A Visit

Traveling in his personal vessel, accompanied by Lady Yuton and the Eternal Crusade, Guilliman quickly arrived at the nearby Mustafa from Macragge.

"Are those... mining ships?"

The Primarch's eyesight was excellent. He squinted as the light from the viewport illuminated the cabin, revealing small vessels, orderly like marching ants, shuttling through the asteroid belt.

Compared to the warship the Primarch was traveling in, they were even smaller than transport ships.

Their numbers were immense; nearly every larger meteor and celestial body in the asteroid belt had a corresponding number of mining ships.

They emitted a faint white beam from their fronts, capable of pulverizing the hard rock strata on the exterior of celestial bodies, even those with metallic shells, in a very short time.

After clearing the external obstacles, these small ships would dive headfirst into the asteroids. Guilliman surmised they were consuming the asteroids' matter and transporting it back to the Forge World.

As a Primarch, Guilliman couldn't help but imagine what it would be like if a space warship were surrounded by these tiny mining ships.

It would be like a giant whale being hunted by ferocious sharks. The disintegration beams they emitted could easily tear apart a warship's armor and hull, and their slow-moving nature allowed them to penetrate Void Shields.

"What are they called? Their model? Performance? Who manufactured them?"

Auguston had clearly recognized the value of this wolf pack tactic, but he looked confused at the ships' models. Apart from a string of numbers, there were no markings to indicate their origin.

This was highly unusual. As the battle commander of Macragge, Auguston was the highest military commander in the absence of the Primarch and Gage. He should have been aware of all military and civilian spacecraft and vehicles to avoid missing opportunities in war.

"Is this related to the changes on Mustafa?" Lady Yuton, though not well-versed in military matters, had keenly noticed the distinctiveness of these ships.

This didn't seem like the work of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Their ships bore distinct religious iconography, with massive Gothic architecture and traces of human skulls, whereas these ships had none of that.

They were built purely for mining, with no redundant components.

Simple, efficient, direct.

"Yes, I've placed a crucial piece there to break through the current predicament of the Five Hundred Worlds."

Before the ships even reached Mustafa's near-orbit, the communication signal had already connected to the Primarch's vessel.

"Welcome, everyone."

Loci's image appeared in the holographic projection. He waved, seemingly deactivating the newly established near-orbit defense system.

Although Mustafa didn't yet have ring-shaped orbits, it still had quite a few flying vehicles. They were also of a refined and concise style, their unfamiliar shapes making it impossible to discern their specific functions.

However, based on his combat instincts, Guilliman was certain they were no ordinary craft, and their deterrent capability exceeded his imagination.

Upon breaking through the atmosphere, everything became clear. Blue skies and white clouds, as if returning to the scenic Macragge. Only the ship's screen still flickered with the planet's name.

The planet had become exceptionally flat; the tall mountains and the massive pits left from previous mining operations had vanished.

The endless expanse of flat land was covered in metal. Countless power stations gleamed, and dense networks of cables and energy conduits, like blood vessels, transported nutrients to various locations.

The towering Tech Hubs were particularly striking. Their pointed antennas seemed to emit arcs of energy, reacting with charged particles in the atmosphere to create beautiful beams of light.

Was this Mustafa? That barren death world?

In just a few weeks, a dead world had been brought back to life?

Guilliman immediately felt that Hill's request for him to see it in person was justified; there were too many things that couldn't be conveyed through written reports.

Guilliman had visited Mars, an incredibly prosperous and advanced, yet unhealthy, red planet.

It was covered in intricate artificial megastructures, many of them legacies from before the Age of Strife.

Countless ships traveled to and fro, taking away products and bringing in raw materials, but it lacked the vibrant energy of this place.

The ship landed at a designated ground port. When Guilliman and his entourage disembarked, Loci was already waiting on the ground.

He normally wouldn't bother with such cliché ceremonial procedures, but considering the war base needed to acquire vast amounts of resources from the Five Hundred Worlds, he decided to make the trip himself.

Building a good relationship with Guilliman would never hurt.

"How about it? I gave you a broken death world, and I'm returning a city of technology that will surpass Mars in the future. Welcome to Mustafa."

Loci shook Guilliman's hand. Although his palm could only grasp one of the Primarch's fingers, it was a necessary courtesy.

"And this is?"

He noticed a woman with a special aura accompanying the Primarch. Just as Guilliman was about to introduce her, he was interrupted by the Lord Regent.

"Tarasha Yuton, a pleasure to meet you," she replied with impeccable grace and composure.

Lady Yuton did not flaunt her status but met Loci with great approachability.

Her keen political intuition told her the importance of the man before her. This seemingly very young man was extraordinary.

He possessed an aura of calm and unflappability, a demeanor that only those powerful in some aspect exhibited.

He had the potential to become an ally of Guilliman.

The automatons walking around all revealed technology far beyond this era, the gap as evident as that between the Industrial Age and the Bronze Age.

Undoubtedly, everything on this planet was providing strong support for the Five Hundred Worlds.

From the perspective of both the Lord Regent of Ultramar and Guilliman's foster mother, Lady Yuton felt it was very necessary to win over this exceptional man.

"Guilliman's foster mother? That's truly a rare existence," Loci thought to himself.

Based on the intelligence he had read, very few of the Primarchs who had returned to the Imperium now had a foster father. A Primarch with a mother was likely a unique case, with Guilliman being the only one.

Having lived for so many years, Loci deeply suspected the mental and psychological states of these Primarchs.

Experience had taught him that no matter how extraordinary a being might be, as long as they were still human and possessed humanity, they would inevitably be influenced by their parents.

And as for a Primarch without parents, who knew what kind of person they would turn out to be.

"A pleasure to meet you, Madam," Loci said, offering a friendly handshake.

"I had Hill notify you to come over. There are some matters I wish to discuss with you," Loci stated directly as he, Guilliman, and others walked along a wide corridor towards the core of the base.

"Are there any problems?" Guilliman asked, clad in his masterfully crafted power armor. At Lady Yuton's request, he had to wear his armor at all times to avoid any unforeseen circumstances.

"Regarding those weapons and war vehicles, my database contains many immensely powerful weapons. However, after careful consideration, I do not intend to hand them over to you."

As per Guilliman's instructions, Loci was to recreate lost technologies recorded on STC templates, with a particular focus on producing potent weapons capable of defending the Five Hundred Worlds.

But Loci found himself in a dilemma regarding this. What exactly constituted a powerful weapon?

Was it the Forbidden Warhead stored in the database, capable of creating artificial singularities that would suck everything within range into a vacuum? Or was it the Psionic Wave Annihilator, which utilized psychic energy to use Alpha-level psykers as batteries?

Those weapons were far too dangerous, and the vast majority of them were linked to Artificial Intelligence, making them unsuitable for the current Imperial era.

A simple accident could result in those weapons vaporizing the Imperial forces first, which would undoubtedly be contrary to the original objective.