Just as the second wave of the Imperial fleet was about to enter the front-line battlefield, the Astropath's expression changed drastically, and he stopped them.
Astropaths were psykers whose main role was communication, using psychic power to contact distant star systems.
One second earlier, the Astropath had suddenly lost all contact with the system under Tyranid invasion.
Although the Shadow in the Warp had shrouded the region, the units that had already entered the system had brought in equipment that could still transmit at least a little vague intelligence.
But now, he could not sense anything from that side at all.
That meant every Astropath over there was dead.
More importantly, they had still been transmitting information to this side at the moment they died, only for the transmission to cut off without warning. All of it cut off at once.
It seemed as though they had been struck by some strange, sudden attack and killed in an instant before they could react at all.
So the fleet could not enter that system immediately.
"What? You can't find the system?"
The Chapter Master of the Space Wolves' face darkened, because the Navigator had also suddenly reported that the system they were heading toward seemed to have vanished into thin air.
"Damn it. Are you joking with me?"
The message from the Imperium ordered his fleet to stand by, which infuriated him.
At a time like this, what were they waiting for?
So he had simply ignored the order and forced the fleet to set out. Then, just as they were about to arrive, this sudden situation happened.
"The Shadow in the Warp has vanished."
A voice sounded, causing him to look toward its owner.
It was Rikondin, the Aeldari.
"Vanished?"
Did that mean the insects had already devoured the system and moved on to the next one?
Wasn't that the worst possible outcome?
Damn it!
"Not only has the Shadow in the Warp covering that place vanished, even the Webway can no longer connect to it. It is as though that location no longer exists. It looks as if the system disappeared without any warning."
"Disappeared without any warning?"
The Chapter Master could not understand it.
"We go here."
The Aeldari gave them the location of the Webway exit closest to that system.
The Chapter Master decisively ordered the fleet to accelerate toward that exit.
In the blink of an eye, they emerged from the Webway exit and returned to realspace. They immediately began observing the system that had been invaded by the Tyranids.
"It's... gone."
"It really is gone."
The starfield displayed on the main screen was empty. There was nothing there.
"Are you certain this is the system? You did not get the direction wrong?"
"We are certain. We compared the surrounding systems. That was definitely the system invaded by the insects!"
Then how had a perfectly good star system disappeared?
No matter how well those insects could eat, it was impossible for them to devour everything so cleanly.
And yet the observed region of space was indeed eerily empty.
"No. Something is strange!"
"Has space been stretched?"
The screen displayed a strange visualization model of the gravitational field. Around the region where the star system had vanished, gravity in the surrounding space was changing. It looked as though space itself was extending toward the disappeared system.
It was like suddenly draining the air from one region inside a planet and creating an instant vacuum. The surrounding air would flow in to fill that empty space.
"What is that? A line?"
A new situation stunned everyone.
They saw a faint, dark line.
And as the fleet continued to approach, that line grew thicker and thicker.
Gradually, they realized that it might not be a line at all.
By then, they finally received imagery.
When they had looked directly at that region before, it had been almost synchronized with the time over there. They could only see the consequences of what had happened.
Now, they had obtained imagery from one hundred years later.
It was like a star one hundred light-years away undergoing a supernova explosion. The brilliance seen by the naked eye would appear to be a supernova that had just happened, but in the local region, it would actually have occurred a hundred years ago.
That was because the light had traveled for one hundred years, allowing them to see the scene from a century in the past.
Based on that principle, their equipment allowed them to see what had happened to that star system.
As the recording played, the vanished system was still there at first.
Then, three seconds later, the entire system was suddenly filled with white light.
After the white light faded, the star system began to...
"Is it collapsing?"
"No. It looks like it is being compressed? Flattened?"
"No, no. This is... dimensional space is falling."
The Aeldari spoke with a trace of shock, but also interest.
"Dimensional falling?"
"Yes. It should be dimensional falling. That gradually enlarging line is, unless I am mistaken, a slightly tilted 'painting.' It looks as if it is trying to lie flat. If it were completely flat and level with us, then even the line would probably no longer be visible."
The Chapter Master more or less understood.
Simply put, if there was a photograph in his hand, and the photograph was aligned with his line of sight, but not facing him directly, instead lying sideways, then looking at it head-on would only reveal a line.
As for why the line would become invisible if it were perfectly level, that was because dimensions were not something that could be seen with the naked eye.
In other words, it was a photograph without thickness.
That star system had been compressed into a thicknessless photograph?
Or perhaps a specimen?
"I suggest we do not get too close. This painting still appears to be affecting the surrounding space. If we approach, we may be pulled into the world inside the painting as well. It would be best to wait until it stabilizes."
The fleet could not move in directly, but the Chapter Master still sent a reconnaissance ship.
Soon, the reconnaissance ship reached a certain position, and every image it detected was transmitted back.
It truly was a "painting."
A painting that left everyone silent.
At that moment, the Chapter Master understood why his mission had suddenly been changed to standby.
The Imperium had likely used some special weapon on that system and two-dimensionalized the entire star system.
...
『Dimensional Foil "imaging" complete.』
Such a message popped up on the ghost ship's operating interface.
In truth, "Dimensional Foil" should originally have been called two-dimensionalization, but its name had been deliberately changed. The weapon had been officially designated as the Dimensional Foil.
『"Printing" beginning.』
The "painting," which had been flattened until it was the size of an entire star system, seemed to begin shrinking. It appeared to be using spatial folding.
In the end, it shrank down to roughly one hundred square meters, and one could see it being projected into a film-like image by the IC card.
The process looked like developing a photograph after taking a picture with an old-fashioned camera.
With that, the originally untouchable painting seemed to be fixed inside a frame, allowing it to be taken away.
This two-dimensionalization weapon was practically like a certain blue robotic cat's camera, capable of turning whatever it photographed into a picture.
Unfortunately, Kain could not touch that photograph now.
Although his head was gone, his consciousness still existed. Through that consciousness, he could still see the world, though it felt different from seeing with his eyes.
The world seen through eyes was a world of color. As for what he saw through consciousness, how should it be described? It was somewhat like a world seen through thermal imaging.
But now, even his consciousness was becoming slower and slower.
The body was like hardware, while consciousness was data.
Now that the hardware had been destroyed, the data and electrical signals could still maintain their original state for a short time. But very soon, without a carrier, they would scatter and vanish.
Still, he did not feel as though his consciousness was blurring. He only felt himself slowing down, as if returning to some original state.
Slowness and blurriness were different things.
This time, why did he not have the same thought as last time, that he might as well die and be done with it?
Instead, there was a sense of unwillingness.
Or was it fear of death?
No. It was attachment.
Because of the appearance of the Super-Dimensional Channel, he now had bonds. He was unwilling to simply disappear like this.
To put it simply, his "Dao heart" had been affected.
As for the Super-Dimensional Channel, it had just happened to disconnect. Although he could still sense it and enter the login screen, no matter what he did, he could not log in.
It was like the network had been cut off, leaving the chat app unable to connect no matter how many times he tried.
Just as his thoughts grew so sluggish that even calculating one plus one felt as if it would take a dozen seconds...
Was it coming?
It felt exactly like when he had died before and was about to revive.
In the next instant, golden energy, so dense it burned like plasma flame, spread out from his body. Even the parts that had turned into blood mist ignited.
At that moment, Kain felt as though he had once again entered that "super-body" state.
In an instant, his thoughts accelerated, and his processing power skyrocketed.
In an instant, he felt as if he were omnipotent.
He could even control this power.
(End of Chapter)
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