Chapter 35: Chaos Scrap Code
As the Forgefiend was destroyed, two individuals simultaneously widened their eyes. Lucan was dumbfounded looking at the sudden influx of 10,000 Psy-crystals. Only after Norris reported to him did he understand the situation.
"A Forgefiend? Isn't that a daemon engine? Has that fellow Kanto gotten involved with the Dark Mechanicum?"
Meanwhile, on the bridge of the Tyrant, Zestha also stood frozen.
A Forgefiend, bestowed by the great Lord of Soul Forges, Vashtorr, had been destroyed? Just who were these opponents?
"Damon! There are some Chaos-contaminated mechanical constructs within this warship! Their armor is very tough! Your weapons might not be able to penetrate it effectively! Where are you? I'm coming to support you!" Norris reported over the comms.
"You're too late! We've already run into these things!" Damon's voice crackled back. "What the hell are these things, living machines? Don't come over here, we can hold out for now! Go complete the mission the Captain gave you!"
Just as Damon and his forces were about to withdraw, they encountered the corrupted tech-adepts and the other Forgefiend searching for them.
A dozen or so Raiders were even trapped in an adjacent compartment.
The combat prowess of these enemies was far beyond that of the ordinary soldiers on this warship.
The moment Damon stepped out, he was hit by a barrage from the Forgefiend.
Good heavens, if he hadn't switched to this adamantium combat suit, he really might not have withstood it.
But even so, the transmitted impact force made Damon feel as if his internal organs had been displaced.
Compared to a Space Marine, the mortal physique of a Raider, even augmented, still had its limits.
"Hold them off! Other teams have received the signal and are en route to reinforce! They'll be the ones surrounded then. No need for pointless sacrifices!"
Damon quickly stopped these Raiders from charging out. The losses this time were already significant enough; every veteran was precious.
He admired the fearlessness of humans in this world, but when facing the enemy, one couldn't always just shout, "Sacrifice is the cornerstone of humanity! For the God-Emperor! My soul to the Golden Throne!" and then charge forward, could they?
It seemed that sacrifice and death were treated as trivial matters in this universe.
"Zestha, is this the 'truth' you spoke of?"
Kanto glared angrily at Zestha. All that grandiose talk, and what were the results? Nothing!
He had taken a risk by harboring this individual, branded a heretic by the Adeptus Mechanicus, precisely so Zestha could eliminate his enemies at crucial moments, hadn't he?
And what now? One Forgefiend killed by an unknown entity, and the other pinned down by the enemy.
Zestha, who had previously been supremely confident, was no longer calm.
He said nothing. He was waiting, waiting for the scrap code he had created to take effect.
At this moment, the scrap code showed no signs of abnormality.
Ever since scrap code had caused severe devastation in several major Imperial campaigns, modern Cogitator systems now possessed specialized auditing programs to scrutinize anomalous code. Once detected, a program known as "hunter-killer code" would activate.
And scrap code also varied in strength, all depending on the creator's skill.
Evidently, Zestha's skill had not yet reached the point where he could instantly paralyze an entire warship; otherwise, he wouldn't have needed to rely on Kanto to conceal his activities.
The scrap code Zestha had created was of a corrupting nature.
This type of scrap code was very well hidden, but once it entered entities like Tech-Priests and tech-adepts, it would spread its corruption to them. Originally, the Tech-Priests on the Tyrant had not been corrupted; Zestha had relied on this scrap code to make them abandon their faith in the Omnissiah.
And once it corrupted and controlled the Tech-Priests on the Golden Ram, these individuals, who were intimately familiar with the warship, would inflict fatal damage upon it.
Due to the ongoing battle, almost all Tech-Priests were at their posts, operating Cogitators, maintaining damaged equipment, and soothing machine spirits. Their connection to these mechanical devices became the very medium for the scrap code's invasion.
The scrap code seemed to have found a breakthrough. It divided, proliferated. Under the enhancement of Warp sorcery, countless segments of code that should never have existed in the sacred circuits revealed their true nature.
The hunter-killer programs within the Cogitators detected them, but the scrap code replicated too quickly. Although the hunter-killer programs eliminated a considerable portion, the remaining scrap code still infiltrated the Tech-Priests' processing units.
One by one, Tech-Priests began to stop their work. Their mechanical bodies sparked intermittently.
Their bodies started to twitch as if enduring unbearable pain.
Pavian, who was overseeing the production of the Barracks STC, also noticed the anomaly.
He was not directly operating a Cogitator, and the Barracks' completely isolated system network had protected them from the scrap code's intrusion. It was precisely for this reason that Pavian had not immediately fallen victim to the scrap code.
However, the other tech-adepts and Tech-Priests in the forge workshop were not so lucky.
The sound processing units on their bodies continuously emitted ear-piercing static.
"What in the blazes is going on?!" He hurriedly rushed to his colleague's side to check on him.
But as he touched the body of a Tech-Priest who had collapsed to his knees, the scrap code began to infiltrate him as well.
"Omnissiah preserve us! The sacred circuits have been invaded and polluted! It's those apostates!!!"
Feeling his own voice becoming increasingly unresponsive, Pavian realized what was happening.
The scrap code was attacking his processing units. Segments of blasphemous knowledge and imagery were being forcibly crammed into his mind.
The scrap code was tempting these Tech-Priests, believers in the Omnissiah, to fall. It proclaimed the beauty of forbidden knowledge; false images were attempting to destroy their faith.
A fallen Mars, the monopolization of knowledge, the oppression of seekers of truth – it told the Tech-Priests that if they embraced the great Vashtorr, they would gain the right to research all knowledge, and countless technologies would be shared with them. What a temptation this was for the Tech-Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus!
"False… this is all false! I have already witnessed the true Omnissiah with my own eyes! I have seen the birth of the Holy Machines! They are the maintainers, the guardians of all machines in the universe! They have utterly transcended this world!"
The faith in Pavian's heart began to help him resist the scrap code.
And the "Holy Machines" Pavian spoke of were, of course, the SCVs.
The Tech-Priests' abnormal state was immediately reported to Lucan on the bridge, but Lucan knew what was happening below even before hearing the report. While the warped-in units shared their vision with Lucan, Lucan's Warp projection was also undergoing a change.
A power he had never felt before was strengthening his Warp projection. Although this power was still pitifully weak – after all, the Tech-Priests who worshipped the SCVs currently only existed on his warship.
"Is this… faith?"
And as this faith entered his Warp projection, his Xel'Naga projection actually seemed to respond to these Tech-Priests.
"Huh? Could the faith of the Adeptus Mechanicus get any more convoluted?"
The faith of the Adeptus Mechanicus was already a trinity: the Omnissiah representing the God-Emperor, the Machine God representing the Void Dragon fragment buried on Mars, and some members of the Mechanicus also believed in the Motive Force, representing energy sources like electricity. These three entities shared the faith of the Mechanicus members.
And with the appearance of Vashtorr, worshipped by the Dark Mechanicum, the faith generated by mechanical technology in the material universe had another claimant. And now, Lucan had also joined this grand feast.
(End of Chapter)