Although the Night Shroud scout craft had taken some damage while breaking out of the encirclement, its core Phase Engine and Nether Space Drive remained intact.
Leo rubbed his smooth metal chin.
His top priority now was to find some real entertainment for that lunatic, Xunbekel.
But first, he had to get out of this damned stretch of the Webway.
Just as he tried to calibrate his course, the scout craft's control console suddenly erupted in a shrill alarm.
"What's going on?"
Warning: strong gravitational anomaly detected. Warning: navigation compass failure. Warning: being pulled into an unknown spatial node.
"You've got to be kidding me!"
He yanked the control stick and pushed the Phase Engine to maximum output, trying to escape the invisible pull. But in the Webway, you never knew what awaited you around the next corner.
The Night Shroud scout craft was like a fly caught in an invisible giant's hand. No matter how he struggled, it was dragged inexorably toward the center of a vast vortex radiating endless malice and pain.
Leo looked out through the viewport.
He saw it.
Amid the warped space stood a city that should not have existed.
It was built from the wreckage of countless plundered planets, tormented souls, and screams of agony frozen solid. Countless spires pierced the false "sky," where innumerable dying stars burned.
The wails of billions of souls echoed through the city, so piercing that even Leo's Necron body felt "uncomfortable."
"Holy... shit."
Data streams scrolled wildly through Leo's electronic eyes. He needed no star map, no navigation. He knew where he was.
The darkest corner of the universe, a byword for pain and torment, the largest cancer in the Webway, and the capital of the Drukhari-Commorragh.
Leo clutched his metal head. "I just got out