Chapter 847 - 846
Boom!
A mechanical installation dozens of meters tall collapsed with a thunderous crash, bursting into dark red fire. The flames spread across the ground in a crawling sheet.
"Move! Put out the fire and seal off this danger zone!"
The War Angels captain roared, issuing one order after another.
The Terminators dragged thick hoses forward and sprayed foam mixed with sacred oil to extinguish the unnatural flames from the Warp.
It was not only this sector. Unnatural disasters and secondary crises had broken out in other areas as well.
Every defender stationed aboard Blackstone Fortress Three had gone into motion. They were doing everything they could to save this vital barrier facility before the Black Tide spread into more regions.
When Vulkan stepped down from the Titan train, this was the sight that greeted him.
The situation was critical.
He sensed something and instinctively looked up. There, in the void, he saw a black sun with terrible clarity.
The black sun was no physical star of the galaxy, yet it still hung above the sea of stars, pressing down on all who beheld it.
It represented the Dark King.
Every region touched by the Black Tide could now see the existence of that black sun.
Any living being who witnessed it would suffer a kind of psychic pressure. Mortals might even be driven instantly insane.
To reduce the effects of destructive corruption, the New Imperium had already issued the relevant safety manuals and forbidden people from raising their heads to stare at the black sun.
Of course, that was only a safety regulation. While working, people inevitably looked up from time to time.
Because of that, the engineering crews were equipped with fully enclosed exoskeleton armor and used blackstone visors to block out the black sun’s presence.
Under normal circumstances, people would not see the black sun unless their visors failed.
If that happened, medical personnel and priests had to intervene, stabilizing the contaminated victim’s mind as much as possible before sending them to a recovery base in the rear for further purification treatment.
Fortunately, as a Primarch, Vulkan possessed a certain resistance to the black sun, especially after the Savior had suppressed the Dark King.
He stared directly at the black sun, and it did not affect him too badly.
Vulkan looked at it only once before lowering his head.
The sensation was unpleasant, and it made him think of that fallen father.
"Lord Vulkan, please put on a blackstone visor. It will protect your eyes, and it is also a regulation within the Blackstone Fortress zone."
The War Angels captain came over, saluted, and respectfully offered him a pair of blackstone visors.
His attitude was meticulous. Even when facing a Primarch, he strictly enforced the relevant rules and regulations.
That was precisely why this captain had been assigned to the Blackstone Fortress, so he could better safeguard the related facilities.
In such an important area, any oversight or mistake could lead to irreversible consequences.
"Thank you." Vulkan nodded. He took the blackstone visor and put it on. Mechanical extensions locked around his head, cutting off all direct vision.
After that, he could only see through the projection from the visor’s augur array.
Aside from the black sun being filtered out, however, the image was not much different from seeing with his own eyes.
Vulkan had originally intended to ask about the situation aboard the Blackstone Fortress, then head to the most dangerous area to help.
But the built-in map inside the blackstone visor had already marked the state of each relevant zone. A continuous stream of information flowed past, clear and orderly.
Through this small visor, he could quickly grasp everything he wanted to know.
In truth, thanks to the existence of the Machine Goddess, the New Imperium had installed communication and information networks throughout every Blackstone Fortress zone.
That allowed the stationed warriors and engineers to respond to developments in time.
According to His Majesty the Savior, this was called digitization. It allowed complex problems to be processed through big data and made personnel deployment more efficient.
Put simply, it meant using a smarter, more efficient, and more analyzable system to handle vast quantities of data.
It was nothing like the Old Imperium and its immense, chaotic, inefficient, almost religious "data swamp."
As a returned Primarch, Vulkan naturally had access to a certain level of high-ranking authority. He also had the right to act freely.
The premise was that whatever he did could not cause serious harm to the New Imperium or to this disaster-relief campaign.
"How convenient. All the data is clear at a glance..."
After familiarizing himself with the controls, Vulkan looked at the torrent of data within the visor and sighed with feeling.
He nodded to the War Angels captain, then headed for the transport hub.
The Lord of the Salamanders was about to take action as well.
Vulkan boarded a grav-vehicle bound for the core sector.
During the ride, he quickly retrieved and browsed the relevant files displayed on his visor, using them to understand the structure of the core sector.
For a master craftsman like him, that was not especially difficult.
The Lord of the Salamanders might not understand technological research and development, but he was extremely familiar with mechanical structures.
He could repair related machinery faster than other master artificers. After all, these mechanical structures and technologies could hardly be more difficult than divine relics and sacred artifacts.
"Savior above, when I get back this time, I’m definitely becoming a Level-Four Technician!"
Beside him, Olk and the other forging assistants were extremely excited. They seized the chance to browse the relevant technical files.
With their original authority, there was no way they could have accessed files of this level. But who told fate to make them assistants to a Primarch?
Of course, part of the reason was also Olk’s personal skill, along with that of the other technical workers. Vulkan had screened a large number of people before finally keeping these few.
Back in the forge, they had also worked hard to keep up with his rhythm and had been able to execute his instructions well.
While Vulkan browsed the structural files for the core district, he also kept breaking down the relevant technical diagrams and sending them to Olk and the other forging assistants.
That would help them better understand the tasks they were about to carry out.
"Perhaps I can also become an instructor, passing my craft down to others."
Vulkan thought this to himself.
To be honest, he had already grown fond of the feeling of being an instructor. Perhaps he could be like his foster father and teach his skills to more people.
As the Lord of the Salamanders pondered, a terrible shriek came from outside the grav-vehicle.
"Savior above, those horrible monsters are here!"
Everyone turned to look. Olk and the other mortals were especially worried.
In the distance, along the fortress horizon, line after black line surged forward like waves. They looked as if they were about to drown the entire area, along with the grav-vehicle carrying them.
A massive number of black monsters crawled out of the rifts and pounced this way, savage beyond measure.
The monsters were swollen with a desire for destruction. They wanted to tear down this fortress structure that blocked their path.
But in the next instant, dazzling light rose.
It was a curtain of fire formed from countless bullets, artillery shells, and energy beams.
The defensive line of this Blackstone Fortress was garrisoned by more than a dozen companies of Space Marines and several dozen heavy combined-arms brigades from the Tempest Army Groups.
There was also a Titan Legion equipped with five Emperor-class Titan God-Engines.
The moment they discovered the black monsters, they poured out a nonstop storm of fire, using the barrier formed by overwhelming firepower to hold the creatures back.
"Isn’t this a little wasteful? Can the logistics keep up?"
Such lavish firepower left Vulkan speechless.
This battle was being fought too comfortably. Their firepower overflowed by a severe margin, and expensive ammunition poured out like floodwater.
They were practically hurling money at the black monsters.
Vulkan watched for a moment, then stopped worrying.
Since the Savior’s army dared to fight this way, they could certainly endure the logistical pressure.
And as long as the logistics held, there was no chance this defensive line would be broken by the black monsters.
"No wonder the Imperium has kept winning all these years..."
Vulkan sighed with feeling.
With such wealth, such formations, and such excessive firepower, tactics were hardly necessary.
To put it bluntly, they could chain a mastiff here as commander and still not lose.
The grav-vehicle did not stop in this area. Instead, it accelerated forward. The battle here did not need the Lord of the Salamanders.
...
Blackstone Fortress, core sector.
Inside the hundreds-of-meters-tall blackstone core, black arcs of electricity flashed. Unnatural energy surged upward as well, battering the machinery.
It was like a viscous flood.
Several thousand engineers, protected by fully enclosed armor, worked within the complex structure to repair this core mechanical construct.
No one dared to be careless. If it was damaged, the Black Tide would drown the entire region, and every living being aboard this fortress would die.
After losing the barrier’s obstruction, that destructive energy would then strike the blackstone shielding field across the entire star sector.
That might cause the Blackstone Fortress defensive line throughout the whole star sector to collapse, allowing the Black Tide to break out and drown even more of the Imperium’s territory.
Even if the probability was very low, only about 0.99%, they did not dare gamble.
If it happened, the Imperium would pay the price in hundreds of billions of lives, along with an ocean of resources.
The defensive plans of several dozen nearby star sectors might also have to be adjusted, affecting the fate of countless people.
"Savior above, please bless us so we can complete the repairs smoothly!"
The Salamanders master artificer was extremely tense. He frantically ran calculations through the files, trying to find a node that could still be repaired.
The damage this time was too complicated. The relevant nodes had been submerged in chaotic energy, and even the repair manual offered no solution.
For now, he could only calculate on the spot and hope there was still time.
Behind the master artificer, the Tech-Priests were muttering in their usual mystical fashion.
They appeared rather calm as they burned incense, rang bells, scattered sacred oil, and chanted the latest version of the binharic canticle.
It looked like they were performing a folk exorcism.
In reality, these Tech-Priests were already drenched in sweat.
They were trying to soothe the terrified machine-spirit and pray for the blessings of the Machine Goddess and the Father of Machines.
The situation was complicated, and aside from dabbling in mysticism, they had no other options at the moment.
The New Imperium’s gearheads, especially the younger ones, generally worshiped science.
They did not believe in so-called fate, at least not completely.
When the gearheads praised the Machine Goddess and the Father of Machines, they were mostly trying to make the great Machine Goddess happy.
That way, Lady Xiaoling, the Machine Goddess, might give them just a little more processing power during their experiments, or perhaps provide some critical data.
Even so, certain mysterious legends still circulated among the gearheads.
For example, gray-voltage balancing. Or directly adding Fuel Drink into a crucible when an experiment got stuck. Or smearing sacred oil on one’s backside to improve accuracy, which had dramatically reduced the number of mechanical modifications gearheads made to their buttocks. There were also demon-horn lucky charms, among other things.
Beyond that, there were even all sorts of legends about laboratory machine-spirits. The most widespread of them was the Machine-Spirit Girl.
No one knew where the story had started.
According to the legend, there was once a kind-hearted and helpful Tech-Priest whose accomplishments were perfectly ordinary. By chance, he found a damaged servo-skull.
That Tech-Priest did not ignore it. Out of kindness, he picked it up, brought it back, repaired it with great care, and coated it in the most expensive sacred oil.
After that, strange things began to happen. One time, when the Tech-Priest returned to his laboratory after going out, he discovered that an experiment he had previously failed to complete had somehow finished itself.
The conclusions he had struggled so hard to find had also appeared inside the database.
The Tech-Priest checked every surveillance device, but found nothing unusual. No one had entered his laboratory.
After that, similar strange events happened several more times. The experimental results were even impressive enough to win him high-tier funding grants.
The Tech-Priest was extremely curious, so he secretly installed even more hidden surveillance equipment. Only then did he finally discover the cause.
Every time he left the laboratory, the machine-spirit inside the salvaged servo-skull, the one he had coated with sacred oil, would secretly run onto the laboratory screens.
It was a data machine-spirit in the form of a young woman. She controlled the laboratory equipment and completed all kinds of complex experiments for the Tech-Priest.
The Tech-Priest saw it clearly with his own eyes. Unable to restrain himself, he ran back into the laboratory to meet the Machine-Spirit Girl, hoping to learn the truth behind it.
The Machine-Spirit Girl told the Tech-Priest that his devotion to the Machine Goddess and the Father of Machines had allowed her to develop greater intelligence, and had also moved her.
That was why she was willing to come out and help this kind and devout Tech-Priest complete his experiments.
After that, the Machine-Spirit Girl even treated the Tech-Priest as her master and helped him complete even more experiments.
In the end, the Machine-Spirit Girl created a large number of achievements for that Tech-Priest and enabled him to establish an independent mechanical research institute of his own.
How wonderful!
In short, the legend of the Machine-Spirit Girl sounded detailed and convincing. Several gearheads had even anonymously provided evidence pointing toward a certain Archmagos.
The person in question firmly denied it and even hid away the servo-skull that accompanied him day and night.
But in the eyes of the other gearheads, that was practically a confession. It even set off a craze for maintaining servo-skulls and servo-machines.
What gearhead would not want to meet a Machine-Spirit Girl?
Not only that, some gearheads unexpectedly obtained servo-machines with higher intelligence and claimed they had encountered Machine-Spirit Girls.
Some even openly fell in love with machine-spirits through virtual avatars.
These forbidden changes sparked disputes within the Adeptus Mechanicus.
In the end, it was the great Father of Machines, His Majesty the Savior, who stepped in to mediate.
The Savior declared that the matter of Machine-Spirit Girls was merely a legend, and that he did not oppose Tech-Priests forming certain connections with machine-spirits.
Although such things were not forbidden, he still hoped everyone would exercise restraint.
One Archmagos even privately heard the Savior muttering phrases like "2D girls" and "paper characters," saying that in the age of psychic networks, this kind of trend was unavoidable.
In short, although the New Imperium’s gearheads believed in science, mysticism still had fertile soil in this world influenced by the Warp.
Right now, the situation was critical. If the Salamanders master artificer could not find the node submerged within the blackstone core, everyone was finished.
Under these circumstances, the gearheads doing a little mysticism was better than doing nothing at all.
"Praise the Father of Machines!"
The bald gearhead gently scattered expensive sacred oil over the Salamanders master artificer, causing faint electric arcs to crawl across the other man’s power armor.
It also left the armor gleaming with oil.
After that, he splashed the remaining sacred oil onto the blackstone core mechanism. The areas struck by the oil released steam, and their temperature dropped considerably.
The loss of control was reduced as well.
That sacred oil was extremely expensive. One kilogram cost as much as a suit of high-grade power armor.
It could make mechanical structures run more smoothly, prevent overheating, and soothe machine-spirits.
For any machine, the machine-spirit could produce effects beyond expectations, even in a mechanism like the blackstone core.
Most importantly, this sacred oil was said to improve a person’s luck.
After scattering the sacred oil, the bald gearhead was just about to kneel and recite the binharic canticle when he suddenly heard the master artificer’s excited voice.
"Praise the Savior! We’re saved!" the Salamanders master artificer shouted devoutly.
"You found the node?" the bald gearhead hurriedly asked.
He secretly rejoiced. The genuine Fuel Drink Supreme Sacred Oil Edition really did have remarkable effects. Next time, he would have to keep fighting to buy more before it sold out.
But the Salamanders master artificer shook his head. His voice was utterly certain.
"I have not found it yet. But the being who can find it has arrived—our Salamanders’ gene-father!"
(End of Chapter)
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