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

Chapter 3: First Firefight
At one point, Nikonna suspected that he and the legionnaires were trapped in an illusory dream created by some abominable alien.

What they witnessed was too bizarre.

When the mortal who called himself Roshi emitted light and shadow, penetrated the wall and disappeared, the Astartes realized that the other party was just some kind of illusory projection.

Superman's powers of observation fail to distinguish between truth and falsehood.

However, the feeling of imbalance caused by the complete failure of the power armor and being controlled by mortals made the Iron Hands warriors fall silent.

The mechanical modifications that they were so proud of seemed a little too fragile in the face of the opponent's data invasion.

What was even more shocking was that several robotic arms extended from the surrounding cabin walls, and the light spewed from the tips condensed into substance in the air, as if printing out some steel parts, fragrant food, and drinking water as if they were created out of thin air.

"This is... a component of power armor?!"

Wieland's electronic eyes kept flashing green light, and in less than thirty seconds, he witnessed a set of armor that looked exactly like the Iron Hands Legion's power armor being printed out from the void.

Even the numbering and engraving were exactly the same as the one he was wearing.

The printed power armor fell to the ground with a dull sound. It was obvious that its weight was definitely enough to match the weight required by the Astartes.

Wieland took a few steps forward in disbelief, his fingertips running across the new power armor. A strange texture was fed back to his brain through the sensors. This was undoubtedly a material different from ceramic steel.

"God of all machines is above..."

With the intuition of Iron Hands, Weyland was sure that the defensive ability of this set of armor was definitely much better than the one he was wearing. When more than a dozen sets of power armor were placed in front of the Astartes, everyone fell into a strange silence.

"Iron Father, this kind of forging technology is far beyond our imagination. I don't understand what kind of existence we have encountered."

An Astartes warrior murmured that even on Medusa, the home planet of the Iron Hands, or Mars, the core planet of the Mechanicus, they had never witnessed such miraculous operations.

The creation of a set of power armor requires a complicated process. Each component needs to be carefully cast and even smeared with holy oil to bless the machine soul. Therefore, generally speaking, a set of power armor takes more than ten years to be completely completed.

And now, in just a few breaths of time, all the warriors had new armor to replace.

The most obvious trauma that the several months of guerrilla warfare in Isstvan V brought to these warriors was their tattered armor.

In that unequal war, bombardments from Titans and orbital strikes from battleships destroyed most of the Legion's soldiers, and that abominable betrayal left them isolated and helpless.

No supplies, no repair materials, no downtime.

Even for Nikona, who was the most agile, there were several deep pits on his power armor, chest armor and shoulder armor caused by non-frontal explosions. This was the result of his best efforts to dodge.

Tiefu was not polite at all. With the help of his battle brothers, he took off his broken power armor. After feeling the new servo system start up, he couldn't help but have some enlightenment in his heart.

The warriors of the Iron Hands Legion have always had a close relationship with Mars, and they know more detailed information about the fragmentary information before the Long Dark Night than other legions.

According to ancient records, long before the Age of Strife and the Iron Man Rebellion, human civilization was once in an era of enlightenment, prosperity and great strength.

The STC, which the Adeptus Mechanicus attaches great importance to and searches for at all costs, was once a legacy of that era.

But after a long old night and darkness, those treasures of human wisdom were either lost or shattered. Even a fragment would attract the fanatical pursuit of countless technical priests.

This is most likely a starship left over from the Golden Age, which is why it has such incredible capabilities.

After the Astartes changed into their new power armor, they quickly consumed the food supplies obtained through printing technology.

With their keen taste detection nerves, they were completely unable to tell the difference between these foods and the ones they had eaten before on the Legion's battleships. These foods even had a more tender and fresh taste than the industrial products harvested and manufactured from the agricultural world.

They ate in silence. Long-term malnutrition made them extremely hungry. No matter what the situation was, maintaining the best combat condition was the best option.

Through holographic projection, Luo Xi had a full view of the actions of these genetically modified warriors. At the same time, he was also browsing the information obtained by the intelligent brain from invading the servo system, some of which was simply incredible.

"A bunch of lunatics who are both religiously fanatical and mentally ill. Look at what they are talking about. The God of All Machines? Why do they want to worship machines? Humans are the creators of machines. How can the creator worship the creation?"

"What kind of genetic brainwashing did that guy called the Emperor carry out? Has humanity regressed to the feudal monarchy?"

Waking up from a deep sleep, Luo Xi felt that his nerves were challenged again and again.

Look at these modified warriors who call themselves Astartes. It is true that their physical modification has its own unique features, but no matter how strong the body is, can it compare to those iron men who were born completely for killing?

A power sword loaded with decomposition techniques. It's already the 31st millennium. Why are there still a group of warriors wearing power armor fighting with cold weapons?

"And why do these warships, which are built like Gothic architecture, have large cannons installed on the sides instead of rotating turrets? Why did their designers and builders build warships that are retro to the Age of Exploration?"

What he saw made Luo Xi feel as if time and space were being distorted. These people were using advanced technology to do things that only primitive people would do.

In just a few seconds, the Red Alert broke through the atmosphere filled with nuclear dust and entered the universe outside Istvaan V with the sonic boom airflow.

Missiles from the Iron Warriors' ground fortresses arrived soon after. In the fortresses of the Fourth Legion, the bird servants were flashing alarms frantically, and the scanning array showed that an unidentified ship had broken out of the crust of Istvaan and was now outside the atmosphere.

"Damn it, where did that battleship come from! Where did this star battleship appear on this damn planet? How did it overcome the huge gravity of the planet and maintain its structural integrity?!"

"Kill it! Otherwise, Father will tear our heads off!"

The Iron Warriors' commander furiously crushed the mortal servant beside the bird servant. The bloody head exploded, and a large amount of blood and brain tissue splattered, while the Iron Warriors and mortals around him had no expression on their faces.

The lobotomized robot rushed forward and cleaned up the mess on the ground.

The battleship released a large number of missiles in an attempt to destroy the extremely agile strange starship.

The intelligent computer controlled the starship to evade the pursuit of those primitive and outdated missiles. Roche simply stayed where he was and waited quietly, even opening several portholes for the new passengers to observe the outside world, allowing them to observe the situation outside. The Red Alert was only one kilometer long, and compared to the strike cruisers and battleships surrounding the planet in orbit, it seemed extremely small.

The battleships in the center of the enemy fleet were eleven kilometers long and formed a formation with several strike cruisers, surrounding the battleship that escaped from Istvaan V.

These warships left behind in Isstvan V were only a small part of the rebel legion's military strength. After stabbing the loyalist warships, they rushed to various places under the leadership of their respective primarchs to carry out the orders issued by the warmaster.

For the rebel legions, after the massacre that destroyed three legions, the value of this planet ended there. The remaining warships and Astartes warriors were only to continue strangling the loyalists hiding on the planet.

The Iron Warriors' battleships and strike cruisers quickly opened fire, their massive macrogun muzzles blasting out powerful shells, and countless spears of light blasting out, anticipating all possible evasive movement paths.

A bloody smile has already appeared under the helmet of the Iron Warrior Commander. There are not so many details in fighting in the void. I have more ships than you, and my cannons are bigger than yours. The outcome is self-evident.

Even Wieland and others in the cabin felt nervous. With such a huge disparity in strength, the probability of escaping was almost zero.

But the mysterious starship beneath him, which seemed to be from the Golden Age, became the only variable between life and death.

They could only pray that the starship was fast enough and the void shield was strong enough.

But in the command room, Luo Xi remained calm. To him, the enemy ships in front of him were not a threat at all.

The generation gap in technology means an absolute gap.

Although the Red Alert is not a dedicated warship, it is the carrier of many STC templates after all. Since the Chief and others had made the decision, they would naturally not let this spark of humanity be powerless to resist.

As long as there are enough resources, the STC on the starship can continuously produce technological creations. Even forbidden weapons that can extinguish stars and giant warships that are hundreds of kilometers long are not difficult to create.

Those are huge warships that can be described as celestial bodies. Their mass can reach that of a planet or even a star.

Compared with those big guys, the warship in front of us can really be regarded as a small sampan in the void.

"In that case, just run right in. No need for any fancy counterattacks."

Red Alert ignored the oncoming macrocannons and light spears. In fact, their accuracy was very poor and most of the attacks were dodged by maneuvers. Only one light spear was lucky enough to hit the bow of the starship.

The light spear flashed. This giant energy weapon not only could continuously output energy, but the secondary shock waves and high-intensity heat lines it produced posed a great threat to warships.

For a pocket-sized starship like this one that is only one kilometer long, a single luminous spear is enough to completely destroy it.

Luo Xi silently watched the trail of light spear across the universe. This kind of light-speed weapon would hit the target the moment it was observed.

A huge amount of energy bombarded the bow of the Red Alert, and the silver-white hull seemed to be polished, and the energy shield on the surface fluctuated slightly.

The spear of light disappeared!
So the observer's brain suddenly froze. Even if it was hitting the void shield, there should be some reaction, right?
The Red Alert did not slow down at all, and tore through the enemy's formation like a giant cannonball.

Like a meteor from the depths of the universe, the starship slammed straight into the flank of a strike cruiser, causing a violent explosion and the disintegration of the ship. Then, without slowing down, it plunged into the largest battleship.

"What are they doing?!"

The Iron Warriors exclaimed, this was undoubtedly a suicide act in their opinion.

The Empire's warships did have rams, but this extremely ancient tactic was only used on extremely rare occasions.

Crash! Crash!
The collision between a tiny one-kilometer-long warship and an eleven-kilometer-long battleship, the sheer size alone was enough to make this brave but stupid act come to naught.

Weyland stood with the Iron Hands warriors, their faces solemn, able to destroy a strike cruiser and the traitors on it. They were no longer known as the Sons of Ferrus.

The father of genes died on this tiny planet, so let his sons follow in his footsteps!
In a trance, they seemed to see the smile of Ferrus Manus blooming in the flames of Medusa.

A brighter ball of fire burst out from the dark starry sky. The fragments of the strike cruiser's hull were still burning in the void, but they were eclipsed by this even larger ball of fire.

The 11-kilometer-long shuttle-shaped giant ship, with its wedge-shaped ram at the bow and the layers of building hull behind it, exploded in a state that could be described as slow motion. It looked like a ignited fuse, burning rapidly from one side to the other.

The huge warship exploded in the middle, and a large amount of macro-cannon ammunition and reactor engines detonated. There was no sound in the silent universe, but it was enough to make every witness tremble with fear.

In the cloud of debris, the silhouette of the Red Alert kept reflecting in the firelight, and was captured by the Iron Warriors' astronaut instruments as if in a mockery.

With just a collision, without even using the destructive weapons carried by the starship, most of the Iron Warriors fleet in front of them was defeated.

Their warships completely shattered into the void, not to mention the flesh-and-blood Space Marines and mortal auxiliaries on board.

Only the hardest adamantine keel of the ship still retained its general shape after such a devastating blow. These keels, which could only be melted and formed at the temperature of a star, drifted away and fell in the aftermath of the explosion.

"Oh, O Messiah!"

The Iron Hands who witnessed all this through the portholes were completely overwhelmed by this crushing void combat.

They were able to take over this giant ship from the Golden Age and use various forbidden attack methods from the Dark Age of Technology, such as antimatter bombs and black hole bombs, to destroy enemy ships.

But this simple collision actually contained a huge technological gap between the two sides. The giant ship under his feet was probably even stronger than a ship made of fine gold.

Complete victory, total crushing.

Weyland stroked the cabin of the starship. The Iron Hand was completely intoxicated by the joy of fighting alongside such a powerful warship.

He even followed the ritual process of the Mechanicus and prayed and blessed together with other legion warriors.

"Praise the Machine Soul!"

(End of this chapter)