Warhammer: Don't Call Me the God of All Machines

Chapter 21 Killing Code

Captain Ventanus has returned.

He also brought a group of Mechanicus Skitarii who had undergone extensive modifications and looked more like machines than people. They were placed in a collection room that could block radiation to prevent strong radiation from harming the people who took refuge there.

"I am Mir Edwi Tauron." A female member of the Adeptus Mechanicus was the head of this group of Skitarii. "I am a high-level technician, serving as a service technician in the analysis department of Calth and Numinas."

"We were also the ones who received the message you sent. My superior passed the message to the Glory of Macragge before he died, and issued a warning."

It was difficult to detect the changes in tone and humanity in the speech of the Mechanicus, but Luo Xi could sense the subtle loss and pain; she was grieving.

"But it seems there is nothing to analyze now." Ventanus joked, trying to liven up the atmosphere.

Thassa was giving him simple treatment. Ventanus had a lot of bruises on his body, which was the result of the power armor protecting him.

He had minor fractures in his hands and legs, which did not require much treatment as Astartes' superhuman physique could heal itself.

"It's a terrible day. I lost a lot of friends. It's like a nightmare," Tao Lun replied.

"Forgive me ma'am, I thought you guys were done with dreams." Ventanus smiled.

The female Mechanicus didn't care. Most of her body was made of sophisticated mechanical modifications. "Everyone dreams."

"The Word Bearers have launched a shameless betrayal. The XIII Legion, the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar, and the Mechanicum have all been devastated. Our ships are burning, and our people are dying."

She nodded. Not long ago, someone died in her arms.

"What resources do you have, armed forces or information resources that can be deployed?" Ventanus asked.

These guys from the Mechanicus are not actually good at war, but that doesn't mean they can't fight.

Each of these oil men who possess relic technology has his own trump card. No one knows how terrible and destructive the cyber transformation they have carried out on themselves will be until it is truly exposed.

"There are only about three hundred Crusaders, some with portable weapons and light armor." This number did not exceed Ventanus's expectations, "but as the signal spreads, this number will increase."

"But Captain, I'm very curious. The thought space of Coss was destroyed by the pollution of the Chaos Waste Code. Even the thinkers connected to the thought space were paralyzed. As far as I know, the thinkers in the Global Museum are also connected. So what is the transmitter that sent the message to us?"

The Tech Priest's face was full of curiosity. Through the transmission and reception of signals, she noticed that the transmitter was unusual and slightly different from those commonly used by the Empire and even the Mechanicus.

She faintly smelled a hint of lost technology, or heretical technology.

For the Mechanicus's Oilers, all heretical technologies that are not in their hands will be strongly held accountable and sanctioned, while the technology that is in their hands is of course legal and compliant lost technology.

Ventanus did not hide it. Anyway, he would have to rely on these allies of the Mechanicus to regain the sovereignty of the Calth mind space, and it was not a big deal.

"Our transmitter was brought by that comrade. You can ask him for the details." He pointed at Luo Xi who was standing in the corner and said.

"A mortal who looks ordinary." Tao Lun's electronic eyes scanned him and did not come to any valuable conclusions. No transformation, no signs of life extension surgery, no signs of surgical enhancement: a standard mortal.

"No, or to put it another way, a too typical mortal." Tao Lun's computing module pondered for a while and came to a specious conclusion.

In this universe, human beings are distributed across the starry sky and are affected by various environmental factors: gravity, radiation, psychic energy, special geographical environment, etc. It is difficult to find an ordinary person who has not undergone genetic modification or surgery.

After all, even the most common life-extending surgeries are affordable for middle-class families in the average hive city, so who would be willing to die early?

Those who couldn't even afford life-extending surgery were most likely to live in the harsh environments of the Lower Hive, the Lower Hive, or even the wilderness. The food they ate and the environment they lived in were both extremely harsh. Mutations were inevitable, and those who weren't recognized as mutants were targeted for elimination by the Empire.

However, this did not arouse too much curiosity among senior technicians. Many biotechnology priests would create some relatively pure individuals before conducting experiments to reduce the interference of mutations.

Tao Lun observed the transmitter printed by Luo Xi closely. Her electronic eyes and the display lights on her body kept flashing. She realized that this was a lost technology from the distant dark technological age. The current empire could no longer manufacture such a thing.

"You have information about the STCs? Mortal, tell me. Every STC should be in the hands of the Adeptus Mechanicus after this incident, if we are all still alive."

Tao Lun bent down. After the transformation, she was much taller than Luo Xi. Her red lips, half made of machines, were almost touching her ear as she spoke slowly.

Luo Xi did not say much. Should he tell this guy who was covered in inferior modifications that his ship was composed of many STCs?

Then the oil man would probably spray oil on the spot and die of excitement.

For people of Luo Xi's era, transformation was a very normal thing. However, this kind of transformation that completely exposed the transformed organs and made the whole person look inhuman was laughed at by even the lowest-level transformers.

The more human-like they are, the higher the level of transformation technology. And those stone men that are almost exactly like humans are the pinnacle of transformation technology.

The stone men were born from humans, but in a sense, they are more perfect than humans.

A perfect creation will surely surpass its Creator.

"The surface and space are both at war now. We have learned that half of the fleet has regained its ability to operate and is inflicting heavy damage on the enemy." Ventanus concentrated and analyzed the current situation on the battlefield. "The surface is also in a stalemate. The Word Bearers are unable to extricate themselves from various places. They are stuck in the quagmire of war."

"So what do you think?" The leader of the Skitarii, Aluk, stared with red eyes, one of which was in trouble of poor contact.

"Our weapons array has fallen into the hands of the enemy in the chaos. We need to purify the chaotic waste code on the weapons array and take it back." The war has reached a stalemate, and taking back the weapons array and low-Earth orbit is the fastest way to decide the outcome.

The weapon array has extremely strong suppressive power against enemies in space or on the ground, but now it is paralyzed and is being cracked and occupied by the enemy.

Faced with this situation, Luo Xi also tried to let the intelligent brain purify the chaotic waste code on the weapon array, but this would take a long time, and the physical hardware above needed to be cleared of interference.

This also means that they must wipe out all the enemy forces guarding the weapon array, and only after physically mastering the array can they control the weapon array.

"I can take you to the orbital platform, but your numbers are too small. The enemy has deployed a large number of troops on the orbital platform, and you cannot recapture the weapon array."

Roche expressed regret that he was powerless, but Ventanus believed that if he could get help from the Primarch and the Legion, he would be able to defeat the Word Bearers in orbit.

However, when Ventanus tried to communicate with Macragge's Glory, no matter how they requested communication, there was no response from the flagship, not even a regular response from the communication machine servitor.

This was a bad premonition, meaning that the flagship was likely to be attacked, and the boarding attack launched by the enemy made it impossible for the Ultramarines to even respond to communications.

Apart from trusting the Primarch and the Legion's top brass, Ventanus and other ground forces had no better option.

"You need to get the killing code that my superior compiled at the last moment. In the last moments of his life, he used his genius and ideas. In order to prevent the killing code from being contaminated by the Chaos Waste Code in advance, he hid it in an offline meditator at the port."

Tao Lun broke free from the transmitter's server in a trance. Using the Thinker in the machine, she sorted out and reviewed a large amount of information after the incident broke out, and found something left to her by her superior, Hearst.

She understood the work her lover had completed at the last moment. It was a killing code for the Chaos Waste Code. After Hearst was brain dead and Data was dead, these codes were the last evidence that he had ever been in this world.

She thought of Hester dying in her arms.

(End of this chapter)