The excavation went smoothly, and after three hours, Inquisitor Lennart Meyers was ready to lead the team into the largest crevasse, leaving Melissa alone above.
She observed two teams gathered at the edge of the pit. These were battle-hardened mercenaries and stormtroopers. Not only could they have the combat power of the Astartes, but they could handle most physical threats. .
They attached themselves to rappelling ropes and entered the pit, fully armed and ready for battle.
The Inquisition team quickly jumped into the pit. Lennart Meyers, as the commander, was the last one to enter the cave, while the others stood sentry at the entrance of the cave.
In the darkness below, Lennart Meyers began to leap from the stone wall.
Did the stone wall twitch beneath his boots? Did his heels dig in, as if they were treading on flesh? Is it writhing like a snake's nest?
No, none of this happened.
He wished he could be sure of that.
However, he felt keenly a primitive disgust.
He dropped another dozen meters, jumped off the wall, and landed on a wide ledge, where two teams were waiting.
Below, the pit plunged into silent darkness, a ledge in the wall a jutting terrace.
"Cheer up, everyone."
Lennart Meyers looked toward the entrance.
"We all serve Him and must not fail."
Other aspects of the building's entrance facade are equally unsettling. Lennart Meyers didn't know whether he was facing a window or a doorway. It rises into a pointed arch but has asymmetrical sides, curved and crisscrossed.
Looking directly at it, the entrance looks like a crack in the stone. Looking out of the corner of your eye, it seems to be a natural crack.
The arch was very narrow and tilted slightly from the vertical, and it took the Inquisitor some time to look over it.
"This road is blocked."
The arch is a progressive line where the two sides eventually meet and shrink to a slit - it's just a sham.
"That's impossible, my lord."
A certain tech-priest attendant said in the affirmative.
"That must be a rift."
"No."
The other man shared the same opinion as the Inquisitor, making no buzzing sound as his bionic eye scanned the building's surface.
The highly mechanized mercenary then adjusted the wavelength of his prosthetic eye to suit the low-light environment and amplified his vision.
"I believe that the Lord Inquisitor is right. The cracks have become part of the decoration, extending upward."
The technical priest also turned his artificial eyes towards the arch and said suspiciously:
"This building is divided into two floors?"
"It's worse than that."
Lennart Meyers points to other openings from left to right, each with its own unique shape, as if it had been melted after it was built, with gaps similar to the arches visible in the shadows.
The façade initially appears to be seamless, but closer inspection reveals a network of tiny gaps that vaguely suggest a three-dimensional mosaic structure.
"How can this be?"
The tech-priest spoke again, but now his denial was an expression of fear. The craftsmanship was truly miraculous.
"It was originally built on a hillside and then supported by the sunken crust."
The sill is at the widest point in the center of the opening, and its edges are a curved, tapered cylinder twice as tall as the Space Marine.
It looked like a giant fang, reaching into the empty air of the pit, and the Tech-Priest took a few steps forward to examine it. His servo arm turned on the light and illuminated the black stone, illuminating similar structures around it.
It looks like a spreading crack, but unless the aesthetic itself is powerful, nothing will stop this thing from falling to pieces.
"My lord, I can think of no reasonable explanation for what we have seen."
"It's a subspace influence."
A one-eyed old mercenary answered like this.
"We shouldn't be surprised that this area has been more severely affected."
Another mercenary also expressed similar views
"This kind of existence is not a problem. This is a designed organizational form. Some kind of subspace power has shaped this shape...and no matter what, as long as it appears in the physical universe, then he can annihilated.”
On the other side, several stormtroopers had been jumping down and were now back on the ledge, the flash of their helmets illuminating the darkness.
"How about it?"
Stormtroopers are actually the most trusted force of Inquisitor Lennart Meyers. His attitude towards other mercenaries is the same as before, refusing to provide anything beyond basic etiquette, but he will give more respect to the stormtroopers.
The leader of the stormtrooper team shook his head.
"My lord, as far as the entire rift is concerned, they have the same structure, but some structures are still buried. We have no more information."
"There is no more important rift than other places?"
"No, on the contrary..."
The Stormtrooper team leader hesitated.
"Each opening was completely different from the others, but I was impressed that they were also replicated."
"copy?"
"I don't want to say that this building was created by copying."
"But that's what you just said."
"Like I said, I didn't want to say it."
Lennart Meyers grunted.
"Let me see."
He walked towards the rift, the team following behind him.
Passing through the rift like a membrane, Lennart Meyers entered a narrow tunnel, and then the team entered a wide room.
From scratch, there seemed to be only weak lighting in the room, and a dark red liquid like blood filled the entire space, modifying the faint light from the outside.
The ceiling is a huge dome, and all the pillars have a certain inclination with the vertical direction. The wall is two hundred meters away, and after advancing fifty meters, it is still empty.
The rear walls correspond to the rise of the plateau, and behind them the rock wall is filled with rows of twisted arched entrances.
"Where's the augur?"
"Nothing was found."
The tech-priest answered immediately.
"No energy source?"
"nor"
"Then what can you tell me?"
"Uh... Sir, even in this space, I can't give a universal explanation. The readings are contradictory and constantly changing."
Lennart Meyers nodded.
"Something shaped this place, and what it created is stable, so we're going to keep looking until we find the root of it all."
They continued their journey, and near the back wall, there was a ramp leading to the next level.
The slope is steep, and people follow the ramp into a room identical to the one above, which also has a ramp, taking them to another room, which also has a ramp.
