Chapter 199 03.0198: "The forbidden secret that cannot be known to others"

When Inquisitor Ravenno entered the key, the low hum of the Thinker changed its tone, and the video of Grandmaster Gregor Eisenhorn facing interrogation began to play.

"My entourage and I were attacked by unconscious soldiers of the 50th Gudrun Rifle Regiment of the Astra Militarum, naval security forces, and members of the Cult of Joy.

They behaved strangely and looked like they were being manipulated in some way.

After we suffered huge casualties in our previous actions, 56-Aiza was destroyed by a traitor lurking among us, no, to be more precise, a demon host acting as an inquisitor, who issued an extermination order of "Doomsday Judgment" and destroyed it.

We and the Deathwatch Marines had no time to verify that all copies of the Book of the Dead had been destroyed."

"Then there was a low-orbit bombardment. After being baptized by the Holy Flame, the Inquisition's black ships launched a virus bombardment. A pre-set plague hurricane swept across the globe."

“Finally, the nuclear explosion caused the earth’s core to collapse. When we left, the entire world had already turned into cosmic dust.

From then on, the alien Saruti who could master forbidden knowledge through taste no longer existed, and the foul light emitted by the Book of the Dead was extinguished forever. "

"I will never forget the bitter lesson of the Saruti and their people: even a highly developed civilization can be completely devoured by seemingly insignificant chaos."

Inquisitor Clarence Ravenore looked at what the master's master said and fell into deep thought.

[Are the twisted alien Saruti and the Book of the Dead really destroyed?]
[It's similar. A religious sect that has fallen into pleasure, a navy soldier who attacks his own people without knowing it, a conspiracy against the fleet...]
Inquisitor Ravenno deliberately concealed his true purpose for coming to Abyssal Port during his conversation with Horatio.
- Investigate whether this matter is related to the alien incident in the Book of the Dead that was investigated by our master Eisenhorn.

This is a top secret that would result in death if leaked even within the Tribunal.

It was enough for the Assassin's Court far away in Terra to send its most capable killers to personally deal with the matter and the parties involved.

This is a matter serious enough to issue an extermination order to Abyss Port, the anchorage of the legendary fleet.

So he had to keep silent, which was also a protection for himself and Horatio.

In this world, often times remaining ignorant is a kind of protection. Only the ignorant can live longer.

The desire for knowledge, although seemingly beautiful, may very well be a trap that pushes people into the abyss.

Judges should especially abide by this principle. This is the bottom line.

Most of the traitors among colleagues were curious about unknown creations and reached out for it, which eventually got out of control.

Compared to this, working with aliens is a minor sin.

Although in theory, the Book of the Dead has been completely destroyed under the Extermination Order.

The twisted aliens called the Saruti were widely distributed and multiplied on 40 planets at that time.

And they have a peculiar ability: relying solely on their sense of taste, they can obtain the experience recorded on the information carrier by licking it with their disgusting, greasy long tongues.

He was unsure if the xenos could extract the destroyed Book of the Dead from the ashes.

It is said that this unholy work was forbidden by the Emperor himself since the earliest days of the Imperium, before the Primarchs existed.

He didn't know what kind of horrible and evil contents were recorded in this book, and he didn't want to know at all.

He only knew that this was a taboo that the Lord of Pleasure had carefully cultivated for unknown purposes in order to make it blossom and bear fruit.

Even at the cost of creating a demon host.

By the way, Horatio also said that these Pleasure Cultists captured him at that time in order to turn him into a demon host.

Is all this just a coincidence?
Inquisitor Ravenor shook his head.

Perhaps other colleagues came to Abyssal Port to hunt down the traitors who destroyed the empire.

But he was well aware that his mission was far more difficult than that of any Inquisitor, and the impact was so great that it could affect the entire human empire.

After all, one can imagine how much harm a banned book designated by the God-Emperor himself would cause to the human empire, and the severity of the damage is obvious.

If, as he suspected, another copy of the Book of the Dead had been created, he would have to make sure to witness its destruction with his own eyes, just as his master, Gregor Eisenhorn, had done.

The fully armed Inquisitor strode out of the room.

"Guys, get ready, we're going to do something big here."

He checked the cylinder of Scipio's pistol once more, making sure every bullet was where it should be.

“We are always ready.”

Soon, another thin figure appeared with a data tablet embedded in his arm and both eyes replaced by implanted avian prosthetic eyes.

Then came a non-commissioned officer of the Navy Armed Forces wearing various modified armors and holding a gun in a very experienced posture. Following them were some Imperial veterans who survived various life-and-death battlefields but were marked as killed in the statistics of the Ministry of Military Affairs.

There are not many people, but they all look like tough guys who have fought their way out of the mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and among evil spirits and monsters.
-
The Imperial Navy investigates the autopsy room. "All dead?" Horatio asks an armed captain.

"Yes, during the armed forces' invasion of the Sacred Will, no mutineers surrendered." He looked at the operating table:
"Our only reward is these unconscious and wounded rebels."

Horatio sighed, which was what he expected.

"Doctor, have you found anything?" he asked, looking at the man inside.

"All physical indicators are normal, and all organs and internal organs are functioning normally. There are no abnormal lesions. The only problem may be the appearance of multiple low-density lesions in the brain. But for someone of this age, especially someone who has lived in the void for a long time, this is normal."

The medical officer placed the X-ray photograph on a bright board.

Horatio looked where the medical officer was pointing.

"Low-density lesions are usually caused by lesions in some parts of the brain, or they can form when necrosis turns into water. These locations are not the core. Most people will have them when they get older or live in the void for a long time. The necrotic parts can also grow again."

"Open the skull and take a look."

"Investigator, this is actually a very normal and common physiological phenomenon..."

"Please open it and take a look, thank you." Horatio insisted, still smiling.

Seeing that Horatio insisted, the medical officer used a skull saw to cut open the dead man's head for the overly cautious officer.

The moment the skull was opened, a pool of thick dark blood flowed out from the gap and fell into the metal plate that had been prepared long ago.

Horatio moved forward to get a closer look.

The medical officer paid no attention to the blood, put down the skull saw, picked up the special equipment, and prepared to slice the brain for examination.

"What is this?" Horatio saw the blood flowing into the metal plate, which reflected a faint silver light under the illumination of the shadowless lamp.

"It seems to be... a kind of metal wire?" The medical officer said uncertainly after using the artificial eye worn on his eye to magnify the area and examine it.

But this artificial eye is not the advanced microscopic artificial eye of the Mechanicus after all, and doctors normally do not use those devices that are not cost-effective for surgery. Medical officers can only judge the general shape with the equipment at hand.

These silver filaments floated in the blood basin, forming a crazy twisted spiral.

The medical officer tried to pick up the tiny silver thread with tweezers, but the moment the tweezers touched it, it broke gently, as if these filaments were not truly connected as a whole at the microscopic level.

Then, in front of Horatio and the medical officer, these twisted silver threads reorganized into a shape that was so small that it could not be smaller when observed with the naked eye, just like a drop of mercury falling into water.

The medical officer scooped it up, sucked it up with a small pipette, then dropped it onto a microscope slide and then placed it under the microscope.

The medical officer frowned.

"What's wrong? Can I take a look?" Horatio asked.

The medical officer made way and Horatio pressed his eyes against it.

This tiny drop of mercury-like substance was moving slowly at an imperceptible amplitude under the microscope, but the ordinary optical microscope used in medical examination rooms could not achieve nanometer-level resolution and could only show a general situation.

Horatio remembered the jar he had seized from the Plague Ship incident.

He couldn't help but become alert in his heart.

Could this matter be related to the Dark Mechanicus?
He was not sure. The parties involved in this suspicion obviously exceeded his investigative authority, and perhaps also exceeded the authority of several judges.

Moreover, the various branch orders of the Mechanicus were like steel eggs that were so tight that not even a crack could be nailed into them, making it difficult for him to investigate.

Unless it is the branch of the Inquisition that specifically oversees that group of mechanical modification enthusiasts - the Ordo Machinum.

Otherwise, the three Inquisitors who came here probably wouldn't have the power and ability to investigate the Mechanicus.

After all, the relationship between the Empire and the Mechanicus is essentially just cooperation for the unification of the Human Empire.

The 'outsiders' from the Empire wanted to investigate the Mechanicus, but those mechanical lumps made of more iron than flesh probably didn't even have the energy to run an emotion simulation module for 0.1 microsecond.

"Medical officer, can you help me store this sample?"

He wasn't sure if Father Lati was reliable, but at least there was nothing wrong with her in the previous investigation.

And right now, it seemed that she, as an insider of the Mechanicus, was the only one who could help.

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(End of this chapter)