With a final, lingering gaze that seemed to weigh the very soul of every human present, Farseer Eldanar gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. The shimmering portal to her ship pulsed, and the delegation stepped back through, leaving the alien silence of the Path of Broken Bones behind them. They were once more in the circular, rune-etched chamber of the Vaul's Tear.
The atmosphere had changed. The Warlock guards, who had previously regarded them with cold contempt, now held a new expression in their glowing eyes: a mixture of fear and profound respect. They had felt the psychic death-scream of the Drukhari, an oblivion they had not thought possible.
Eldanar's psychic voice resonated.
She presented Varrus with a small, fist-sized crystal that seemed to swirl with an inner, milky light.
"Our gratitude, Farseer," Varrus said, accepting the crystal with a gloved hand.
With that final, cryptic pronouncement, the meeting was over.
The Imperials were escorted back to their shuttle. This time, there was no hostility, only a tense, profound silence. As the Stellarr Peregrine and the Obelisk detached from the Eldar flotilla, the sleek, wraithbone ships did not depart. Instead, they moved to surround the Imperial vessels, forming a ghostly, protective escort.
At a command from the Farseer, a new, larger portal tore open in the fabric of space before them. It was a gate into the main artery of the Webway.
Plunging through it, they left the Graveyard of Hesperus behind. The journey that followed was a voyage through a dream. Unlike the violent, screaming madness of the Warp, the Webway was a place of silent, melancholic beauty. They drifted through crystalline tunnels that pulsed with soft, inner light. They passed through vast, empty caverns that held the silent, ghost-cities of the Eldar empire before its fall, their delicate spires still reaching for a sky that no longer existed. They saw ethereal, jellyfish-like creatures drifting in the silent currents of the Labyrinth, beings of pure energy who paid their passage no mind.
It was a journey through a living history, a beautiful, sad, and dangerous road. Straying from the main path, Kael knew, would mean being lost forever, or worse, stumbling into a Commorrite raiding party or a breach into the Realm of Chaos.
After a journey that was both timeless and took several days, the Eldar escort slowed. Before them was a small, almost invisible fissure in the Webway's structure, a hidden gate.
Without another word, the Eldar flotilla turned and vanished back into the glowing mists of the Webway, leaving the Imperial ships alone before their exit.
Following the guidance of the psycho-crystal, the Obelisk pushed through the gate, emerging into the cold, quiet void of realspace. They had arrived in the Halo Stars, an uncharted and treacherous region on the galaxy's edge. And waiting for them, silent and patient, was the rest of Varrus's Inquisitorial fleet.
"Excellent planning, my Lord," Kael noted, unable to hide his admiration.
"A good strategist always has a contingency," Varrus replied. He gave the command. "Set a course for Watch Station Hesperus."
The destination was a place so secret that its existence was denied even in the highest echelons of the Ordo Xenos. It was a hollowed-out asteroid orbiting a dying, red dwarf star, a forgotten relic from the Dark Age of Technology that Varrus had personally rediscovered and repurposed as his private fortress of knowledge.
Upon their arrival, Rimuru saw not a bustling military base like Vigil, but a silent, lonely sentinel. The station was run by a skeleton crew of ancient, fanatically loyal servitors and a handful of Varrus's most trusted agents. It was a library, a laboratory, and a prison, all in one.
Varrus led Rimuru to the heart of the station, a vast, circular chamber known simply as the Librarius. Here, shelves reached up into the darkness, filled not with books, but with glowing data-slates, forbidden xenos artifacts held in stasis fields, and the psycho-indoctrinated skulls of long-dead scholars, their knowledge accessible via cogitator-probe.
"Here, King Rimuru," Varrus said, his voice echoing in the cavernous space. "Here you will find all the knowledge the Imperium has gathered on theoretical physics, dimensional travel, and the ravings of madmen who claimed to have seen other worlds. Here, you will find the tools to chart your path home."
He gestured to the waiting Tech-Priests and Lexmechanics. "My people are your people. Begin your research." He then turned to leave, adding, "And here, we will prepare for the coming storm."
Rimuru was about to thank him when Kael entered the Librarius, his face grim. He carried a data-slate, which he handed to Varrus.
"My Lord," Kael said, his voice low. "An update from our spies within the Ecclesiarchy. Canoness Celestine's 'Pilgrimage Fleet' has gone dark. They have stopped broadcasting their position."
"A stealth approach?" Varrus surmised.
"Worse," Kael replied, his expression hardening. "They are not moving towards any known target. They have dispersed their frigates into a search grid spanning three sectors. They are no longer following our trail. They are hunting blindly, guided by the prayers of their astropaths and the faith of their shipboard saints."
He looked at Rimuru, the gravity of the situation clear. "They are casting a net of faith across the stars. It is illogical, inefficient, and impossible. But they believe the Emperor will guide their hand directly to their holy destination."
Varrus stared at the data-slate, the cold reality of their situation setting in. They were safe for now, in a fortress no one knew existed. But they were being hunted by an enemy that did not need maps.