The fleet expanding east had likely met with disaster.
The fleet expanding south, meanwhile, encountered large numbers of Ork fleets. The Orks' previously aimless civil war suddenly had a target, and the Ork tribes quickly fought among themselves to produce a warlord, shouting that he would capture those noseless bean sprouts to drink with.
The entire southern expansion fleet was driven back to the border by the frenzied Orks. Every homeworld in the southern region was resisting the Ork invasion and had entered a wartime economic system. Even more than half of the new fleet Aun'Va had urgently assembled was sent to the southern theater. After all, the Imperium of Man still had to cross the Damocles Gulf before it could directly invade T'au Empire territory, while the Orks in the south had truly spread the flames of war to the most important worlds at their doorstep.
The northern fleet, however, reported that during the planetary exploration phase, they had encountered some interesting creations. The accompanying Earth Caste engineers called them black stones, but had no idea what they were. Every method of research failed before the mysterious Blackstone, and even mining and cutting it had become an impossible dream.
The Earth Caste engineers believed this was a legacy left behind by a previous civilization. They felt that as long as they cracked the secret of the black stones, the T'au Empire's technology would rapidly leap forward by a great stride.
But turning it into productive power that could benefit the T'au Empire would take far too long. Aun'Va simply did not have the time to wait for them to uncover Blackstone's secrets.
After learning through the secret intelligence agencies of Shadowsun's crushing defeat, all the Ethereals found the situation even more troublesome. They convened overnight to discuss countermeasures, and