The last echoes of the Sisters' joyous prayers faded, leaving a silence in the grand chapel that was heavier and more absolute than any stone. The kneeling Sororitas looked from their miraculously healed sister to the calm, silver-haired being, their faces filled with pure, unadulterated adoration. But their leader, Canoness Celestine, remained standing, her expression a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. Awe, confusion, suspicion, and a dawning, terrible fear warred in her eyes.
Her question hung in the air between them, a blade seeking a throat: "What… are you?"
It was the same question Corvus had asked in the filth of the Space Hulk, the same question Kael had pondered in his sterile fortress. It was the great, unanswerable question of Rimuru's existence in this universe.
"Canoness, I have told you the truth," Rimuru replied, his voice still gentle, but now tinged with a weary patience. "I am a ruler from another place. The potion you saw is a medicine my people have perfected. It is the result of science, analysis, and a form of energy you are unfamiliar with. It is not divine. It is simply… effective."
"Heresy!" a priest at Celestine's side snarled, his face contorted in a mask of pious rage. "He performs a miracle of the God-Emperor and attributes it to mere 'science'! He is a blasphemer, a false prophet sent to test our faith! He must be purified by holy fire!"
The Celestian guards tensed, their hands tightening on their power swords, their righteous fury beginning to smolder. Captain Arken shifted his stance, his thunder hammer humming with latent power, ready to intercept any attack. The chapel had become a powder keg.
But Canoness Celestine did not give the order. Her gaze was locked on Rimuru. Her entire life was a monument to absolute, unshakeable faith. Her world was one of simple, brutal truths: good and evil, faithful and heretic, light and dark. This being was a paradox that shattered her simple truths. He radiated a purity her soul recognized as holy, yet he spoke words her doctrine screamed was blasphemy.
It was Lord Inquisitor Varrus who finally broke the standoff, his ancient, resonant voice filling the chapel. He did not move or threaten. He simply spoke, not as a warrior, but as a three-thousand-year-old theologian.
"Canoness," he began, his tone measured and respectful. "The nature of the divine is a mystery known only to the Emperor himself. We are but His humble servants, struggling to interpret His will."
He gestured towards Rimuru. "You see a being who performs miracles and denies the Emperor. A paradox. A heresy. But I ask you to consider another possibility. Is it not conceivable that the Master of Mankind, in His infinite wisdom, has sent us a tool for this dark age that we cannot yet comprehend? Not a saint to be worshipped, but a holy instrument? A living weapon, forged in a reality beyond our own, sent to be wielded against His enemies? Perhaps his denial of divinity is not a lie, but the required humility of the perfect instrument."
Varrus's words were a stroke of political and theological genius. He had offered the Canoness a path. A way to reconcile the miracle she had witnessed with the heresy she had heard. She could accept Rimuru's existence without shattering the foundations of her faith. He was not a new god; he was a tool of the old one.
Celestine's internal war was far from over, but Varrus had given her an anchor. Her expression hardened, the conflict in her eyes resolving into the cold, hard certainty of a commander.
"Rise, my sisters," she commanded. Her voice was iron, and her kneeling Sororitas rose as one, their adoration replaced by disciplined readiness. "Your faith is pure, but your judgment is hasty. The will of the Emperor is not always a simple text to be read."
She turned her full attention to Rimuru, her eyes now burning with a new, different kind of fire. It was not the fire of worship, but of intense, focused scrutiny.
"Rimuru Tempest," she declared, her voice ringing with authority. "I do not know what you are. You may be the divine messenger you appear to be. Or you may be the most elaborate and insidious lie ever conceived by the Archenemy. My faith, for the first time in my life, cannot yet discern the truth."
She took a step forward, her presence radiating power. "Therefore, I will render my judgment not on your words, but on your deeds. The Lord Inquisitor claims you are a weapon. The whispers of the faithful claim you are a saint. You claim you are merely a traveler."
A dangerous, predatory light entered her eyes. "Then let us see these claims tested in the crucible of war. A great crusade is being marshaled to reclaim the worlds lost to the Great Rift. If you are a weapon of the Emperor, you will fight for the Imperium. If you are a saint, you will be a beacon of hope for His faithful. And if you are simply a traveler… then your path home may very well lie through the heart of the Emperor's holy wars."
She had found her answer. She would not kill him. She would not worship him. She would use him, and let his actions in battle reveal his true nature.
She turned her gaze to Varrus, a cold smile on her lips. "Lord Inquisitor, your secret is now a matter of faith. My pilgrimage is over. It has now become a holy escort. My fleet will accompany you. We will watch this 'instrument'. We will guard it. And we will test its mettle against the enemies of Man."
The standoff was over. The immediate threat of violence had been replaced by something infinitely more complex.
Rimuru looked from the grimly triumphant Inquisitor to the zealous, watchful Canoness. He had come here to negotiate his freedom. Instead, he had just acquired a second, even more volatile, group of guardians, jailers, and tour guides.
His quiet, scholarly journey to find a way home had just become a full-blown Imperial Crusade, with him as its reluctant, and deeply misunderstood, figurehead.