Heavenly Realm Lockdown

As teams of Nova Squadron special operatives descended to Ulnar's surface aboard drop pods and transports, thousands upon thousands of high-resolution scans were uploaded in rapid succession to the White Star's supercomputer, where Imperial Xel'Naga scholars in the warship's laboratories studied and deciphered them.

But Augustus placed little hope in his own scientists and archaeologists. He was more interested in waiting for the Protoss' results.

When it came to archaeology, the Protoss were the professionals.

The Xel'Naga hieroglyphs that left Imperial scientists scratching their heads were little more than children's reading cards to the Protoss. After all, they had been studying them for at least several thousand years.

The Protoss read and understood Xel'Naga writing in a far more advanced way than humans did. To them, the arrangement of every atom carried its own meaning; it was never merely superficial.

"This place is terrifyingly huge."

Raynor studied the scan of Ulnar's main structure on the primary screen with great care, as if trying to figure out what secrets lay within those towering, mountain-like stepped pyramids and hexagonal platforms.

Ulnar was neither a sphere nor a regular cube, but an equilateral bipyramid glowing with a soft blue light. Along its sheer surfaces, magnificent diagonal stairways and enormous corridors shot toward the heavens, while gigantic patterns large enough to contain entire cities stood clearly visible between them.

Even the largest Xel'Naga Temple in the Koprulu Sector seemed insignificant before Ulnar. By comparison, it was no more than a little mound of sand beside a pyramid, something a single rainstorm could flatten.

But that was clearly not the full extent of Ulnar's mysteries. To truly uncover them, they might have to enter it.

"Legend says Ulnar was the first planet created by the Xel'Naga, and the place where they first spread life." Zeratul