The Hammer of God, central conference room.
It was a spacious room, with more than a dozen chairs arranged around a round table. Imperial banners and paintings commemorating various campaigns hung on the walls.
Only a few people attended the meeting, all of them key figures:
Battle Group Commander Kaspar Marlan, the fleet's supreme commander.
Lord Inquisitor Kelia Drasus, representing the Ordo Xenos.
Celestian Superior Evrell Stern, representing the Adepta Sororitas.
Archmagos Marcus-018, from the Adeptus Mechanicus, responsible for the fleet's technical affairs.
And Liu Zhipeng.
The conference room door closed behind Liu Zhipeng with the dull hiss of an airtight seal.
Commander Marlan stood beside the round table and gestured for him to take a seat. The others moved to their places as well, but none dared sit first-no one dared overstep before the "Ember Saint" had taken his seat.
Liu Zhipeng looked at these stiff, uneasy Imperial leaders and sighed inwardly. He casually sat in one of the chairs, the golden halo around him dimming slightly as he touched the seat, making him seem more "human."
"Sit down, everyone," he said. "Don't be so nervous. I'm not going to eat you."
His relaxed tone eased the atmosphere a little. Maran sat first, and the others followed one by one.
Archmagos Marcus-018 was the last to sit. Most of this member of the Adeptus Mechanicus's body had been replaced with mechanical prosthetics. Precision eyepieces covered his face, and his red mechanical eyes constantly adjusted their focus as he tried to analyze the energy readings of the "Saint" before him.
But the data his scanner returned baffled him-the numbers fluctuated wildly, swinging back and forth between "ordinary human" and "stellar-class energy source" without any discernible logic.
"Scanning me is pointless," Liu Zhipeng said suddenly, startling Marcus. "Your mechanical eyes only