling faces when the windmill turned, is it indeed closer to the Emperor’s love than moldy communion bread?

He didn’t know why he suddenly recalled all this. In his centuries-long life, the events before the age of fifteen only accounted for three percent. He had thought he’d long since forgotten those insignificant memories, but somehow, they suddenly came back to him.

“So what exactly do you want us to do?! Do you want the Saints to betray our millennia-old heritage? Like those fence-sitting sub-groups, let mortals shave off our traditions?”

His voice grew more impatient.

But Gu Hang actually felt that Raymond Weiss’s current state was a good sign.

He softly uttered,

“I want you to become true Saints.”

“The Chapter needs a cleansing.” Raymond Weiss raised his head, his visor covered in frost. “But how do you want me to convince the Chapter?”

“Does it need convincing?” Gu Hang countered. “No one needs convincing. Those who obey are loyal; those who rebel are traitors, that’s all.”

“Give me seventy-two hours.”

He made a fateful decision.

Gu Hang finally smiled.

“If you need any help, just speak to Marshal Yan Fangxu. The Western Expeditionary Force will provide you with the utmost support. Some confessionals require thorough purification before the Saints can truly be pure.”

…

Gu Hang paid no attention to how the bloody 72-hour purge within the Saints Chapter was carried out.

He only cared about whether it would succeed.

Raymond Weiss’s final agreement to the purge wasn’t entirely due to this conversation with Gu Hang, but it was certainly not the key factor.

In essence, he chose the latter, balancing the interests of the conservative factions within his chapter and the benefits of maintaining cooperation with the Alliance.

This choice was, rationally speaking, absolutely correct.

The benefits of cooperating with the Alliance were self-evident. Before the Alliance arrived, the Saints defended the Seven-Star Corridor with a fierce determination. After the Alliance arrived, the Seven-Star Corridor was freed, their equipment fully resupplied, and their troops were deployed to the front lines, participating in a greater struggle…

What were the downsides of not cooperating with the Alliance? At this point, the Saints had no room for regret.

The Saints, their successor chapters, and the Crusades had fully integrated into the Alliance’s military command structure; the Alliance was also taking over administrative control of the Mercifat star field.

At this point, to say they were quitting, refusing to integrate, and refusing to cooperate, what would that mean?

That would be treason.

Was the Alliance truly so easy to persuade?

If the Alliance is so easy to deal with, why hasn’t every recovered region, star field, and world joined the Dark Side Crusade and accepted Alliance jurisdiction?

Gu Hang never made any threats, but Raymond Weiss couldn’t help but understand.

If that situation really came to that, there might be no way to end it.

This is a rational analysis, weighing the pros and cons.

But in reality, it’s superficial.

If it were simply about profit, it wouldn’t be enough to motivate the Saints to act.

Do the Saints fear death?

If it were simply about profit, a life-or-death threat, then the Saints, or Raymond Weiss himself, would not hesitate to perish together and defend their faith.

A deeper examination reveals a test for the Saints: Is their so-called faith “creed, dogma, and text” or “Imperialism and Humanity first”? Is

the Faith of the Emperor theirs the former or the latter?

Some conservatives and members of the Mesifat sect within the Saints chose the former. They had thought and acted this way for thousands of years, never perceiving the former and the latter as in conflict.

But Raymond Weiss saw that, in the current climate, there was indeed a conflict between the two. Gu Hang, the Alliance, and the Dark Side Crusade all represented the latter as the most important. Faced with a choice between the two, which path would the Saints choose?

Unlike the conservative factions within the Chapter, he clearly supported the latter.

This was what had driven him to quickly forge a partnership with the Alliance upon encountering its strength and code of conduct. It was also what had driven him, after encountering the Alliance and recognizing its strength and code of conduct, to swiftly forge a partnership. It was also what had driven him, after the Chapter’s religious convictions clashed with those of the Alliance, to choose inward cleansing, no matter the pain, to preserve their partnership.

However, the decision was still too difficult to make. Before this conversation with Gu Hang, Raymond Weiss had harbored a lingering hope, wondering if there was some compromise, a better, more balanced solution.

Gu Hang’s clear message shattered his hopes and illusions, helping him to make up his mind.

After the promised 72 hours had passed, two detailed reports arrived on Gu Hang’s desk.

One was from Raymond Weiss’s self-report.

The other was from the Alliance Military Intelligence Bureau’s investigation into the Saints’ internal purge. They had watched the entire process with a cold eye, even providing Raymond Weiss with considerable assistance, allowing some who might have otherwise escaped or gone into hiding to accept their fate.

Gu Hang didn’t care whether this swift purge was bloody or thorough enough.

The statistics showed how many Saint warriors, Saints’ sub-companions, high-ranking priests and bishops of the Mercipat sect, and those theological families had died. The exact number wasn’t particularly important.

Gu Hang wasn’t a bloodthirsty person, and he didn’t take pleasure in this.

He only cared about the results.

And the most direct manifestation of this was when he saw the Saints’ names appear in the system, on the chapter interface.

Seeing this, he knew that the Saints’ purge had indeed been effective.

(End of Chapter)