Mars.
The Emperor's destination was not the surface, crowded with countless Adeptus Mechanicus structures, but somewhere beneath its thick crust.
They passed through ancient strata and abandoned mine shafts that not even the Adeptus Mechanicus had charted.
What they finally reached was a darkness deliberately forgotten—or rather, painstakingly concealed.
Apart from the Emperor and Malcador, very few people in the Imperium knew that such a place existed beneath Mars, or that it housed such an ancient, immense structure.
The Emperor's towering figure led the way. His golden armor reflected no light in the absolute darkness, as though that dense gloom had swallowed it.
Only his footsteps, silent yet bearing a crushing weight as they echoed through the passage of unknown material, testified to his presence.
The walls, floor, and vaulted ceiling of the passage were all made of a light-absorbing black metal, cold and smooth, devouring every probing gaze and fluctuation of energy, separating itself from the surrounding rock into another world.
Only one person followed behind him: Malcador.
The Sigillite's gaunt figure was almost lost in the Emperor's shadow. Only at the tip of the ancient Staff in his hand did a pale, steady flame burn eternally.
That faint glow was the only source of light in this all-devouring darkness. It barely illuminated the few steps ahead, the Emperor's back, silent as a mountain, and the endlessly descending stairs and corridors beneath their feet, which seemed to lead into the depths of the planet's core.
The flickering flame stretched and distorted their shadows, casting them upon the light-devouring black walls on either side and deepening the eerie solitude.
They walked for an unknown length of time. Time had lost all meaning here.
At last, they entered an open space.
It was no natural cavern, but an immense subterranean chamber,