The captain of the Flying Tallan was waiting on the tarmac to greet Archbishop Giovanni Battista Pamphili who was boarding the ship.
The journey from the waters of Valedo was difficult, and it was storm season in the northern hemisphere of this religious world.
Valedor is located in the Storm Star Territory and is a religious world with fourth-level special tax exemption rights.
What is the religious world?
To put it simply, the religious world is the private territory of the state religion. All taxation, personnel appointments, resource allocation, including self-defense on the planet are responsible for the state religion. The state religion’s priests can do whatever they like in this world.
Generally speaking, the religious world is a huge temple. Tall churches rise from the ground into the sky. Statues of emperors and other saints stand majestically in the streets and alleys, watching the prosperous empire. Devout believers prostrate themselves in the sacred temples. In the glory, I forget to leave, praising the emperor
In accordance with the emperor's majesty and mercy, sometimes sacred relics and dangerous and corrupt heretical instruments will be transported to the religious world and kept strictly in different ways.
In a sense, the religious world is the product of a long-term game between the State Church and the Council of Terra. A large number of pilgrims can bring huge income and influence to the State Church, but at the same time, the State Church must also be managed by private armed forces and local churches. Compromise on authority.
On the other hand, most battle nuns are stationed in the religious world. After all, protecting holy places and saints is actually the job of these emperors' daughters.
Pamphili is the archbishop of Valedo, and in a sense the governor of this world, and he is only sixty years old this year. He has undergone life-extending surgery, and he still has a lot of good prospects in the future, and even enters the core of the cardinals of Terra. It's not impossible.
Now the archbishop is admiring the storm.
From an agricultural point of view, abundant rain keeps the land fertile, so that Valedo's food does not need to be imported at all. Farmers hand over about 80% of their income to the international community every year to offset the value of the land they use, leaving 2 About a third of adults will become him
Their offerings to the God-Emperor were "voluntarily" handed over to the local church.
After all, the more pious you are, the more qualified you are to be closer to the Golden Throne after death.
In the eyes of the Archbishop, however, such storms were of greater spiritual value - even the most unimaginative members of the faithful saw them as symbols of the Emperor's wrath, especially when the sermons of the clergy included their When thoughts are directed in that direction.
Storms are beautiful, necessary, and sacred.
But now the storm has bitten the spacecraft hard, causing it to jolt violently.
But Pamphilly was not panicked, because his ending should be to sacrifice his life for the will of the great emperor, rather than panicking during a flight.
In the end, the spacecraft passed through the storm without any danger. When Pangphili walked down the stairs from the passenger cabin, his ecclesiastical robes didn't look wrinkled at all.
"Your Majesty Bishop."
The captain stooped to his knees.
"Your presence is the best blessing to this ship."
"Please stand up, Captain."
The archbishop held out his hand and the captain kissed his ring before standing up.
The captain was tall and looked like a man - although not as tall as Pamphili.
In the world of Valedo, the archbishop knew that no one was as tall as him, and this man named Bilak was almost at the same level as his chin, which was very rare.
The captain is an experienced trader? Despite undergoing life-extending surgery, decades of ups and downs have not affected his appearance.
He has silver-grey hair that is braided and spread out under his hat.
There was a firm piety in his demeanor, which pleased the bishop, whose first impression of the captain was in keeping with the ship's reputation.
He felt that he would meet his requirements.
Then Captain Billak led him out of the loading area.
The corridor beyond is wide, and the high vaults are hung with gorgeous tapestries, depicting the spread of the Emperor's glory across the galaxy, as aliens and heretics flee under the onslaught of Imperial truth.
Faith, in the form of fire, incinerates the unclean things in the furnace, and the pagans raise their hands to pray for forgiveness, their faces elongated with howls of despair? Because they know that they have no salvation.
The Emperor's armies march in the light of truth.
The Ecclesiarchy, the Astra Militarum, the Space Marines, even the humblest slaves - they form the unstoppable pace of the Imperium of Man.
The captain followed the bishop slowly, perhaps at a slower pace so that the bishop could examine the tapestries.
"Are they all spectacular? And well preserved? Are these replicas?"
"some are."
The captain replied humbly:
"But it's completely indistinguishable to ordinary people? Can you tell the difference?"
"I can not."
Pangphili frankly admitted that after years of ups and downs, he was not as intolerant of failure as those low-level priests.
"How did you get those authentic ones?"
"I inherited them and these tapestries have been sleeping in my house for centuries."
"You also inherited this deal?"
"Yes, and this ship too."
Pangfili became more and more satisfied with this.
He looked at the tapestry carefully, pausing to look at the wear marks on the fabric. This picture depicts the living saint Saint Celestine leading people to fight against an uncertain darkness.
The tapestry was faded at the edges and gave off a musty, old smell.
"This isn't a replica, is it?"
"It's a copy, but this one is very old. It was one of the first works to be copied. I think it's about seven hundred years old."
"Then it must have a value of its own now."
"Although it's a replica, it certainly has spiritual value."
The captain gazed into the concentrated face of the Living Saint.
“The primary function of all these tapestries is to inspire and guide, and if they serve that purpose, it is less important whether they are genuine or not.”
The Archbishop nodded.
"I totally agree with you, Captain, it's a blessing to have you in my world."
The captain nodded, but he did not think that he had completely gained the other party's approval, because he understood what his profession required and also knew how to handle business with the state church.
There were too many fraudulent speculators and too many corrupt explorers in his line of business, and the Archbishop had dealt with those he had encountered before - quite a few of them had been executed.
The Flying Tallarn was a pilgrim ship, but she was once a cargo ship but was repurposed and modified by Be'lak's family in the 40th millennium.
After getting permission from the top leaders of the state church at the time, they began the business that they had maintained for more than ten generations—on the surface, it was an exhibition of holy relics, but in fact, it was a trade in cultural relics.
