Planet 106 was currently a mining world belonging to the Forge World Gryaia.
As a fringe planet, its vast ochre-hued land was barren, arid, and cold, plagued by frequent sandstorms.
But it was not as impoverished as it appeared on the surface. On the contrary, this planet was quite rich in mineral deposits.
Planet 106 could produce a rare metal for Gryaia that had excellent malleability, making it one of the precious mining worlds for this Forge World.
Heavy-duty mining machines rumbled incessantly across this planet's surface, warning lights flashing, dust and sand swirling, ore tumbling.
But before this, 106 was not its name.
Wenmas - that was the name the Iskandari Dynasty had given it.
The exiled firstborn son slumbered here.
"Welcome, lords of the Death Guard."
The tech-priest in crimson robes bowed deeply, saluting the transhuman warriors before him.
"Greetings,"
Moraug returned the gesture simply.
Behind Death Guard Moraug were four of the Death Guard's most outstanding neophytes.
Antai, Bast, Lerna, Fleming.
This was originally a simple transport mission, with the Death Guard only needing to make an appearance.
Under the tacit understanding between the Death Guard and Gryaia, they had to oversee and escort this batch of blacksone for loading and shipping, to prove Gryaia's goods here were "problem-free".
"Apologies, honored lords of the Death Guard. The blacksone mining may still require one full Terran week.
"You may proceed first to the blacksone mining area to observe the processes."
"The good news is, the blast points for Blacksone Mine 03 are already prepared. If you head over now, you can arrive just in time for the first blasting phase."
Since their task here concerned blacksone, Moraug could hardly remain in Gryaia's other mining districts. He directly agreed and they set off.
And so here they were now.
At the edge of Mine 03, a tall monitoring tower stood towering, its bare brownish red metal frame obscured by swirling dust.
Moraug and the Death Guard neophytes he led waited here silently, watching the two tech-priests bustling busily before them.
"10 second countdown."
The drone-like rasp of a servo skull sounded out nearby. In the distance, those tiny crimson dots were slowly shifting.
"Nine."
Lerna tried to subtly inch closer. This was a massive scene of blowing up an entire zone - something he'd never witnessed on Barbarus.
He checked his head-mounted vid recorder, deciding to bring this footage back to show Eyo. Eyo had been selected to train as an apothecary, which was why he wasn't here now.
"Eight."
Antai gazed at the scene unfolding before him. Standing on an alien planet felt very unreal.
"Seven."
Bast was spacing out.
"Six."
Fleming tried to stand a bit more solemnly.
"Five."
Moraug automatically ignored the slight movements of the neophytes behind him, choosing to gaze into the distance at the barren wastelands instead.
"Four."
Tech-Priest 78, responsible for the mining operations, was doing final calculations on the results of this blast. Based on previous surveys, their explosions this time could coincide precisely with a tectonic shift, making the resultant earthquake even more violent.
The ground had started shaking - the precursor to the quake.
"Three."
Wenmas, a fringe planet belonging to the stellar kingdom of the Undead Iskarios Dynasty, utterly insignificant and negligible.
But it made an excellent place to exile these royals.
"Two."
Perhaps his lord still placed too much emphasis on propriety. As the firstborn son of a dynasty, estranged from his own brother, forced to watch Octix exiled by the rapacious King Unas.
With the shifting continental plates, the mountains in the distance had started tilting.
"One."
His king, Kassorlos, had finally been exiled here too by the greedy Unas.
And he, Nas, a soldier promoted from the common masses for his loyalty, served as the king's steward, slumbering in his tomb.
Within the explosives, heat began pooling.
"Zero."
He descended from the apex to the base of the supposedly indestructible golden pyramid of the dynasty.
The enormous ochre-hued soil erupted, spewing fountains kilometers high. The chained explosions rumbled continuously as the ochre geysers exploded outwards in layers, the earth quaking violently, the very sky shaking.
The originally unbroken barren wastelands were now rent apart by a straight fissure, the tectonic movements causing this rift to expand in an unstoppable manner.
[Violent shifts detected. Initiating protocols.]
The tomb complex consciousness strictly executed its predetermined routines, an emerald glow abruptly flaring into being.
He awoke.
Nas tried to blink, but his neural threads soon reminded him that he no longer possessed eyelids for some time now.
"Hey, I'm saying something crawled out from that rift!"
Lerna was yelling excitedly over the private channel:
"What is that?"
"Glowing green bugs?"