Chapter 94 Noctis Labyrinth

Vane quickly slapped down some Obsidian and a Teleport Stone to build a quick portal. Plugging in the coordinates Big E provided, the two of them stepped through the rift, instantly arriving at the sprawling plains that housed the entrance to the Noctis Labyrinth.

Mars was the absolute cradle of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Ten millennia of relentless, unchecked industrialization had transformed the planet’s surface into a highly toxic, barren crimson wasteland. Hundreds of monolithic factorums and sprawling Hive Cities covered the planet like a metallic spider web.

Vane looked up, spotting a colossal, majestic Hive City dominating the distant horizon. Towering spires pierced straight into the toxic clouds, twinkling with harsh industrial lights, making the entire structure look like a slumbering beast of iron and steel.

“So, where’s this Noctis Labyrinth?” Vane turned to Big E.

By now, Big E had completely suppressed his blinding, majestic aura, choosing to manifest as a perfectly ordinary, albeit incredibly rugged, middle-aged man.

“Follow me.”

Big E led Vane straight into a massive cavern crammed full of rusted, abandoned machinery. He reached out and tripped a heavily concealed switch. The seamlessly fused rock wall aggressively retracted into itself, revealing a pitch-black tunnel sloping deep into the planet’s crust.

The tunnel was insanely deep, lined with completely bizarre, slick-looking black stone. The architecture itself was actively hostile—the corridor twisted at nauseating, non-Euclidean angles, the masonry was intentionally misaligned, the proportions were completely out of whack, and there were endless, branching intersections practically designed to strip a person of their directional sense.

Honestly, if Big E wasn’t playing tour guide, Vane probably would have just busted out his pickaxe and started strip-mining his way straight through the walls. Vane absolutely hated puzzles, mazes, and brain-teasers. He couldn’t be bothered to waste the brainpower on figuring them out.

Bullshit, if I’ve got absolute god-tier strength, why would I ever bother using super intelligence? To hell with your stupid maze, take those puzzles and shove ’em.

As they descended deeper, the tunnel walls began to change. The jagged rock started to emit a faint glow, looking almost as if some kind of bioluminescent, living electrical current was pulsing through the stone.

“That is the Void Dragon’s passive influence,” Big E explained. “The Noctis Labyrinth is strong enough to keep it imprisoned, but it cannot completely contain the entity’s energy bleed. After centuries of constant exposure, the surrounding bedrock mutated into this.”

“Interesting,” Vane nodded thoughtfully.

If that was how it worked, he could totally use the Void Dragon as the ultimate, infinite light source. He could just hollow out a mountain, stuff the star god inside, and turn the entire geological formation into a giant, glowing RGB lamp. Just picturing the aesthetic made him grin.

Following the glowing tunnel deeper underground, they eventually stepped into a massive, cavernous laboratory. The hall was crammed full of ancient, arcane machinery. Most of the massive devices had completely died out, with only a handful of consoles still humming along on absolute minimum emergency power.

“A genuine miracle. To think I would actually receive visitors today.”

A haggard woman stepped out from a shadowed corridor at the far end of the hall.

Vane immediately noticed that the woman’s flesh radiated a faint, cracked-silver glow. It looked less like she had blood pumping through her veins and more like she was filled with shimmering, liquid fire. A distinct tattoo was branded across her forehead: a tightly coiled spiral flanked by classical wings.

“The Mark of the Dragon? So this is the Guardian of the Dragon tasked with watching the Void Dragon?” Vane asked, glancing over at Big E.

“Indeed,” Big E nodded.

The Guardian of the Dragon’s sole, sacred duty was to maintain the Void Dragon’s containment. The Guardians were personally handpicked by Big E himself and were granted incredibly extended lifespans to fulfill their purpose.

“She looks like absolute hell, though,” Vane remarked, giving the woman a sympathetic once-over. “I’m guessing keeping a god in a box puts a massive strain on the body.”

“Who are you?” the woman demanded, her voice thick with suspicion and dread. These sudden intruders simply knew way too much.

“You seriously don’t recognize him?” Vane thumbed over at Big E. “He’s the guy who literally guided you to take over for Adept Semyon and become the new Guardian of the Dragon.”

Back during the explosive chaos of the Horus Heresy, Adept Dalia Cythera had been tasked with delving into the Noctis Labyrinth to find a way to stabilize the Akashic Reader. The Reader was an experimental device built by Adept Zeth, supposedly capable of sifting through the Warp to access every single piece of knowledge from the literal dawn of the universe up to the present day.

Dalia never actually found the stabilization method. Instead, she stumbled upon Semyon, the original Guardian of the Dragon, and inherited his impossible burden to become the new Guardian. As for the Akashic Reader and all its related blueprints? They were completely vaporized during the apocalyptic Schism of Mars.

“The Emperor?” Dalia scrutinized the rugged, middle-aged man standing next to Vane, her face twisting in pure disbelief. “That is impossible. His Majesty is permanently bound to the Golden Throne.”

Faced with her stubborn skepticism, Big E let out a mental sigh and briefly dropped his disguise, allowing his blinding, majestic, god-like aura to flare outward.

The absolute second Dalia felt that golden, crushing presence, she immediately dropped to one knee. “My Lord!”

“I finally get why you always run around playing the glowing cult leader,” Vane leaned in and mock-whispered into Big E’s ear. “Gotta admit, people really do just judge a book by its incredibly shiny cover.”

Big E: …

Me? A cult leader?!

Hey, let’s pump the brakes on the blatant slander!

“Take us to the Void Dragon,” Vane ordered.

Following Vane’s request, Dalia led the two of them deeper into the labyrinth, eventually arriving at a gargantuan subterranean cavern completely flooded with a blinding, dazzling silver light.

“Come on out, Mag’ladroth! Stop hiding in the dark!” Vane yelled into the cavern.

But the cavern remained perfectly still. The arrogant Void Dragon completely ignored him, refusing to dignify the mortal with a response.

“Szarekh the Silent King is on his way back to the galaxy,” Vane called out conversationally. “He said he’s going to nail your ass to a throne and listen to you scream in agony day and night.”

The absolute second those words left Vane’s mouth, a terrifying, apocalyptic roar violently erupted from the deepest depths of the cavern.

The blinding silver light rapidly condensed inward, aggressively morphing into a towering humanoid entity forged entirely from shifting, liquid-silver metal. It was the Void Dragon itself. The C’tan possessed an elongated, completely featureless face without a single sensory organ. A jagged metallic halo hovered behind its head, bizarre, bladed metallic wings were folded tightly against its back, and a long, whip-like metallic tail lashed angrily behind it.

[Mortal, you dare provoke me?] The Void Dragon’s archaic, crushing voice bypassed the air entirely, detonating directly inside Vane’s mind.

“Provoke you? Please. I’m about to beat you like a rented mule.”