The boy slowly opened his eyes. He looked around in confusion, finding himself lying on a bed made of wooden planks.
Around him lay other children of similar age, all covered with thick quilts.
He then remembered that he had failed the Order's trial.
"You're awake."
A childish voice came from beside the bed. He looked down and saw a little girl with pigtails, standing on tiptoe, her hands resting on the edge of the bed. Her round, curious eyes looked at him. She called out joyfully towards the door, "Sister Nina! Someone's awake!"
The boy asked weakly, "Where am I?"
"This is the Caliban High Development Academy."
A clear voice reached his ears. A young girl bent down and handed him a steaming bowl of ginger tea, her voice gentle and pleasant. "Drink this ginger tea first to warm yourself up."
"Thank you."
The boy took a sip. The taste was strange, neither bitter nor sweet, with only a hint of spice.
"Why am I here?"
"Do you remember what happened before?"
The boy lowered his head bitterly. "I remember I failed the trial."
"You passed out. The guards brought you here."
The boy asked urgently, "How long was it until sunrise when I was brought in?"
"About... half an hour."
The boy's face fell. Half an hour! Just half an hour more!
If he could have held on just a little longer, he could have joined the Order!
"I'm Nina. What's your name?"
"Baldr. How many passed?"
"Fifteen."
"Fifteen."
Baldr murmured. If he had held on for half an hour more, it would have been sixteen.
He remembered nearly two hundred had come for the trial before sunset. The pass rate was only seven percent.
Failure wasn't shameful. Many had fallen in the cold night.
But none felt the sting as acutely as he did. He had come so close.
Just one more step!
Baldr asked with difficulty, "So, we are all failures?"
"Yes."
Baldr looked around. There were only about thirty beds, some empty, meaning at most twenty-odd people.
This puzzled Baldr.
Nina, seeing his confusion, handed him a warm towel. "Only those who fell in the snow in the latter half of the night are brought here."
The Order's trial was a merciless sieve, harshly separating the two hundred candidates.
A third of the candidates gave up before sunset.
Some were broken by the biting cold; others fell to the guards' harsh taunts and sweet temptations; and some simply fled from the unknown of the night.
As night fell, more and more gave up.
How many truly persevered?
The guards returned their coats and boots, even allowing them into the fortress for shelter.
They survived, but they had lost their only chance to change their fate.
The candidates who endured till dawn were the ultimate victors. But those who collapsed in the snow were only slightly inferior.
Their will was equally tenacious, but their physical constitutions were too weak.
The Order's trial gave every child an equal chance, regardless of origin or background.
But their starting points were never equal from birth.
The children of knights and nobles had privileged conditions, undergoing rigorous physical training from a young age. Their tables were always laden with nutritious delicacies.
But the children of commoners struggled to survive in hunger and cold. And the children of slaves couldn't even guarantee basic sustenance.
The rules of the trial were indeed equal. But their starting lines were not.
Even if they all stood under the same sun, it was inherently unfair for a malnourished seedling to compete for nutrients with a towering tree.
The Order had broken the hereditary monopoly of nobles, but it couldn't erase the innate gaps.
Children of commoners would have to expend tenfold, a hundredfold the effort and sweat just to barely reach a starting line others were born with.
This wasn't the Order's fault. They were merely powerless.
The Order gave the chance. They couldn't seize it.
But that was alright. Caelan would give them one too.
The world was broken and needed mending.
Caelan pushed the door open. "Nina, how many are awake?"
"Just him for now." Nina replied softly and quietly moved behind Caelan.
The boy looked up at the man before him, his voice trembling with excitement. "I remember you, Sir."
Caelan askedm "You're from Ulch village?"
The boy nodded vigorously. "Three years ago, you and Sir Lion saved Ulch! From that day on, I vowed to become a knight!"
"I don't have any feelings for you, so don't try to play on my sympathy."
Baldr flushed red. He hadn't meant to play on sympathy.
"You have two choices. You can stay. You can't join the Order, but I will personally teach you."
"You might become a capable administrator, or a knight's squire."
"Or you can wait until tomorrow morning. There'll be a cart to take you home."
"I'll stay!" Baldr's voice was firm.
There was no need to weigh the options. Anyone with sense would choose the first.
Though he couldn't join the Order, Caelan was still a knight.
Even just serving as Caelan's servant would change their lives, let alone being personally taught by him!
A knight's tutelage, even if not as good as the Order's training, wouldn't be far off.
Caelan said, "Then get up and help Nina take care of the others. When they wake up, tell them my offer."
Baldr excitedly scrambled off the bed, his face red, giving Caelan a not-quite-standard knightly salute. "Yes, Sir!"
Caelan had only taken a few steps past the threshold when a cold, questioning voice came from behind.
"Why are you taking in these failures?"
Caelan turned. Lion was leaning against the wall by the door, arms crossed, a hint of displeasure in his eyes.
"In the near future, your Legion will need a large influx of fresh blood from Caliban. They will become your most loyal followers."
"In your eyes, is my Legion only worthy of these cast-offs?"
Caelan said, "If you keep up this sarcastic tone, Dad won't pay attention to you."
Lion's expression stiffened. After a brief silence, he turned his head and let out a snort. "Childish!"
"You shouldn't judge them like that. They are failures, but not cast-offs."
"They have an innate gap compared to those who passed, but gene-surgery will reshape their bodies. There may be warriors among them who will surprise you."
"Even if they don't meet your current standards, you could at least consider them for logistics and administration."
"All Legions need reliable logistical support, and that's precisely what you lack."
"Except for Roboute, you're almost all logistical idiots."
Lion's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, but he managed to hold back the retort already on his lips.
'Roboute, again Roboute. Why do you always talk about Roboute?'
'Roboute Guilliman is even more detestable than Konrad Kurze!
'Yes, he's a logistical genius. Yes, he has five hundred worlds.'
'But I can learn too. I can have five hundred worlds too!'
Caelan wasn't provoking Lion without reason. Though among the Primarchs of the Great Tang, apart from Guilliman, there were other logistical talents.
The stoic Dorn, the filial Perturabo, and the priest Lorgar.
Dorn had the natural tendencies of a builder, plus the foundation of the Invictus Imperium.
Perturabo only fought the toughest battles, relying on strong logistics to stretch the casualty ratios of other Legions.
At the height of the Seventeenth Legion, it numbered two hundred thousand, second only to the Thirteenth Legion.
But their logistics had their flaws. In terms of nation-building, no one could compare to Roboute.
Perturabo actually controlled more worlds than five hundred, but they were scattered, making timely supply difficult.
And his control was simply brutal, lacking the warm moments of camaraderie, only harsh suppression.
Lorgar's nation-building skills could actually rival Guilliman's, but he had his worlds devoutly worshipping Neoth.
Though he rebelled, those worlds might not follow him.
And Lorgar had the same flaw as Perturabo: his worlds were too dispersed, lacking effective integration.
When these worlds and Legions operated within the Imperium's framework, uniformity wasn't difficult.
But once the Imperium fractured, resources and strategic coordination between worlds became difficult, making unified action impossible.
The five hundred worlds were also a special concession from Neoth. These worlds felt a greater sense of belonging to Ultramar than to the Imperium.
Perhaps this was Neoth's preparation for the prophecy, one of his many contingency plans.
He only gave five hundred worlds, not fifty thousand, perhaps fearing a Guilliman-led rebellion.
If Guilliman were truly given fifty thousand worlds, no one in the galaxy could stop him.
But that was in the Great Tang.
This was Caelan's version of Warhammer. He trusted his children unconditionally!
"I believe in you, Lion."
"What are you suddenly talking about?" Lion turned his head away, feeling awkward. In ancient Terra, they called this mushy.
Caelan smiled. "I believe that even if you rebel, you would only be rebelling against the Emperor and feudalism, never turning to Chaos."
Lion said, "Whether Chaos is involved or not, war is equally cruel."
Caelan said, "But no matter how cruel a civil war is, it's still a family matter behind closed doors."
"Even if you rebel, if it's a purely human civil war, the Emperor would be relieved."
War is brutal. Many will die.
But the dead don't matter. The Emperor doesn't care how many die.
Even Vulkan, the most humane of the Primarchs, would shield a little girl with his body in a hail of gunfire.
But when faced with necessary sacrifices and difficult choices, he would also sacrifice mortals.
That's why the Emperor entrusted him with the Seven Hammers of Vulkan.
If the Emperor lost his duel with Horus, Vulkan would surely make Terra a funeral pyre.
Even if it meant sacrificing the trillions of people on Terra, if they had already lost, he wouldn't allow them to survive under Chaos's corruption.
Though they couldn't take Chaos down with them, they could bleed them dry with sacrifice.
Given the Imperium's situation at the time, Vulkan wouldn't raise unrealistic demands like evacuating civilians.
Because Vulkan had a brain.
Humans are a renewable resource.
As long as humanity isn't extinct, any number can be replenished.
If a hundred years isn't enough, a thousand, ten thousand – enough to rebuild.
What is the life of an individual compared to the survival of the species?
Turning to Chaos is completely different. Chaos truly wants humanity to go extinct, to give birth to the Dark King.
It's like the difference between conventional war and nuclear war.
No matter how fierce conventional war, with tens of millions dead, billions displaced, the world devastated, the foundations remain.
Decades later, the world can prosper again, technology advances, and the population multiplies.
Nuclear war is different. The blast damage is terrible, but the most terrifying thing is nuclear fallout.
Fallout destroys the world humanity depends on, ultimately leading to extinction.
Humanity loses not only the present, but also the future.
Chaos is a cosmic-scale nuclear bomb.
Once tainted by Chaos, even if the Imperium can survive for centuries, millennia, ten millennia...
It will eventually crumble.
That bright path no longer exists.
Wherever humanity looks, only darkness remains.
No matter how the Primarchs strive, they can only delay the inevitable.
Mortals might not care.
Their lives are but a hundred years, a fleeting moment in the Imperium's long history. They fear death more than extinction.
But for an eternal being like the Emperor, bearing the fate of humanity, the deepest despair is enduring for so long without ever seeing hope.
If he didn't care about humanity's survival, he could live very easily.
Like Erda, he could just find a place to hide.
He could go to Commorragh and live it up, even take trillions of humans there to continue the species.
Then even if humanity in the galaxy perished, the humans in Commorragh could still survive.
Even if Commorragh eventually fell, it would last longer than the Imperium.
But he didn't.
Even when abandoned by all, he chose to bear the burden alone.
His sense of responsibility gave humanity hope.
But it was also his responsibility that doomed him.
Malcador was the only one who never left, but he had only followed him for a thousand years.
The other Perpetuals chose to go their own way.
They lacked the Emperor's grand ambition, and the resolve to forge a path for humanity even into the abyss.
Only the Emperor could bear that burden. Only he was worthy.
"Lion, I'm going to tell you a story."
"About how King Arthur nurtured his enemies to retain power."
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu