Lox had thought that nothing could shock him anymore, but clearly, he had been wrong again.
No one had expected that a meteor falling from Macragge's atmosphere, containing a charred corpse beyond recognition, would turn out to be the Emperor's eighteenth son—the most exalted kind of being in the galaxy, a primarch.
Vulkan, Lord of Drakes, primarch of the Salamanders of the Eighteenth Legion.
The last news of him had come from Isstvan V, the very planet where Lox had awakened. During the Drop Site Massacre, the Lord of Drakes and his sons had been blasted into ash by the Iron Warriors' nuclear weapons.
No trace of the primarch had been found in the subsequent battlefield reports, and Roboute Guilliman had even once believed that he had perished alongside Ferrus Manus on that traitorous world.
During the reception ceremony, Captain T'kell of the Salamanders had stubbornly insisted that their father still lived, desperately hoping that one day the Lord of Drakes would return and lead them once more.
"Looks like those Salamanders will be disappointed," Lox sighed after composing himself.
Even a primarch, burned into this state... surely he could not still be alive, could he?
Those precision instruments had detected no signs of life. Even the cells were dead. The heat generated by atmospheric friction could burn up even massive cosmic meteors; the fact that so much of Vulkan's body remained was already a miracle.
"What should we do, Hero Dolor?"
For a moment, Lox had no idea what to do either. Guilliman had merely asked him to come here and examine an unidentified corpse.
But who could have imagined that opening up a meteor would reveal a black-tier legend?
Was he supposed to tell Guilliman outright that the meteor which had frightened Macragge was actually his brother, Vulkan,