126: The Battle to Establish the Dynasty Begins

Outside, the chaos of the galaxy did not cease.

The Imperial Indomitable Crusade reached a fever pitch in the bloody battle of Baal. Guilliman arrived personally at the front lines, where the war cries of the Blood Angels and the blasphemous roars of the Black Legion echoed through the star system, leaving them temporarily unable to attend to anything else.

The massive shadow of the Tyranid Hive Fleet Leviathan continued to approach. Several small xenos empires in its path of consumption had completely disappeared, turned into biomass for nourishment.

Conflicts between multiple Necron dynasties intensified. The losses suffered by the Szarekh Dynasty at the Withered Crown seemed to have enraged its Overlord, and more, older Tomb Ships awoke from their long slumber.

Aeldari activities became more secretive and unpredictable. The eerie prophecies of the Harlequins and the cruel raids of the Drukhari played out everywhere; they seemed to be gathering strength for some kind of "grand performance."

The frequency and intensity of observation signals from the Men of Iron increased, as if they were calmly recording this escalating galactic carnival of death.

Time passed quietly amidst the Human Federation's frantic upgrade preparations and the bloody turmoil outside.

"Project 'Sky-Pillar,' final integration and debugging complete. Requesting authorization for a ten-fold power test run." The Chief Technologist's voice rang out in the Keystone-0 command center, carrying an irrepressible tremble.

Han Zhe's gaze pierced through layers of communication interfaces, as if seeing directly into that grand structure hidden deep underground, emitting suffocating energy. "custodian status?"

"The 'Logic Cage' protocol is running stably. Its core feedback is... calm, but the deep information flow is turbulent, like the sea before a storm," the monitoring supervisor reported.

"Anchoring Array?"

"Reinforcement complete, the reality stability buffer zone has been expanded to its maximum."

"External perimeter?"

"All 'keystones' have entered maximum combat readiness. The perimeter reconnaissance network has detected no large-scale anomalies."

Han Zhe fell silent for a moment and took a deep breath—even though the air in this fully enclosed command center was constant and cold.

"Authorized. Project 'Sky-Pillar' test run, initiate."

There was no countdown, no grand ceremony. There was only the sudden tension in the nerves of the personnel present and the data on the monitoring screens beginning to skyrocket.

Deep in the planetary core, the core of the thoroughly remodeled abyss of order suddenly collapsed inward with a dark golden light, condensing into a "singularity" that seemed capable of swallowing all light. Immediately after, the singularity expanded—no, the opening it tore open had grown ten times larger!

This time, it was no longer mere wisps of mist.

A dark golden energy torrent, hundreds of meters in diameter and as solid as liquid light-mercury, surged out from the expanded Warp connection like a star river breaking its chains! Within the torrent, more complex and orderly runes could be seen flowing, emitting a fluctuation that was both sacred and majestic, while carrying a faint sense of mental pressure.

The energy torrent was captured and diverted by a precision diversion matrix, then injected into ultra-giant energy storage units. The energy readings of the storage units soared in a straight line at an unprecedented speed, instantly reaching levels that would have taken the old equipment days of full-power operation to accumulate!

The entire Keystone-0, and even the entire planet it resided on, trembled slightly under the wash of this colossal energy. A low resonance came from deep within the crust, as if the planet itself were groaning.

[Ten-fold siphon power confirmed! Energy output stable! Conversion efficiency: 89.7%! Energy purity: 99.99%! Mental gain characteristics detected: present, intensity controllable!] providence's voice for the first time carried a noticeable "load" static; clearly, processing such a vast data stream was a huge trial even for it.

[Reality structural stress index: Critical point 85%! Anchoring Array load: 92%! Stable!]

['custodian-alpha' logic core load: 99%! Information processing speed increased by 1200%! Logic Cage protocol... effective! No unauthorized actions detected!]

[Warp background disturbance: Large-scale 'order-side' ripple diffusion detected! Intensity... surging! Predicted to attract widespread attention!]

It was a success! Despite the extremely high load and the risk hanging like a Sword of Damocles, they had indeed forcibly extracted ten times the previous amount of pure and powerful energy from the violent abyss of the Warp!

However, almost at the same moment as the success, a sudden change occurred!

It did not come from within the abyss of order, but from the external starry sky!

"Alert! Keystone-7 (near the Eye of Terror) reports! Large-scale Chaos Fleet jump detected! Identification signature... Black Legion main force! Accompanied by a large number of Daemon Engines and Chaos spawn! Scale... far exceeds any previous contact records! Their course... seems strongly attracted, heading straight for the general vicinity of Keystone-0!" The shriek of the reconnaissance network instantly shattered the brief atmosphere of victory.

"Alert! Southeastern spiral arm of the galaxy, perimeter of Keystone-19, abnormal spatial folding signal detected! Signature matches the Men of Iron with high confidence! Quantity... uncalculable! After appearing, they did not attack but spread out in a fan shape, beginning high-intensity, multi-band scanning. The scanning focus is also pointing toward the Keystone-0 region!"

"Alert! Psychic background network monitoring shows that psychic fluctuations from multiple Aeldari Ark Worlds and Drukhari core domains have experienced violent synchronous oscillations. Suspected ultra-long-range coordinated observation or... ritual positioning. Target coordinates being locked!"

"Alert! Necron Szarekh Dynasty main fleet has suddenly accelerated from the direction of the Wall of Sighs. Their course correction... includes the intent for a strategic pincer movement toward Keystone-0!"

Chaos, Men of Iron, Aeldari, Necrons... several of the most dangerous and powerful forces in the galaxy were, at the same moment, attracted by that unprecedented "order Lighthouse" lit in the Warp background when Sky-Pillar was activated. From different directions, they cast gazes that were greedy, cold, eerie, or purely destructive, and began... to move!

The light of Sky-Pillar, having just been lit, had already illuminated countless hideous silhouettes lurking in the darkness.

Han Zhe stood up abruptly. The lights of the Command Headquarters hall cast his shadow long and large against the wall's reliefs, as if overlapping with the images of giants who had conquered alien races.

"It seems the 'test run' has ended early." His voice was as cold as eternal ice, devoid of fear, containing only a near-manic resolve. "Relay orders to the entire army:"

"'Sky-Pillar' is to enter continuous full-power operation! All keystone bases, activate 'Purification Dome' at maximum power! All fleets, follow the 'Doomsday Defense Line' contingency and move to designated positions!"

"They've been drawn here? Good!"

"Let us use this ten-fold energy and ten-fold firepower to tell these 'non-human' filth and cold constructs that the territory of humanity shall be your burial ground!"

"For the Human Federation! For a pure human future! To battle!!"

The dark golden energy torrent surged even more turbulently deep within Keystone-0. And in the vast sea of stars, countless dark golden ship engines suddenly lit up like steel behemoths awakened by a single will, beginning to turn and face the tide of destruction sweeping in from all directions.

The true storm was, at this moment, only just beginning.