Warhammer 40K in a box

Chapter 577

"The dawn of technology... the mark of heresy..." Chen Xi's voice echoed in the deathly silent chamber, as deep as the cold wind passing through adamantine pipes, his gaze shifting back and forth between Warren's curse and the cold, bureaucratic documents of the sector headquarters.

“Warren…is this the blood tax you imposed on Rostov, on this ‘key’…while the lords of the sector…only want to make sure not a single drop of blood gets on their robes…” He slowly put down two heavy documents, his gaze falling on the holographic star map floating in the center of the room.

The coordinates of the Rostov III casting world steadily shimmer with a faint light representing home and industrial power.

However, surrounding this dim light was a large, unsettling area of ​​deep red shadow, representing the activities of the courtroom.

One of the shadows, shaped like a hanging fang, had coordinates that clearly matched the “outer perimeter of the warning line” indicated in the sector documents—that was Qasim Warren’s fleet, protected under the guise of “compliance monitoring.”

The sword hanging overhead did not fall with a crash, but the hand holding the sword was allowed to stand under the guillotine. The judges in their finery on the stands simply stood by indifferently, waiting to see a good show, and ready at any time to push the fatal guillotine down when "necessary," claiming that everything was due to procedure.

The path to power is fraught with deadly thorns and the cold scrutiny of one's own people.

Now, time has become the most expensive bargaining chip.

They must forge this branded power into a truly indestructible shield that deters all who covet it, or a sharp blade capable of severing all conspiracies, before the court's pitiful patience runs out and before Warren finds or creates new fatal incriminating evidence.
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The core monitoring center of the "Silent Furnace".

This is one of the most heavily fortified fortresses in the world, with thick adamantite walls embedded with multiple layers of anti-psychic black stone, which suppress all non-material fluctuations.

The air was icy cold, filled with the low temperature of the circulating coolant and the faint, burnt aroma of the holy oil after it had burned steadily inside the force field generator.

On the huge main screen, dozens of monitoring screens were divided, with cold readings flowing like a waterfall, but the core focus was only one: Containment Unit Zero - Blackrock Cage - 7.

Inside the unit, absolute darkness is the only backdrop.

The core sphere of the "Watcher," heavily imprisoned, floats within, as if sealed in an eternal ice coffin.

The several-meter-thick adamant gold outer wall gleamed with a merciless metallic cold light under the cold lamp, and the imperial holy seal and anti-spiritual energy field runes etched on the surface flowed with a faint blue light.

The three indicator lights—the physical locking pin, the gene recognition lock, and the psionic resonance lock—all display a constant, reassuring green.

The multi-layered suppressive field acts like an invisible, absolutely isolated cocoon, tightly enveloping it.

All monitoring readings were so stable they were almost lifeless: the energy level remained at the preset minimum dormancy threshold, the core field was stable with no abnormal fluctuations or information leakage—it was asleep, locked tightly in a cage made of steel, runes, and force fields.

Ferrus Manus stood alone in front of the monitoring console, his silver-gray body like a war monument carved from a single piece of ancient refined gold, blending seamlessly into the cold environment.

Her living metal right hand unconsciously caressed a dark composite material sample—stripped from the remains of the "Iron Golem" autonomous defense unit on the outskirts of the ruins.

The sample surface is covered with an extremely fine honeycomb or scale-like structure, which gleams with a deep, almost light-devouring color under cold light. It feels cold to the touch and is exceptionally tough, far exceeding any known Imperial alloy.

Her silver-gray prosthetic eye rapidly scanned the microstructure of the sample, analyzing its near-perfect energy absorption characteristics, unique molecular bonding methods, and potential heat dissipation efficiency, coldly assessing the possibility of applying it to the next generation of psionic knight armor and solving the heat dissipation bottleneck.

Meanwhile, her left hand operated quickly and precisely on another control panel, silently reviewing the latest progress report on the application of "psychic energy stabilization field" technology to the Knight Mech production line.

On the screen, real-time production data, a list of rare material consumption, precise calibration parameters of the energy resonance core, and images of the assembly progress of the first batch of prototypes on the final assembly line flow like a waterfall. The blueprint is being transformed into the power of reality on the cold assembly line, amidst the meshing of gears and the hissing of plasma welding torches.

The Rostov Knights' fighting prowess will experience a qualitative leap thanks to this gift from ancient ruins.

The core is locked in a cage of black stone and adamantite, like a sleeping ancient demon, its threat temporarily sealed.

Warren's fleet was kept outside the warning line by the Sector Inquisition, like a vicious dog chained up.

The forge that forged the world still roars deep beneath our feet, power steadily grows on the assembly line, and the shield of the empire is being forged ever stronger.

However, there was no sign of relaxation or satisfaction in Felus's silver-grey eyes.

Only an unchanging, extreme thirst for power and an absolutely rational assessment of potential risks.

She stared at the image of the sleeping core on the main screen, like a most meticulous and ruthless master forger examining a rare piece of star iron containing endless mysteries and deadly dangers.

The counterintuitive non-Euclidean structure, the near-perfect energy absorption efficiency, the gravity traps and plasma flow technology far beyond the Empire's comprehension... each unsolved mystery is like a keyhole, potentially concealing a threat that could overturn our understanding, or a more powerful source of energy waiting to be discovered.

In one corner of the monitoring station, lay quietly two copies of the court documents that Chen Xi had urgently sent over.

Ferrus's gaze didn't linger on it for more than a second; the scanning cursor swept across the document's surface as if skimming over a meaningless piece of ore.

The bureaucratic shirking, accusations, and procedural games are far less important in her mental palace built of steel and logic than the nanoscale structural characteristics of the sample before her or a tiny anomalous fluctuation in the force field resonance data of "Black Stone Cage-7".

The answer is power itself. When power is strong enough, all accusations will be nothing more than the buzzing of mosquitoes trying to shake a mountain.

A deep, metallic voice echoed in the otherwise silent monitoring center, where only the hum of equipment could be heard. It carried the absolute rationality unique to the Primarch, stripped of all worldly emotion, like a final annotation to an unread document, a declaration of the secret within the cage:

"Knowledge...is power. Analysis...is control. 'Watcher'...your secrets will eventually be mercilessly hammered and stripped away by the steel hammer of logic...and will ultimately serve...a greater...forging..." Her voice was as precise and cold as the meshing of fine metal gears, "...and the bureaucrats of the empire...their words...are weightless before the forged steel...before the undeniable power."

The cold light from the screen cast deep shadows on her angular, silver-gray face, as if sculpted by a knife or axe.

The waterfall of monitoring data refreshed silently, showing the absolute calm at the core and the steady progress of the production line.

Everything seemed to fall into a cold, efficient, and controlled order.

But beneath that facade of order, after Warren's accusation was filed and sent back to Chen Xi by the Sector Inquisition in a tacit manner, a new storm was quietly brewing in the void beyond the Rostov system, shrouded in the shadow of the Inquisition.

The steely will and the profound darkness are far from over.

The furnace that forged the world burned even more fiercely, both to forge a giant shield to protect humanity's territory and to prepare for the inevitable, even more severe test that was to come—a test that came not only from enemies in the galaxy, but also from those "our own people" who held the law and watched coldly, and from the cold creations of humanity's golden age that slumbered deep within the prison.

(End of this chapter)