Chapter 233: A Civilization That Can Wield the Power of the C'tan Must Be a Great One, Right?
After the historic meeting, the two sides began a detailed discussion on the threats facing the planet.
"After a voyage of 1,256 years, we arrived in the Pioneer system," a Preserver began. "Judging by the stellar spectrum, we had spent over 5,000 years in the materium. On the surface of this planet, we discovered the relics of an ancient civilization." The Preserver displayed the structure of the entire tomb world.
"Looks like that fellow is well and truly dead. A tomb world in this state, and no one came to maintain it," Trazyn said, craning his neck to get a better look at the state of the tomb world at that time. He felt even more certain that his decision to preserve the dynasty's relics was the correct one.
"At first, we were unable to develop this place. The Canoptek Scarabs that maintained the tomb world were also very dangerous. Our population at the time was not sufficient to support such a perilous exploration," the Preserver continued. "Fortunately, aside from the Scarabs, there were no other signs of activity in the ruins. We were able to safely establish a colony on the planet's surface. But then, one day, an anomalous signal appeared in our computer systems—"
The hololithic projection shifted, then reformed into a tall, ever-changing figure, its silhouette flowing between reality and illusion, as if pieced together from countless shattered stars. "A 'friendly' entity from a predecessor civilization."
"The World-Maker," Trazyn explained in a timely manner, dispelling the confusion of the others. Seeing that the four lords had no reaction, he grew a little bolder. "That is, a C'tan, as you would know them. A personification of the rules of the material universe. We call them the C'tan. The World-Maker was indeed a relatively peaceful Star God, but this shard is clearly not."
"Yes," the Preserver glanced at Trazyn with a hint of surprise, then slowly nodded. "Our civilization progressed rapidly under its guidance. It helped us develop unknown technologies, gave us the gift of genetic programming, allowing us to solve our labor shortage. We utilized that infinite energy to weave the star system into the likeness of Sol. We were grateful to have such a friendly guide..."
"Just as we were about to take our first steps into the distant starry river, this guiding presence contacted us again. But what awaited us was not a friendly guide." The projection of the labyrinth suddenly twisted and deformed, its once-regular structure writhing like a living thing. The Preserver's voice dropped. The projection froze on a terrifying figure, bound in energy chains. "But a prisoner. A prisoner imprisoned here by the true masters of this tomb."
"Was it highly intelligent?" Romulus suddenly leaned forward, his brow furrowed. The others were a little confused. A being that could guide a civilization would obviously be highly intelligent. That should have been common knowledge.
"...I do not know," the Preserver said, hesitating for a moment. "Its behavior was contradictory. It was full of wisdom when describing falsehoods, but its own actions were chaotic. If it had continued its disguise until we had completely opened the ruins, we would have had no way to stop it."
Romulus looked at Trazyn again.
"Most C'tan shards are not of sound mind," Trazyn said, hearing the Preserver's words and feeling a strange sense of familiarity with the script. He noticed all eyes were on him and immediately straightened his back, his metal joints making a soft scraping sound. He cleared his throat theatrically and made an exaggerated gesture with his hands. "In the process of devouring each other, they also fused with the consciousnesses of other Star Gods. And with the limitations of a shard's thinking ability, most are unable to form a complete thought, unless multiple shards fuse and the strongest one takes dominance. But this shard is clearly not strong enough. As for the lies... it probably has a bit of the Deceiver's shard mixed in."
"Are you certain?" Cawl couldn't help but ask, adhering to the principle that a researcher must always be skeptical. He had some knowledge of these life forms. The Mechanicus had caused more than a few messes by breaking into tombs over the past ten thousand years.
"No one—" Trazyn's fingertips traced a few intersecting trajectories in the air, as if playing an accordion. "—knows the C'tan better than I."
"I understand," Romulus nodded. He now had a measure of this shard's strength. "Thank you for your answer," he said with a slight nod.
"You're welcome," Trazyn replied. Seeing that Romulus understood, his own tone became more cautious. This guy had just conjured a body for himself out of thin air and stuffed a bit of soul-power into it to drive it, instead of using a projection. The bio-transference that the Necrons dreamed of, completed in the blink of an eye.
"Please, continue," Romulus said to the Preserver.
"The original team was destroyed in an instant. Their souls were devoured, their bodies left with only a neural response. Fortunately, we were able to stop it in the end, before it could truly break free," the Preserver replied. "But the infinite labyrinth was destroyed by its external interference. We had to re-develop something to replace it. In the end, we chose A.I. But our research was always missing something. Because an A.I. could always be bribed by bypassing its logical behavior. A purely advanced artificial intelligence would only increase the risk."
The Preserver then looked at Trazyn. They didn't understand why they couldn't just lock it up again.
"Because only a Star God can imprison a Star God," Trazyn shrugged. "The infinite labyrinth drew on the power of the C'tan itself to imprison them. You can think of it as them locking themselves up." It was no secret. Just because he told you the formula for a nuclear weapon, did that mean you could build one?
"So we turned our attention to another world," the Preserver continued, "the world that had brought us across countless distances to this place. We called it the Sea of Souls. The technology of the ancient civilization could isolate reality from the Sea of Souls, but we discovered a reverse application."
The projection changed, showing a shuttle-shaped black structure. "So we were able to strengthen the Sea of Souls' influence on the material universe. But it was also extremely dangerous. The situation was critical. We needed the power of the Sea of Souls to prevent the prisoner from escaping, and only a human mind could guarantee the decision-making authority."
I knew it, Trazyn thought. More warp-shenanigans.
"We made our decision, and we knew the consequences," the Preserver said. "Our souls are gone. Our consciousnesses will be injected into the A.I., to continue maintaining the lockdown and to slowly keep this star system from collapsing."
"Wait, Ancestor," Russell couldn't help but interject. "So you're saying the current disasters in the star system are the result of you restricting them?"
"Yes," the Preservers replied. "If we do not continue to expend our computational power to draw on the C'tan's strength and plan the planets' orbits, this artificial star system will completely collapse in an instant. And the arrival of that 'thief' has undoubtedly exacerbated this."
"But you still chose to send a distress signal?" Romulus asked. "I imagine that was not a simple matter under a lockdown."
"Yes. But we are out of time," the Preserver nodded. In their final discussion, the Preservers had decided to trust their kinsmen one last time. He looked at Russell and the others with affection. "I have given them my last blood, to nourish a new heart. It is better than guarding a dying lamp." He then looked back at Romulus. "And the result was clearly the correct one."
"I ask that my kinsmen take these children who have suffered so much and leave this dying star system. And we—" the Preserver's projection pointed to the shuttle-shaped device. "—in our long research, we have discovered that this star system is located on a rift in the Sea of Souls. The technology in the ruins just happened to seal it. After you leave, we will fully reverse the ancient ruins and drag the entire star system into the warp. We have made a mistake. We have touched a power we should not have, and have made our descendants suffer. This is the last thing we can do for humanity."
"Sometimes, I truly admire the boldness and incomprehensibility of you young races," Trazyn said to Cawl, after listening to the Preserver's story. "You manipulate everything you can touch, with little knowledge of the risks involved." The power of the Sea of Souls was completely untrustworthy. Its tides would only bring disaster. And the C'tan were an indelible cosmic will. Therefore, the Necrons who controlled them would have the last laugh. This was the view of most Necrons.
To be honest, Trazyn was quite pessimistic about his own race. Necron society had become muddled and ossified, to the point where it could no longer create or appreciate any form of art. He believed that immortality and technology alone were not enough to make life more valuable, and that his collection of artifacts and history was a way to cope with his own loss of "memory, identity, and sense of purpose."
"Yes, well, compared to the Necrontyr, who went to war with the Old Ones to change their short-lived fate, lost, and then in a fit of rage, under the seduction of the C'tan, released them, and ended up having their souls eaten by the C'tan, humanity is still a ways off," Ramesses said, studying the sarcophagi and then giving Trazyn a sideways glance.
As the previous galactic hegemon, the Necrontyr's "let's all live forever" tantrum had laid the foundation for the current dung heap, and had also taken out the janitors, the Old Ones, leading to an ever-increasing pile of warp-filth. And the ancient Aeldari, after becoming invincible, had recklessly pursued stimulation and vented their emotions, and had in turn nurtured a new big daddy, Slaanesh, which had caused the already overflowing dung heap to explode. The massive Eye of Terror was still sitting there in the Segmentum Obscurus, and it was humanity that was plugging the hole.
Compared to them, although humanity was quite hard on itself, with several civil wars and a magical system that had directly or indirectly killed countless of its own people and xenos, and was currently in the process of nurturing a new big daddy, it was still a bit less impressive than the Necrons and the ancient Aeldari. When it came to making a mess, you had to look to the old artists.
"That won't be necessary. We have other methods," Romulus shook his head. Using the power of the warp to fight fire with fire was a bit too much. And a sealed rift... Romulus calculated the area of impact after the explosion of Cadia in his memory. This star system was right on the edge of the Great Rift. It definitely couldn't be opened.
"Trazyn?" Romulus asked the chattering Necron. "You should be able to take this shard, right?"
"Of course, my Lord," Trazyn replied quickly. "But you will probably have to move the population first. After all, without the C'tan's power, this star system will quickly collapse and return to its natural state. And don't you need this power? If it becomes a part of my collection, the price will be very high," the collector replied meaningfully. To be honest, he didn't really want to interfere in this event. He wanted to see how it would end, and he wanted to see what kind of power these four 'Primarchs' had.
That gave Romulus all he needed to know. Ever since Ramesses had gotten the idea of targeting the C'tan, they had been paying attention to the various known shards. There was one in the famous Pharos beacon, but it was apparently a seven-in-one or a nine-in-one, with the C'tan Nyadra'zatha, the Burning One, in a dominant position. Too risky. Their current target was Fenris. There was a shard of the Burning One there that would be easily defeated by Trazyn in the future. After all, it was known that Trazyn and his guard were stronger than the Burning One, and an under-strength pack of Wolves was stronger than Trazyn. By that logic, the Dawnbreakers were definitely stronger than the Burning One. And Trazyn had dared to come here alone to collect this shard of the World-Maker. It shouldn't be too difficult to take it.
"We still have a chance," Romulus said to the Preservers. "First, we will move the population. Then, we will deal with the threat together. We have the conditions and the patience to try multiple approaches. Before we eliminate the threat, we also hope to achieve a better result."
"Is that so?" the Preserver looked at Romulus, then at Trazyn. This metal giant, although he used the artifacts of ancient humans, his overall style was a perfect match for the underground ruins. This made the Preservers express their interest.
"Thank you, my kinsman," he said to Romulus.
"Let us work together," Romulus replied seriously.
"Mm," the Preserver let out a long sigh of relief. It had been a long time since they had been so relaxed, ever since they had caused this great disaster. The entire universe seemed to be pouring its malice on them in various ways, making them often feel that it was their greed and ignorance that had created all this sorrow. And now, they had finally met their kinsmen. Who had come with goodwill, who had come with hope.
As Romulus and Russell left to begin the surface evacuation, the other three Primarchs gathered with Trazyn and Cawl to discuss a plan. The Preservers, now able to focus on something other than imprisoning a Star God and maintaining the star system, took on a young and curious demeanor and approached them.
"Greetings. We are the Preservers," they said.
The group introduced themselves one by one. The discussion didn't need to be private; it was all strongly related to the Preservers. And this was, after all, their turf.
"Greetings. I am Mr. Trazyn of the Tomb World of Solemnace, Nihilakh Dynasty," Trazyn said with a cheerful wave. "And also the owner of this tomb."
So shameless. The others couldn't help but feel a little disdain.
"Excuse me, what was the original purpose of the ruins here?" the Preserver asked, always curious about the origin of their technology.
"This was a tomb to commemorate our compatriots who truly died in the War in Heaven. And this Star God, due to its greedy nature, was permanently sealed here sixty million years ago," Trazyn replied, enjoying the Preserver's thirst for knowledge. And to be honest, he felt that the current Preservers were quite a bit like him.
"I see," the Preserver said, a look of surprise on its face. It looked at Trazyn, standing with the various humans, and couldn't help but say, "To be able to create such an exquisite instrument on your own, to wield the power of the Star Gods, and to work together with other civilizations... a civilization that, even after its species has fallen into silence, still guards the galaxy after tens of millions of years... it must be a great one, right?"
Karna silently raised a hand to cover his face. He was trying hard not to laugh, but felt that he shouldn't. He had discovered that these people from the Human Federation seemed to have a more positive and beautiful fantasy about the outside world.
"Right?" Ramesses said, nudging the collector with his elbow.
Trazyn did not answer immediately. He was clearly aware that these 'Primarchs' might know more than he did. And compared to the power of a C'tan, a mere Necrontyr was nothing. So, after a moment's hesitation, to avoid becoming an unspeakable joke in the future, Trazyn really wanted to skip this part.
But these three...
"...Right?" Trazyn replied awkwardly.
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