The relentless explosions and thunderous booms carried farther and farther into the depths of the Webway. Bloodshed and slaughter filled almost every corner.
The supply fleet from Segmentum Pacificus had already arrived twice.
The mechanical forces pouring in without pause were only... away from completely occupying this stretch of the Webway.
Who knew how far.
As more and more machines were sent inside, the situation within the Webway became increasingly clear.
The 1.6 billion machines poured through this region's only entrance as though into a bottomless pit. Yet as the Daemons gradually disappeared, the mapped routes revealed an even more troublesome problem.
The area he had explored so far resembled a three-dimensional sector, an arcing region comprising one-sixteenth of a sphere centered on Terra, though its innermost reaches did not touch Terra itself.
Although it was complicated, the area had indeed been cleared. Yet on the other side of Terra, or even elsewhere, there might be more overlapping spaces or complex sectors.
Most troubling of all, Iax did not know which region the Webway gate beneath Terra, sealed shut by the Emperor, actually connected to.
It was essentially a three-dimensional spherical maze. Heading outward from Terra, there would ultimately be only one exit.
Heading inward from outside, however, meant passing through who knew how many dead ends.
Exploring on the same scale would require at least sixteen times as many mechanical troops to finish the job.
What Iax found inefficient was that these peculiar sectors seemed to have no nearby connections. That meant they would have to travel unknown distances through the Webway and pass countless forks before they might find a passage to another region.
For anyone else, this might have been an undertaking that demanded immense patience and was almost impossible to complete.
For the Men of Iron,