When Zhao Chen saw Saint Cana again.
He found that this fleet commander, once for all the world like the jewel in a crown, was at this hour like a pearl gone dusty; her old brilliance was hard to see.
Her eyes were somewhat dimmed, her expression somewhat helpless.
Her whole spirit was in an exceedingly poor state.
And only in the moment she saw Zhao Chen's image appear did some other cast come into those eyes of hers.
"Miss Saint Cana, and how have you been of late?" Zhao Chen inquired for all the world like an old friend.
"My lord… does that promise of yours hold good?" Saint Cana fixed her eyes upon Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen shrugged in puzzlement. "Miss Saint Cana seems to labor under some misunderstanding. I never made any promise whatever. If what you mean is that talk of ours before, that was only a suggestion I gave Miss Saint Cana — an old friend's suggestion."
"Do not go roundabout with me here. I have not much time; and the… the people here have not much time either." Saint Cana suddenly cried it out loudly, her feeling somewhat past her control.
Zhao Chen knitted his brows slightly. "By the look of it, the Holy Radiance Empire's case does not admit of optimism."
"Those claws of yours you sent into the Holy Radiance Empire — can they truly not know what has happened here?" Saint Cana said it in self-mockery.
Zhao Chen shook his head. "I did indeed send some people into the Holy Radiance Empire to pass word back to me. But of late, with my war here in the Warhammer, I have not given the Holy Radiance Empire's side much attention. So of a great many matters… I know only the skin."
"Those villains — they have actually abandoned… abandoned three star regions, and cast aside a full 100 trillion lives there! How dare they make such a decision! How dare they…" Saint Cana clenched her teeth, mastering her feeling, for all the world as though in the next moment she would break.
"And this very day they have raised some manner of… migration plan… This time they mean to abandon the thousand trillion lives and more[1] of the Holy Radiance Empire! They have betrayed the Sacred Light; they… have no Sacred Light in their hearts at all!" Saint Cana roared it out in hysteria.
"Can you… tell it slowly," Zhao Chen suggested.
He needed to set in order the intelligence he had.
Saint Cana calmed by degrees, and set out for Zhao Chen the great calamity now befalling the Holy Radiance Empire.
Just so — a great calamity.
In the space of half a month, that wormhole appearing in the Holy Radiance Empire could no longer be kept hidden from the common people.
And with the panic it produced there was born a phrase besides: the Hive-race Great Calamity.
This was the name given to the disaster.
And all of it must be told from that operation to encircle and destroy the T5 Hive Mothership.
After that operation of encirclement failed.
Two factions were very soon born within the Imperial Senate.
One was called the exile faction: to take a part of the Holy Radiance Empire's present population, and the whole of its technology, and go into interstellar exile.
They had even found a stretch of star region fit for settlement.
It lay upon the far side of the Machine Race — in a lane likewise left vacant by the Machine Race's withdrawal.
Half a year's voyage or so, and the target region could be had.
And there the exile faction could raise a new Holy Radiance Empire.
And set against the exile faction was naturally the war faction.
The war faction would fight the interstellar hive-race to the death, and hold this Empire to the last hour.
Because of the strife between the two factions, the Imperial Senate thereafter could never settle upon a new operational plan.
And the invading interstellar hive-race began an invasion upon the great scale — for all the world as though a fire had been set in a grassland.
And with no one whatever to bring it under control, that fire began to spread at its will, and the speed of its spreading grew ever greater.
It came at one point to threaten even the most densely peopled stretch of the Holy Radiance Empire: three star regions — not the Empire's most flourishing, but the most peopled, with a full 100 trillion souls!
What does 100 trillion souls signify?
The Starlight Empire, before its civil war, at the height of its flourishing, had a total population of only 300 trillion and more.
Which is to say that a third of the Starlight Empire's population were gathered in these three star regions.
And whether it was that the interstellar hive-race sensed a great store of food here there is no telling, but they suddenly opened an attack in the direction of these three star regions.
Like flame sweeping a grassland when a great wind comes on a sudden: the fire takes the wind's force, and sweeps a whole quarter away.
And in this quarter there were in fact several imperial legions garrisoned — at the least 100,000 interstellar warships, and among them several Sacred-Light Legions withdrawn from the earlier fighting to refit.
Upon this case the Imperial Senate held discussion for some dozens of hours.
And the conclusion reached at the last was to abandon these three star regions.
Every imperial legion, every Sacred-Light Legion, to withdraw entire.
At this the war faction were naturally furious past bearing; but they could not alter the fact.
Because it was within that very conference that the Disciple family proposed the withdrawal, and the abandoning of these three star regions.
Hearing so far, Zhao Chen drew a deep breath. In truth he had known of the Imperial Senate's abandoning the three star regions in the first instant.
And he had grieved as well for the 100 trillion lives abandoned.
There had even risen before his eyes the scenes upon those planets after they fell.
But at that time he stood at the close of the campaign against the Demon Race fleets, with the Owl Dragon Legion needing refit and its strategic materiel needing resupply.
Zhao Chen had no confidence even in himself that he could hold back the interstellar hive-race.
He could not, out of his own compassion, take his fleets off to die.
"And that you did not come to me then, but come to me now. Is because they have determined to abandon the Holy Radiance Empire?" Zhao Chen looked at Saint Cana.
He understood this woman's character: unless she were brought to utter despair, she would not abandon the conviction that was hers.
"Whatever else they might have done, they should never have fled alone, and abandoned the thousand trillion and more of this Empire's people! I will never permit such a thing to come to pass." Saint Cana said it through gritted teeth.
The Imperial Senate and the Disciple family had touched Saint Cana's reverse scale.
Which was the people — which was the Sacred-Spirit race.
"Then in contacting me now, what is it you wish to obtain from me?" Zhao Chen fixed his eyes upon Saint Cana, and set down his last stone.
He needed to shatter Saint Cana's defenses utterly.
To make her take that step herself, and take it wholly.
Only so could this diamond in the Holy Radiance Empire's crown be melted altogether into his own keeping.
Saint Cana clenched her fists; she fixed her eyes on Zhao Chen. "I need your strength. To change everything the Holy Radiance Empire now is, and to save those people of the Sacred-Spirit race who are to lose their homes beneath this Great Calamity. For that I am willing to pay any price whatever. Though it were to cast myself upon a devil."