The moment the text vanished, the furnace's hum abruptly weakened. The blue light flowing through the hull dimmed and eventually flickered out entirely. The subterranean space plunged back into darkness and deathly silence, save for the dancing flame of the torch in Byrne's hand.
Byrne stood frozen, the lines of the prophecy echoing repeatedly in his mind.
The Rift stirs?
The Dark Crow shall fall?
The Savior?
In Byrne's understanding, the appearance of a Rift was almost always accompanied by an incursion from the Warp—that chaotic, lawless realm that was the nightmare of all mankind, harboring countless demons hungry for human flesh. Every stir of a Rift meant a bloody catastrophe was imminent.
Which Rift did the opening of the prophecy refer to? One that already existed, or one yet to emerge? Whichever it was, he could only hope it wasn't the "Cicatrix Maledictum," the Great Rift that had torn the Empire in two.
As for the "Dark Crow," the most famous association in the Imperium was naturally the XIX Legion—the Raven Guard—who had followed the Emperor on his crusade and defended the Empire during the subsequent rebellion. But in Byrne's current era, after ten thousand years of war and the erosion of genetic curses, the Raven Guard's numbers had dwindled significantly.
Did the prophecy imply that the entire Raven Guard Chapter was facing annihilation, or was it pointing to a specific individual? If the latter, did it mean the Primarch Corax, who had vanished into the Eye of Terror, or the current Chapter Master, Shrike, the Shadow of Death?
In this cesspool of a world, the Imperium was already riddled with holes; genetic mutations, Chaos corruption, and alien threats were constant. Did this "Savior" mentioned in the prophecy even exist? Even if they did, who could it be? An unawakened psyker? A Space Marine with a unique gene-seed? Or...
Byrne shook his head violently, casting the absurd final thought aside. How could a bottom-dweller from the Lower District have anything to do with a nebulous concept like a "Savior"?
Then there was the last half-sentence he could decipher: ...must be tempered in the Pure Fire. What did "Pure Fire" mean? Was it the flame generated by this mysterious furnace, or some metaphorical expression?
Byrne looked up at the now-silent furnace. The crystal panel had returned to its translucent state, as if the prophecy had never appeared. He tried pressing the walls around the recess and tapped the panel with his shovel, but the furnace remained like a cold statue, unresponsive.
Unwilling to give up, he prepared to try restarting it once more. But when he looked at the recess, he recoiled in shock.
Though the furnace's reaction upon restarting had been spectacular, it had lasted less than a minute. Yet, in that brief window, it had completely drained the crystal battery.
"Good grief, this thing is an energy-devouring beast."
Byrne clicked his tongue, weighing the dead battery in his hand as his confusion deepened. A brand-new crystal battery was enough to keep an ore crate's hover-unit running for five hours; even higher-powered small machinery could last two or three. For this furnace to squander an entire battery just to flicker on for a moment and display a fragmented prophecy was a level of energy consumption that defied his understanding.
He looked at the silent behemoth again. The ancient inscriptions had returned to their original state, with only a faint, lingering trace of energy fluctuation near the recess. The spectacle had been so brief that he almost felt it was a fleeting dream. But the dead battery and the clear memory of the text told him it had really happened.
Byrne pulled another battery from his pack, but before he could slot it in, a sudden change occurred.
The silent furnace began to vibrate violently. The dimmed ancient runes flared back to life, but this time they didn't glow with a ghostly blue. Instead, they pulsed with an ominous, sickly dark red.
Simultaneously, the temperature in the chamber spiked. A wave of heat caught Byrne's torch, sending the flame leaping half a foot high, nearly singeing his hair.
Not good!
Byrne shouldered his rucksack and scrambled backward. Just as he reached the cover of the skeleton, a scorching blast of air erupted from the intake vent at the base of the furnace. The blast was peppered with tiny sparks that hissed as they hit the metal fragments on the floor.
To Byrne's horror, the drained battery he was still holding began to grow burning hot. The dormant energy circuits on its surface flared with a dark red luster visible to the naked eye, as if something inside was trying to claw its way out.
Byrne didn't hesitate; he hurled the battery away. The moment it hit the ground, the casing shattered, releasing a plume of pitch-black mist that surged upward and plunged into the furnace.
The eerie sight made Byrne's skin crawl. He finally realized that this was no simple piece of ancient machinery. The secrets it held were far more numerous than he had imagined.
The furnace's tremors intensified after absorbing the mist. The dark red runes seemed to come alive, dancing frantically across the hull like blood-colored vines, eventually converging at the exhaust port at the top.
A second later, a thick pillar of dark red light erupted, slamming into the ceiling of the underground chamber. Instantly, a rain of gravel and dust poured down. The entire space became unstable, groaning as if on the verge of total collapse.
Byrne could feel the ground shaking beneath his boots. The heat in the air intensified yet again.
You've got to be kidding me. Has it triggered a self-destruct mode?
A dull cracking sound echoed from above—the warning of an overstressed rock stratum. Fine cracks spider-webbed across the stone walls, shedding debris as they widened.
He couldn't stay. He had to run.
Byrne spun around and sprinted for the tunnel entrance. Behind him, the roar of the furnace and the thunder of collapsing rock filled the air as the entire subterranean space wailed in agony. He didn't dare look back, putting every ounce of strength into his escape.
The air in the tunnel was already sweltering, made even more suffocating by the wave of heat chasing him from the collapse. Byrne could feel the ground becoming increasingly fragile beneath him, as if it might shatter at any moment and swallow him into the dark abyss.
He had only one thought: get back to the surface and get Selena out of there.