"."
Standing before the oval entrance that shed a faint blue glow, Sui Meng suddenly raised his hand, signaling the Xianzhen squad behind him to halt.
"You will hold this position."
His voice came through the helm's comms, brooking no dispute. "We don't know what's inside this tunnel. Space may be tight. Too many people will only get in the way. Keep comms open and be ready to extract at any moment."
"Father, permit us—"
The squad leader began to insist, but Sui Meng cut him off with a lifted hand.
"Carry out the order."
Four simple words, laden with a Primarch's unquestionable authority.
The Xianzhen straightened and struck their chests with a fist, indicating obedience.
They quickly established a defensive formation at the entrance. The low hum of powered weapons rose, echoing through the scorching tunnel.
Sui Meng drew a slow breath. A faint halo of psionics rippled over him, granting his power armor an extra layer of protection.
Thud, thud!
He set off, stepping alone into the unknown blue radiance.
At first, the tunnel still retained the roughness of a natural cavern, only the temperature was abnormally high. The rock walls bore the dark red sheen of long baking.
But as he pushed deeper, the surroundings began a subtle, steady change.
The floor underfoot grew level, no longer uneven natural stone, but polished to a smoothness that spoke of deliberate finishing.
Both walls began to show chiseling marks—clean angles, tight seams—worked in a dark, metallic material that gleamed faintly. To the touch, one imagined it would feel like "coolness" and "scalding" braided together.
Overhead, the vault regularized into a standard arc. There were faint etchings—unfathomable geometric lines—through which a trickle of energy seemed to flow, providing the tunnel's only illumination.
All of this pointed to a single clear fact—
the latter run of this tunnel—this corridor—was artificial.
And its architectural style and materials were wholly unlike anything recorded in the Empire's databases across the multiverse—unlike anything from humanity or any known civilization.
"."
The unknown sharpened Sui Meng's wariness. His pace grew more cautious. His psionics spread like the finest radar in all directions, catching any hint of a pulse or a lurking threat.
His armor's sensors were wide open, recording everything along the way.
Such an orderly artificial environment…
It seemed the Tavorantis vector might not lead to the Marker's direct maker, but to another civilization—equally ancient—yet with a very different "tech tree."
Sui Meng thought silently as he maintained maximal alert.
He understood that though the Human Empire had campaigned across many universes, they had never, in the true sense, directly encountered a highly developed silicon-based intelligent species.
On the forms, social structures, technical trajectories, or thought-modes of silicon-based life, the Empire knew precious little.
In his mind, "silicon-based" called up two rough categories:
One, beings like Wu Ji and Cortana—sapient AIs with a strong sense of self.
Their cores rested on silicon chips and quantum units. Materially speaking, they could be classed as a special kind of "silicon-based existence."
But their essence was code and algorithm—the product of making. Their civilizational substrate was information and logic. Compared to naturally evolved silicon life—likely with utterly different physiological needs and modes of perception—the gulf was vast.
The other category came from Universe 15 (the Alien universe): those dreadful bioweapons—
Xenomorphs.
With hard exoskeletons and corrosive blood, they bore, in some sense, traits reminiscent of silicon-zealous biology. But they were, at root, a bioweapon "developed" by the Engineers, built on a carbon-based framework—not naturally evolved silicon life—still less a true "silicon-based civilization."
Sui Meng recalled the Empire's strategy toward Universe 15.
As that universe was relatively poor in resources, and the Xenomorph threat, though intense locally, had not reached interuniversal scale, the Empire had not invested deeply to explore it.
On the Engineers who made the Xenomorphs, the Empire gathered intelligence only—no mass hunts.
He vaguely remembered reports that the Engineers revered some being whose form somewhat echoed the Xenomorph—older and more powerful—worshiped as a "god."
Were the Empire to commit resources, they might "dig up" the Engineers across Universe 15, even trace those "gods." But that was a different path than this—than the potential ruins of a silicon species that might have independently reached a splendor of its own.
The unknown often means danger—and opportunity.
Sui Meng pressed down his thoughts and focused wholly on the present.
One way or another, he now stood for the Human Empire, setting foot for the first time in what might be the ruins of an extremely ancient silicon civilization. Every step was "walking on thin ice."
The tunnel seemed to end.
Ahead lay not more corridor, but a vast black wall smooth as a mirror. Its material matched the tunnel, but there was no visible door or switch.
Sui Meng stopped and scanned the wall carefully with psionics.
He sensed an exceedingly complex energy lattice within the wall—and a faint, identity-marking ripple.
He pressed a psionic-sheathed palm to the surface.
In the next moment, the wall seemed to wake. Black flowed like ripples on water. It slid silently aside, revealing the space beyond.
Even Sui Meng, iron of will, felt his heart stir at the sight.
Behind the wall stretched a space so vast and majestic words could not hold it.
The dome arched incredibly high—no top in sight—only star-like points of artificial light glittering in the heights.
Underfoot lay a platform with no visible edge. Beneath it sank a bottomless dark where countless, intertwined mega-structures stretched down like the roots of ancient world-trees.
Wherever he looked, immense, strangely shaped buildings rose. Their lines were hard and angular—unlike any architecture he had ever seen. They stood mute in that underground immensity like a metal forest frozen by time.
The energy pulse that had drawn him here grew clearer—this seemed to be the core of that ancient silicon civilization.
Sui Meng stepped into that long-stilled world—perhaps silent for more than a billion years—and faced one of the oldest secrets of the cosmos.
Before this bottomless, boundless underground, Sui Meng did not hesitate.
Vmm—~.
His armor's micro-magnetic levitation engines spooled quietly, a low, steady hum.
A breath later, he eased off the platform's edge and hung in the vast void, gliding straight toward a matching platform across the span.
As he flew, the multi-frequency pulse scanners in his armor worked continuously. Invisible probes reached out like feelers, sweeping the silent, strangely styled megastructures and the fathomless dark below.
Data streams poured back to his helm.
"Environmental scan ongoing," Sui Meng relayed over secure comms. "No biosignals detected consistent with carbon-based or conventional life.
Temperature holds at 312 degrees Celsius. Pressure is 120 times standard.
Large-scale, systemic, low-intensity energy currents detected—likely the remnants of an ancient power or information network still partly in operation.
Structural integrity… surprisingly high. Despite uncounted years, most building superstructures remain sound."
"Receiving your feed—signal is clear." Halsey's voice carried a barely contained excitement and concern. "Your vitals are stable—seems the environment is within the armor's tolerances.
By the Emperor… the sight is… breathtaking!"
Plainly, through Sui Meng's live feed, she had seen this colossal subterranean marvel.
"For such a highly developed civilization to arise and endure in the brutal interior of a planet… Look at the scale and design: their engineering is anything but primitive.
But…
these energy readings, active as they are, trace oddly. It doesn't look like mere maintenance cycles…
Could there still be some form of silicon-based life here?
Or is silicon life's mode of activity utterly unlike anything we imagine from carbon biology?"
Her tone was full of scientific curiosity and care before the unknown.
Cortana's voice cut in: "Lord Primarch, at your two o'clock, approximately 150 meters below, atop a conical structure—a platform—there's a highly concentrated energy source.
Its signature is of the same origin as the background network, but three orders of magnitude stronger. Marking and sending coordinates to your HUD."
A clear marker flashed in Sui Meng's display.
He adjusted his mag-lev output and carved a gentle arc through the air, descending toward the point.
Soon he touched down atop the conical building's flat crown.
It was empty—save for one object at center—
a perfect cube, each edge about half a meter.
Matte silver in color, its surface was flawlessly smooth—no seams or ports—as if cast from a single block.
But his armor's readouts showed that this little block emitted a staggering energy fluctuation. The density at its core would beggar belief.
?
Sui Meng stared at the strange object.
"Child, don't touch it."
Halsey's warning came quick, urgent. "Such energy density in so small a volume—its physical state is highly unstable—or it may be a form we cannot yet conceive.
This… this could be the individual expression of some silicon-based life—or a highly integrated information node—or even a kind of weapon."
Sui Meng gave her warning the weight it deserved.
With a thought, psionics like liquid gold surged from the Primarch's depths.
The power not only formed a visible, gold-lit sheath over his grand, imperious armor, it flowed precisely over his metal gauntlets to make a pair of "invisible hands" entirely of psionics—isolated from any energy or material interaction.
He bent with deliberate care, every joint moving with nanometric control, avoiding any needless jolt.
With the doubly warded hand, he lifted the silent, silver block from the platform's heart.
What met his palm was not icy stillness, but an odd heaviness—the density far beyond ordinary metal.
The feel was unique—neither cold nor hot, but with a barely-there "warmth"—as though some immensely slow circulation moved within, enough to give an illusion of "life."
Thanks to superb psionic isolation, the object's dangerous radiation was sealed away, unable to affect him.
He carefully settled the unknown item into the specialized sealed case at his lower back—designed for high-value or high-risk samples, with multilayer energy shielding and physical locks—and confirmed the clamps closed.
"Unknown sample secured. No anomalous response so far." His report was succinct, voice steady as ever.
Without delay, Sui Meng lit his micro-mags and skimmed across the immense underground to the far platform.
But that platform was not the end.
At its center yawned a circular shaft more than fifty meters across. Its rim was preternaturally smooth—precision-machined, nothing like a natural feature.
Peering over the edge, he saw only a depthless dark that seemed to swallow all light—like gazing into a cosmic abyss.
At the same time, a deeper, more primal swell—more powerful than anything above—rose from below: a vast energy pulse, as if from the planet's life itself—drawing and compelling.
Faced with that unknown abyss, Sui Meng's eyes held not a flicker of doubt.
He shifted his stance and sprang, plunging decisively into the thick darkness.
The fall was far longer than before. All around was absolute null and silence. With no reference, time ran thin. Only the ghost-blue feather of his engines traced a lone, unwavering line through eternity, marking his road down to the "heart."
After a brief, uncanny shiver—like crossing a spatial boundary—the view burst open. The dark peeled away.
He had come to a cavity more immense than the space above.
But the sight here was utterly different. At its core were not more strangely shaped buildings, but a complex metal matrix so vast it shattered ordinary imagination.
Countless pillars—each needing several men's arms to encircle—made of an unknown dark metal, crossed one another, tier upon tier, and stretched in patterns of extreme complexity—imbued with a nonhuman grasp of geometry—building an endlessly repeating, three-dimensional lattice that filled the eye.
Most striking—and most disquieting—each pillar, at its critical nodes, bore inlays of a strange symbol—each one glowing with a dim, baleful red.
The symbols' forms were twisted and ancient. Their structure defied normal law. The turns and coils of their lines carried a sacrilege against reason. To gaze at them was to feel faint dizziness and a rejection that rose from the mind's own depths.
"."
Sui Meng's eyes sharpened like blades, locking onto the red-lit signs—
The style and inner meaning of those sigils matched, in their core essence, the runes carved on the Markers—runes steeped in profanation and strangeness.
Though the strokes and local structure differed, that marrow-deep distortion and chaos—and the sense of whispered, inverted truths of the universe—were all but identical.
Those uncountable symbols, pulsing like living eyes in a slow rhythm and shedding their ominous red glow, studded every node of the vast metal matrix at the planet's "heart." They stared in silence at the intruder, as if proclaiming a truth of the same source as the Marker—only older—closer to this universe's final, terrifying truth.
Here, at the deepest core of a silicon civilization's ruins that may have slept a billion years and more, was buried the central secret directly tied to the Marker—the power that brings destruction and aggregation.
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