The cold void, Mars orbit.
Guilliman's flagship slowly approached the rust-red heart of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
On the bridge, Guilliman stood clad in blue-and-gold power armor, his expression resolute.
At his side, the complex and precise mechanical body of Archmagos Belisarius Cawl flickered with the faint glow of thought, countless servo-skulls and mechanical arms floating silently in readiness.
Behind them stood a group of radical magi from different Forge Worlds, data streams racing through their intricate visual sensors.
He Xi and Obi-Wan Kenobi stood somewhat farther away. He Xi's silver hair flowed like a waterfall as she calmly observed the approaching Martian surface beyond the viewport. Obi-Wan, meanwhile, frowned slightly. The closer they came to Mars, the more uneasy he felt.
During the journey, Cawl and He Xi spoke with unusual frequency.
Before He Xi, Cawl—the Archmagos who possessed ten thousand years of wisdom—seemed to have become an eager student, constantly asking about "common-sense" matters such as fundamental physical laws, energy conversion efficiency, and principles of materials science.
His questions often struck directly at the core contradictions of the Imperium's technological system, contradictions buried beneath layer upon layer of dogma and mysticism.
He Xi's answers were concise, clear, and direct, often causing Cawl to lapse briefly into computational silence before he emitted a low mechanical hum of astonishment.
The radical magi around them, originally so proud and aloof, nearly overloaded their data cores from listening. They had never imagined that the foundations supporting great creations were such "simple" and "beautiful" laws.
Watching these magi who had remade themselves into half-human, half-machine forms, He Xi had calmly asked Cawl, "Why are you so fixated on this form? Life has its own path of evolution. Mechanical ascension is not necessarily the wrong path, but one must understand its essence rather than follow