100: Chapter 100 The Ancient Saint's Mobile World Opens

The quantum holographic projection of the Ancient One Emissary slowly turned in front of the Coalition fleet, its cold green light patterns dragging an arc-shaped wake spanning thousands of kilometers across the void. The psionic pillar of light right in the center of the Mobile World's bow expanded to both sides, revealing a giant dome inside that was completely enveloped in the second-generation engineering style of the Ancient Ones. The surface of the dome was densely engraved with all the navigation logs, life seed bank catalogs, and a set of large-scale engineering blueprints that the Coalition had never seen before, all accumulated by the Ancient Ones over tens of millions of years in deep intergalactic space. In the very center of the blueprint was a star repeatedly traced by cold green light patterns; the star was labeled not as an energy source or a gravitational anchor, but as a more fundamental definition—navigation.

"The Coalition has completed the Living Psionic Network, but your network base is still the quantum resonance of the Blackstone Defense Line and the living neural network of The Swarm's Hive Mind. The coverage radius of the Blackstone Defense Line is limited, and the bandwidth of the Hive Mind is constrained by the number of Brood Queen nodes. If the Coalition wants to extend the defensive depth of the Ultima Segmentum to the entire Galaxy, you need a global navigation system that is free from Warp interference, does not rely on the Astronomican, and does not resonate with Chaos psionics. This system completed its theoretical design and prototype testing at the end of the War in Heaven, and we call it the Psionic Beacon—using Cohesive Psionics to simultaneously light up countless navigation nodes on all spiral arms of the Galaxy that can locate each other without the need for Warp routes."

The Ancient One Emissary zoomed in on the blueprint layer by layer; the node density of the Psionic Beacons covered the entire airspace from the core of the Galaxy to the outermost dark matter halo. Every beacon could be directly retrofitted and upgraded from the Coalition's existing Living Psionic Network nodes, with the blackstone engine array serving as the energy core of the beacons, the quantum array of the Void Throat serving as the synchronization protocol layer between the beacons, and the living neural network of The Swarm's Hive Mind serving as the real-time calibration base of the beacons. The technical prototype of the entire system had been completed long before the Ancient Ones withdrew from the Galaxy, except that at that time, there was no collective consciousness core powerful enough to maintain the synchronous operation of the beacon network. Now, The Swarm's Hive Mind filled this gap.

Heinrich patched in from the fleet channel. The old naval officer's cybernetic eye stared intently at the core data of the blueprint, saying that the Imperial Navy's Navigator Houses had spent tens of thousands of years adapting to the Astronomican, and now the Ancient Ones had produced a system that could locate positions in real-time in any corner of the Galaxy without needing the Astronomican. If this Psionic Beacon network were built, the Imperial Fleet would no longer be affected by Warp storms, and the Navigator Houses could retire. Oldenburg sent an additional assessment from the flagship of the Third Assault Fleet—the node coverage of the Psionic Beacons far exceeded that of the Blackstone Defense Line, and once completed, the Coalition could extend the defensive depth of the Ultima Segmentum to the entire Galaxy within months, rather than being confined to a corner of the Ultima Segmentum.

The Brood Queen crouched directly beneath the dome of the Mobile World, the Blackstone Resonance Chambers on her adamantium-chitin carapace synchronizing with the prototype test data of the Ancient Ones' Psionic Beacon blueprint. She translated the Overmind's reply to the entire Coalition channel—"The Overmind says that the core engineering parameters of the Psionic Beacon network are compatible with The Swarm Hive Mind's Gene-phage sequence. The Swarm accepts the Psionic Beacon as the core engineering project for the Coalition's next phase. The handover ceremony of the Ancient One legacy will be executed under the legal framework of the Coalition War Council."

The Iyanden Farseer's Wraithbone Staff drew a faint blue arc in midair. The Web of Prophecy showed that once the Psionic Beacon network was completed, Chaos's Warp advantage in the Galaxy would be completely dismantled, and Tzeentch would lose the ability to peer into all precognitive blind spots. The Farseer said that the Ancient Ones had not just left the Coalition a weapon, but had given them an entire set of strategic infrastructure to permanently block Chaos.

Nephilak's quantum communication patched in. The Necron Overlord unsealed all ancient archives regarding the Psionic Beacon theory within the Necron Dynasty's Core Matrix. These archives cross-referenced with the design parameters of the Ancient Ones' blueprints, proving that this beacon network was naturally compatible with the blackstone engine array and the Necron living metal regeneration protocols.

After the Coalition completed all confirmations, the Ancient One Emissary packaged the complete blueprints, engineering guides, and prototype test data of the Psionic Beacons into a cold green quantum data core, slowly lowering it from the very center of the Mobile World's dome into the void directly in front of the Coalition fleet formation. On the bridge of the Wrath of the Emperor, Marcus Aurelian pressed the fleet channel button, formally receiving the Ancient One's Psionic Beacon legacy on behalf of the Coalition War Council, and announced that the Coalition would immediately launch Phase I of the beacon network project, using the Ultima Segmentum as the central hub to gradually lay beacon nodes along all major spiral arms of the Galaxy. The project would have the Brood Queen serve as the chief technical director, the Iyanden Farseer handle the synchronous calibration of the Web of Prophecy, Canoptek-7 verify quantum protocol compatibility, and the Joint Fleet Command manage the dispatch and security of all construction fleets. After the legacy transfer was completed, the Ancient One Emissary slowly withdrew into the depths of the Mobile World's dome, and the psionic pillar of light closed once more, but the channel did not shut—the Ancient One migration fleet would remain stationed at the edge of the Ultima Segmentum for a long time, serving as the Coalition's permanent technical advisors.

In his closing remarks, Marcus said that the first legacy the Ancient Ones left to the Coalition was the Void Throat, the second was the Living Psionic Network, the third was legal order, and the fourth was the Psionic Beacon. The Coalition had fully received all four legacies, and what lay ahead was no longer the Ancient Ones' test, but the Coalition's own engineering project. He ordered the entire fleet to return from the channel and assemble ships and materials for Phase I of the Psionic Beacon project at the Ultima Segmentum anchorage, with Bern copying the full text of the legacy transfer record to the High Lords of Terra and the Ecclesiarch, and Heinrich's Shield of the Emperor continuing to serve as the flagship of the Expeditionary Fleet until Phase I of the project was completed. Through the translator, the Brood Queen told the Overmind that the core engineering parameters of the Psionic Beacon had been fully translated into The Swarm's genetic code, and all Brood Queen nodes had completed synchronous updates. The Overmind replied that all of the Ancient Ones' legacies had been accepted, and next, the Coalition would be testing itself.