Stripped of the simple pleasure of watching "oil-head" logic cores short-circuit, Axion turned his attention toward refining his personal retinue. His primary objective was to upgrade his Aegis Protector and replace its fractured monomolecular blade.
The specialized modules Axion had fabricated in the orbital shipyards above Scintilla remained uninstalled. Now, however, the conditions were ideal. The cargo bays of the Dawn of Fire were swollen with a hoard of rare, exotic materials.
Many of these resources were "private acquisitions" smuggled aboard by the Tech-priests—high-grade materials they treated as personal relics. These included experimental alloys from prominent Hive Worlds and rare metallic ingots destined for Mars, which had been rerouted into the priests' private lockers through the subtle alteration of supply manifests.
The sight of these familiar raw materials ignited Axion's ancient creative drive. In a galaxy teeming with Warp-born horrors and technological regression, operating as a solitary, vulnerable command core was a tactical liability. Given sufficient materials, fabricating a dedicated praetorian guard was the only logical course of action.
Consequently, every time Axion "wandered" into a material depot, servitors would later report the disappearance of specific items. The scenes of these thefts were pristine, devoid of any evidence save for the husks of servo-skulls whose data-logs had been scrubbed with surgical precision.
At the very least, Axion showed a modicum of restraint this time. Had he not, the casualty list for the ship's servo-skulls would have been significantly longer.
The Tech-priests suffered in silence. They could hardly report the theft of rare, high-value materials whose presence in the hold was technically a breach of protocol. To mitigate their losses, they began covertly transferring their illicit hoards to high-clearance secondary spare-parts vaults.
It was a futile gesture.
The theft reports simply migrated from the primary depots to the secure vaults; nothing else changed. Meanwhile, Axion's aimless wandering took on a disciplined regularity.
He would take a "midnight stroll" to the vaults, emerge clutching stacks of metallic plates, and occupy a high-precision workstation in the maintenance bays. There, he would manufacture a dizzying array of components whose functions remained indecipherable to the Adeptus Mechanicus, before brazenly carrying the parts back to the oversized quarters Guilliman had personally allocated to him.
No one knew what transpired behind those sealed doors. The Tech-priests, their hearts metaphorically bleeding, could only calculate the value of their missing materials and sift through the scrap metal left at the workstations, desperately trying to deduce what this relic of the Dark Age of Technology was constructing.
Though Guilliman did not confront Axion directly, he monitored the entity's movements closely. However, given the Primarch's lack of insight into the nature of Men of Iron, and Axion specifically, even he could not fathom the objective behind these actions. He only knew that the machine was scavenging uncommon alloys to process in its quarters.
For now, Guilliman was content so long as the Iron Man remained non-hostile. A final determination on its fate would have to wait until he consulted with Cawl.
To be honest, the tranquility of this voyage was unsettling, even to a Primarch. Not a single daemon had dared to manifest, nor had any heretical warbands attempted an ambush. Even the Warp currents seemed to part before the ship's prow, actively avoiding them. This preternatural calm left Guilliman with a nagging sense of dread, the suspicion that a massive storm was brewing just beyond the horizon.
Yet, as he scrutinized the intelligence reports flowing in from across the Imperium, he could find no obvious oversight. In the galactic south, the Tyranids continued their relentless consumption; in the east, the Necrons clashed with various Astartes Chapters; the T'au remained cornered and trembling; the Aeldari continued their enigmatic shadow-war; and the Ork Waaagh!s were gathering as usual. The north was a localized mess of Genestealer Cults, planetary rebellions, Traitor Astartes, and minor xenos incursions.
The Warp transit proved remarkably efficient. In just two weeks, the massive prow of the Dawn of Fire pierced the veil of the Immaterium at a Mandeville point, re-emerging near the northern capital of the Realm of Ultramar.
Waiting in high orbit was another vessel of titanic proportions, a Gloriana-class battleship: the Macragge's Honour.
This was Guilliman's true destination.
As the two ships drew alongside one another, a Thunderhawk gunship roared out of the hangar bay. Accompanied only by a small retinue of Victrix Guard veterans, Guilliman crossed the void to the legendary vessel, the living monument of the Ultramarines.
The surrounding space-lanes were choked with merchant vessels and local fleets, all gathered to pay homage to the Primarch's flagship.
Upon his return, Guilliman had moved to stabilize the realm. Though he had once abolished the rank of the Tetrarchs of Ultramar, he had recently reinstated the office. Under the stewardship of the High Lords, the wider Imperium had become a morass of corruption and stagnation. This had led Guilliman to question whether granting total autonomy to mortals would eventually cause the Five Hundred Worlds to mirror the decay of the greater Imperium.
While Ultramar had remained remarkably stable during his ten-thousand-year stasis, thanks to the cooperation between mortal Governors and the Ultramarines, the performance of the High Lords had shattered Guilliman's faith in mortal governance. Ultramar had to remain a sanctuary, the bedrock of the Imperium's strength.
To ensure this, the Avenging Son re-established the Tetrarchy, appointing his most administratively gifted and righteous sons to oversee the expansion of Ultramar's prosperity across the entire Segmentum Ultima. The administrative genius of the Ultramarines was evident; the endless lines of merchant ships nearby were a testament to a realm that thrived under the protection of the XIII Legion.
Guilliman proceeded alone to the deepest, most secure sanctum of the Macragge's Honour. In this isolated chamber sat the Cawl Inferior.
Though the Primarch often suspected that the machine's responses did not perfectly mirror the Archmagos himself, it was his only link to the elusive Cawl.
"Lord Regent," the machine pulsed, "it has been 711 Terran hours since our last communiqué. I have no new data to report. The research of the Adeptus Mechanicus continues."
"I need to speak with Cawl directly," Guilliman commanded. "Give me his coordinates."
"Processing request. The primary unit has not returned a direct response. However, there is an additional recorded signal."
"Play it."
"Regarding our previous discussion," the simulated voice of Cawl vibrated through the chamber, "I believe the rank of Fabricator-General of Mars would better facilitate the completion of my work. We must accelerate the deployment of the Primaris Astartes and expand production facilities to meet the escalating logistical demands of the era."