Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 893 I, the Pale King, have single-handedly slain ten Titans today; I am invincible!
The chill of the air in Moro made his skin, which had been soaked in amniotic fluid for over eighty years, shiver. The cold and dryness made his already withered body shrink to an even smaller size, like a shrunken dried fruit.

"younger sister."

Uta-Dagon called out.

In order to better serve the Titan Society and the God of Machines, his original eyes, which had been replaced, have now lost their sight because the cables were brutally cut.

"Sister. My sister, Utu-Lena, are you there?"

At first, there was no sound or feedback—his body had been with his divine machine for over eighty years, but he was only recently abruptly awakened from his slumber and told to return to Mars to gather as usual with the pilots of the "Fearless" Legion to share experiences and traditions—most of the members of the Fortified Legion had been killed by traitors under the Martian skies.

They were told that Horus was the source of the rebellion, and that General Keber Hal was the executioner who killed his brothers and sisters.

What followed was an extremely rudimentary and hasty awakening.

They emerged from the valley to find the remnants of the Imperial garrison being driven by Horus's Titan legions to Lupecaria.

Then?

revenge.

A red sky, a red revenge.

He renamed his Titan Red Vengeance, while his sister Utu-Lena renamed her Titan Bloodgled.

Uta-Dagon still remembers the unwavering support of his crew and his Mechanic friends who were willing to die with him, as well as the battle plans devised by his clever twin sisters.

then……

Then?

His memory chip appears to have been covered with some kind of virus-like code.

Uta-Dagon frantically tried to mobilize the resources of the Thinkers and Titans' machine spirits to besiege and eliminate them.

But the lack of response signals returning from multiple locations and the sensation of air movement on his gradually drying and regaining consciousness told him that he had left the amniotic fluid cockpit where he had spent more than eighty years and his beloved aircraft, and was now exposed to the ordinary atmosphere.

His body was long since unable to walk, so why was he still moving? Who? Who possessed such immense strength and limbs of superhuman size? The Astartes? No…

He silently calculated in his mind and came to a conclusion that made his logical thinking extremely uneasy.

But he couldn't verify it.

His sight had been taken away, and his hearing cables had been lost because they had been detached from the Titan and never fitted with an independent device. Only the increasingly cold and dry air flowing over him told him that he was still alive.

"Sister. Sister. Utu-Lena, my sister. Are you there? Ul-Nam, my best friend, are you there? My divine machine, my Red Revenge, can anyone hear me? Can anyone? Can anyone? Can anyone hear me?"

Uta Dagon, the captain of the Titan Red Revenge, stared blankly at the sky, calling out in vain.

--------

"What is this guy doing?"

Lehman Russ crossed his arms, his ears alert to his surroundings, but his eyes were fixed on Fugrim Pallas, who was hiding behind a Spartan assault tank, nervously "treating" or rather "repairing" the two wet, thin bodies lying side by side on the ground.

Not far away lay a third body that was more in line with the size of a normal human. It was hard to tell the gender because it belonged to a member of the Mechanicus who had undergone extensive modifications. He was now obviously also caught in the crash.

"Hmm? (Who?)" The young phoenix wished she could grow three arms. One foot was pressing down on the pliers, one hand was threading a suture needle in her mouth, and the other hand was busily mending many nerves, blood vessels and wounds, while identifying more major and important connection points and installing more reusable external interfaces for them.

Pallas was reluctant to enlist Caleb Allin's help, even though Allin was actually quite willing to assist.

As for Russ... well, at least you felt quite reassured about your safety when you were focused on repairing people, knowing that it was your old uncle Riemann Russ who was protecting you.
"This guy."

The wolf king extended a finger, pointing to the semi-mechanical body that looked like a desiccated corpse, which appeared to be male.

The body he pointed to had been mostly repaired by Pallas and was lying next to another body he was currently repairing.

His withered, tree-branch-like hands, weakened by the loss of power to his auxiliary metal limbs, weakly reached towards the sky, grasping haphazardly. To onlookers, his organic eyes appeared as two heavy metal interfaces, used to access the Titan's vision. The grille around his mouth, which was originally meant to receive his voice and amplify it throughout the entire crew and even beyond the Titan, allowing the Divine Machine's horn to resonate with his will, now instead blocked his faint speech. If one didn't listen carefully, the various explosions from the distant battlefield would completely mask the sounds coming from his mouth. Only Ruth's wolf ears, so sensitive, were able to distinguish it from the noise.

"He should be conscious and is now trying to connect to anything he can, but all his external devices have been removed. Uh, it won't be long, I'll be able to fix his sister soon... This one looks like a woman based on her pelvis... Once I fix her and connect them both to your backpack power source, they should be able to get power to their hearing devices and start connecting their minds."

"Let me double-check, these two aren't talking inside my head, right?"

"They're just using the power output from your reactor to maintain basic system energy... I guarantee they won't hack into your power armor's soul system—something I can't even crack! And even if they did, they'd just be whispering in your helmet; you can just take it off. —Come on, let me put it on for you."

"That's still best not to. Although I don't like wearing those things either, they obstruct my sense of smell."

Nevertheless, after listening attentively and sniffing for a while, Ruth turned to the side, allowing Pallas to carefully hang the two seemingly miserable, shriveled bodies on the back of his shoulder armor, as if they were two ribbons made of human flesh.

"Tsk tsk, let me see—this is exactly where it should be! Perfect! Excellent effect! My dear Ruth, you look like a complete cannibalistic wolf. The kind that could scare little kids to tears."

"Thank you, Pallas too. Considering whose title you hold, no one would doubt you walking onto the Emperor's Pride now, draped in a cloak made of Iron Hands."

“That probably won’t work,” Pallas muttered, walking over to check on the third mechanic priest. “Mainly because I’d be tempted to kill that ringleader first…”

"That's alright, isn't it?"

“The act of suddenly killing off the offspring of one’s own legion cannot be called ‘it’s nothing,’ Barus.”

"It's not like Fulgrim hasn't done it before. Why don't you try infiltrating in?"

These words struck Pallas like a bolt of lightning, freezing him in place.

For a few seconds, Lehman Ruth almost regretted or even apologized for what he had blurted out, but just as he was hesitatingly trying to come up with an apology, Pallas sighed.

“That’s why I’m not him.” He pressed the last anchor hook into the edge of Ruth’s power armor with his bare hands.

“I am not him,” Pallas said. “I was reborn under the protection of the Iron Warriors and the Imperial Fists, and I received instruction from Feralus Manus and the Undying Phoenix Spirit on Medusa. I do not deny the crimes I have committed, but I am not him. If we convince ourselves to do the same things to achieve our goals, how am I any different from him?”

"...I know." That was all the Wolf King could say in the end. "...I'm sorry, Pallas, I'm not..."

"Shh." The young phoenix made a shushing gesture. "Your backpack's power source is starting to feed into their pipelines. Hmm, their minds should be communicating now. Let's observe their startup process."

--------

"younger sister!"

Uta-Dagon had never been so eager to experience the thoughts of his twin sister.

Although to the other two Primarchs present, they did not make any sound at all, but merely exchanged thoughts for a few seconds over a flowing cable.

"elder brother."

Utu-Lena answered him, "Where are we?"

“I don’t know, brother, but I can feel something around me… There’s no malice, but it’s very powerful. Brother, there’s something very powerful around us, watching us. So powerful that the arrector pili muscles in my skin are undergoing a rapid, stress-induced physiological contraction.”

"Were you also taken out of the Blood Debt Ship?"

"Yes, brother, do you remember what happened back then?"

"I……"

Uta-Dagon's thoughts became hazy and hesitant. "I'm not sure if it's a hallucination, sister. I seem to see those hateful traitors' corrupting engines sprouting strange blue mold and pale yellow mist, and then... their joints were frozen by those extraneous creatures? Am I having some kind of inhalation hallucination?"

“No, brother.” A wave of comfort and shared sympathy washed over Utu-Lena. “If it was an illusion, then I saw it too—the frozen enemy, and that…figure that brought the most primal fear…”

“That figure…that figure…” Uta-Dagon’s thoughts echoed in a low murmur, “that figure we’ve always resisted…”

"...it swooped down with unstoppable force, dragging us into eternal darkness..."

--------

"The brain waves are active and normal, which looks good. The blood oxygen level has returned to almost 100%."

Pallas nodded. "Let's connect the external device. However, there are two hearing receivers and only one loudspeaker, which is a makeshift device made from the communication beads we found in the tank—something rudimentary is better than nothing."

So he fiddled around for a bit, and amidst the combined smells of burnt human skin, preservatives, engine oil, and metal, he finished the job.

"Is that all?" Ruth looked at it.

“That should work,” Pallas said. “Let me try. Hello? You two, can you hear me? If you can, uh, the loudspeaker only has one line, sorry, that’s all. You can choose one speaker to talk to. I think I’ve linked your minds together.”

For two seconds, the two withered bodies hanging precariously from the flesh hooks on the shoulder armor remained completely still, just like real corpses. If the instruments hadn't shown everything was normal, Pallas would have been tempted to disassemble them and check the wiring again.

However, after a surge of intense brainwave activity, a synthesized electronic voice emerged from the amplified prayer beads.

"These are the last members of the 'Fearless', Uta-Dagon and Utu-Lena."

“Isn’t it the Fortified Legion? That’s how I see the identification code,” Ruth said.

“The Legion’s honorary nickname is ‘The Fearless,’ right?” Pallas said.

“That’s right,” the electronic voice hummed. “I am Utu-Lena, and I speak on behalf of my siblings and me.”

“Ah, it seems I’ve returned just in time. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Utu-Lena.”

"Who? Who's speaking? An approaching shadow! It stings our skin, makes our bodies crackle with electricity!"

"Just wait for the wind to blow away this one-time mycelium synthesized from numerology."

Mortarion landed on top of the Spartan tank, wielding the Silent Scythe.

The eerie veins formed by cyan, white, pale yellow and transparent substances constituted the huge dragonfly-like wings on his back. Then, a gust of wind blew by, and the wings fluttered a few times, turning into fine powder in the blink of an eye and scattering with the wind.

"You're back? What about those corrupted Titan engines? Are they just left there like that? Won't it be discovered that something's wrong?" Pallas asked.

"It's all set. You'd better put on a helmet or turn your head away."

"what……?"

Suddenly, several dazzling fireballs, like novae exploding, with an intense, blinding glow, burst into light behind Mortarion before a series of earth-shattering explosions could be heard.

"Oh my god! My eyes!" Ruth screamed, covering his eyes, while Pallas quickly turned his head away.

The air carried the nauseating stench of rotting blood and charred, decomposing flesh, a stark contrast to the aroma of promethium and metal that Pallas had imagined.

"Those Titans...?"

“Those two and their warhounds.” Mortarian pointed to the Titan pilot hanging on Russ. “They took down three Raiders and two Warhounds. A remarkable achievement. There are still five Warlords, three Raiders, and two Warhounds left, exactly ten. I’ll gladly accept them.”

"what?"

"First of all, several of them are already corrupted demon engines. The blasphemous rituals replaced the promethium and normal pilots and machine souls with the blood of sacrifices and the lifeless."

Angry curses and incredulous voices came from the loudspeakers of the two Titan pilots.

"Secondly, there are still some souls in the largest ones, but they know nothing about numerology and biotechnology, and of course they have no protective measures against me... I fly up, and then sprinkle the disposable bacteria I developed into their ventilation channels and horns one by one, and that's it."

"At once……?"

"The spores and bacterial aerosols loaded with targeted codes spread quite quickly. They cause the biological cells of the servants that keep Titan running to replicate at high speed until the cancerous flesh clogs all the joints and reactor valves. Finally, I harvest their souls to make sure no soul will let slip anything afterward. That's it. Very simple."

The scene was completely silent, with only the distant roar of the engines of the Imperial army vehicles that had escaped the pursuit of the rebel Titans.

So Utu-Lena asked a question that everyone wanted to ask at that moment.

"Who...are you?"

(End of this chapter)