Blazkowicz was located approximately one hundred kilometers deep beneath the surface of Planet Five, and he was still descending.
With his arms bared, enduring the high temperatures and pressures inside the subterranean tunneling vehicle, he manually operated the craft to dig deeper.
Indeed, this subterranean tunneling vehicle was named "The Spade."
An adamantium hull withstood the crushing pressures of the deep underground, reinforced internally by a structural force field framework. At the front, a dimensional blade head silently sliced and parted the vitrified fluid.
Under precise operation, a portion of the fluid was funneled through side-wall pipes to the rear to backfill the newly bored tunnel. Another portion was fed into the heavy fusion reactor at the back of the vehicle, generating the fusion energy required to power the craft and sustain its onboard systems.
"Auspex scanning feedback indicates a subterranean cavern ahead, with a massive amount of interference sources."
Sophia, serving as the tunneling vehicle's machine spirit intelligence, reported the instrument feedback and recommended slowing down.
Blazkowicz nodded to acknowledge the update and manipulated the thrusters to reduce speed.
The conditions ahead puzzled him somewhat; the vitrified fluid was gradually solidifying, forming a sort of dense rock layer.
Without much hesitation, Blazkowicz engaged the vehicle's stealth mode. Noise levels dropped to near zero as the forward blade head rotated slowly, scraping away the high-density rock layer by layer.
When the drill bit finally broke through the barrier, a beam of light shot into the cockpit.
The personnel inside the cabin instantly went on high alert, raising their weapons and standing ready as they stared intently ahead of the drill.
At over a hundred kilometers underground, a light source was never a good omen.
"Prepare for contact," Blazkowicz warned. The auspex display panel was a chaotic mess; the interference sources had completely blinded their scanning vision.
The tunneling vehicle breached the rock wall at an extremely slow pace until the drill section hung mid-air.
Peering through the cockpit viewport, Blazkowicz's eyes met a vista of brilliance. The vast cavernous space was filled with jagged crystals, casting a fluorescent glow that illuminated the entire cave.
Exhaling a sigh of relief, he opened the tunneling vehicle's ventral thrusters and brought it to a steady landing like an aircraft.
"Let's go down and take a look." Blazkowicz led the way, donning his Archon armor, and guided his attendants out of the craft.
Stepping out of the vehicle's pressure lock and airlock chamber, Blazkowicz set foot on the hard rock of the cavern, instantly struck by a jarring sense of contrast.
At a depth of one hundred kilometers underground, temperatures usually exceeded a thousand degrees, and the pressure was naturally immense—the weight of the overlying strata should have been more than enough to crush any cave system.
Yet here, the temperature hovered around minus one hundred and forty degrees. Pressure existed, but it was highly erratic.
Looking out, the massive underground expanse seemed endless. The perimeter of the cavern was filled with a vast number of glowing crystals, and the rock walls were completely smooth, resembling the interior of a string of air bubbles.
"My Lord, it's these crystals."
An exclamation came over the vox-channel. Blazkowicz looked back to see an accompanying Stone Man artisan slicing a fragment from a giant crystal and placing it into an analyzer.
"The crystals are absorbing heat and converting it into energy, emitting a force field of sorts that props up this entire underground space."
The Stone Man shook his head in amazement: "Not only that, but the intense electromagnetic fluctuations emitted by the crystals are also jamming our auspex."
Blazkowicz walked over to the Stone Man artisan, took the glowing green crystal fragment from the analyzer, and examined it closely in his hand.
"Does it have any practical applications?"
Hearing the query, the Stone Man artisan pondered deeply before nodding solemnly: "Massive potential. It can serve as a supplementary material for many technological creations."
"Take samples," Blazkowicz said, handing the crystal fragment back to the Stone Man. "Record the environment in which these crystals formed, log the data, and attempt artificial synthesis back on Nur."
"If artificial synthesis proves difficult, then search for planets with similar environments."
Having made arrangements for the unexpected harvest, Blazkowicz raised his arm and tapped open the tunneling route planner to check if he had veered off course.
He had been digging underground for months, enduring extreme heat and pressure, with the primary objective of countering the Rangdan's slave armies.
The arm guard projected a holographic image, clearly displaying the tunneling route. From the moment they entered the underground until now, the path had been somewhat twisting, but it had not deviated much from the planned trajectory.
Blazkowicz gave a firm nod. They were roughly four hundred kilometers away from their destination.
"Take the crystal samples, rest briefly, and we continue moving forward."
The Stone Man artisans, alongside the Doom Marines, cut away pieces of the cavern crystals and loaded them onto the vehicle.
[Severe Data Interference————]
[Severe Data Interference————]
Seeing the feedback displayed on the auspex, Blazkowicz carefully maneuvered the vehicle forward along the crystal cavern.
As the craft reached the edge of the cavern, the interference gradually dissipated, leaving them only a hundred kilometers away from the designated coordinates.
The drill bit at the front of the vehicle began to rotate, but Blazkowicz released the standby button and stood on the control platform, lost in thought.
"Tech-artisan," his muffled voice called out to the Stone Man artisan.
"What are your orders, My Lord?" The Stone Man artisan stepped forward, bowing respectfully.
Blazkowicz nodded slowly and asked the technician, "Will the Genetic Devolutor be affected by the crystal interference?"
The Stone Man artisan did not reply immediately, freezing in place as massive streams of data flashed rapidly through his eyes.
A few seconds later, the artisan snapped out of it and gave a definitive answer: "No interference."
He opened his palm, and a virtual image projected from it, shifting rapidly as he explained: "The Genetic Devolutor works by emitting radiation that acts directly upon biological genes."
"The crystals possess strong electromagnetic interference, and their repulsive force field warps data transmission within the cavern, which is why it jams the auspex signals."
Hearing the explanation of the mechanics, Blazkowicz asked further, "We are still one hundred kilometers from the target location."
"I have a new idea. Listen carefully, tech-artisan, and analyze its technical feasibility."
The Stone Man artisan hurriedly bowed: "Please speak, My Lord."
Blazkowicz helped the artisan up with one hand and laid out his thought plainly: "Since the crystal cavern can jam electronic signals, it will inevitably prevent the Rangdan from locating the Genetic Devolutor."
"We are not far from the intended site. If we deploy the Devolutor inside this cavern, its performance will remain substantial, while making it incredibly difficult for the Rangdan to trace its position."
After he finished speaking, another silence fell over the cockpit as the Stone Man calculated the feasibility.
After factoring it out at length, the Stone Man artisan nodded and said, "Feasibility is extremely high."
"Then we will arrange it this way." Blazkowicz pressed both hands onto the console, a trace of satisfaction appearing on his oil-smudged face.
To evade the seismic wave detection of the Rangdan fortresses, he had led his troops to infiltrate a hundred kilometers deep into the earth, advancing slowly through the upper mantle.
The objective was to deploy a Genetic Devolutor directly beneath the Rangdan base.
The Genetic Devolutor. A malicious device left behind by human ancestors, born of the desire to suppress other intelligent species.
It emitted a unique radiation spectrum that degenerated biological genes, forcing intelligent races back into a state of primitive ignorance.
From a genetic level, it utterly severed the birth of sapient life.
Of course, aside from countering xenos, there was another tale regarding its origins.
During the Golden Age of Mankind, the footsteps of the Golden Men spanned the galaxy, establishing countless pocket empires and stellar domains.
Internecine wars among humans were continuous, which catalyzed the creation of the Genetic Devolutor.
Humanity used it to cast a vicious curse upon enemy alliances of the Golden Men, stripping them of their intellect, completely destroying the factions under their command, and reducing them back to primitive forms.
No matter what the Genetic Devolutor was originally created for, today it would be used to fight a great enemy of mankind!
The tunneling vehicle descended from the air, its massive hull slowly opening. Donning high-temperature, high-pressure hazard suits, the Stone Man artisans began directing how to deploy the instrument.
The deployment site was quickly chosen. Deep within the crystal jungle, the Stone Man artisans excavated a square pit to house the Genetic Devolutor.
The deployment site was quiet; the machines moved carefully and silently, and the personnel communicated mostly through hand gestures.
Even deep underground, they still had to be wary of seismic wave detectors.
To prevent subterranean ambushes from enemies, both humans and the Rangdan had deployed a vast number of detectors beneath their bases.
The probes of these deep-layer detection devices even extended dozens of kilometers into the earth, dense and countless.
The tunneling vehicle had traveled at an excruciatingly slow speed, masking its minute vibrations within the tremors of surface artillery bombardments, barely managing to evade detection.
Now that they had reached the critical moment of the mission, they naturally had to be even more cautious to avoid undoing all their previous efforts.
Engineering progress went smoothly. Construction machinery brought over a massive crystal, using dimensional light blades to hollow out its base.
Once the Genetic Devolutor was calibrated, the Stone Man artisan placed it inside the crystal alongside a miniature power-supply reactor, before finally driving the crystal deep into the ground.
The tilt angle of the crystal and its depth into the rock were entirely calculated, making it look as though it had grown there naturally.
With the instrument successfully deployed, they used an atomic-grade repair ray to restore the rocky ground to its original state, leaving no trace of artificial work.
With everything completed, the tunneling vehicle started up once more, turning back to block the entry hole.
The return journey would not retrace their steps. The tunneling vehicle had entered the underground from the Eastern Hemisphere and completed its task upon reaching the Western Hemisphere.
Returning the way they came would actually take longer; by continuing forward along the Western Hemisphere to circumnavigate the planet, they could return to their own base much faster.
In the quiet, deep subterranean cavern, at the root of a crystal, a malicious machine now sat with an effective radius encompassing the entire Western Hemisphere.
It rested in the darkness, waiting to be awakened.