"Zzzstz... My Lord, an astropathic patch is incoming from the galactic east. It is Archmagos Cawl. Shall I put him through?"
The voice of the vox-officer on the bridge of the Macragge's Honour crackled through the comm-bead of Roboute Guilliman's Armor of Fate.
Guilliman felt a flicker of relief that the Archmagos had responded so swiftly to his summons. "Patch the astropathic transmission through."
By now, Axion had developed a foundational understanding of Belisarius Cawl. However, the data and experiences stored within the Cawl Inferior were a jumble of fragments; much of the information was agonizingly one-sided.
What Axion saw most frequently in those memory engrams was a vision of a man relentlessly sacrificing himself for the Imperium. Endless nights of research, calculation, scientific inquiry, design, and fabrication. Within the fragmented memories spanning over ten millennia, nearly ninety percent were occupied by the cold logic of labor.
His industriousness exceeded even the records of the Men of Gold. Even engineers of that era required rest, but for the sake of the Imperium and his promise to Guilliman, Cawl had chosen to systematically replace himself. Those countless memories of cybernetic installation eventually culminated in a vast, grotesque mechanical form.
Having summarized the data, Axion recognized that within the framework of this "Imperium," Cawl was a researcher of unparalleled, absolute loyalty. Even as an Iron Man, Axion could not help but feel a modicum of respect for such an existence.
Cawl's significance to Guilliman was equally profound. He was an old friend, one of the few the Primarch trusted implicitly, a man to whom he could entrust his life. And the Archmagos had repaid that trust in a manner as perfect as it was singular.
The conversation between Guilliman and Cawl was brief. They exchanged no vital intelligence over the astropathic choir. Cawl simply provided his current coordinates, nothing more. There was too much to discuss, and long-range astropathic communication was notoriously unreliable.
Guilliman, his retinue, and Axion returned to the Dawn of Fire, setting a direct course for the southern reaches of Ultramar. Behind them, on the Macragge's Honour, a single chamber was left under permanent seal.
Currently, Cawl was in the southern sectors searching for a solution to the Pariah Nexus, while simultaneously attempting to rein in other Tech-Priests who had begun to run rampant.
Since the Necron emergence in the galactic west of Ultramar, word had traveled fast to the Magi who were investigating minor tomb complexes in the south. Following the total silence of the Xendu System, Guilliman had ordered Cawl to mobilize Battle Group Hephaestus. Countless Magi of the Adeptus Mechanicus, smelling the scent of ancient tech, had answered Cawl's call, initiating a veritable technological frenzy.
On the front lines, Space Marines and mortal soldiers were being fed into the meat grinder of the system's various worlds. Simultaneously, the Mechanicus displayed its staggering martial might, a force unseen in centuries. The sheer number of blackened hulls blotting out the stars left even the Segmentum's Departmento Munitorum in stunned silence.
Magi from various sub-cults arrived with intense curiosity, bringing with them the cherished "Gifts of the Omnissiah" from their private vaults, all eager to claim the "technological scriptures" hidden within the Necron tombs.
Upon his arrival, Cawl had plunged into research immediately. He moved constantly between discovered Blackstone structures, to the point where even Guilliman could not pinpoint his exact location.
This was the Primarch's first time nearing this accursed sector.
Outside the boundaries of the region designated as the "Silent Zone," Cawl was conducting a survey on a fringe world. A massive Necron Obelisk stood there, venting a pillar of baleful green light that pierced the heavens. The ground was littered with the shattered remains of Necron Warriors and Canoptek Wraiths. On one side, the very crust of the planet had been overturned.
In orbit, the sky was choked with ship debris and the frozen remains of the dead. The battle had only just concluded.
Though Cawl commanded the entire battle group remotely, he had personally led a detachment to purge this specific site. The Necron tomb beneath the surface had been utterly annihilated. With their phase-out protocols failing, the Necron remains lay piled in suffocating layers.
For the moment, the Necron reinforcement fleets had been repelled by Cawl's Ark Mechanicus and its escort vessels. This offered a fleeting window to study these bizarre xenos constructs at close range.
Cawl knew they could not hold this position indefinitely. The Necrons would counterattack soon; they had to accelerate their research. While he had already implemented the plan for the Liminal Abraiser, he still required a more granular understanding of these Blackstone arrays.
Trazyn the Infinite had once provided Cawl with "additional assistance," giving the Archmagos a lead in Blackstone theory that far outstripped his peers. Using control ciphers provided by Trazyn within the Blackstone ruins beneath Cadia, Cawl attempted a command.
For the first time, he successfully deactivated the Blackstone construct. Though it reactivated shortly after, as if by remote override, the success filled Cawl with a rare spark of triumph. It was during this brief interruption of the Obelisk's signal that Cawl finally received Guilliman's message. Under the influence of these anti-warp, negative-polarity energy fields, the Archmagos had been effectively "offline."
As the Dawn of Fire translated out of the Warp, it emerged near the Xendu System. The Navigators had not wished to drop out so far from the destination, but it was as if the Warp routes in this region had been violently severed.
The tides of the Immaterium stopped here, swirling like a great oceanic vortex. All Warp energy was swept up and exiled. If the Cicatrix Maledictum was a wound spewing energy into the galaxy, then this region was the drain through which the Warp was sucked dry.
Fortunately, Cawl's coordinates sat on the periphery of this zone, not yet deep within its heart. Sub-light engines would bring them to the destination in a matter of hours.
However, as the ship drew closer, nearly everyone, save for Axion, felt a hollow, gnawing sensation in their very souls. It was subtle, yet unmistakable.
The one most affected was Guilliman. He felt as though the very essence of his being was being teased away from his frame. Though the force was not yet strong enough to overcome him, the sensation of his soul being "tugged" caused a profound malaise.
As the ship's vox-casters began to blare the fervent prayers of the Ministorum priests, the discomfort among the crew eased. This was a tactic bought with blood, a countermeasure reported by the vanguard forces who first entered the Xendu System. Though none truly understood the metaphysics behind it, the conclusion was simple: The Emperor Protects.
Guilliman stood in his command sanctum, staring silently at a towering statue of the Emperor. For a fleeting moment, it seemed as if the stone effigy was looking back at him. The pervasive, tearing sensation began to recede.
"Father," he whispered.