Amidst his conflict, the Everchosen found a very good excuse, thus choosing to lead his legion north, leaving the dice of fate for the Magus people to roll themselves.
Al led the Beastmen and the Expeditionary Force on a rapid march north, wiping out a few large Greenskin warbands, and finally gathering a batch of refugees before returning east to Veling.
Running away is shameful, but useful.
Grand Sister Helen, having gone through this period of bitter contemplation and mutual discussion with the Everchosen himself, also formed a rough, preliminarily refined plan for the path she wanted to take and her future.
She compiled all her past experiences, the things she saw and heard during her crusading missions; her thoughts and understanding, her deconstruction of elements like the Empire, Church tradition, sanctity, justice, and nobility, into a small booklet.
Al was her first reader. He marveled at how the Grand Sister seemed to possess a natural talent. She wasn't good at using flowery rhetoric and grammar, but instead used simple and straightforward language to vividly describe many events and the things she wanted readers to think about, letting them seep into their hearts.
Walking and looking all the way.
Then falling into deep thought.
The legion also stopped halfway.
"In Nuln, anyone who passes through here cannot help but sigh and be shocked by her magnificent prosperity. Whether it's a long-distance merchant caravan from the Heavenly Empire of Cathay or an Elven tourist from the Isle of Ulthuan, they will all bow their heads before this industrial metropolis cluster that symbolizes the largest scale in the Empire and the crystallization of human wisdom, blood, and sweat. This is the Empire's second heart, the birthplace where steel war chariots are bred, and the power source for the legions' campaigns..."
"Workers are chained to their posts like livestock. The overseers tie ropes around their ankles so they can't slip away from their stations;"
"Most of the people are farmers from the countryside, introduced by 'kind-hearted' lords to work in the factories of Nuln's factory barons, earning handsome salaries;"
"The workers work fifteen hours a day, more than twice the duration of the longest battle I have ever experienced. They eat a mushy soup boiled with various scraps of plants and animals, more disgusting than the most unpalatable roasted bat I ever ate in Mordheim. A dozen or twenty people cram into a room that can fit four people lying down at most; the wages are not given to them directly, but uniformly handed over to the supervisors sent by the lords for safekeeping..."
"The overseers manage these workers with leather whips and iron rods, and the lords' supervisors follow right beside them. Verbal abuse, beatings, and docking wages are very frequent occurrences;"
"The factories are congested and stifling. Breathing a lungful of the murky air feels like Shyish [the Wind of Death] is blowing and scraping inside your lungs. I forcibly withstood a Necromancer's soul-draining spell, but after taking a stroll through a Nuln factory, I came out feeling dizzy and faint. Not even Sigmar's blessing could protect me, and thus, in a rare occurrence, I fell ill."
"Despite the hardships of life, even the poorest citizen of Nuln, when thinking of this city's status in the Empire and even the Old World, will proudly puff out their chest..."
"I was sent to the countryside to recover, because the custom of the Nuln chapters not accepting crusading Sisters (what the wandering Sisters called themselves) has persisted for a long time... There are not many men in the villages, because most of the land belongs to the nobles and the wealthy. To meet the demand of selling more population to the factory barons, the lords force the men into the city or into their own factories, otherwise they will no longer let their families rent and farm the land."
"Women and some Beastmen are responsible for farming... The fields mostly belong to the nobles or the wealthy. For Beastmen to obtain the right to live and work, they must pledge their loyalty to a figure with property and capital. There are also quite a few refugees from Kislev and Bretonnia who are used in this way."
"Priests clearly price their medical treatments and blessings. From birth to death, a farmer might beg to see a priest about ten times in their entire life, which costs the equivalent of a quarter of their lifetime income. But no one dares to raise objections, otherwise the militant order guards and local nobles will quickly arrest the audacious person for trial and whipping, in the name of Sigmar, for actually daring to refuse to repay the God-Emperor's blessing..."
"Despite toiling every day, to the point where many women have to figure out how to do what little farm work they can manage even while heavily pregnant, making a living remains arduous. The wages sent back from the city, after going through various layers of exploitation during distribution, by overseers, supervisors, and lords, are probably barely enough to maintain a family's expenses. Once injury or illness occurs (which is basically inevitable; while I was recovering, children or adults from nearby ran over to beg to see me a dozen times, asking me to touch the tops of their heads because they believed this would allow them to borrow the God-Emperor's blessing through me to cure their pain), it easily causes an avalanche for a family."
"To fill their families' stomachs, many women choose to sell their bodies. Many women solicit customers while holding their own children. Some peasant women, because they truly cannot finish farming the land (which means the share of rented land their family gets next year will be reduced), will try everything possible to beg or seduce able-bodied labor in the same village, even Beastmen, to help them."
"The priests are furious about this, because village girls secretly receiving customers rarely pay a tithe to him."
"I saw with my own eyes a highly prestigious priest named Erebus grab a young girl, accusing her of dressing provocatively on the road outside the village with the intent of seducing passing travelers, ruining the local reputation."
"I met her. A young girl named Setin. She had two dimples and a very sweet smile, like wine from Talabecland. Many boys and girls looked up to her, and there were even three fights between boys over who was more qualified to be Setin's husband."
"Her two fathers both died in the lord's factory, and her two older brothers also went into the city. Her mother contracted a venereal disease but dared not speak of it, secretly visiting me twice, hoping to receive Sigmar's protection to purify the pain. I took her to see the priest. His Excellency Erebus's attitude was extremely cold, and the fanatical militant order guards even wanted to execute this poor woman in front of me under the pretense of her being a plague carrier."
"I could only write a letter to the Sisters in Mordheim, hoping to get their help. But while the letter was still on its way, Setin's mother, because she was secretly receiving customers (fearing she would spread the disease, she was only willing to help people do things that didn't involve intercourse), was discovered by a customer, beaten severely, and died shortly after."
"Priest Erebus claimed this was Sigmar's will, because that woman had never once paid a tithe, and she had contracted an unclean disease."
"When Setin was arrested by the priest, she begged him. She still had a half-grown child, an infant, and an old nanny to support at home. But the priest insisted on judging her crime using the sinful terms of being an underage girl who lost her chastity and a prostitute."
"I knocked down three militant order guards and demanded the priest let this poor soul go, otherwise it would cost the lives of the other innocent people in her family."
"Erebus shouted Sigmar's name, asking me to spare him, and also agreed to pardon the young girl. So I let him go and went to find the lord. I asked him to look at the statue of the God-Emperor in his magnificently decorated mansion, and tell me if that sacred and majestic face held any pity and love for the subjects of the Empire? I asked him to act in accordance with Sigmar's forgiveness and mercy, and help these poor people."
"The lord, surrounded by guards, refuted me with sacred scriptures: 'The God-Emperor watches, the God-Emperor permits, the God-Emperor arranges, all is destined'."
"His evil deeds were not yet sufficient, so I had no way to smash his head in. So I planned to act as a mercenary, asking him if there were any tasks he could assign to me. I wanted to earn some bounty money for Setin and her family. The lord heard there were traces of evil Centigors nearby and hoped I could hunt them down, and try to bring a pair back for him to keep in captivity. So I left the village."
"...."
"The priest's devotion was incredibly firm. Not long after I left, he brought people and arrested Setin again. At the time, she was lying on the grass, pinned down by a Kislevite outrider. The latter pulled up his pants, got on his horse, and left, and the priest dragged Setin back."
"The youngest infant had already died. Maybe from starvation, maybe from illness. It was probably during those few days after Setin was arrested by the priest the first time, when she dared not go out to solicit customers."
"Priest Erebus stripped Setin of all her clothes, ordered her to be paraded naked through the streets, whipped her from behind with a leather lash, loudly berating her sins, and demanding she confess and submit to Sigmar. Setin confessed and submitted to the God-Emperor; but the priest stubbornly forced her to walk around the entire village and go to the graves of her two dead fathers to confess."
"The young and old of the entire village, including those children who had always looked up to Setin, were forced by the priest to come and watch this sacred and solemn judgment. For this, unquestionably, was the will of Sigmar."
"Setin refused to confess, so Priest Erebus used a branding iron to burn a mark of shame onto her buttocks and chest. Her nanny went to plead for mercy, but was pushed down by the militant order guards. The back of her head hit the ground, and she fell to her death just like that."
"Then Setin was locked up by Priest Erebus behind the church, in a newly built room. Every day, people went to 'relieve' her at all hours."
"Her last remaining younger brother disappeared. The villagers said he went to beg to see the lord, but was stuffed into a carriage by the guards and sent to the city to work. I later went into the city to look for him, but couldn't find him. Perhaps he was already dead, because without family, he wasn't worth remembering or sending news back about."
"From then on, Setin was forced to pay a tithe to Priest Erebus, because this was the price of His Excellency the Priest forgiving and redeeming her soul. The women in the village also felt terrified by this, and began trying every possible way to pay the tithe for 'receiving Sigmar's blessing, protecting all subjects of the Empire'."
"..."
"When I broke His Excellency Priest Erebus's legs, he was pressing down on that young girl—I could barely recognize her anymore. She was so young, vibrant, and sunny; if she changed into different clothes, I would have taken her for a kind, cheerful, and charming court lady of Altdorf. But her present... Setin's present was nothing but numb, scarred flesh, a hollow shell that had clearly lost its soul."
"Perhaps only the puppets controlled by Vampires possess that kind of cold, numb aura of death. Perhaps she truly was already dead..."
"Later, the summons from Mordheim arrived. The lord was also furious that I attacked the priest. I had to leave there. I don't know if Setin is still alive. Perhaps she has answered Sigmar's call to the Kingdom of Heaven, or perhaps, like her tragic mother and brothers, she continues to wander in this mortal realm where the sun shines bright yet suffering is endless."
"I hope the priest was willing, for Sigmar's sake, he who is so devout—this bastard, this Sigmar-worshipping bastard! How could he still refuse to offer one final prayer for poor Setin!"
Writing this section cost the Grand Sister enough pen nibs to equal a scribe's wear and tear for roughly a year, frequently snapping them due to the immense force caused by uncontrollable sorrow and rage.
After reading it through once, Al returned the book to the Grand Sister, and the two looked at each other in silence.
A thousand words dissolved into a single sound.
"Sigh."
Al was a person with strong empathy.
He liked it when he was well off, and everyone else was well off too.
But his gaze was not limited to the immediate surroundings Al could directly see, the people he could see.
Because the world he came from was created precisely by the vast majority of those people whom someone at Al's social class and position couldn't see.
As Al sighed, countless souls sighed with him.
A sorrowful sob sounded in his ear.
A tear rolled from his eye socket. That sob seemed to possess infinite magic, amplifying and strengthening the emotions in Al's heart several times over.
[Every time a living being suffers, every time they die, I hear them praying to me, 'Mommy! Mother! Save me, save me'!]
She spoke sorrowfully, carrying boundless grief.
[But I can only watch as one living being after another withers and dies, as one soul after another drifts away, flowing to Chaos, flowing to the Gods, continuing the cycle of being playthings.]
The fury of the Bloodmother flickered in Al's pupils. He drew his sword, pointed it at the sky, and opened his mouth to speak.
But then he stopped, not knowing what to say.
[I haven't given you any blessings, because my power is truly weak compared to the others. I only hope that you will truly be a big brother, be a truly merciful and majestic little father.]
[They will all be your subjects, your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters.]
[I hope you can... move forward...]
The Loving Mother's voice faded, and the Merciful Earth Mother seemed to turn her attention elsewhere once again.
It was only then that Al realized what this fourth mother—who rarely showed her face and communicated with him very little—was dedicating her main energy to doing.
Curing plagues, healing wounds, saving lives...
Setin's story only moved him, but the moment he heard the Loving Mother sob, Al cried. The miracles of the Loving Mother... although she didn't see it that way, only considering it a mother's care for her children—all the living beings of the mortal realm—and feeling that this love was far from enough to help every living being in need.
Al cried profusely, held in the Grand Sister's arms as she patted his back to comfort him.
The Everchosen, who aspired to be a great filial son, bowed his head from the bottom of his heart before his most noble Mother Goddess, who was dissolving countless sufferings of the world with a heart of pure love.
From the bottom of his heart, he called out the name "Mother."
Possessing tolerance and loving-kindness that mortals could hardly imagine or reach, the Grandmother Goddess, the Merciful Earth Mother...
The Daughter Who Purifies the World, the Lord Who Protects Life.
At this moment, Al realized that perhaps the greatest fortune of this world was precisely the splitting of the Four Gods.
What they seized from the old Four Gods—everything symbolizing "positivity," all positive emotions and domains—was the very hope for the mortal realm's survival.
And among them, the most majestic and extensive emotion was undoubtedly the one held by the entity that formerly governed despair, corruption, plagues, death, stagnation, the end of all matter, the Lord of All Things...
Nurgle.
And His counterpart deity.
The Loving Mother.
Hope amidst despair, healing, prayers for health, tranquility, the continuation of all matter, the Patron Goddess of all souls and all things... The Mother of All Living Beings.