Dimensional Codex System: I'm really not a cultist!

Fang Zheng’s Swarm was slaughtering away outside with great enthusiasm, practically dyeing half the universe red, and the Milky Way itself wasn’t getting any peace either.

Although the huge Taren Insect Race Army was blocked outside the Milky Way by Fang Zheng’s Swarm, Fang Zheng didn’t bother much with the Swarm already inside the Milky Way. This led to those Swarm forces scattering like a wildfire. And since the gene-stealers had infiltrated the Milky Way for many years already, now they were blossoming everywhere, forcing the Imperial Fleet to rush around putting out fires, completely overwhelmed.

What was worse, the trouble didn’t stop there.

While the Galactic Empire was busy fighting the big fires, internal problems also started popping up: quite a few worlds in the Milky Way suddenly began circulating several evil cults. And they weren’t just simple conmen who lied with words. In fact, according to the intel the Empire had obtained, these Cultists possessed rather powerful and strange abilities.

They could not only exert Spirit control over others, they could even spread plagues and erupt with horrifying power. Judging from the statues found in the lairs of the wiped-out cults, these Cultists worshiped what seemed to be the same Chaos Demons that had previously appeared on the Shadow Star.

The Galactic Empire had no real way to deal with this, so it could only treat them all the same—burn them all and be done with it. As for places beyond its reach, the Galactic Empire could only allow their expansion to continue to exist. After all, although these Cultists posed a considerable threat to the Empire, they were also locked in a death struggle with the Taren Insect Race. Since it was known that the Taren Insect Race couldn’t recycle and reuse these Cultists as well, the Empire wasn’t particularly concerned—maybe, from Palpatine’s point of view, he’d rather have these Cultists occupy those disobedient planets than let the Taren Insect Race succeed.

Right now the Galactic Empire was split into four parts: the Taren Insect Race occupied vast stretches of peripheral worlds, the Galactic Empire sealed off the entire core region, swearing not to let a single bug in, and the other races and planets either chose to secede from the Galactic Empire or could only fight for themselves. Among them, the cults that worshiped Chaos Demons were fanning the flames wherever they could squeeze in.

Under the dual threat of Chaos Demons and the Taren Insect Race, the entire Galactic Empire was showing an increasing tendency to shift towards religious centralization. In particular, for these Chaos Demon cult groups, the Galactic Empire’s tactic was to directly designate them as Heresy and annihilate them completely.

Frankly, if you asked the Galactic Empire, they’d rather fight the Chaos Demons than the Taren Swarm. Even though Fang Zheng had warned Darth Vader that these Subspace entities were not easy to deal with—they existed by devouring the emotions and souls of living beings, and as long as life in the Milky Way wasn’t completely wiped out, they would remain eternally undying—of course, if Fang Zheng just burned the entire Milky Way out of the universe in one go, then there’d be no problem left.

So even the best solution was the same as before with the Shadow Star: Seal them away so they’d stop harming others... Unfortunately, the Shadow Star had already been burned by Fang Zheng into a stone ball, leaving nothing behind. As for those Seal records on the Chaos Demons—this was stuff from millions of years ago, and no one had any idea where you could even find it now.

Even so, for the Galactic Empire, Chaos Demons were still a better opponent than the Taren Insect Race. At least the former required souls and emotional energy, whereas the latter was pure destruction... To put it bluntly, even if the Galactic Empire lost to the Chaos Demons, it wasn’t impossible to stage a comeback. But if the Galactic Empire lost to the Taren Insect Race, then nothing would remain.

After all, everything would have been turned into Biomass.

And to counter the Chaos Demons, Fang Zheng also provided technological support to the Galactic Empire, namely his own—Magical Girl system.

After all, the Chaos Demons’ power came from life’s emotions and souls, and the Magical Girls’ power also came from emotions and souls. Energy must obey conservation: the more Magical Girls there were, the less the Chaos Demons would be able to absorb.

Palpatine naturally welcomed this quite a bit, and he quickly responded to Fang Zheng’s proposal by establishing a very special department, which was...

”The Nun Order?”

Walking along the wide corridor, Fang Zheng curiously looked at Palpatine beside him. At this moment, the Galactic Emperor was no longer dressed like before. Instead, he wore a white robe, a crown on his head, and a scepter in hand, looking exactly like a white-robed Archbishop—this former Emperor of the Galactic Empire had now completely sunk into proselytizing and couldn’t extricate himself.

After all, building a new sect from scratch and being remembered through the ages—that feeling is really... exhilarating.

Way more exhilarating than being the Emperor of the Galactic Empire.

Compared to Darth Vader, who was now frazzled and stuck in the office all day dealing with government affairs without even getting out the door, Palpatine had already entered ”retired at home, strolling around to relax” mode.

”That’s right.”

Palpatine slowly nodded.

”Mr. Fang Zheng, you also know that because of the Taren Insect Race invasion and the spread of Chaos Demons, many planets have already fallen. As a result, many children have become orphans. In fact, figuring out how to settle them is currently one of the Empire’s problems...”

Fang Zheng’s proposal of the Magical Girl system obviously carried his own intention to harvest faith, and Palpatine’s willingness to accept it also came from his own considerations. Although at the beginning Palpatine founded the New State Religion centered on unified Primordial Force mainly for those newly born Primordial Force users, man proposes but heaven disposes: under the dual threat of the Taren Insect Race and the Chaos Demons, the responsibilities the State Religion had to bear clearly expanded.

In this situation, it was impossible to focus solely on Primordial Force users. So Palpatine was also thinking about how to integrate other ordinary people into the State Religion. Those orphans were one of the issues. The males could still be trained and then join the Legion of the Imperial Army, but for the females it was quite hard to find suitable positions.

Fang Zheng’s proposal could be said to be timely help in a snowstorm, delivering a very good solution for Palpatine.

”They will be the most radiant example of humanity, the supreme symbols of faith, devotion, and purity. They will become the Empire’s sword, defending the Radiance of human nature...”

”Hmm...”

Listening to Palpatine narrate the doctrines of faith for the Nun Order, Fang Zheng fell silent for a moment. To be honest, he had never thought about militarizing a Magical Girl force, and a religious Army unit seemed a bit extreme. But considering that the Nun Order’s main mission was to protect the Empire, guard humanity, and maintain order... that didn’t really conflict with Fang Zheng’s overarching direction. In this case, after thinking it over, Fang Zheng decided... not to say much more.

There wasn’t much to say anyway.

However, Fang Zheng not having much to say didn’t mean other people didn’t.

”Recently... um... I heard that Little Hei has been causing MASTER a lot of trouble...”

”Trouble? Me?”

Little Hei tilted her head, confused as she looked at the face in front of her that was identical to her own.

”Hmm... I don’t think I’ve caused any trouble. After all, I’m only doing Magic Power resupply with Big Brother.”

”That’s exactly the problem!!”

Hearing this, Illya immediately shot her hand up aggressively.

”Before this, I’ve already seen it several times—Little Hei, you follow behind MASTER, then slip into the bathroom or the toilet, and then from inside there come those very, very, very H sounds!”

At this point, Illya’s face flushed bright red, while Little Hei calmly crossed her arms and watched her, wearing a look that said, ”So what?”

”So?”

”So you should have some self-respect, Little Hei! It’s fine that I was the one who found out, but if someone else saw, it would cause trouble for MASTER. Anyway, causing trouble for MASTER is absolutely not allowed! Got it?”

”.........”

Faced with Illya’s righteous admonishment, Little Hei narrowed her eyes and gave her a thorough once-over from head to toe.

”...Are you, by any chance, jealous?”

”...Haa? Haa! Haaaah!!!?”

Hearing this, Illya’s eyes went wide, her expression screaming, ”How can you slander me out of nowhere like that?”

”I am not, you idiot, Little Hei!”

”Who says you’re not? If you weren’t secretly tailing me, how would you know? See, how come nobody else knows about it? I’m not bragging, but I’m always very careful whenever I’m with MASTER, you know? So you were stalking me?”

”I—I was not stalking you!”

Illya’s face went crimson, veins popping on her forehead as she argued back.

”I’m your big sister, I only went to look for you because I was worried. How can that be called stalking if I’m looking for you... We’re sisters, how could you call that stalking!?”

Then she started saying all sorts of hard-to-follow things like ”H is wrong” and ”shameless,” which made Little Hei burst out laughing, and the room inside and out was filled with a joyful atmosphere...

”...Are you even listening to me?”

Seeing Little Hei’s utterly unconcerned attitude, Illya let out a low ”uu uu” sound as she glared at her and tried to intimidate her in a small voice, looking just like a little puppy venting its displeasure. Seeing this, Little Hei clapped her hands.

”In that case, Illya, you can join in too.”

”......Eh?”

”With big brother’s Magic Power supply—if you want to do it, just say so. That way it’s fair, right? Then you won’t need to be jealous anymore.”

”Eh......eh eh eh eh eh!!?”

Hearing that, Illya’s eyes went round, her cheeks flushing red as she waved her hands frantically.

”Wait, wait, I-I wasn’t thinking like that...”

”You weren’t? Really? You sure?”

”Of course! We’re still kids!”

”We just aren’t growing up physically, that’s all. If you go by age, Natsuse and the others should be calling us obasan already.”

”.........”

”.........”

For a moment, the two of them fell silent.

”Let’s change the subject.”

”Yeah......”

If they kept going like this, they’d only hurt each other more.