Beside him, Vasilia stifled a gasp behind her hand.

Dolce had seen starships and planets and the infinite gulf of the void, and if you’d handed him a tape measure right this moment, he’d set out to prove this was bigger than them all. For one, nobody had put a planet [i]inside[/i] anything before, and that seemed to make it all the grander. But this wasn’t some inert ruin either. It was moving. It was thinking. It was [i]alive,[/i] in most of the senses that mattered. And not a one of them could see to either end of it. “That.” He blinked, and rubbed at his eyes. “That is a little too big for us.”

“The mind of an emperor. And it still lives…” Vasilia murmured intently. “Interface, interface, does anyone have eyes on the interface? Oh, just think of the intelligence in this behemoth-!” She dashed on ahead, and Dolce had to tear his eyes away and follow.

“...it [i]is[/i] too big, right? There’s not a room for this onboard we haven’t found yet? Lord Hades?”