Heeding none of the panicked shrieks from the Fabricator-General, the Monarch stepped off the gantry, dropping into the chasm. His five knights dissolved into shadow and reformed around him as he landed silently on the black, seamless floor of the vault, hundreds of meters below.
The air here was thin, cold, and utterly dead. The architecture was alien, seamless, and perfect. Bound by their duty, Valerian and his Shield-Host followed on grav-chutes, their golden armor a jarring splash of color in this monochromatic world. They were no longer in the Imperium; they had stepped into a place far older.
The Monarch walked toward the source of the green light, entering a cavern so vast the ceiling was lost in artificial darkness. In its center, he saw it. The Dragon.
It was not a creature of flesh and bone. It was a being of liquid, living metal and captive starlight, a serpentine form of shifting silver and emerald that coiled and writhed in mid-air. It was a beautiful, terrifying storm of raw creation, a god of physics given form.
And it was a prisoner.
It was held by a complex, multi-layered lattice of golden machinery, humming with immense power. It was the Emperor's work. He had not slain this god; he had captured it, studied it, and built a religion upon the back of its cage.
The Dragon turned its attention toward him. A voice entered his mind, a direct transmission of pure data.
"You are a C'tan," the Monarch stated, drawing the name from fragmented memories. A star-god.
it replied, a hint of cosmic arrogance in the data-stream.
It was the most tempting offer he had yet received.
He looked at the Void Dragon. It was a being of immense power, but it was a slave to its own nature—consumption, deception, and ego. Its offer was a leash. And he is a Monarch. He does not bargain for power.
"The knowledge you possess is useful," he conceded. "But I have no interest in releasing you. A predator of your scale would be… inconvenient."
"All sources can be tapped," Jin-Woo replied. He stopped directly before the straining golden lattice and raised his hand, palm open, toward the writhing storm within.
He did not try to break the cage. He did not prepare for battle. He simply enacted his will.
His voice was quiet in the vast cavern, but it was a command aimed at the very essence of the star-god.
"[Command: Unveil Knowledge]"
For the first time since he had arrived in this universe, he felt… resistance. The fundamental refusal of a being that considered itself a law of nature to be commanded.
Its silent, data-scream of fury was an explosion of pure energy. The entire cavern lit up with a blinding, emerald inferno. The golden cage of the Emperor groaned, glowing white-hot. A battle had begun, not of swords or energy blasts, but a silent war between two opposing and absolute concepts: the infinite, hungry ego of a star-god versus the unyielding, dominant will of a Monarch of Death.
Valerian and his men could only watch in horror, their armor sizzling in the wash of raw power. The heretic they had followed into the depths was not trying to free the Dragon of Mars.
He was trying to rob it.