Rimuru's voice crackled over the vox, a calm, clear signal that cut through the bridge's awed silence and reached the fleet waiting outside. "The paradox has been resolved, Lord Inquisitor. The law has been… amended. And I believe I have just acquired a significant shortcut for our journey home."
A moment later, Rimuru and Captain Arken vanished from the Necron bridge in a silent shimmer of spatial distortion, reappearing in the strategium of the Obelisk.
Lord Inquisitor Varrus and Canoness Celestine stared, their expressions a mixture of profound relief and utter shock. Before they could even formulate a question, a new report came from the bridge.
"My Lord," the Fleet Admiral's voice was strained, on the verge of breaking. "The xenos vessel… it moves. It has disengaged from the singularity and is taking up formation with our fleet."
On the main viewscreen, the impossible was displayed for all to see. The silent, crescent-shaped Necron ghost ship, a vessel that had moments before threatened to delete them from time, was now moving with a slow, deliberate grace, falling into position behind the Obelisk like a tamed, otherworldly beast of war. It was the ultimate trophy, a symbol of a victory so total it defied comprehension.
In the strategium, Captain Arken delivered his report. His voice was a flat, terse monotone, the only way he could process and relate the insane events he had witnessed.
"We engaged the xenos commander, a being of temporal and causal manipulation," Arken stated, his gaze fixed on a point in the middle distance. "It attempted to age my armor to dust. The… King… nullified its efforts. The xenos then accelerated the singularity's collapse. King Rimuru engaged the entity and unmade it. He then seized control of the vessel's core systems and personally stabilized the singularity. Mission complete."
The room was silent. Celestine made the sign of the Aquila, her face pale. Her faith provided no framework for this. This wasn't a holy smiting of a daemon. This was the calm, orderly rewriting of physics.
"The shortcut you mentioned," Varrus finally said, his ancient mind focusing on the most critical, strategic implication. "Explain."
"The knowledge within that ship is a complete library of this Necron faction's mastery over spacetime," Rimuru explained, his tone that of a researcher sharing a breakthrough. Ciel had already finished her preliminary analysis. "They don't travel through the Warp. They navigate what they call 'Inertial Pathways'—filaments of folded spacetime that connect distant points in the galaxy, like cosmic strings. Their 'Law of Causality' was an attempt to police these pathways."
He brought up a new, impossibly complex map on the holo-lith, a web of shimmering lines overlaid on the galactic chart. "This is a map of their pathways. With it, we no longer need to make a series of short, dangerous, and power-intensive jumps. We can travel the breadth of the galaxy in a handful of steps."
Hope, for the first time, wasn't a vague concept but a tangible, charted course.
"There is a problem, however," Rimuru continued. "My dimensional array wasn't designed to interface with this system. It can be adapted, but it will require a level of technological craftsmanship and resources that can only be found on a major forge world." He looked directly at Varrus. "We need to go back to Ryza."
The irony wasn't lost on anyone. Their first great leap away from the Imperium's heart had led them right back to it, but now they were returning with a prize that would make the Archmagos of Ryza either deify Rimuru on the spot or declare him the greatest tech-heretic in history.
"To use the unholy science of the soulless ones is to court damnation," Celestine whispered, her voice a mixture of horror and fascination.
"The knowledge is a tool, Canoness," Varrus countered, his strategic mind already five steps ahead. "The hand that wields it is what matters. We have seen that King Rimuru's hand is… steady." He made his decision. "The course is set. We return to Ryza."
He turned to his private vox channel, issuing a series of coded commands. The unholy alliance of a fleet, which now included a Necron Harvest Ship sailing in its wake, altered its course.
Later, in the privacy of his chambers, Varrus stood with Kael, observing the ghost-ship on his monitor.
"My Lord," Kael said, his voice barely audible. "The implications of this… Necron science, the power to fold space… If the High Lords of Terra, the Adeptus Mechanicus on Mars… if they were to learn of this…"
"They will not," Varrus said, his voice a sliver of ice. "This knowledge is now the single most valuable and dangerous secret in the Imperium. It's a power that could finally win the Long War, unite humanity, and bring a new Golden Age."
He turned away from the screen, his ancient eyes filled with a terrible, weary clarity. "Or it could be the spark that ignites a new civil war, a new Age of Strife, a schism that would burn the galaxy to cinders as every faction vies to control it."
He looked at his protégé. "Our mission has changed, Kael. It's no longer about helping a lost king find his way home. Our new, sacred duty is to ensure that when he leaves, he doesn't leave the keys to reality behind in the hands of the madmen and fanatics who run this Imperium."
Varrus now saw the true, terrifying scope of his gamble. He was no longer a simple spymaster managing an asset. He had become the self-appointed guardian of a secret that could either save or shatter the galaxy. The weight of that knowledge was heavier than any of the three millennia he had already endured.