The Forge Lord adjusted his chainblade as he spoke in a cold voice.
"Speak."
Hearing the buzz of the chainblade by her ear, Gaia took a deep breath, then asked a single question.
"Do you know Styx VIII?"
The moment Solomon heard the grave seriousness in Gaia's tone, he immediately asked in a small voice,
"Could you two maybe have me dragged out of here first? I really don't want to hear this."
Unfortunately for him, neither of the two people engaged in this solemn exchange paid any attention to his request.
A clear ripple passed through the Forge Lord's gaze. He studied Gaia for a long while, then slowly nodded his half-mechanical head.
He came from Mars. Of course he knew of that world where those blasphemous fools gathered.
Styx VIII was a forge world located on the eighth great moon hanging in the rings of a gas giant within the Vulcanis binary system. It was also known as the Sleepless Eye.
It was the home of some of the finest weaponsmiths in the Imperium, and one of the few forge worlds capable of producing the Leman Russ Vanquisher battle tank.
By production statistics, Styx VIII ranked second only to Mars itself among the worlds of the Mechanicus.
Sometimes, it even surpassed Mars.
For such an outstanding forge world, there was just one small problem that made it impossible to tolerate.
They were devoted to studying xenos technology.
In fact, during Horus's grand birthday party, Styx VIII had nearly fallen into the hands of traitors devoted to the Dark Mechanicum.
Although the servants of the Omnissiah on the planet fought desperately, the betrayal of the Legio Fureans and Legio Mortis Titan Legions turned the battlefield into a hopeless one-sided slaughter.
Against the god-machines that had fallen into darkness, any resistance was futile.
Just when the Magi of Styx VIII had decided to detonate the planet's core and die together with the traitors, a mysterious Eldar force arrived and saved them.
No one knew the true details of that battle, and no one knew where those Eldar had come from or where they went afterward. But from that day on, a highly unusual sect of the Adeptus Mechanicus was born on Styx VIII:
the Xenarites.
Unlike the orthodox Mechanicus, who rejected xenos creations outright, they preferred to absorb the technological strengths of intelligent alien races in order to create superior products.
As a result, everyone on Styx VIII, from top to bottom, fell into a near-fanatical obsession with researching xenos technology.
This kind of behavior, dancing on the red line of both the Imperium and the Mechanicus, very obviously earned them a little dissatisfaction from xenophobes and other Mechanicus sects.
But the Xenarites completely ignored that hostility from their fellow believers and continued sending out expedition fleets, openly and secretly carrying out research that could only be described as profane.
And because those fleets were so obsessively fixated on xenos technology that it chilled the soul, they often came into conflict with alien races, Imperial soldiers, and even other Mechanicus sects.
As for those unfortunate incidents, Styx VIII usually maintained silence.
If matters escalated beyond control, they would collectively hack into the relevant archives and wipe the records of any soldiers or priests who died in those clashes completely clean.
Such upright and honorable conduct naturally earned them an excellent reputation. To those who knew the truth, the Mechanicus of Styx VIII could not exactly be called unpopular.
It was more accurate to say they were vermin in the street.
And in a certain sense, Ulizar's actions were very similar to those of the Xenarites.
For example, doing something as catastrophically insane as creating a female Astartes.
Combined with the fact that he really had traveled into the Pacificus Sector, it was hard not to suspect that he had been influenced by those Xenarite lunatics.
Gaia's meaning was now perfectly clear.
She suspected that Ulizar had once gone to Styx VIII. And even if he had not, then he had definitely made contact with its upper ranks somewhere else.
The Forge Lord naturally understood what she meant. He stopped the chainblade arm behind him, and the enormous metal giant fell into deep thought.
For a time, the only sounds in the sealed interrogation chamber were three heartbeats, two large and one small, along with the rumble of machinery.
It was not that he had never considered the Xenarites before, but during the expedition fleet's journeys, Ulizar had almost always acted under the watch of both him and their mentor.
In other words, in theory, he should never have had the chance to contact the Xenarites on his own.
This was a theory he had already dismissed long ago, yet hearing Gaia bring it up again now made it seem strangely persuasive.
So, working from that theory, he began to think more deeply than he ever had before.
Just as the pioneers of the Xenarites had chosen to study xenos technology because of aid from xenos, could Ulizar also have been influenced by something?
He had considered that possibility many years ago, but every exploring priest aboard an expedition fleet was required to turn over whatever they found, and the process was monitored by their own bionic eyes. There should have been no way to hide anything.
So Ulizar should not have been able to privately keep in contact with any recovered xenos artifact.
Then what exactly had influenced him?
Suddenly, the human pupil in his remaining eye contracted.
The Forge Lord remembered the things Ulizar had said after he began to change.
Perhaps he had fallen into the wrong line of thinking all along. It was not only concrete objects that could change a person's mind.
Abstract concepts could do it too.
For example, knowledge.
Combined with the point in time when Ulizar's behavior began to shift, the Forge Lord's breathing suddenly grew more urgent.
He remembered now.
It was during that expedition to a dead world that Ulizar obtained something strange.
It was a scroll made of human skin, decorated with a purple emblem of eagle talons and wings. It was covered in huge amounts of obscure encrypted text and incomprehensible data.
Because the place where it had been found was obviously some kind of biological laboratory, most of the forge-line priests had shown little interest in it.
Except for Ulizar, whose thirst for knowledge had always run wild.
No one knew what was written on it.
But now, after carefully comparing the timeline in his memory, the Forge Lord suddenly realized that it was precisely after that point that the once refined and mild Ulizar gradually became someone unrecognizable.
For some reason, that detail had remained buried behind the vast mass of stored memory-text in his mind, never recalled throughout all those long years.
Only now, after being reminded, did he finally realize that Ulizar had most likely been cursed by knowledge itself.
His eyes flickered, and at last he let out a long, slow sigh.
Then he released the restraints on Gaia and Solomon.
Looking at the two of them, both wearing blank expressions, the Forge Lord said with a trace of emotion,
"After comparing your movements and scanning you through the servo-skulls, I had already concluded that you were most likely innocent people caught up in this incident."
"But Ulizar is the greatest nightmare of my life. In the name of the Omnissiah, I swear that I will find that traitor and make him pay for everything he has done."
"You may have no memory of him, but you reminded me of something, a detail I had left forgotten in the corners of my mind."
"I must go back to that planet again."
At that, he lowered his head and looked at Gaia before asking,
"However, as for you, creation of Ulizar, before I let you go, I have one final question."
"Your answer will decide whether I report your existence to Mars and Terra, or whether I pretend none of this ever happened."
(End of Chapter)
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