Warhammer: Striving to Be a Grinding Man

Chapter 106 The Ark and Wangshu

As the Black Pearl glided out of its berth, the guide lights of the Lucis Space Port formed chains of light in the morning glow.

The personnel recruited from the Star Language Court had already boarded the ship several days ago. Twenty-three official Star Languagers, twelve apprentices, sixty combat psionicists, twenty-five technical psionicists, two Zeta-class mentor candidates, and six navigators selected by Sera Novak from her family were all assigned to various sections of the Black Pearl.

They were from Garros, and the Black Pearl was their ship.

On the outer edge of the track, a large, dark gray cruiser had been waiting for some time. It was the ship that forged the world itself—the Avenger-class large cruiser "Anvil," a full size larger than the Black Pearl, its rugged armored bow pointing towards deep space, the marks of millennia of service etched on its silhouette. The two ships were moored side by side, their docking bridges extending out and locking onto the Black Pearl's airlock.

Hundreds of people walked across the covered bridge.

Leading the procession was Aurelius Cornelius. He wore a deep red robe edged with gold gear patterns, had a lean face, an optical lens embedded in his left eye, and a mechanical prosthetic arm below the elbow on his right. He was a confidant of the Forge Master and the highest-ranking representative sent by the Lucis Temple. Behind him were several key members of his entourage: a high-ranking officer of the Guardian Army, the leader of the Titan pilots, a representative of the Knights of the Order, two senior technical priests, and a legal sage. The rest of the large contingent boarded the Anvil and awaited orders.

Cohen stood at the gangway, shaking hands with several leaders. Aurelius's hands were icy cold, the mechanical prosthetic grip precise and restrained. The Guardian General's salute rang out with a crisp metallic clang. The Titan pilot merely nodded, saying nothing, but the servo skull emitted a short, then long pulse—the standard "identity verification" signal within the Mechanicus. The chosen knights bowed slightly, their manners impeccable. The Tech-Priests performed the gear salute—right fists clenched, knuckles pressed against the gear and skull emblem on their chests, a slight nod, the servo skulls behind them flashing in sync.

Aurelius sat down in the Black Pearl's drawing room. Cohen poured them some Amighadoun vintage wine.

"Sage Cohen Severus," Aurelius said bluntly, "Our purpose here is merely to confirm the facts, not to investigate. The Temple of Lucis has already concluded on the existence of the Ark—the Council only lacks a written report."

Cohen nodded. "Of course, Your Excellency, it was certainly worth the trip."

"I have no doubt about it." Aurelius picked up his wine glass, but didn't drink; he simply placed it on the table. "When I first assigned you this mission, I felt something was off. Now that I think about it, we old guys still have some use."

"Of course. Without your help, I might have been a prisoner the day the Black Pearl arrived in port."

"We need to be more careful in this messed-up universe." Aurelius's optical lens shifted slightly. "Lucis needs to move forward steadily. Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs right from the start is something those bloated and ignorant imperial nobles do."

Both sides spoke frankly; that's how the Mechanicus is—full of logic and calculation.

"Are your men ready?" Aurelius asked.

"alright."

"Then let's set off." Aurelius stood up, downed his drink in one gulp, and set the cup down. "We'll return to the Anvil first. See you in Garros."

Cohen escorted them to the gangway. Aurelius, with his entourage, crossed the docking bridge and returned to the Anvil. Communication channels between the two ships were re-established, and the formation plan was confirmed.

The Black Pearl led the way, followed by the Anvil. The two ships slowly emerged from their outer orbits, their thrusters igniting, leaving blue streaks of light in their exhaust plumes in the vacuum. On the bridge, Marcus stood before the holographic projection platform, the blue halo of his right mechanical eye slowly expanding and contracting. Sera sat in the navigation cockpit, her third eye already open, a pale purple light flashing on her forehead.

"Mandeville point coordinates have been entered. Flight path confirmed." Sera's voice came through the communicator, calm and normal.

"Let's go," Cohen said.

The Black Pearl turned, with the Anvil close behind. The ships headed toward the edge of the star system, a journey that would normally take less than a day. Just then, a new signal flashed on the communications panel. It wasn't port control, nor was it internal communication from the Anvil—it was an encrypted channel carrying the Inquisition's identification code.

Marcus glanced at Cohen. Cohen nodded.

A man's face appeared on the holographic projection platform. Caius—an envoy investigator. His gray eyes were devoid of emotion, and a silver interrogation badge was pinned to the collar of his long black trench coat.

"Sage Cohen Severus," Caius's voice was flat, "I advise you not to leave Lucis until the report is ready. It's a necessary procedure."

Cohen didn't say anything.

Caius's gaze passed over Cohen and landed on the Anvil's trajectory data on the holographic projection platform. "Your ship is heading towards Mandeville. I need you to return immediately."

Cohen leaned back in his chair, expressionless. "Lucis forged the world's highest temple, and the Council of Sages resolved to assign me an important overseas mission. I am sorry, but I cannot obey the Inquisition's orders."

"You cannot leave until the report is released."

That was just a suggestion, not an order.

Caius stared at him for two seconds with his somber gray eyes. "Sage, I can turn it into a command."

Just then, another signal lit up on the communications panel. The Anvil. A holographic image of Aurelius was projected; he sat in his captain's chair, a cup of coffee in his hand, his expression relaxed.

"Investigator Caius," Aurelius said calmly, "Sage Cohen Severus is a fifth-order sage of the Lucius Forging World and the governor of the Garros Dominion. His ship—the Black Pearl—is on a field mission approved by the Lucius Temple, piloting the Anvil. You have no authority to intercept ships belonging to the Forging World."

Caius's mechanical eye narrowed slightly. "Sage Aurelius, this is the Inquisition's investigative procedure."

“I know,” Aurelius interrupted him, “but the procedure isn’t up to you alone. You have your suggestions, and we have our tasks. The fleet that forges the world is under the command of the Temple, not the Inquisition. You can wait for the report in Lucis, or you can send someone to Garros to find us. But the Black Pearl must leave today.”

Caius was silent for a few seconds. "Do you know what this means?"

"I understand." Aurelius's expression was serious, his words carrying a deeper meaning. "It means you're going to turn against the important forging worlds under Mars' leadership. Have you thought it through?"

Silence filled the communication channel for a long time. Caius's gaze swept back and forth between Cohen and Aurelius several times. Then his hologram disappeared. The communication was lost.

Marcus turned to look at Cohen. "Captain?"

"Depart as scheduled."

Cohen didn't ask Aurelius why he had willingly taken the blow for him. There was no need to ask. Forging the World required the Titan Legion of the Ark, and it needed the vast data backup of the Forging World in the possession of the Archsage Enpu. Archsage Enpu was now considered one of Garros's men, and the governor of Garros couldn't be trapped in Lucis. This wasn't about friendship, it was about self-interest. But in the Empire, self-interest was more reliable than friendship.

The Black Pearl continued toward Mandeville Point, with the Anvil following behind. The ship shuddered, and purple chaos surged into the boundary of the Geller Force. The two ships maintained their distance in the warp. The voyage proceeded smoothly.

A few weeks later, the two-ship formation launched from Mandeville Point. The stars of Garros burned in the distance, their light piercing the void and illuminating the orbits of the inner galaxy.

Outside the porthole, there was not desolation, but order.

The spaceport complex stretched out along the geosynchronous orbit, dozens of large berths arranged in a geometrically precise array. Guide lights formed chains of cool white light, and shuttles, trailing blue plumes, moved between the berths, dense yet orderly. The outlines of the orbital defense platforms loomed in the starlight, their turrets pointing into deep space, their armored hulls etched with the gear and skull emblem of Garros. The tracks of transport ships wove a busy network throughout the system, from the surface to orbit, and from orbit to deep space, with supplies and personnel moving day and night across a scale of tens of thousands of kilometers.

But these weren't the first things that caught my eye.

A metallic planet.

Wangshu hangs above the daytime surface of Galos, its massive steel structure, hundreds of kilometers in diameter, slowly rotating like a satellite encased in armor. Its surface is not rough rock, but neatly arranged terracotta armor plates, with copper-colored pipes crisscrossing at the joints, and huge artificial light pillars arranged along the edge of its shell, bathing the entire celestial body in a cold white light.

On the bridge of the Anvil, the technical priests stopped what they were doing. Not just one person, but everyone. They stood before the portholes, servo skulls hovering behind their shoulders, optical lenses zoomed out, their dark red pupils fixed in the darkness. No one spoke. Only binary pulses whispered between the skulls, like hymns passed down through generations of Mechanicus echoing in the void.

Aurelius didn't stand up. He remained seated in the captain's chair, the aperture of his mechanical eye minimized, the focus of his left eye's optical lens locked on the metallic planet.

"This is—Wangshu?" a technical priest finally spoke, his voice low, as if afraid of startling something.

"The forging asteroid of Garros." Another answer, the synthesized voice from the speech module carrying a barely perceptible tremor.

"This is a megastructure, not an asteroid modification." The first technical priest's voice suddenly rose half an octave, then quickly lowered again. "Look at the angles of those thrusters—the deflection of each one is calculated to the millisecond level. To achieve this level of precision, thousands of engines must share the same central computing power. To support this celestial body and allow it to traverse galaxies, there must be a true behemoth hidden inside—a plasma reactor array, a cooling network, and dozens of main thruster bases buried deep within its core."

No one answered. Everyone stared out the porthole. Wangshu slowly turned under the starlight, the seams of its terrazzo armor plating gleaming darkly in the lamppost light, like a sleeping iron coffin, or a fortress awakening. Thousands of ion thrusters left thin blue trails on the star's back, maintaining its rotation and orbital inclination, like a fortress nailed to the void, silently suspended under the starlight.

Aurelius stood up, turned to Cohen on the other end of the communicator, and said, "Go in and take a look."

The Black Pearl led the way, followed by the Anvil. The two ships entered the dock cavity of Wangshu. The dome, supported by a sturdy metal frame, was so high that the searchlight beams couldn't reach it. Gantry cranes lined the curve of the dome, and rail-mounted cranes glided silently overhead. The sheer size of the dock cavity made even an eight-kilometer-long cruiser like the Anvil appear small. Guide lights for the berth area lined the dock walls, bathing the entire area in a cool, white light.

Then they saw the ark.

The twenty-kilometer-long steel behemoth rested in the center of the dock, secured to its berth by adamantite supports and a restraining force field. Every trace of corrosion and every patch on its hull silently recounted the arduous voyage forgotten by time. The dark purple deposits on the armor plating were marks left by millennia of subspace erosion, seeping deep into the crystalline lattice even after cleaning. The ship's ram had been melted and re-solidified, its surface riddled with craters from micrometeorite impacts. The double-headed eagle insignia on the side had been worn away, leaving only a blurry protrusion, like a bone growing from within the armor plating.

Yet, amidst this desolation, traces of repair are visible everywhere. The welds on the bulkheads are neat and precise, the sealing rings at the pipe joints are new, the broken support beams are being held in place from the inside by a fine gold frame, and certain areas of the armor plates on the hull have clearly been replaced—although weathered, the weld patterns differ slightly from the surrounding original welds. The Great Sage Enpu didn't rebuild the Ark; he merely prevented it from continuing to decay.

The technical priests stood on the berth platform, the pulse frequency of the servo skull noticeably increasing, the optical lenses repeatedly zooming in and out. One technical priest whispered, "The corrosion on the hull has penetrated to the middle layer of the crystal lattice. The precision required to repair the welds—this is beyond the capabilities of conventional methods." Another technical priest swiped his finger across the data panel, bringing up the spectral analysis results. "The material composition of the replacement area of ​​the armor plate is completely consistent with the original refined gold."

It's not repair, it's replacement. He has the complete material formula.

No one answered him. Everyone stared at the silent, steel behemoth.

After a long while, Aurelius turned to Cohen and said, "Go in and take a look. I want to see with my own eyes the great sage's restoration work."