Deep Significance of the Layout!

Drakris's defection carried enormous significance,

First, all the assets invested by the Mechanicus of the Eighth Underworld in Alert Star, an important route on the edge of the Great Rift, had quietly fallen into Alvin's pocket.

Second, the allegiance of a high-ranking Grand Sage meant that Alvin would completely control the STC Template technology on Alert Star.

The large Bastion-class Energy Shields in the Hive City, including the small and medium Energy Shields used by warships, would all... from now on, bear the surname "Valshius"!

Of course, the benefits of this move went far beyond that.

Grand Sage Drakris's research focused on machinery. Although his status in the Forge World of Styx Eight was not high, he was still a "Grand Sage," which meant he had the authority to access most of the "knowledge" collected by the Forge World of Styx Eight over the past ten thousand years.

What did Alvin lack most?

It was neither manpower nor resources, but "technology"—"knowledge"!

The ancient human technology that the Adeptus Mechanicus had tirelessly excavated and discovered in planetary ruins and even unknown domains over the years.

Regardless of how hard the worlds of Transformers, Xenos, Biohazard, and Wandering Earth worked, one undeniable fact remained in the field of scientific research: the humans of the Dark Age in the Warhammer Universe had already reached the pinnacle of technology.

The only channel through which these lost technologies could be obtained was the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Alvin was neither a Primarch nor a High Lord. That was his greatest weakness: he could gather legions numbering in the hundreds of millions and equip them with seemingly powerful arms, yet he lacked the most important and decisive strategic weapons.

For example: Titans, cruiser strike ships, extinction-level weapons, and so on.

Those things were the true foundation of the