146: Utopia of Los Angeles

Although the stars still shone physically in the current "Celestial Throne", the entire galaxy seemed to be immersed in a thick, viscous syrup from the perspective of psionic perception.

The power originating from the Void god "the instrument of desire" was like invisible spores, parasitizing the depths of the souls of every planet, every space station, and even every sentient being.

On the top floor of the Imperial Administration Building on Cradle Star, Archbishop Losanda... no, he should now be called the Imperial Regent and Proxy of the Supreme Cathedral, stood before that massive Star Map, his brows furrowed.

The red robes he used to wear had long been replaced by purple-gold sacred vestments embroidered with golden runes, and the top of the scepter he held was inlaid with a psionic light orb that was still pulsing.

His power was unprecedentedly strong; if he wished, his mental tentacles could extend to any corner of this planet to "soothe" those restless souls.

But he still felt uneasy.

This unease did not come from those submissive subjects, nor from the puppet emperor who only knew how to sit on the throne and giggle.

It came from the Star Navy of the Angel Empire.

That was the backbone of the Angel Empire, the sharpest sword in the hands of the emperors of successive generations.

Unlike the local sector garrisons or noble private armies, the Star Navy possessed an independent command system, the finest equipment, and a loyalty to the imperial family carved into their very marrow.

"That old stubborn fool, Akulei..." Losanda's fingers rubbed against the scepter, making a teeth-grinding sound, "And that little girl who should have died in Orion, Amira."

Intelligence showed that Amira Radiance not only survived but also brought back a broken yet murderous fleet. What made him even more wary was that there was a black giant ship in that fleet, rumored to be more powerful than the Empire's most advanced flagship.

"Is that the reason they were able to return alive? Some kind of unknown ancient weapon? Or a conspiracy of the iofer?" Losanda muttered to himself.

Although he now possessed the great power bestowed by the god, and he was confident that he could crush mortal warships with psionics alone, he was, after all, only one person, and the Star Navy possessed tens of thousands of warships (even though only remnants remained now). If a real fight broke out, even as inflated as he was, he did not think he could defeat the Star Navy by himself.

"I must dismantle their will before they arrive."

Losanda turned around and looked at the attendant priest behind him.

"Activate the maximum power psionic broadcast system to cover the entire capital star system and all shipping lanes leading here."

"I want to show the truth to all the lost lambs."

He took a scroll from his bosom; it was the "Sacred Unification Edict" personally stamped by Huiguang XII.

"This is my most powerful weapon." A smile curled the corners of Losanda's mouth, "More lethal than any light spear or missile."

...

After arranging everything, Losanda came to the open space outside the Supreme Cathedral and stood alone under that purple vortex connecting to The Void Realm.

This was the center of the storm and also the quietest place in the entire empire today.

There were no more fanatical shouts, nor the roar of energy during the ceremony's activation. At this moment, only the Void rift in the high sky, pulsing slowly like a heart, emitted a low humming sound, like an ancient and eerie lullaby, gently stroking the planet.

Losanda slowly walked to the balcony at the edge of the cathedral.

His purple-gold sacred vestments fluttered slightly in the air, and he leaned his scepter casually to one side.

This old man, who had just launched a subversive coup and forcibly kidnapped the will of the hundreds of billions of sentient beings in the entire empire, did not have the arrogant joy of a victor on his face at this moment.

On the contrary, his expression appeared exceptionally calm, carrying a trace of faint sorrow.

He overlooked the imperial capital at his feet.

Once, this city was noisy and restless. Nobles argued until they were red in the face in the council for the sake of profit; merchants screamed themselves hoarse in the exchange for a few percentage points of profit; commoners were angry or crying in the streets and alleys for their livelihood, for injustice, and for the bad news from the front line.

That was the vitality of life, and also the root of pain.

And now, the city was quiet.

Under the shroud of that pale purple psionic radiance, the entire imperial capital seemed to have sunk into a sweet dream.

Pedestrians on the streets walked with light steps, wearing tranquil smiles on their faces. The roar of machines in the factories seemed to have become much softer, and even those most troublesome politicians were now sitting quietly at home, enjoying that sudden inner peace.

"Look..."

Losanda stretched out his hands, as if he wanted to embrace this city, to embrace this land he deeply loved.

"How beautiful, how harmonious, how perfect."

His voice echoed on the empty balcony, carrying a trace of trembling self-moved emotion.

"No quarrels, no greed, no fear."

"Is this not the ultimate ideal we have pursued for tens of thousands of years? Is this not the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven as depicted in the "Scripture"?"

Losanda closed his eyes, and two lines of clear tears slid down his aged cheeks.

The royal family might think he was a madman, an ambitious person who would stop at nothing for power, a traitor who sold his soul to an evil god.

But only he knew what kind of broken and desperate heart was hidden beneath this hideous mask of an ambitious person.

His thoughts drifted back to a hundred years ago.

It was the most tragic time of the Fourth Sky-Abyss Nebula Campaign; as the bishop responsible for front-line condolences, he had witnessed hellish scenes with his own eyes.

He saw tens of thousands of Angel warships explode like fireworks under the cannon fire of the iofer; he saw countless young Angel warriors have their wings blown off, struggling desperately in space until their blood froze; he saw that on those conquered colonial planets, the once noble Angel people were driven, slaughtered, and enslaved like livestock by the iofer.

At that moment, he knelt in the ruins filled with corpses and prayed desperately to the True God.

He begged the god to bring down thunder, he begged the god to save these poor children.

However, the god did not respond.

The sky remained gray, and the butcher knives of the iofer were still waving.

At that moment, something in Losanda's heart shattered.

He realized that the "god" who was high and mighty, extremely indifferent, and existed only as an abstract concept in the scriptures, could not save the empire.

The material reforms pushed by the royal family could not save the empire either. That was an imitation that led to failure, using the enemy's rules to challenge the enemy; the Angel people could never surpass those iofer demons in the efficiency of manufacturing machines.

"If the god does not come to save us, then we will create a god ourselves; if truth cannot defeat steel, then we will distort the truth."

This was the starting point of Losanda's fall... or rather, his awakening.

He did not think he was doing evil.

In his philosophy, pain was the root of all evil, and free will was the carrier of pain.

Because there was free will, people would be greedy, jealous, fearful, would hurt each other for the sake of profit, and would feel desperate because of facing strong enemies.

"If depriving them of free will can grant them eternal happiness, is this not the greatest compassion?"

Losanda opened his eyes, and a fanatical light flickered in his gold-purple heterochromatic eyes.

He looked at his own hands, where surging Void energy flowed, and which were stained with the blood of his colleagues.

"Gregory... my old friend."

He thought of the Pope he had personally sent away, and a complex sense of sorrow welled up in his heart.

"You cursed me as a demon, you said I would send the souls of the people to an evil god."

"But look at them now! Look at these people!"

Losanda pointed to the city below, as if arguing with a ghost in the netherworld.

"They no longer feel hunger, because spiritual fulfillment has filled the emptiness of the stomach; they no longer feel fear, because the protection of divine grace has shielded the shadows of death; they no longer even feel sad about the failures on the front line, because in their new world, everything is acceptable."

"I let my hands be stained with blood just to let them live cleanly and happily!"

"Even if I have to bear all the sins, it is worth it."

A distorted sense of nobility filled his chest, making him feel a suffocating pleasure.

Regarding the Void entity "the instrument of desire", Losanda did not have the simple fear that the eldest prince Mika had.

He was a scholar; he had read all the records in the Vatican's forbidden library about the Kingdom of God, or rather, The Void Realm.

He certainly knew that it was not the True God they believed in, but this did not prevent him from believing in that Void god, because It could bring what Losanda wanted, and the True God could not do that.

"The Fourth Sky-Abyss Nebula Campaign had already broken the backbone of the Angel Empire, and this Fifth Campaign has completely pushed the empire off the cliff!"

"As long as it can prolong the life of the empire, what does it matter if it is drinking poison to quench thirst? Becoming a mindless part is ten thousand times better than becoming a specimen in the iofer's trophy room!"

"Living... living happily, that is the highest morality."

Losanda slowly turned around, his gaze cast toward the deep starry sky.

His psionic senses seemed to penetrate the barriers of space through the Void, detecting several discordant fluctuations approaching.

That was Amira, that stubborn princess who did not know the height of the sky and the depth of the earth, bringing the remnants of the old era, attempting to break this "Brave New World" he had carefully constructed.

"Amira..."

Losanda sighed, with no hatred in his tone, only a kind of helplessness and pity that an elder has when looking at a child making trouble.

"Why just don't you understand?"

"Everything you claim is worthless in the face of survival."

"You lead them to resist, only to push them back into the abyss of pain; you will make them remember fear, remember hunger, remember that nightmare known as the iofer."

"You think you are saving the people of the empire? No, you are harming them."

"Only I, only this purple radiance is the only salvation."

Losanda gripped the scepter tightly, and the psionic light orb at the top of the scepter pulsed more violently.

Amira and those Starrealm Army seemed unaffected by the god's power, but he did not intend to kill Amira.

He wanted to "convert" her.

He wanted to make this imperial princess kneel under the glory of the Void, and let her heart, full of sharp edges, be filled with "Sacred Fulfillment".

Imagine it, when that arrogant Valkyrie folds her wings, singing carefree in the palace garden with a tranquil and vacant smile on her face...

What a perfect work of art that would be.

"Come, child."

"No matter what you have brought, no matter what stands behind you."

"Here, under the gaze of the god, all resistance will turn into praise, and all anger will turn into submission."

Losanda slowly closed his eyes, his consciousness rising along the beam of light, seemingly resonating deeply with that indescribable great existence.

He felt his self dissolving bit by bit, merging into one with the collective subconscious of the entire Cradle Star.

The laughter of countless people, the fulfillment of countless people, and the prayers of countless people converged into a sea, washing over his soul.

In this ultimate grand narrative, Losanda felt an unprecedented sublimation.

He was no longer a person.

He was the empire.

He was a god.

He was the source of all this happiness.

"Is this the feeling of being a god?"

A tear slid from the corner of his eye, turning into a purple crystal in the air, shattering on the ground.

"Even if it is hell, as long as I do not feel it is hell, then it is heaven."

"As long as I am still smiling, there is no sadness in this world."

Archbishop Losanda, this usurper of the empire, this mad idealist, had completely completed his self-logical closed loop at this moment.

He would welcome the upcoming "rebels" with the most perfect posture.

Not for power, but to protect that twisted and sacred... in his heart.

Utopia.