Warhammer: Black Emperor

Chapter 136: Secret Passage Under the Terra Palace
Nimrod gave instructions to the Astropaths, ordering the Third and Eighth Regiments to explore eastward from the northeast and southeast of Vostronia on the galactic map respectively.

He was followed by two members of the Honor Guard, Hollis from the 1st Regiment and Bradshaw from the 11th Regiment.

The two Shadows of Order are the focus of the Primarch's investigation and are candidates for dispatch to the Moon.

Nimrod walked back and forth along the path in the courtyard near the lake, his eyes searching the lake with both natural and supernatural perspectives.

Finally, when he walked the second circle, the Primarch felt a slight difference in the environment, something abrupt and somewhat inharmonious.

Even he had to make repeated comparisons before he could discover that slight difference.

Nimrod walked forward, toward that point of disharmony, into the unnatural passage.

The two Shadows of Order followed the Father of Genes, and they felt like they were walking through a curtain of water.

The strong smell of lake water, the smell of wet rocks and the cold air were all left behind in an instant, and they seemed to have stepped into another dimension.

They looked around in amazement. Hollis, who had a bolter on his back and a power sword on his waist, spoke in doubt.

“We didn’t even feel it before.”

"These tunnels are not naturally formed; they were not sculpted by mountain building or plate compression."

With the superhuman sensory abilities inherited from their gene father, they should be able to sense things several miles away, but they didn't feel anything until the moment they stepped into this place.

"It's not surprising that you didn't find it. Even the Primarch might not have found it."

Bradshaw asked curiously, glancing around.

"Was this built by the Emperor?"

"No, this tunnel should have been built by the Cold People using their amazing technology, but the Emperor has placed psychic restrictions here."

The two Order Shadows immediately stopped worrying about it. They curiously reached out and gently touched the tiled wall that was shining with an eerie light, looking at the faint bioluminescence emanating from it.

They looked up again. The light from the dark lake bottom was like shadows on the seabed, causing ripples on the wide cave ceiling where countless stalactites hung upside down.

Crystal lines meandered and shimmered in the cracks in the rock overhead, like distant starlight, completely different from the current scene on the surface of Terra.

The two Shadows of Order were lost in the strange beauty.

Their pupils dilated as they stared blankly at the crystal above their heads, as if there was something fascinating in it that gripped their eyes and their senses.

Nimrod noticed that they were moving in slow motion, lifting their legs and landing...

Every movement became extremely slow.

The Primarch looked upwards, sensing the supernatural allure of the gleaming crystals arranged by the Cold Man.

He did not mobilize his spiritual power to help his two offspring wake up, not because of spiritual power restrictions.

The psychic restrictions placed here by the Emperor have great suppressive power over ordinary psychics, even the Thousand Sons, but they cannot suppress a Primarch.

He could have injected psychic power into helping his two children, but he didn't.

[This is your final test. Can you use your willpower to overcome your bewildered senses?]
Countless wonderful lights and shadows flashed in the black eyes of the two Order Shadows, and they seemed to have come to another world.

They were intoxicated by this scene and didn't know how long it lasted.

Suddenly, a thought came to their minds at the same time: [We were chosen to serve as the Primarch's honorary guards during the journey to and from Terra.

Where is the father of genes?]
The two panicked Order Shadows suddenly came to their senses, and it was as if a mirror shattered in front of their eyes.

"I……"

"You have overcome your senses with your will." Hearing the praise from the Father of Genes, the two Shadows of Order couldn't help but straighten their chests and continued to move forward behind Nimrod.

Having almost experienced falling into hallucinations, they became highly vigilant and kept reminding themselves at all times.

The further the two Shadows of Order advanced, the more they realized how difficult it was to find the right path in the tunnel network under the lake.

Each passage seemed to be in a strange state, and their perception could not distinguish the differences between each tunnel.

They look very different, yet they seem the same.

They could only follow the Primarch, and they had no doubt that the Father of Genes would be able to find the correct route and get out of this strange maze.

Nimrod suddenly stopped and looked at the inconspicuous fluorescent green stone on the ground beside the tiled wall, which was shining with spiritual light.

[Stone Cold? "Corpse Collector" corresponds to the auxiliary material of Sequence 8 "Gravedigger."]
The Primarch leaned over and picked up an oval stone, about the size of a man's hand.

Ningluo didn't expect that on a whim, he walked through the underground maze of the palace and went to the Great Observatory, and actually came across the ingredients for the potion.

He looked around and found that these fluorescent green stones were neither part of the tunnel network built by Leng Ren nor had the patterns of Huang Laohan's spiritual power restriction.

[Taking these cold stones will have no effect.]
While Nimrod was thinking, the two Order Shadows naturally stopped.

Knowing the Father of Gene's hobbies, they also bent down and began to pick up the cold stones.

The Primarch continued to move forward, the route clearly visible in his mind. The cold man's supernatural construction technology could not interfere with his senses.

He walked out of the tunnel with his two sons and stood on a staircase. In front of them was a road lined with silver birch and sycamore trees.

Nimrod looked around. The Great Observatory stood on a raised black rock foundation. The scale of the building was so grand that it could be called an architectural miracle of ancient Terra, and it was not inferior even to the various huge buildings after countless epochs.

The exterior wall, constructed of finely carved jazz white marble, is two kilometers high and covered with purple-red patterns.

Massive flying buttresses, carved into the form of winged angels, rise from the building, which resembles the bedrock of a mountain, their arms raised heavenward in supplication.

The entire perimeter wall of the observatory depicts the great pioneers in the history of astronomy and their countless achievements.

Niches and statues honor Agnić, Sarkov, the pagan who advocated heliocentrism, Hypatia, the alchemist of Scania, Sulayma, the mother of comets, and others. Each of them has legendary scientific achievements and is worthy of being here.

An ancient telescope, once used by the Emperor to observe distant galaxies, hung on chains directly above the dome, its obsidian lens gleaming with a deep light in the sunlight.

Nimrod took the lead and walked up the 300-meter-wide steps made of Oslet stone to the grand entrance.

"Primarch!"

Exclamations rang out at the entrance, and people looked at the tall figure approaching, as if they were in a dream.

Until a moment later, the giant's shadow surrounded their bodies.

"I'm going to the observatory to check it out."

"Of course..." the observatory's observation researcher said haltingly, "I'll notify the director right away and have him come over to accompany me."

"No," Nimrod shook his head slightly, "If necessary, I will summon him."

With that, the Primarch stepped past the group and entered the Grand Observatory.

Nimrod walked through four observation rooms in a row without finding anything.

When he walked into the fifth observation room, he suddenly had an inspiration.

(End of this chapter)