Kassa Octavius III.
It was a desolate, barren planet. Though it possessed oceans, the cradle of life, its atmosphere was too thin to block stellar radiation, making survival extraordinarily difficult.
The land, which covered half the planet's surface, was crisscrossed by ravines and scarred by ancient geological activity. There were few traces of intelligent life.
Yet the planet was not devoid of life. In the distant past, a human colony ship had accidentally ended up here. With their transport vessel damaged, the colonists simply settled down and used their technology to alter their living environment.
As their technological creations gradually broke down and knowledge was continually lost, the descendants of the first colonists became increasingly ignorant.
They had developed ancient, complex rituals, remembering how to operate Knight walkers and activate weapons beyond their understanding, calling upon the power of their ancestors to protect the lives and property of their people.
Yet the humans living in villages and castles had not noticed that beyond their observation, the Cabal's hive ship had descended soundlessly through the atmosphere like an incomparably massive beast before plunging into the planet's oceans.
The Cabal's upper echelon had become cautious to the extreme. After concealing their hive ship beneath the seabed, they maintained complete silence.
Biomechanical structures extending from the hive ship bored into the seabed rock layers and, as though feeding, frantically extracted matter from them, trying to replenish the energy and materials consumed by high-frequency divination and emergency Warp jumps as quickly as possible.
Inside the hive ship, an oppressive atmosphere had spread into nearly every corner.
The ship's systems, once thunderous, now operated at low power to reduce the noise and energy fluctuations of the entire vessel.
The corridor lights were dim, and the patrolling guards moved with light steps, as if even the