After ending his communication with Utio, Ferrus Manus stood in the center of the Bridge in silence for a moment.
The map of the Imperium's territory on the screen still lingered in his mind.
That vast network marked with thousands of star systems meant that the entire Imperium lay beneath Gungnir's shadow.
The corners of his mouth slowly curved into an almost imperceptible smile, carrying the satisfaction of placing a crucial piece on a chessboard.
Then he turned and strode out of the Bridge, heading toward the hangar.
A light shuttle carried Ferrus Manus through the planet's atmosphere and landed on an open stretch of ground cleared by the Adeptus Mechanicus engineering corps.
The hatch opened, and Ferrus Manus stepped onto the planet's surface.
The ground beneath his feet was an unnatural grayish white, as though scorched by some powerful energy radiation. All organic matter had been utterly destroyed, leaving only mineral powder like cremated ashes.
A faint smell of ozone and metal hung in the air, mingled with an unidentifiable, acrid odor reminiscent of an energy leak.
The sky was an unhealthy pale green. A few lead-gray clouds drifted slowly at low altitude, casting moving shadows across the ground.
Before Ferrus Manus stood a vast and bizarre structure—the Pharos.
Its design was completely unlike any architectural style found in the Imperium.
Its main structure rose hundreds of meters high, broad at the base and gradually narrowing upward until it converged at a sharp point.
Its surface was covered in dense, vein-like patterns that flickered in and out of view within an eerie green glow, as though some liquid flowed through them.
According to the Tech-Priests' research, the Pharos was a product of xenos technology, its origins tracing back to an ancient race that had vanished before human civilization was