Warhammer: The Time Traveler

Chapter 372 The Verestana Clan (Seventh Update)

The Eternal Expedition and its escort fleet forcibly broke away from the warp and returned to the cold, silent real universe.

The brief period of safe navigation did not lead to any relaxation; an urgent battle damage assessment and communication liaison were quickly launched.

The intelligence gathered made Sigismund and Chen Yu realize immediately that the crisis they had just experienced was not an isolated incident.

The fleet's communication channels were filled with chaos and bad news: the navigators on other escort ships also went out of control and mutated to varying degrees at almost the same time.

The frenzied psionic screams, reports of internal firefights, and brief but intense descriptions of mutations paint a picture of a fleet-wide catastrophe.

Fortunately, apart from the "Eternal Expedition," the crew members and combat monks on the other ships eventually managed to control and even eliminate the corrupted navigators on their respective ships, although the process was brutal and resulted in considerable casualties.

However, two more unfortunate pieces of news arrived – the two frigates failed to escape subspace.

Their last signals vanished in the churning energy currents, along with the fate of all the souls on board.

The losses were devastating.

The complete collapse of the navigator system means that the entire fleet has completely lost its ability to safely conduct long-distance subspace navigation until a replacement is found.

They were trapped in this nameless star field.

Sigismund's face was ashen.

He stood on the bridge, gazing at the sparse starlight beyond the main view, and swiftly issued orders: "Assess all losses. Prioritize repairing structural damage to the warships. Issue the highest priority communications to contact the nearest Imperial world. We need navigators—at all costs."

Chen Yu's mechanical body stood still to one side, while the data stream flowed silently behind his optical lens.

He accessed the fleet's Thinker network and began analyzing the current star system coordinates and possible Imperial strongholds or Mechanicus facilities, attempting to find the coordinates in the real universe needed to travel to the world with the nearest branch of the Navigator Clan.

Chen Yu's rapid star map analysis led to a crucial discovery: their location of leaving subspace was not entirely random; there happened to be a space station belonging to the Velestana Navigator Clan in a nearby galaxy.

This is undoubtedly a blessing in disguise.

The fleet immediately changed course and headed toward the star system.

The space station hovered alone at the edge of the galaxy, its architecture bearing the mysterious and enclosed character characteristic of the Navigator family. Its massive observation dome and psionic amplifiers were faintly visible in the starlight.

The fleet stopped at a safe distance from the space station.

Sigismund, in the name of the High Marshal of the Eternal Expedition and Primarch Dorne, sent an Astral communication to the space station, requesting that it immediately provide at least one experienced navigator to assist the fleet in continuing its crucial journey to Holy Terra.

After sending the message, you wait.

On the bridge, both Sigismund and Chen Yu knew that the other party could not refuse a direct request from the Primarch of the Fist of the Empire, especially one carrying the mission of the Emperor's will.

However, the Navigator clan has always been known for its closed-off and elusive nature, and no one can predict whether they will impose certain conditions or whether the process will encounter unexpected complications.

Time flowed by in the silent void, each second feeling incredibly long. All eyes were fixed on the sensor feedback, awaiting a response from the silent space station.
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The Verestana clan responded faster than expected.

An encrypted interstellar message was transmitted directly to the "Eternal Expedition," its content concise and clear: an invitation for Sigismund and Sage Chen Yu to visit the space station.

There were no unnecessary formalities, nor were any specific conditions for providing navigation mentioned.

This in itself seems rather unusual.

After a brief discussion with Chen Yu, Sigismund decided to accept the invitation.

A highly skilled escort team, personally led by Sigismund, along with Chen Yu's massive mechanical body, boarded a Thunderhawk gunboat, detached from the warship, and headed towards the Navigator Space Station, which was isolated in the void.

The space station's interior was structured in a style quite different from Imperial warships or Mechanicus facilities, with winding passageways, dim lighting, and walls decorated with incomprehensible psionic symbols.

They were led to a spacious area that resembled an audience hall.

They were received there not by ordinary representatives or elders of the clan, but by the clan's current "holy son".

The holy son was dressed in magnificent and strange clothes, with a jewel-encrusted headband covering his forehead, beneath which was his tightly closed, powerful third eye.

His demeanor carried an innate nobility, as well as a certain inhuman sense of detachment.

As the individual with the purest bloodline and the strongest psychic potential within the Velestana clan, the Holy Son is usually regarded as the future patriarch and spiritual leader. His personal appearance undoubtedly demonstrates the importance attached to this matter within the clan.

Chen Yu's sensors silently recorded every detail of the Holy Son.

He knew that the Navigators had to strictly practice endogamy in order to maintain their unique psychic abilities and third eye.

Any union with an outsider, especially with an ordinary human who lacks psychic potential, will either result in the birth of mortal offspring with no special characteristics, leading to bloodline dilution, or, under the intervention of Chaos, give birth to something indescribable and blasphemous.

Based on his past research, he was convinced that the Navigators were essentially a special subspecies of psionic beings created by humans through genetic engineering during the dark ages of technology, with their genomes deliberately modified to meet the needs of subspace navigation.

However, the long Old Night Era buried too much knowledge. Even the Navigators themselves, through millennia of continuous contact with the Warp, inevitably had their genetic sequences eroded and distorted, becoming increasingly unstable, and their appearance increasingly deviated from a pure human form, tending towards the indescribable.

The holy son before us is a living testament to this contradictory combination of "purity" and "mutation".

The Holy Son stood quietly in the center of the audience hall, the jeweled headband on his forehead gleaming faintly in the dim light, beneath which lay the third eye that held the fate and power of the clan.

His gaze—those eyes that seemed to hold the trajectory of stars—calmly passed over Sigismund and finally landed on Chen Yu's massive mechanical body.

Without any pleasantries or probing, the heir of the Verestana clan spoke with an ethereal, almost superhuman voice that went straight to the heart of the matter: "Sage Chen Yu, we are aware of the changes you have brought."

I will ask only once, and need only one true answer—when new navigational methods traverse the Empire, where will my people…the navigators, find their place? In the future star map you see, will Verestana still have a place?

(End of this chapter)