69novels Page 118
Page 118
"Come out. If you think about it carefully, you probably haven't left. After all, your purpose in coming here shouldn't be just to perform that so-called zeroth operation on Caesar."
There was no response. Lin Qi shook his head, extended two fingers of his right hand, and quickly pointed to a spot behind him.
boom.
As his fingers made contact with the hard object, a frustrated voice rang out. Lynch straightened up, looked at the giant, or rather, the Astartes, who was slightly shorter than him, and a smile appeared on his face.
"The feel is indeed excellent, Julius Caesar. It seems my judgment was correct; you will indeed become a formidable warrior in the future."
“Oh dear… Lord Lynch, it has been hundreds of years since anyone has done this to me.”
The giant's previously calm expression vanished, and he couldn't help but complain.
"Centuries...am I dead?" Lynch asked slowly. "Probably not, but has our mission succeeded?"
“I can’t say.” The giant’s voice hardened. “I really can’t say—to be honest, I never thought you’d find out today.”
"Then what are you doing here?" Lynch laughed. "Recruit Caesar, don't tell me you just came here to see your childhood self, or to see me."
"Perhaps it is? What surprised me most after you found out was that you recognized me right away."
"Have you forgotten what I just said? I will not forget anyone, not even someone as special as you."
"......"
The giant remained silent in response to these words, a trace of sadness appearing on his face, his lips moving as if he wanted to say something.
Lin Qi shook his head slightly, stopping him.
“You have arrived at a very good future,” Lynch said. “The Emperor should also have fulfilled the promise he made to me, which is good. Don’t ruin it.”
Julius Caesar was not the child from before, but a giant wearing an unknown model of pearl-white power armor, whose height was only one head shorter than Lynch.
But this does not mean that this Caesar was an imposter or that the previous Caesar was an imposter. On the contrary, they were both genuine, just from different times.
This is a prime example of subspace disorder.
Caesar took a deep breath, looked at Lynch, and nodded bitterly.
"grown ups........."
"Don't talk."
Lynch's voice was calm, but the seriousness it contained successfully silenced Caesar.
“I’ll explain next. You don’t need to answer, just listen.” Lin Qi once again reached out and placed his hand on the stone chair in front of him. “I’ve been thinking about what exactly the so-called zeroth operation is. After all, you gave me very little information in the past, only saying that it was a ball of light.”
"But before I left, I realized something," Lin Qi said calmly. "What kind of place is it that can stop the will of the Wolf Shepherd God?"
At this point, Lin Qi paused, and then stated his conjecture, or rather, a fact.
“A divine kingdom,” he said. “A divine kingdom belonging to a certain god. Only in such a place can the transmission of the will of a lesser god be blocked.”
Caesar's expression remained calm, without the slightest ripple.
"I hadn't thought about who this divine kingdom belonged to until now, but after meeting you, I finally have the answer. And from that moment on, I also understood what the so-called Zeroth Surgery really is."
Lynch looked at Caesar and showed the same calm expression as the latter.
He sensed the surging spiritual energy emanating from the other person, and from that spiritual energy, he felt a strong sense of familiarity. This aura did not belong to anyone else; it belonged to himself.
At this moment, Lin Qi finally understood some things, things that had troubled him for a long time after he transmigrated.
"This place... is my divine kingdom, and the Zeroth Surgery is, in fact, a vow made to me, or rather, to my authority, isn't it?"
Caesar remained calm, offering no answer or response, but deep within his eyes swelled an immeasurable sorrow.
Lin Qi stroked the stone chair, and finally spoke softly.
"It's alright, Caesar."
He seemed to be speaking to Caesar, yet also to himself.
"At least for now, I am still human."
Take a day off
I feel dizzy and nauseous. I'll write more tomorrow. Sorry.
Chapter 145 Time Flies
The meditation room of Star Claw.
“Every new recruit will go through this; it takes the form of a dream. There, they will enter a church, and once they enter, it is equivalent to completing the zeroth operation.”
"What about the veterans?"
“You have already experienced it, on the night Huron died, when I saved you.”
“I see... I understand now, Lord Lynch.”
Bell let out a long sigh. He had finally understood what the so-called "Operation Zero" was all about, and he also realized that his master was probably far from what he had initially thought, merely a chosen special psychic.
But this does not affect his loyalty. After all, for the Chief Think Tank, regardless of Lynch's true identity, he saved the Star Claws, saved him and every warrior within them, and even saved their Gene Father. That is the most important thing.
"Oh, right." Remembering something else, Lynch suddenly spoke up on the way out of the meditation room, asking Bell, "Have you checked the psionic talents of this year's recruits? Your think tank also needs to be expanded, right? Although Star Claw is still a single entity, whatever the reason, in the future, I will reorganize it and divide it into several brand-new chapters."
"Divide?" Bell stopped in his tracks, his eyes widening. "Sir, aren't you leading the chapter to split?"
“It’s not a split.” Lynch turned to look at Bell, his brows slowly furrowing. “Bell, I’m asking you, didn’t you miss the previous few chapter high-level meetings? The ones I wasn’t there.”
An embarrassed expression slowly crept onto Bell's face. He hadn't actually gone, and as for the reason...
After attending once, he found that the meeting content had little to do with the think tank, so he was reluctant to delay his work and went instead, and simply had Eric go in his place.
Eric was extremely diligent, always encrypting the meeting minutes before bringing them to Bell. Unfortunately, the chief think tank member was somewhat lazy about even reviewing them, often piling them up two or three times before finally checking them…
Lynch roughly understood what was going on, and looked at Bell with a helpless expression.
As the chief think tank, how can you slack off every day when I'm not around?
No, it doesn't seem like I was slacking off; rather, I used the meeting time to do more of my regular work...
Having thought of this, Lynch no longer felt like blaming Bell. He spoke up, replacing the pile of meeting reports, and told Bell what had been discussed in the previous meeting.
"Our battle group will exceed five thousand people after this recruitment."
"Five thousand men, sir, you mean..."
“Yes, five thousand.” Lynch nodded to Bell, indicating that his idea was correct. “The number is too many. Whether it’s the chapter’s management system or the political influence, this number of well-equipped and well-trained Astartes will cause many problems for our management.”
Lin Qi said that the decision to reorganize the current Star Claws and dismantle other warbands was the result of careful consideration from various parties.
According to the Codex Astartes, a standard Codex Order must maintain a strength of no more than one thousand members. This is not only to limit the power of Astartes, but also because, under the Codex system, if a Chapter's strength exceeds one thousand members, various management problems will arise.
Star Claw is currently facing this problem – each company is severely overstaffed. While equipment is plentiful and there are no awkward situations like people waiting for equipment, cumbersome command structures are unavoidable. Given this situation, if the warband wants to develop more efficiently, it must make a choice.
There are two options, which represent two different directions of development.
The first direction of development is to abolish the chapter system under the Holy Scriptures and, under Horus's arrangement, reorganize the entire chapter into the "Legion" of the Great Crusade era.
Five thousand men was not a small number during the Great Expedition. According to Horus, under the legion system, sometimes "small legions" would split off to carry out expeditions in multiple directions, and those "small legions" were about five thousand men in number.
This is indeed a good idea. After being reorganized into a legion, the Star Claws' combat power will definitely be greatly improved.
However, it also has its own problems, namely logistical pressure. During the Great Crusade, the legions had an entire empire supporting them, but what about the Star Claws, which were reorganized into smaller legions?
The resources of the Badab system are sufficient to sustain operations near the vortex, and even further afield, they can be maintained by leveraging friendly relations and alliances with other systems.
But what about further? The Alliance's influence isn't that great yet. The expedition is a long journey, and without the support of several star systems, the logistics alone could cripple Lynch.
Not to mention that doing so would cause many other problems, and it would be a serious violation of the canon—although many warbands treat the canon like toilet paper and are flexible on the bottom line, there are also many warbands that strictly adhere to the canon.
If this matter causes animosity towards those people, it would be somewhat counterproductive.
So, there is a second way.
Adhering to the sacred texts and utilizing the advantages granted by Terra, several sub-clubs were reorganized from Star Claw. With a population of over five thousand, and slightly exceeding the authorized size, three to four sub-clubs could be reorganized, making a total of five cliques including the parent clique, Star Claw.
However, with too few members in a battle group, it's easy to become stretched thin in large-scale battles...
But hard work pays off, or rather, thanks to Rogdorn.
The Black Sanctuary's expeditionary fleet system showed Lynch a third path besides the two existing ones.
As offspring of Rogdorath, the Black Templar are, in some ways, more orthodox than the Imperial Fist.
Unlike other Astartes Chapters, the Black Templars only verbally adhere to the Astartes Codex established by Robert Guilliman. In addition to their headquarters' thousand-strong battalion, the Black Templars also maintain numerous expeditionary fleets ranging from dozens to hundreds of men throughout the Imperium of Man's sphere of influence.
These expeditionary fleets were scattered in all directions, and due to the Empire's poor communication and transportation, their numbers could not be accurately counted. Apart from the chapter commanders of the Black Templar, or rather, the Grand Marshals, no one knew exactly how many people they had. It could only be estimated that the total number of people in the entire chapter should fluctuate between five and six thousand.
Lynch saw a possibility in this system—to reorganize the entire Star Claw into several warbands, each of which would essentially be an "expeditionary fleet." Besides having a complete internal structure that ensured self-sufficiency, each warband would also have its own tactical focus, allowing them to unite and coordinate effectively.
Apart from the last remaining chapters stationed in Badab, the remaining chapters were combined into a joint fleet to embark on an expedition.
“A massive legion violates the holy code, but the combined fleet does not.”
Lynch looked at Bell.
"We need a 'name' so that we can reduce the resistance we encounter on the expeditions to come."
Bell understood Lynch's meaning, but the chief think tank member frowned and, after a long while, asked a question.
"But sir, although our battle group is currently well-staffed, there are still many gaps in various positions. Company commanders and officers of all ranks are easy to fill, but the training of think tank personnel, pharmacists, and technical sergeants will take several years or even more than a decade."
"So hurry up!"
Lynch and Bell stepped out of the meditation room and into the outside world.
Asford had been waiting there for a long time, and beside him stood a much shorter figure who looked somewhat reserved.
"Your think tank also needs to find people with psionic talents among the new recruits for training. The training and selection of technical sergeants and pharmacists started the year I left. The technical sergeants will probably finish their training and come back next year, and the pharmacists have already completed one phase of training, and the new recruits have been assigned to various companies."
Upon learning that only the think tanks remained inactive, Bell's expression grew increasingly awkward. He nodded, indicating that he would work with the other think tanks to strengthen the training of newcomers.
“However, don’t push yourself.” Although he was eager to quickly train new combatants, Lynch still spoke up to remind Bell. “I’m urging you for the sake of the chapter’s development. Similarly, the security of the think tank must also be taken seriously. You and I can rest assured, but we still need to be careful not to rush things. We all know that if psionic energy gets out of control, the resulting disaster could even destroy the entire chapter.”
Bell nodded solemnly and bowed to Lynch.
Lynch watched Bell leave, and at that moment, Caesar, who was standing next to Asford, swallowed hard, stepped forward, and cautiously spoke.
"Lord Lynch....."
"He's been here for a while now."