"This is the place..."
A low, hoarse voice, like worn leather rubbing against itself, sounded through the dark warship.
The voice belonged to Corax.
The lord of the Raven Guard floated silently in the cold void, his fathomless, ink-black eyes seeming to absorb all light as they fixed on the slowly rotating planet beyond the viewport, which radiated an ominous dark red glow.
It was a lava planet.
Even across the vast distance of the vacuum, its surface's ceaseless, violent energy could still be felt.
Oceans of thick, scorching lava, like the blood of the earth, covered most of its surface, endlessly churning and bursting, spewing towering waves of fire and showers of lava dozens of kilometers high.
That dark red radiance was its only source of light, bathing the surrounding space in a hellish glow.
Scattered across the planet's surface were jagged expanses of black land formed from cooled lava and unknown heat-resistant minerals. Like horns growing from a demon's skull, they looked especially desolate and menacing amid the surrounding seas of lava.
The entire planet exuded searing heat, deadly poison, and a primal, savage aura of destruction. It was no haven where life could survive, but more like a natural planetary furnace, or a fiery tomb that buried countless secrets.
Slowly, heavily, Corax exhaled a long, murky breath.
It condensed into a small cloud of white mist in the Bridge's temperature- and pressure-controlled air, then quickly dissipated.
There was no excitement at reaching his destination in that sigh, nor any fear of the dangers ahead. There was only exhaustion rooted deep in his bones, the weight of a mountain-sized burden carried across endless light-years with no end in sight, and a trace of resolve worn almost numb by his long search and the endless darkness.
All for that