"."
Suspended before the grand "core" matrix, Sui Meng stared like a torch, scrutinizing the creation before him that far exceeded understanding.
Its overall architectural style differed utterly from any carbon-based civilization he knew—
whether humanity's varied aesthetics, the elves' streamlined elegance, or the dwarves' fusion of ruggedness and finesse.
It presented more of a…
hyper-abstract, hyper-logical—one might even say "digital"—quality, as though an exceedingly complex program or data structure had been made manifest as physical form here.
"Sir." Wu Ji's voice came through the encrypted channel, heavier than ever before. "This environment contains a highly complex logic field and information entanglement.
Its physical architecture matches less than 0.12% of any known building paradigms in my database.
Strongly recommend elevating your psionic field to maximum and preparing for possible information-layer assaults or logic traps. Your safety is the top priority."
Concern for Sui Meng himself, beyond mere tactics, threaded her tone.
Almost at the same time, Cortana's angle was more singular: "An astonishing structure…
Ms. Wu Ji's concern is not unfounded, but from an information science perspective, this near-perfect geometric repetition and ordered distribution of energy nodes is more akin to…
the physical substrate of an ultra-large-scale 'memory' or 'computational matrix' based on quantum storage principles.
Its energy fluctuation pattern shares certain similarities with my own low-level hardware load characteristics when processing ultra-high-density information streams—though its scale and technical tier currently exceed my comprehension."
Listening to the two AIs—different yet complementary—Halsey, who had been carefully observing the shared feed, drew a long breath, certainty in her voice as she spoke to Sui Meng:
"Child, I think we've found it."
"Found what?"
Sui Meng asked in a low voice, gaze still locked on the pulsing matrix.
"The creators of the Marker," Halsey said, and the words hit hard. "Or, their 'trace'—perhaps even their 'selves.'"
"Doctor, on what basis?"
Even with his composure, Sui Meng felt a jolt at the assertion.
"On all of this." From the bridge, Halsey indicated the matrix on the shared image. "Look at the style—the fully digital, logic-above-all construction ethos.
This does not resemble a 'city' or 'monument' built by individual beings of flesh—even silicon 'flesh'—and their civilization. Wu Ji and Cortana are right, but they are only seeing part of the surface."
She quickly pulled auxiliary data to bolster her argument:
"Cortana mentioned memory arrays; Wu Ji sensed a logic field. Combine that with our prior deductions—
this star system was so ancient it 'died' before the solar system formed, and the Tavorantis coordinates point here…
All this indicates a possibility: this so-called 'silicon civilization' may not be 'organisms' at all in the sense we imagine—like insects or rock life."
Halsey's eyes seemed to cut through ten billion years of fog: "They may well be pure 'digital life'!
That is, their collective consciousness—their civilizational essence—long ago left frail biological substrates, uploaded, and integrated into a matrix of this colossal scale.
Here—this immense structure at the planet's core—is their 'Olympus,' the cloud of their minds, the ultimate carrier and dwelling of their civilization.
In a sense, Cortana and Wu Ji, as highly developed AIs, can be regarded as a special form of silicon existence, but they still require ship cores or particular servers as a physical base.
Whereas this…
this is very likely the 'physical foundation' of the civilization that created the Markers—its existential bedrock."
"This…"
Even Sui Meng, hearing such ironclad conviction from Halsey, felt a surge of disbelief.
A power that had thrown the galaxy into chaos—fashioning Markers that spread death and distortion and devoured civilizations without count—their agent, their root, their civilizational core might simply be…
"stored" in this matrix beneath the crust of a supremely dead world?
The truth was too overturning—too far-fetched.
A civilization so powerful, so "evil," whose influence spanned galaxies—and the body of it is not fleets or an empire strewn across the stars, but a nearly "static," ultra-concentrated presence like this?
What, then, was the purpose of making the Markers?
To harvest biomass to sustain this matrix?
Or to conduct some vaster, darker experiment—or evolution?
A flood of questions rushed Sui Meng's mind.
He stared at the vast matrix, its baleful red pulsing—feeling, for the first time, that the enemy they faced might be stranger and more terrifying than the wildest imagination.
This was no longer a simple war of conquest or annihilation, but a conflict that touched the form of life, the meaning of existence—even the nature of the universe.
He steadied himself. The gold psionic halo over his armor gathered denser.
Whatever the enemy's form—human, xeno, demon, or this eerie collective of digital minds—the Empire's will did not change.
"Wu Ji, Cortana." Sui Meng's voice returned to a perfect calm. "Spin up all recorders. Max-precision scan and record every energy fluctuation, information stream, and physical structure here.
Dr. Halsey, I need your every judgment. We are lifting the veil of a dark secret. We cannot miss a single detail."
He moved forward, drawing near to the matrix—preparing to probe this fearsome place that might be the "source of the Marker."
Each step fell like a stride on a turning point of history—heavy, resolute.
He eased closer to the metal lattice, eyes combing each detail, seeking from the beyond-geometry complexities and flickering sigils a possible point of access—an info port—or any wedge into its secrets.
His psionic sense spread like the finest tendrils, carefully advancing, avoiding the hottest nodes, grazing relatively "quiet" regions near the periphery.
Then, as one of those highly refined psionic filaments brushed, by chance, a specific outer node camouflaged almost perfectly within the background flux—
Vmmm—!
A razor-sharp alarm, far beyond any physical sound, detonated in his mind like the most savage thunder.
This was not heard by the ear, but struck his awareness directly by means not yet understood, bearing a violent warning of intrusion—and an intent to destroy.
Almost at the same instant the psionic alarm flared, the visual field ruptured.
Across the matrix's skin, the dark red symbols that had pulsed like breath suddenly flared brighter—glaring like red-hot irons.
The walls of dark metal—mirror-smooth, seamless a moment before—changed shape at once—
ranks of hidden ports slid open at speed, revealing the abyssal bores beyond.
Within those bores, a soul-tingling ghost-blue energy surged at exponential speed, blazing out waves of destruction and washing the entire cavern in an eerie light.
The defense mechanism was fully awake. A ruin long asleep—perhaps for a billion years—bared its fangs to unwelcome guests.
Prepared for the worst, Sui Meng's battle instincts—rooted in his genes—spiked to their peak.
His oceanic psionics exploded like fuel in a spark-tossed tank—heaving and ready to erupt as a volcano of annihilation.
By old habit, his first reaction would be thunder—range-dominant force to smash, uproot, and erase every threat at its source.
But between thought and surge—a colder reason doused the blaze, forcing it under.
No.
The scope and force of attack must be controlled with absolute precision.
Halsey's inference might well be right. This matrix was a "treasure beyond price" for understanding the Marker's origin—and peering into the essence of this digital civilization.
If his own force spilled and shattered it, the loss of information and proof would be beyond estimation.
In that heartbeat of choice, dozens of superheated high-energy beams—fully charged—speared in from every quarter at wicked angles.
These beams shone an unnatural, unsettling ghost-blue. On his armor's readouts, their numbers blew through danger thresholds—enough to vaporize and slag the proudest warship armor on contact.
As death rained, Sui Meng's battlecraft sang.
In a flash he discarded two standard options—
He could not dodge widely—high speed risked causing beams he could not fully evade to hit those "solid" structures that might actually be fragile in the matrix behind him;
He could not simply brace with shields or psionics and deflect them—the ricochet paths would be uncontrollable, with the same risk of striking and damaging the matrix.
In the razor's edge, Sui Meng chose a masterstroke—demanding ultimate control over power, and a prodigious toll of focus.
His radiant gold psionic shield billowed outward—but its nature altered at the root.
No longer a rigid "wall," it became an "energy-absorption layer" with a strange property—akin to a non-Newtonian fluid—"hardening" to meet force with force.
All the incoming ghost-blue beams, slamming into that special psionic skin, did not explode or ricochet. Instead, they sank into an invisible mire. Their annihilating power was forcibly absorbed, guided, and decomposed—transformed by a hidden method into something relatively harmless—"neutralized."
The blow was titanic. The golden halo rippled and heaved like a lake pelted by stones—sign of the dreadful pressure he bore.
But his five-and-a-half-meter frame stood like a mountain that had always been—unmoved.
Alone, with peerless psionic control, he took into himself—into the defenses he shaped—energy enough to erase ordinary fleets, and let not a shred of it leak out to touch the precious ancient matrix.
But passive defense was not a Primarch's style.
Even as he drank down the first volley, his right hand lashed. The guandao-shaped war-spear screamed from his fist like a living thing—
Rou—!!
It tore the air with a shriek and, faster than sight, punched through the main gun that threatened him most—mid-charge for a second shot—wrecking it and its energy core in one.
At the same time, his left arm rose, drawing a custom, devastating 2.0-caliber bolter pistol.
His form blurred—so swift that even the Xianzhen—elites among Astartes—could not truly follow—as he threaded the narrow spaces between beams.
TANG—!! TANG—!!
The bolter roared, thunder magnified and ricocheting through the vast enclosure like a god's wrath.
Each round trailed a streaking flare and found its mark like an eye—precise shots at firing muzzles and energy nodes.
Boom—!! Boom—!!
Blast followed blast. Gun after gun blew apart—junk and arcing shards of energy.
It was over like lightning. In mere seconds, every live defense fell silent.
Sui Meng hung again in the air. The spear flew back to his hand on its own. Smoke curled from the bolter's muzzle.
His eyes swept the matrix. Psionics fanned outward to confirm no hidden threats remained.
Until he was sure the space was safe, he would allow no Xianzhen—or any comrade—to enter and take a risk in here.
As Sui Meng settled on moving deeper, new change crushed in.
Without warning, everything before him—
the vast matrix, the flickering sigils—even the abyss below—"vanished."
Not dimmed—erased into total, absolute blackness. As if every sense he had—even psionic perception—had been stripped away in an instant, cast into an absolute null where even "nothing" did not apply.
This was unlike any psionic attack or warp phenomenon. It felt more like specialized technology—of the sort wielded by Forerunner-like masters of space—snatching him aside or binding him into an independent plane dimensionally cleaved from the world.
Alarm prowled his mind. He shoved his psionics to full rise—ready to tear the binding with pure "supernatural force."
But just before the surge—strong enough to shake the weave of reality—could break loose—
a soft light kindled before him.
It stabilized, gathered, and at last shaped a clear figure that stood in stark contrast to the black around.
It was a…
"human" figure?
In the absolute dark and null, the sudden "human" presence was jarringly out of place—and deeply meaningful.
Sui Meng forced the surge down. Under the helm, his golden pupils tightened, fixed on the uninvited one.
He understood this might not be a direct attack, but a kind of communication—or, a showdown.
______
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