Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Those who tamper with the sacred records shall be punished for blasphemy.

Anyone who dares to initiate self-destruction, incineration, code fragmentation, or contamination of the STC original will be subject to my order to purify the entire casting dome along with every processing core within it.

“I am not here to beg for your loyalty. I am here to confirm who is still worthy of loyalty.”

"Kneel down, hand over the seal, the key, and the master control scroll. Stop your gears from turning. Let the true order take over here."

The optical monitors of hundreds of mechanical sages were simultaneously locked onto the Dark Side Handprint Seal that Lawson held aloft.

The golden double-headed eagle emblem glows faintly, representing Terra's highest administrative directive.

After a brief silence, the six heavy-duty servo mechanical arms behind General Belissa Kur suddenly opened, spewing out high-temperature incandescent steam from their exhaust pipes.

"You cannot dismiss me."

"You do not have the authority, Sealholder. Even if you possess the Primarch's warrant, you cannot unilaterally adjudicate a Forging General certified by the Martian Council on Agrippina's soil!"

Kuer's heavy tracked chassis rolled forward half a meter, causing a dull tremor in the ground.

"You can bring a fleet. You can bring Astartes. You can bring flesh-and-blood executioners wielding giant shields. You have the physical ability to destroy the surface of this planet. But you cannot bring Mars' recognition!"

Kur raised a large mechanical arm and pointed it around.

"If you dare to touch me today, if you dare to impose the secular laws of the Empire on the sacred land of Omnesia, all the sages of this world will regard you as a blasphemer. The treaty of Mars will be torn up."

"You think you can take over Agrippina by force? Let me tell you the consequences."

"All production lines will be shut down within 0.1 seconds."

“All Thinker arrays will be formatted.”

"All data about artillery, bombs, and plasma reactors will be locked with the highest level of encryption."

"What you will get is not a logistics base to produce ammunition for you, but a lifeless, rusted forging planet. You will become the sinner who destroyed the Empire's dark side defenses!"

Kur's threat is no exaggeration.

In this brutal universe, the Mechanicus is able to stand on equal footing with the Empire because of this technological monopoly.

If all the priests are killed, even if a Space Marine's power armor malfunctions, no one will know how to repair it, and the entire Imperium's war machine will be paralyzed.

The sages within the temple began to communicate frequently through internal data streams.

The obfuscation of binary code and whispers in the air became dense and frenzied.

Some of the sages have already quietly begun the preheating process for the temple's defense system.

Lawson put down the seal in his hand, a cold smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

"You are using Agrippina's technological barriers to blackmail me."

"Then you'd better pray that they revere your name more than they revere what I'm about to bring out."

Lawson snapped his fingers.

The warp channel of the stasis field is opened.

A towering figure, three meters tall, stepped out from the blue halo.

Xerath, the former Dark Sage.

The moment Xerath stepped into the temple, the full-spectrum monitor on his head swept across the entire area, and a torrent of computing power, amplified by swarm intelligence, instantly took over the overflowing stream of free data within the temple.

The optical lens of the casting general Kur suddenly contracted to focus.

His logic engine completed the scan of the unfamiliar machine in a fraction of a second.

The machine was unknown, but when Kur tried to analyze the unconscious communication frequency emitted by the other party, he captured a very familiar low-level source code imprint deep in the core.

Kur's voice turned into an angry roar.

"It's you! Xavius!"

The roar shook all the mechanical sages in the temple.

In Agrippina's database, Xerath's name is marked as a being of the highest level of heresy.

"How dare you return to Agrippina!"

Kuer's six servo arms simultaneously extended their weapon ports, and the plasma cutter and arc rifle began to charge.

"You traitor who stole forbidden knowledge! You heretic of the Dark Mechanicus who sided with the Warp! Seal Bearer, you actually brought a Dark Sage into the Temple of Omnisiah! You are declaring war on the entire Mechanicus!"

Kxus completely ignored Kur's furious accusations.

"By order of the Dark Side Master, I have entered the Agrippina Master Data Temple as the temporary acting forging supervisor."

Krus took a step forward, ignoring the dozens of hot melt guns aimed at him.

“I have brought new legal basis.”

"This basis does not come from your Martian Parliament, which is full of political infighting and compromise."

"It does not come from your incomplete, incompatible lineage of keys."

"But it comes from a more ancient and sacred place."

Krus's chest armor slid open to the sides.

His two main servo robotic arms reached into his chest cavity and pulled out a cube-shaped storage box with sides of about 40 centimeters.

The moment the box appeared, all the weapons charging in the hall experienced inexplicable power fluctuations.

This is an ancient storage device.

Kexos is starting to unlock.

On the first level, he severed the external static force field, and the blue glimmer dissipated.

On the second layer, he peeled off the high-purity copper foil sealed on the surface of the box.

On the third level, he unlocked the physically encrypted miniature servo lock.

On the fourth layer, he erased the sixteen six-pointed star symbols engraved on the lining.

As the last physical lock was released, the top cover of the box slowly floated up.

A soft blue light was projected into the air above the temple, forming a constantly rotating holographic 3D structure, accompanied by pure code flowing like a waterfall.

Krusas gazed at the light, a rare hint of mimicry in his expression, one of fanaticism and arrogance.

"Look carefully."

"This is not a second copy that has been copied by hundreds of generations of technical priests and is now unrecognizable."

"This is not one of those fake drafts that you use to flatter each other and gain political capital."

"This is a complete, standard construction template."

Xerox's eight mechanical arms spread out behind him like the wings of a god.

"We call ourselves servants of all machines. Now, the voice of all machines stands here."

"Tell me, will you continue to kneel before that old tyrant pieced together with lies and power, or will you kneel before the true, sacred legacy?"

boom!

In that instant, the entire belief and power system of the Mechanicus leadership was simultaneously struck by an invisible warhammer.

They all froze.

In the mechanical teaching system, what is STC?

That was the ultimate database used by humanity during its golden age of colonizing the galaxy.

It contains everything from how to make the perfect shovel to how to build a starship.

For ten thousand years, the search for STC by the Mechanicus has become a morbid religious fanaticism.

Finding a fragment of an STC document detailing armored vehicle track design can instantly elevate an ordinary low-ranking priest to the rank of Great Sage and grant him an entire planet as his fief.

If STC finds a new type of combat knife, the entire Mechanicus will hold a month-long thanksgiving festival.

And what did Xerath just say?

Complete STC template.

In the understanding of the Mechanicus, this is almost a mythical, legendary relic. If the fragments are the remains of a saint, then the complete STC is the essence of truth descended by Omnesia.

If this thing is real, then it's not just a piece of technology, but a religiously sacred shock, a politically significant nuclear bomb.

It is powerful enough to instantly overturn the entire loyalty structure within the forging world.

As he observed the reactions within the hall, the internal logic circuits of the cardinal directions felt extremely satisfied.

The reason he so readily gave up the dignity of the Great Sage was not only because Lawson promised to replace his body with the perfect T-series body, but also because Lawson showed him the complete STC.

Once he grasped this, he had mastered the core doctrines of Mechanics.

Inside the main hall, the majority of the fanatical pilgrim mechanical sages lost their composure on the spot.

Their logic engine is unable to handle this level of dual impact from both physics and faith.

A sage whose body consisted almost entirely of a spine and brain suddenly lost his balance on his levitating base and crashed heavily to the ground.

"Integrity verification request..."

"Duplicate...integrity check request..."

On the other side of the temple, three sages responsible for maintaining the data scriptures had their automatic chanting modules completely malfunction.

"Praise be to the god of all machines... Praise be to the god of all machines..."

"This is impossible... This is absolutely impossible... The structure of the source template... This closed logical chain..."

A high-ranking technical priest who oversaw two secondary arsenals in Agrippina had his heavy mechanical lower limbs hydraulically unloaded, causing him to kneel on the cold metal floor.

His hands were frantically drawing gear symbols in front of his chest.

"If it is true..."

"If it is true, then the holder of this item will surely receive the supreme protection of the Holy Spirit!"

"If it is true, then all the old council's debates about resource allocation and authority have become dust! Before the source template, we are all blind and foolish!"

"If it is true, then this temple has witnessed a miracle today!"

More and more Pilgrim sages began to bow their heads, and even the Guardian Mechs behind them, whose built-in combat doctrine modules were affected by the commander's emotional data, had their weapon charging lights begin to flicker erratically.