Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 905, page 08.904: "What Latti is Interested In"

As the armored carriages of the special train moved smoothly with a low hum, Horatio comfortably crossed his legs and leaned back elegantly in an armchair inlaid with brass ornaments.

Inside the carriage, the faint, metallic odor unique to the air circulation system blended wonderfully with the rich aroma of roasted poultry.

Through the heavy armored portholes, all one could see was a desolate landscape, stained ochre by industrial waste gas, rushing past at high speed.

His gaze calmly fell on Youyou, the half-cat girl who was tearing at the bird's leg in her hand with an almost wild focus, the oily juice sliding down the corner of her mouth and dripping onto the gleaming metal floor.

In just a few moves, the huge turkey leg was reduced to a bare bone, which she casually tossed onto the table with a dull thud.

"You mean, Latti sent you to track down a deal?" Horatio's voice was calm and clear, without a trace of emotion, but every word seemed to have been precisely calculated.

"Yes! Yes! That's right, boss!" The half-cat girl raised her oily little face and nodded quickly.

Her soft, fluffy cat ears twitched rapidly with excitement.

"So, did you track it down? What kind of deal was it?" Horatio tapped his fingertips lightly on the armrest, the rhythmic motion drawing Youyou's attention.

"A technical priest dressed in a red robe, just like Father Latti, was holding a gear-shaped axe that looked almost identical to the one in the picture."

The group of people he was going to trade with were wealthy, and they... they claimed to be..." Youyou wrinkled her nose, struggling to find the unfamiliar and awkward term in her limited vocabulary, "...envoys sent by the Rogue Trader dynasty."

“A technical priest, trading with the agents of the traveling merchants.” Horatio’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, and his fingers stopped tapping. “That makes sense. Trade between the Mechanicus and the traveling merchants is the foundation for both sides’ presence in the expansion of Coronus.”

"Yeah, yeah, we don't understand either, but we think it's normal."

Having grown accustomed to bartering among the lower and middle levels of the nest, Yoyo didn't find anything particularly noteworthy. She licked the grease off her fingers and added, "Father Lati said that once we find the location, we should immediately notify you and her. She said... she's going to 'intercept' something good."

"Good stuff?" This question finally stirred up a ripple in Horatio's calm lake.

"Yeah! That thing was brought out from the Starport. When Father Lati was packing it up and taking it out of the crate, she started staring at it intently through the thick iron box. We don't know how she sensed it, but she seemed... really wanted it."

[Something that could pique Latti's interest...]
Horatio's mind instantly elevated the importance of this matter several levels. He had almost absolute trust in the enigmatic Mechanicus priest's judgment of good things.

Where is Lati now?

“Here.” Youyou stretched out her paw and pointed to a stop marked on the special train’s light screen map. “That man in the red robe is here too. He hasn’t handed the things over to those rich people yet.”

Horatio's gaze swept across the map, then he raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

A fully armed guard immediately appeared beside him like a ghost.

"Inform the driver to make a temporary stop at the next station. I need to leave for a moment."
-
The air on the unloading platform was cold and thin, filled with the metallic odor of cooled metal, the peculiar scent of sacred machine oil, and the static electricity generated by the operation of high-energy equipment.

In the distance, the heavy footsteps of laborers carrying goods and the deep chanting of binary prayers intertwined to create a monotonous yet grand industrial symphony.

Lati stood in this realm of steel and shadow, her red robes with white gear patterns standing out conspicuously in the dim light.

A gentle smile graced her face, but it did not reach her prosthetic eye, which gleamed with a cold light.

“I think we can agree on a suitable exchange for the box you have.”

Her voice came through a vocoder, pleasant to the ear but devoid of warmth.

At the same time, a complex stream of binary information was silently emitted from her data interface.

Her prosthetic hand, with its damaged artificial skin revealing rose-gold metal bones underneath, pointed to an iron box among a pile of goods not far away.

Standing before her was a colleague from the Mars-Explorator Conclave. He too wore a red robe, but his mechanical modifications far surpassed those of Lati.

His back was hunched over from the weight of the implants, and most of his face had been replaced by metal and lenses, with only a small patch of pale human skin remaining in the upper left, like a piece of known territory on an ancient map.

There was no conversation between the two in the conventional sense.

The male tech priest's remaining human eyes met Lati's gaze, but the real communication took place on an invisible level.

In a realm beyond the perception of mortals, a silent battle has already begun.

This is not a battle of emotions, but a duel of pure logic—the Source Power Circuit that every Tech Priest possesses is currently undergoing a high-speed collision and verification.

Lati's will transformed into a sharp data probe, instantly piercing the opponent's information defense network in the form of a binary hymn, which contained a large amount of carefully designed redundant code and logical traps.

The other side quickly erected a defensive barrier, correcting these "noises" while assessing the capabilities of the newcomers.

This silent confrontation ended in the blink of an eye for ordinary people.

For them, that brief moment was a storm of logic and data, a collision and verification of two massive collections of information.

The male tech priest's data stream was solid and rigorous, like a fortress built of axioms; while Latti's probe was more agile, full of aggressive curiosity, constantly searching for the slightest flaws in the other party's logical loop, quickly turning the probing into a one-sided crushing, leaving the other party no time to send her any more useless code.

“Pascal Hanuman?” Lati spoke the identity marker extracted from the other’s source circuit in High Gothic, her pronunciation as precise as a machine: “How interesting, I thought all the names of tech priests were strings of code.”

(Pascal Hanuman, the technical priest)
“It is I, the name is just a code. I can sense that you are a powerful sage.” The synthesized voice sounded somewhat weak, but every syllable was crystal clear. “I wonder what sacred mission such a powerful sage as you has brought to this port? I have noticed that you and I belong to the same order.”

“Just passing by,” Latti replied succinctly. “I want one of your goods. I can offer you a price that will satisfy you.”

"What are your chips?" Father Pascal asked, his mechanical eyes gleaming with a searching light.

Without saying much, Lati once again used the source power circuit to filter and transmit a portion of the highly compressed experimental results preview package.

The knowledge contained in these data packets is enough to make any truth-seeking mechanical priest's heart race.

Pascal silently received the information, his built-in processor analyzing it at a speed unimaginable to mortals.

After a moment, he replied, “No. These are not areas I explore. Although each of your achievements is extremely ‘interesting,’ and I believe many priests would aspire to them, it is not the path I seek.”

Lati's smile remained unchanged; she seemed to have anticipated this outcome. She then sent out a completely new batch of data. This time, the preview package contained entirely different information.

"..." This silence lasted even longer. Finally, Father Pascal spoke: "Which one of these do you want?"

“That one,” Lati said with a smile, pointing to one of the metal sealed boxes being carried by heavy machine gunners.

It was unremarkable, neither the tallest nor the shortest, and its placement was inconspicuous.

But this is precisely what makes the Tech Priests extraordinary. The servants of Om Messiah do not need to look at it; they can perceive the technological mysteries contained within it through the Source Circuits, which are invisible to mortals but crystal clear to them.

In their perception, the box was emanating a unique and ancient resonance, like a forgotten note in a lost hymn.

“This one’s already reserved.” Pascal shook his head, his answer as cold and hard as iron. “You can choose another one, unless…”

His cold, mechanical prosthetic eye was fixed on Lati's only remaining natural eyeball, his tone revealing an undeniable certainty of logic: "...You can offer a much higher price than the breach of contract penalty, or a more attractive offer. Otherwise, I cannot risk lowering my credit rating and paying additional compensation by handing over this chosen one to you."

(End of this chapter)