Hades wakes up at his desk every day. When he opens his eyes, half of his mind is thinking about the desserts from yesterday's dinner. He has already thought about which ones will become his office's new favorites, and the other half of his mind begins to plan today's itinerary.
By the time his hands reached the first plate of soft, breakfast crust, Hades had already decided on his itinerary for the day.
In the first set, Hades quickly reviewed the documents distributed to him during his break. The message on the command board was always 999+.
Hades handed the plate with some pastry residue on it to the robot servant who came to clean it up, and then began to notify the various institutions he would visit today with the assistance of the Nirvana system.
The second plate, steam rising from the thin skin of the buns, the first visitor of the day walked in under the early morning light, it was Blake who came to make a routine report on the situation of the Son of Pluto.
Originally this job should have been given to Buzz, but Buzz was captured by the Ultramarines to work, so Blake did it instead.
After the report, Hades gave two buns to Blake, who had not yet had breakfast (or gone to bed), and Blake left with the buns in his mouth, leaving behind the handover of the Son of Pluto.
In the fourth set, Kirkland, his robe full of the smell of engine oil, hurried in. Hades quickly stopped Kirkland from saluting. This Kirkland clone had just returned from the dock on Jupiter.
First there was the routine flattery. After many unsuccessful persuasions, Hades had given up on correcting Kirkland's behavior. After the praise, Kirkland reported to Hades on the update of the Empire's current ship assembly line based on Jupiter as a model.
The progress was smooth, and Hades chatted with Kirkland for a few more words about King. Kirkland seemed to express his triumph at King's voluntary departure.
Before leaving, Kirkland gave Hades the snacks he collected from Jupiter. He tasted them and found them to be delicious.
Hades felt a little thirsty, so he skillfully took out a bottle of wine from the third drawer under his desk, the flavor of Old Babarus.
With this smell, Hades quickly finished reviewing the current documents and finished the remaining snacks. At this time, the sun was still on the other side of Terra, and the night was dark. Hades got up and prepared to work.
Hades first went to see Mortarion's coffin in the palace. The coffin was very quiet. Hades knocked three times and soaked the outside of the coffin with black domain again.
The Primarch ignored him, perhaps still resting, or perhaps gone, and Hades was used to it, so he just left.
Normally, he would have met Malcador at this time, but Malcador was out helping the Eldar, so Hades did not encounter the magic pattern.
So Hades went to the Terra Underground Palace. He glanced at Old Yellow Head. The Lord of Mankind was still on the high steps. When he saw him coming, he only opened his eyes slightly.
"Hey! Old yellow head!"
Hades greeted him and showed off how flexible his legs were. "It's okay. I'm leaving now!"
After leaving the palace, the shuttle was already waiting on the platform near the palace. Usually, Hades would go to find α3 Alina at this time. The mechanics usually had chaotic schedules and didn't care about sleep, so Hades liked to find the mechanics to discuss work late at night or early in the morning.
But because Hades met with α3 Alina and Jin in advance yesterday to discuss Jin's matter, he didn't need to look for the female sage again today.
Hades went to the Cathedral of the Underworld first.
The shuttle stopped at the airport far away from the cathedral. Hades walked out and entered the cathedral with ease. It was still early in the morning and the clock pointed to two o'clock.
Hades entered from the side door. People who were fast asleep were lying in all directions on the benches in the cathedral. In the corners, some people were still awake, praying solemnly towards the sculptures in the church, or two or three people were gathered together, talking in low voices.
In the gathering month of the Hades Cult, in addition to those who were invited, other believers or Hades Cult members could also take the initiative to go to Terra for pilgrimage. In theory, the Hades Cult would provide food and lodging for these people - in fact, the Archbishop happily wholesaled hundreds of thousands of quilts, and then began to stuff the quilts into various corners that he could manage.
Hades originally wanted to ask the Archbishop if he needed to prepare in advance... instead of letting people sleep scattered in churches, wilderness, and believers' homes.
But Samuel shook his head firmly and said that this was a specialty of the Dark Cult and it had been like this for thousands of years, and they should not destroy this custom.
Hades was shocked, but after weighing the cost and safety, he finally chose to respect the Hades beliefs.
He came in very quietly, and Hades thought he knew a little about stealth.
Even so, there were still people who were awake and saw Hades. Hades made a gesture to keep quiet, and they all fell silent in surprise.
Perhaps the darkness prevented them from distinguishing whether it was Pluto or some other large creature, so they just whispered in the distance and did not come over.
The cathedral was huge, with halls layered upon layer. As Hades walked, a large man approached him hesitantly.
Hades raised his hand backwards, signaling the son of Pluto who was following him to ignore it.
"Boss Pluto," Soulless said hesitantly, "I need to pee."
"… "
Hades turned his head and saw that the priest who was sent by the Cult of the Underworld to watch over the Soulless Ogryn was already asleep on the bench, with a dark spot under his eyes.
All right…
Hades winked, "Follow me, big guy."
The toilet is on the same level as the Archbishop's bedroom.
Ogryn nodded obediently and followed Hades.
They walked past the rows of sculptures in the church. Those dark sculptures looked like rows of strange houses in the middle of the night, existing silently, as if they knew that they had embarrassed Pluto at the opening ceremony. Ogrin said nothing.
"arrive."
Hades looked up, and Ogrin murmured a thank you, then seemed to have thought of something, grabbed a corner of Hades' cloak, and spoke hesitantly,
"Boss Pluto, you won't abandon me, will you?"
Hades raised his eyebrows. What did those believers teach this Ogryn
"Why not?" Hades said patiently, "As long as you are a good Ogryn, kill enemies seriously, and beat Chaos, I will need you. Not only me, but everyone needs you."
Ogrin was silent for a few seconds, then nodded seriously.
"Yeah, I can do that."
Ogrin loosened his cloak, lowered his head and went into the bathroom, muttering to himself. It seemed that he was thinking seriously about what he had just said, and his brain obviously did not have the capacity to continue the rest of the conversation.
Hades glanced at the seven Hades following behind him and signaled one of them to take Ogrin back later.
The Hades first used the palm-and-back method to group themselves, three against four, and the remaining three played rock-paper-scissors to decide who would be the unlucky one.
So the unlucky guy stayed behind, and the rest continued to follow Hades to visit the archbishop.
Since its establishment, perhaps because of the tragedy of the state religion in the past, the position of Pope of the Hades has always been vacant, and subsequently only the Archbishop has been appointed. The Hades provides accommodation, and the Archbishop's bedroom is on the basement floor of the cathedral.
After passing through numerous access control points, Hades walked up to the heavy black stone door and knocked.
“Boom boom boom!”
There was no response. Hades looked at the watch. It was two forty. The archbishop had slept for four hours, so he had to get up and work.
"roll!!!"
A scream of pain came from the crack of the door. Hades said nothing, patiently and forgivingly probing the black area in. A second later—
“Ahhh!”
Hades took a small step back. The archbishop, with disheveled hair and a smile on his face, poked his head out from the crack of the door. He was wearing pajamas with a cartoon three-headed dog pattern on the collar. Hades automatically ignored him.
"Lord Pluto, please forgive me and wait for a minute."
"No rush," Hades said, "I'm more merciful. You have one minute and seven seconds."
The door was slammed shut, but Hades was not annoyed. He skillfully took out the command board and corrected the documents. The Academy of Athens was a good thing, and with Phaos' ship template, the Empire's ship system had a major upgrade.
Forty-nine seconds later, the Archbishop of Hades appeared in front of Hades with a face full of resentment. Hades put away the command board and gave a forced smile.
"The Dark Cult will be gathering these days, please be patient."
The archbishop scratched his bald head. News of Jin's resignation had already spread, which made him very envious. However, he did not have the courage to resign. If he resigned, his enemies would chop him into pieces the moment he left office.
“It’s not hard.”
The Archbishop sighed and led Hades to the office hall. Hades would stay in the cathedral for the whole day. In the morning, he would observe the selection and sorting of the soulless people, and in the afternoon, he would interview the cardinals who had passed the highest level written examination.
But before that, the archbishop had to ask the canteen to prepare more food, because Pluto was coming.
——————
"Hmm... I'm so sleepy."
Soulless Cecia rubbed her eyes and tiredly stood up from the bench. Faint sunlight shone through the church windows. She was exhausted from the whole day of physical training yesterday.
She bent down to put on her socks and shoes. The aroma of porridge wafted into her nose. The food awakened people, and the crowd that was sleeping in the cathedral woke up one after another.
Cecilia picked up her dagger and put it on her waist. She found Quhun'er without any effort. Seeing her, Ogrin said happily that he had seen Hades.
"Yeah, that's great." Cecilia said perfunctorily. She knew that Ogrin had confused dreams and reality. The Underworld Cult had opened a special meal channel for the new soulless people. Buckets of porridge were placed in the corridor of the hall. Cecilia also saw bread, eggs and seven kinds of side dishes.
"You lucky new recruits!" A rough-voiced, fleshy-faced male Soulless shouted. Next to him stood another Silent Sister who looked tough. She glanced at them with a fierce look like a wolf. "Eat quickly! Today you will participate in the actual combat selection! If you pass, you can take a good gun to the battlefield and shoot others!"
"Twenty eggs, thank you."
Cecilia told the robot servant who served her meals that she didn't want to do clerical work or be a soulless tool in some important occasion. She wanted to go to the battlefield and had to eat more.
——————
"Do you want light armor or heavy armor?"
The Mechanical Sage standing next to Cecia said, Cecia hesitated for a moment, "Heavy Armor, thank you."
The sage ignored her, a red light flashed on his face, and the conveyor belt above their heads immediately started to move. Cecilia looked up and saw countless armors of different models and sizes being transported on the ceiling, and a set of armor of her size was lowered.
"The heavy armor version of the Oathbearer Armor," the sage introduced in a rambling manner, taking out a thin layer of black tights attached to the silver-black armor.
"The original model was the Vow Armor of the Silent Sisters, but the Dark Cult felt that depriving a person of the ability to speak was a bit too inhumane and would greatly reduce your work efficiency, so it was changed to the Vow Armor."
The sage asked Cecilia to put on the tights, which had a slot for the injection needle.
"You can simply think of it as an external version of the Space Marine's black shell. The improvement is not that great, but it is not small either."
"You can at least get a headshot with your bare hands."
The sage lowered his head and hurriedly put on and arranged the armor for Cecia. Cecia saw that in each compartment, every soulless person had at least one sage assisting him. The ratio of sages was surprisingly high.
"Every soulless person can obtain his own exclusive armor after officially entering the Dark Cult. After passing the test, come to me and I will design armor according to your needs."
The sage said, pressing a button on Cecilia's armor, a jet sound was heard, Cecilia felt that the armor on her body was lighter, and the discomfort of wearing heavy armor was reduced.
"What weapon do you prefer? Which hand is your dominant hand?"
The sage asked, lowering his head to check the compatibility of the armor around the soulless. Cecia was silent for a moment, "Shovel?"
The sage stopped moving his hands, raised his head, and looked at Cecilia silently, with a red glow on his face as if he was thinking.
"Dominant hand."
The sage repeated, "Left hand." Cecilia said quickly - a minute later, an axe-like shovel was sent over the transmission line on the ceiling, and Cecilia hurriedly took it.
"You should be thankful that we are now using a modular production assembly line, the patent comes from Mint," the sage said, "and praise the Nirvana system, otherwise you won't get your shovel today."
"Thank you Nirvana, thank you Nirvana."
Cecia quickly said that she didn't understand what Nirvana was, but it was obviously a good thing and helped her.
"Here is the trigger," the sage extended his appendage and demonstrated the shovel to Cecia. "Press it and the shovel can fire. Here is the switch between single shot and continuous fire. This button is the boost button. Press it and the gunpowder will explode, giving the shovel a boost."
After the sage finished speaking, he stepped aside and motioned for Cecilia to step onto the battlefield.
Holding the shovel that satisfied her quite a bit, Cecia nodded to the sage to express her gratitude, and then stepped out. She had never felt so good before. She even felt that she could fight ten Astra Militarum soldiers alone. Terra was worthy of being Terra. The configuration speed and equipment strength here shocked her.
Quehun'er also walked out of the compartment. Ogrin chose a large shield as his weapon and was touching the helmet on his head uncomfortably.
"Hey! Lack of Soul! I'm here!"
Cecia shouted, and together they walked to the entrance of the competition venue, where the Soulless had already gathered in twos and threes.
"New recruits!"
The Archbishop's voice rang out over the radio, "Let me see - the content of your selection this time is to work together to kill demons! Hades is watching you! Good luck!"
Beep—
The gate opened, and everyone suddenly stopped. The unique stench of psychic energy wafted in, and the temperature in the air suddenly dropped by several degrees. Cecilia even saw some people's legs trembling.
Cecilia, who had just made such a solemn promise, suddenly felt less confident. She quietly moved towards Ogryn's position. Quehun'er also looked scared, but Ogryn shouted,
"I'm the one Hades wants!" Then he rushed out with a shield.
Ogrin was obviously the most powerful fighter among this group of misfits, so people rushed out in a hurry.
At the other end of the hall full of obstacles, the Gray Knight holding a heavy sword stood in front of the sealing altar and cut off the chains!
The angry roars of the three Khorne demons immediately resounded throughout the hall!
Cecilia watched helplessly as some people knelt down.
—————
"…?"
Hades, who was leaning back in his chair and approving documents on the command board, raised his eyes.
Right below their high platform room, the three Khorne demons were roaring.
So weak? Hades was a little confused, and as if they sensed Hades' gaze, the demons' roars suddenly stopped. One of the red demons glanced guiltily behind him, then ran forward as if fleeing.
When the other two saw it running away, they immediately followed.
"… "
Hades was silent.
"Please don't interfere with the game."
Samuel's voice sounded at the right time, "Lord Pluto."
"… "
He just took a look.
Hades had no choice but to withdraw his gaze from the demon and instead look forward to the performance of the soulless ones.
There were gunshots and people shouting.
"… "
Although Hades knew that this group of soulless people were collected from all over the empire and had not received any formal training.
But... Hades remained silent. Is this just a fight between two noobs
He watched people swinging their weapons like sticks. From this perspective, the one holding the shovel was actually the MVP in terms of output. Ogryn used his big shield to pin a demon to the corner, while the rest of the people were busy dealing with the other two demons, leaving Ogryn aside.
So Ogryn and the Khorne demons stared at each other and screamed.
Hades silently covered his eyes.
Fortunately, they also have a group of Soulless People who were bred by the Soulless People of the Order and received training since childhood.
"This class of warriors performed well, much better than previous ones."
Samuel's cheerful voice sounded. Hades turned his head and saw the two Soulless Instructors nodded with satisfaction.
…
To some extent, the later education of the Dark Cult can train them into qualified warriors... which is also remarkable.
Hades was silent, but Ogryn's scream still made him a little shocked.
——————
die!!!
Cecia pressed the shovel against the neck of the last and largest demon, her eyes bulged and her whole body trembled.
Beside her were the Soulless People lying in all directions, having lost their ability to fight.
They must win! They can’t fall!!!
She didn't want to go back to digging again!
The claws of the Khorne demon grabbed her calf. Cecia heard the sound of the calf bone shattering. The severe pain gave her the strength to make the final blow.
"die!!!"
A roar broke out, and then a bang! Covered in blood, Sethia staggered on the corpse of the Khorne demon, with an eye exposed between the broken helmets. She tilted her head, holding a shovel in one hand and lifting the head of the Khorne demon in the other.
They won! They won!!!
With her blurred vision, she looked towards the room where Hades was. Cythia proudly held up the head of the Khorne demon.
"For Pluto!!!!"
The soulless people lying in disorder at her feet also let out faint cries. The bloody battle made each of them feel like they had received a true baptism.
"For Pluto!!!"
Hades was stunned for a moment, then he laughed helplessly and applauded along with the archbishop.
not bad.
(End of this chapter)