In the days that followed, Li Qinwu's fleet entered the Eldar Webway and sped through it, heading straight for Agricultural World 496B.
Traveling from Macragge, in humanity's core-controlled territory, to Agricultural World 496B using Warp travel would originally have taken at least twenty or thirty years.
But using the Eldar Webway was like taking a highway. They could reach their destination in just half a year.
Moreover, there were no Warp tides in the Webway, nor any Daemons trying to breach the Geller Field and kill everyone. It was very safe.
Everyone in the fleet knew that within the next six months, they would return to Li Qinwu's homeworld.
Quite a few people in the fleet had come from Agricultural World 496B when Li Qinwu first set out.
These people had now become senior administrators or high-ranking officers in Li Qinwu's forces.
When they were happy, their subordinates were happy too. Morale soared throughout the fleet, and even the warships seemed to move considerably faster.
At that moment, Li Qinwu was in the Medical Chamber aboard the warship Fortune, accompanying Father Anthony as he operated on Yellow Sand and Swift Shadow.
The two Astartes lay naked on the operating tables.
Their bodies were connected to numerous life-support tubes. Their chests had been completely opened, their fused ribs forcibly removed, exposing their two hearts and the gene-seed between them.
Father Anthony held a precision scalpel, while Li Qinwu assisted beside him.
The synaptic connections on the gene-seed in their chests were cut away and separated bit by bit.
Using a clamp, Father Anthony separated and removed an entire apple-sized gene-seed covered in tentacles and slime from between the two hearts, then placed it in a glass jar filled with life-support solution.
After removing both men's gene-seed, Father Anthony restored all their