I, Superman, the Supreme Commander

Chapter 308: Walking into the Palace to See the Emperor

Terra, the mother planet of mankind, is the eternal white moonlight in the hearts of mankind.

Terra has sacred significance for humans and human civilization.

This is not only the origin of mankind, but also the most glorious center of human civilization. In the hearts of believers who believe in the Emperor, it is the real [Kingdom of God], the residence of the great and noble Emperor.

But what if you remove this filter and come to this planet for the first time as a tourist?

I'm afraid you will be greatly disappointed.

I thought: This is it? The most sacred and glorious planet in the empire?

It is clearly a giant hive world with turbid air, dirt and crowds!

There is no longer any green on the surface of the planet, the oceans have dried up, and there is almost no blue.

Countless huge structures cover the entire planet. Except for some remaining mountains, the surface of the planet is almost entirely occupied by giant buildings connected together.

These giant buildings, which are more complex and intricate than the hive cities, even replace the earth's crust, penetrate more than ten kilometers underground, and hollow out the entire planet to accommodate the huge population of trillions.

Terra may be one of the most densely populated planets in the Milky Way, with more than ten trillion people gathered on this small planet.

Therefore, there is no other way to accommodate such a large population except to adopt a hive-like structure and transform the entire planet into a huge "beehive".

If you cut the planet open, you will find that the crust has turned into a honeycomb-like sponge structure, with countless densely packed basements connected together to replace the surface and the upper crust.

Humans even extract minerals directly from the mantle to meet production and living needs.

The transformation that lasted forty thousand years has caused this not-so-big planet to bear a pressure that it could hardly bear.

If it weren't for the continuous influx of large amounts of supplies from the entire solar system and surrounding galaxies, the social system on Terra would collapse in a minute.

The earth with insufficient water and food cannot support so many people.

However, even so, the poor people living at the bottom of Terra who were unable to get enough food and clothing never thought of moving.

The Terrans are proud of their identity.

I would rather be a beggar on Terra than a rich man on some other planet.

Every inch of land in Terra is more valuable than gold. Many nobles from other places are willing to spend a lot of money to buy a narrow house in the dark underground city here.

It’s not that outsiders don’t want to buy the rooms on the ground floor, but that they can’t buy them no matter how much money they have.

The residents on the land are either rich or noble, with either three generations of ancestors being military families or officials who eat government pay.

Anyone you pick up on the street could be a high-ranking official in charge of a certain star region.

As the power center of millions of human worlds in the entire Milky Way, Terra has too much power. Tens of billions of civil servants serve this empire, and thousands of huge and bloated departments form the skeleton of the empire.

The administrative buildings surrounding the Terra Palace were brightly lit at all times, and the staff on duty worked in three shifts without any rest.

Because the time difference in the entire universe is not consistent, the empire has a large amount of government affairs to deal with every minute and every second, and each decree may affect hundreds of millions of people and even determine the life and death of an entire world.

In an underground street near the Terra Palace, a man wearing a blue-black tights and a red cape hanging on his back was walking on the street.

His attire seemed out of place among the surrounding residents, but no one noticed him, as if they could not see him.

"Please, sir..."

"Go, go, go. Get out of the way!"

A few little beggars were begging on the roadside, and passers-by shouted at them impatiently and tried to get rid of them.

After begging for several times, these little beggars got nothing.

My stomach is growling with hunger.

At this time, one of the little beggars' eyes lit up and she saw a strange face.

He hurried forward and showed his most pitiful appearance.

With his eyes wide open, he said, "Please be kind, sir. Give me something to eat."

The man stopped and looked at the little beggar in surprise.

Surprised, "Can you see me?"

The little beggar was confused for a moment: What?

Before she could beg again, the man reached behind him and pulled out a large bag of food like a magic trick.

Put it into the little beggar's arms.

"Here's some food for you, take it."

The heavy cloth bag almost made the little beggar lose his balance and fall down.

When she struggled to regain her balance and stood up again, she looked and found that the handsome uncle was gone.

"Alice, what is this?"

Seeing the little beggar coming back with a big bag of things, several friends asked curiously.

"I don't know. There was a very handsome uncle just now... Hey, didn't you see it?"

The friends shook their heads and said they didn't see such a person.

The little beggar was stunned, his face full of confusion.

Could it be that she just encountered a ghost?

Then where did this bag in my arms come from?

"It smells so good, like the smell of food."

"Alice, open it and take a look!"

A few little beggars smelled the fragrance coming out of the bag, hid in the alley and opened the package impatiently, and then they were all stunned on the spot.

Bread, milk, sausages, apples, cheese... In fact, the little beggars had never seen these things. They had always been eating corpse starch and only occasionally some brown bread.

Therefore, they hardly recognized the food in the bag.

However, the tempting aroma of these exquisitely packaged foods made them salivate wildly, and their bodies instinctively told them that they were delicious.

“Um…should I eat it?”

"Alice, can I have a taste?"

"Yeah. Let's share this bread first. The other food looks valuable. We can exchange it with Grandpa Bill for some money."

"Aww!"

"Wow, wow, it's so delicious!"

"Wow! There are actually such delicious things in the world!"

Listening to the excited cries of the little beggars in the alley, Zhang Hong smiled slightly and left with peace of mind.

Turned and walked towards the palace.

After a long journey, stopping and starting many times, Zhang Hong finally arrived at Terra.

He did not rush to meet the Emperor, but instead took a walk around Terra first.

Zhang Hong couldn't help but sigh when he saw that the planet was barren, ugly and dilapidated, and no longer as beautiful as the space sapphire it once was.

Tens of thousands of years of war have caused too much damage to this planet.

The suffering endured by Earth (Terra) is a microcosm of the suffering endured by humans in the Warhammer world.

I hope that after today’s meeting, this suffering will come to an end.

With such complicated feelings and thoughts, Zhang Hong walked towards the palace step by step.

It's like taking a tour, while walking you can admire the majestic walls of the imperial palace and the buildings that are full of the vicissitudes of thousands of years.

Traces of artillery fire and war still remain on the mottled walls, and even the immortal golden door has shown signs of rust.

Along the way, the patrolling security forces and the guards on duty ignored Zhang Hong.

It was as if he could not be seen.

Zhang Hong passed through the Executive Yuan, the Terra Supreme Council Building, and numerous checkpoints and access control points, all the way to the deepest part of the palace.

Guarded by tall Custodians holding power halberds and wearing golden power armor, no one can enter the Emperor's chamber except those summoned by the Emperor himself and the Imperial Regent Guilliman himself.

Zhang Hong calmly walked through the palace gate, between the six imperial guards.

Like a phantom penetrating the tightly closed golden gate of the palace.

When Zhang Hong entered the door, the captain of the guards guarding the gate turned around and looked at the closed door.

He frowned and said to his companion in confusion.

"Did something just go through this door?"

Several guardsmen shook their heads, indicating that they did not notice anything unusual.

Through the intercom, he asked the brothers of the imperial guards on duty in other places in the palace and confirmed that there were no abnormal situations.

The team leader felt relieved and continued to concentrate on his duty.

Behind the gate is the corridor of a Romanesque palace.

There are huge Roman columns on both sides, and the walls and ceilings are covered with reliefs and murals, depicting the great achievements of the Emperor and the Primarch, as well as some famous scenes in human history.

For example, the Emperor unified Terra, the Emperor created the Primarch, the Great Crusade, the Horus Heresy, the Primarchs fought against the aliens in the stars...

Every sculpture and every mural was created by the emperor's most skilled craftsmen with the most pious attitude, infused with the craftsmen's greatest passion and admiration.

In Zhang Hong's view, everything in the palace is a top-notch work of art.

It can be compared with Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Michelangelo's David, and even surpasses it in artistic attainments.

After all, the Warhammer world has accumulated 40,000 years of history. Even if art is not the main theme of human civilization, the artistic level here is far beyond the earth where Zhang Hong lives.

At least in the field of religious art, it can be said to have reached the pinnacle.

[You are finally here...child...]

A majestic yet kind voice sounded in Zhang Hong's mind.

With relief, joy, and infinite emotion and sigh.

Zhang Hong could feel that the emperor was eagerly looking forward to his coming.