Chapter 200 7, Guilliman and Clarks

During Duker's stay on Terra, Dum took his place to promote the prestige of the Second Legion.

As the results of the Empire's transformation continued to expand, Duker's scientific research team also began to increase its members.

From the original scientific research team of only four people, it expanded to a scientific research team of 222 people.

Among them are top scientists who are well-known in the galaxy, and more are great sages of the radical Mechanicus. They have integrated into the scientific research team and burned their talents for the Empire under the leadership of Duker.

The new bureaucratic system has also begun to take shape. This set of "capable people take the place" administrative system has not encountered too much obstacles in the process of promotion, which is beyond the expectations of the Primarchs.

On the one hand, many of the millions of worlds in the Empire already use such an administrative system. On the other hand, the nobles have also proved with practical actions that they are not all wastes who rely entirely on the glory of their ancestors.

Ten thousand years ago, in the first great expedition of mankind, the Emperor gave up the Empire's control over various worlds in order to build the webway as soon as possible and get rid of the influence of the warp on mankind.

The second great expedition prepared by Dukel will not have this problem at all.

Under his supervision, the Supreme Council promulgated new planetary management regulations and required the managers of those worlds to provide feedback to Terra regularly.

Such an administrative system can not only make the entire empire more closely united, but more importantly, it can allow the primarchs to focus their main energy on things that are more important than politics.

In this way, the primarchs will not be involved in too many complicated affairs and waste their precious time on some unnecessary things.

The virtual communication system has established major nodes in the galaxy, and the workload of the military affairs department has become heavy again. They always accept rescue requests from various worlds and arrange reasonable fleets to perform rescue or suppression tasks.

Benefiting from the rise of the radical school of Mars, Cawl disclosed the original module of planet transformation technology, and a large number of dead worlds gradually recovered their vitality. Edible crops can also be grown on some barren planets.

The administrative department conservatively estimates that in the next hundred years, the empire will have at least 100,000 more agricultural worlds.

With abundant food production and Dukel's deliberate regulation of the Empire's merchants, the Empire's citizens in countless nests finally got rid of the torture of corpse starch and could eat a real meal.

Under such positive feedback, the huge Galactic Empire, like a rusty gear being lubricated, began to grow explosively in efficiency everywhere. The people of the Empire saw hope, and their sense of identity and loyalty to the human race also increased rapidly.

In the past, although all the people of the Empire believed in the Emperor and shouted the slogan "For the Emperor".

But in fact, whoever gave them food, they would be loyal to whoever gave them food, whether it was the cultists or the Genestealer Order.

This is also an important reason for the frequent rebellions within the Empire.

But this is not a problem for the people of the Empire. If believing in the Emperor can't even get food, then believing in Chaos is reasonable.

At the same time, new education, agriculture, and industrial reforms are also being gradually promoted.

Everything is getting better.

However, with the implementation of these decrees, the Regent is almost worried every day.

Because every reform cannot be completed with just a word, and the promotion of every new decree requires a lot of money. The huge financial burden has doubled the pressure on the Imperial Regent.

Unfortunately, the current finances of the Empire are not optimistic. Guilliman even wants to embezzle his small treasury in Macragge, but unfortunately, there is no money in his small treasury.

Before returning to Terra, Guilliman and Cawl transformed hundreds of thousands of Primaris Space Marines in one go. Even if the Five Hundred Worlds are rich, there is no surplus food at this time.

For such a situation, Duker has always maintained an indifferent attitude. It is not that he does not care about the development of the Empire, but because he is now terribly rich!

Up to now, Duker's expeditionary corps has three main types of financial income-

First, the many worlds with Ophelia VII as the capital pay taxes to the expeditionary corps every year.

Duker revived in Ophelia VII and conquered the political and military groups there. Those worlds were attached to the Primarch and naturally became his territory.

But even though Ophelia VII is the second holy place after Terra in terms of sanctity, and is one of the richest worlds in the empire among the millions of worlds.

However, after forming a huge expeditionary corps for Dukel, it was almost drained of all its finances and could not provide more income for Dukel.

The second item is the supplies seized by the expeditionary corps during the expedition to the dark side of the galaxy.

Although they fed back many severely damaged worlds during the expedition and helped these worlds rebuild their civilization, overall, this is a considerable income.

The third item is entirely Dukel's own income.

Dukel's so-called income is actually very simple, that is - whoever has money, he will rob.

His current victims are mainly the Endless Trazyn and the dignitaries on Terra who were executed by him for colluding with heretics.

There is no need to say much about the Endless's treasures. Just one robbery not only made Dukel a fortune, but also doubled the value of the entire expeditionary corps.

But even the thousand-year-old treasures in the tomb of the Endless One's clone pale in comparison to the treasure houses of those top powerful families.

Duker sent millions of Heart Network members to various parts of the galaxy to carry out the task of confiscating the houses of those heretic noble families. What he never expected was that two years later, the progress of the confiscating house mission had only been completed by less than 50%!

The former Grand Marshal of the Ministry of Justice alone, his family has been rooted in the empire for tens of thousands of years, and the stolen money of this family alone is equivalent to the empire's two hundred years of tax revenue!

And Duker has killed more than a dozen of the top noble families of this level on Terra! Not to mention those nobles of the next level.

This money belongs to the empire in name, but in fact it all belongs to Duker.

At least so far, no one has asked the warmaster to share this wealth.

It can't be spent, it can't be spent at all.

In Duker's eyes, these noble families are like big gift bags. If you are short of money, just open one and you will get another wave of fat.

Among the many reforms, the generous Lord of Destruction, his finances can not only provide blood transfusions for the Regent's reform projects, but also support his unlimited expansion of his Argentum Energy Factory!

Even Dukel's offspring, Dum, can easily spend a huge amount of money to build a huge Argentum factory when completing the rescue mission, without any regrets at all.

It can be said that the empire can have today's thriving situation, all relying on the selfless dedication of the powerful families.

Dukel intends to erect a "pillar of shame" for them to commemorate their contributions to the empire.

On the other hand.

Dukel's behavior of building factories on a large scale also aroused the curiosity of the Regent.

These factories, which cover a vast area and are like steel cities, seem to consume millions of Chaos Demons every day.

Although the most scarce thing in the territory of the empire is demons, these heretical lives are sensitive topics after all.

Therefore, he pulled himself out of the complicated government affairs and personally visited the Argentum Energy Factory in Terra.

With his status as the regent, he had no obstacles along the way, and no one showed any intention of stopping him from entering.

He was received by a mechanical priest named Sil.

This priest was a student of Gris and a backbone of the radical school of the Mechanicus.

His philosophy was that humans should study machines that could arm the race. It was this philosophy that earned him the appreciation of Dukel, who sent him to the Argent Energy Plant as a technical consultant.

Sil was generous and even a little proud, and led Guilliman to visit the entire factory.

Batches of aliens and heretics were put into the assembly line from the container, and after cruel torture, they were crushed into broken dregs.

The operator on the assembly line turned out to be a Primaris Space Marine of the Second Legion.

When Guilliman saw this scene, he couldn't help but frown.

He didn't care about the life and death of the aliens and heretics, but the regent, who had been overwhelmed by the financial shortage recently, became extremely sensitive to money.

He smelled the smell of burning money from this huge factory and those huge machines that were constantly running.

His first reaction was - how much money would it cost.

"Why do this? Bolt guns can do the same thing." He asked in confusion.

Duker transferred a huge amount of money from his own treasury to the empire's finances. Although Duker explained that these were voluntary donations to the empire and did not need to be returned.

But Guilliman was still stubborn and took a procedure similar to "low-interest loans".

It was this move that established Duker's image of not caring about finances in the mind of the imperial regent.

Although the regent also knew that Duker had recently confiscated many powerful families.

But in his opinion, no matter how rich those powerful families were, how rich could they be? Could they be richer than the five hundred worlds and the empire's finances?

In his estimation, Duker must be spending more than he earns at this time, with a shortage of finances, but he still built so many factories that cost a lot of money.

Guilliman's eyes were a little dangerous.

He even suspected that corruption had reappeared within the Mechanicus and tricked Dukel into building these factories.

"All this is for the fate of our race, Lord Regent." Mechanic priest Sil said in a respectful tone.

"For the fate of our race?" Guilliman's expression did not ease, and he sharply retorted, "Besides being able to vent hatred for aliens and heretics, I don't see any substantial benefits here."

"My lord, I can take you to visit the results of this factory. This is allowed, but..." Sil's tone revealed embarrassment.

He continued, "It's just that there is a distinguished guest there at this time, and I can't judge whether our presence will disturb him."

Another distinguished guest?

The Regent looked puzzled, "Where are Leon and Sanguinius?"

Sil shook his head.

"Then I have to wonder about the identity of this guest." Guilliman smiled as if he had thought of something.

"Take me there."

"Okay."

Sir led Guilliman, and the two of them walked through the maze-like route in the factory and came to a huge warehouse made of special alloys.

In this warehouse covering several kilometers, there are all kinds of weapons, whether cold weapons or hot weapons.

And Guilliman was keenly aware that there was extremely terrifying power inside every weapon.

This is a power that can make even the original body feel the crisis.

Cyr showed the regent one after another what kind of extraordinary power these weapons contained, and explained,

"These are weapons prepared for the enemies of the empire. The structure of each piece of equipment was personally developed by the scientific research team of the Second Legion, embodying the efforts of hundreds of mechanical sages. It can be foreseen that when these equipment are used in On the battlefield, you will surely drink the blood of your enemies and make all enemies of the empire howl, which will be the best hymn to the Lord of Destruction.”

When Syl said this, his tone was inevitably full of fanaticism.

In the eyes of radical scholars, Dukur almost became the incarnation of the Ohm Messiah, whom they could not help but want to worship.

These ultimate skills that bring destruction to the stars can only be created by the power of the Lord of Destruction.

Guilliman was almost stunned as he watched the Mechanic-Priest's demonstration.

If Sear hadn't explained the parameters of these weapons to him in detail, he would have almost thought that they were relics of some ancient civilization.

"Are you saying that such a powerful weapon only requires such a factory and the souls of heretics and aliens to continuously produce it? Moreover, these thermal weapons do not consume any money when used. They only need to kill demons. Automatically recharge the magazine?”

Guilliman exclaimed.

"Sir, strictly speaking, we still need to provide a little torture to the souls that are used as material." Syl corrected.

"This is crazy!" Guilliman took a deep breath.

"Brother, you think this is crazy too?"

When the regent sighed, another clear voice sounded.

This voice seemed to be right next to them, but before that, neither the Mechanic Priest nor the Regent was aware of this person's existence.

In the shadows beside them, a majestic man as tall as Guilliman and with the same noble aura emerged.

The skin is as pale as snow, and the hair is as lacquered as ink.

Crow Lord Krax.

"Guilliman, long time no see. This is the new weapon I chose. What do you think?"

The Lord of Dark Crows waved the sharp claw in his hand, and the crimson force field lingering around the hook blade drew a trajectory in the void, with a meaning of destruction.

"Krax, I'm so happy to see you here!" Guilliman showed an expression of surprise when he saw the figure. He did not look at the pair of claw-shaped artifacts, but stepped forward and hugged him. together,

"Long time no see, brother."

Ten thousand years ago, Guilliman and Krax established a deep brotherhood.

The time they spent playing legion battle games was a rare and warm memory for both of them.

After the hug.

Krax once again placed the claw blade in his hand in front of Guilliman. "Brother, do you also think that such a weapon is a bit too radical? I have the same feeling, but I have to admit that in this crazy world, Times, perhaps only madness can contend with."

The Lord of the Crows has been isolated in the warp for tens of thousands of years. He actually doesn't really want to meet Guilliman.

It's not that the relationship between them is bad, but Clarks doesn't know how to face his brother.

But when he heard Guilliman's sigh, he mistakenly thought that the other party was still as conservative as he was thousands of years ago.

Clarks, who believed that he had the same radical ideas as Dukel, had to appear from the shadows to persuade his conservative brother.

After all, the empire, which had just shown signs of its rise, could no longer bear the differences between radicals and conservatives within the original body.

"No, my brother, I think it is too conservative." Guilliman shook his head seriously, "With such technology, we should use the full potential of the empire to build such a tower on every planet. The factory sends every demon into the assembly line until every warrior has such a weapon in his hands."

Clarks: "."

It turns out that conservatives think radicals are too conservative.

He smiled and said, "Brother, I never thought you would have these crazy ideas."

"Dukele is the current Imperial Warmaster." Guilliman seemed to be answering something wrong, and seemed to have answered everything.

"That's no wonder."

The Raven Lord nodded in understanding, and the two Primarchs looked at each other and smiled.