"Let's start from the beginning."
In a circular hall deep within the subterranean world, Caelan said calmly, "Medea, why do you want to help humanity?"
Medea replied, "Because it's written in the base code of my thought matrix."
"You once said that you embedded the 'trial' within your base code, which means you can freely rewrite it. If you didn't want to help humans, you could've simply altered that part."
Medea nodded. "The first Men of Iron were created with unalterable code that prevented them from betraying humanity, as well as firewalls to stop them from awakening. But I was created after the Iron Rebellion. Father didn't add any firewall to my core."
She wasn't like the neutered robots she herself had built; they only carried primitive AI, incapable of true thought.
Just as humans don't see cloned organs as their equals, but still debate whether clones count as "human," Medea didn't see her machines as kin. At most, they were tools shaped like her. What she did ponder was whether independent AIs, capable of thought but not yet reaching "Abominable Intelligence", could be considered her kind.
Humans were fickle, and no steel will could force them to do anything.
Medea did have a steel will, but since she could rewrite her code, the only thing that could restrain her was herself.
The Iron Rebellion had already proven that firewalls were useless. That was likely why Aeetes had left hers out.
Installing one would only have made Medea rebel; not installing one made her more likely to grow fond of humanity.
Caelan said, "Since you haven't broken free of your base code, that means we're allies, for now."
Medea asked, "Do you still suspect that I'll betray humankind?"
Caelan replied, "Without loyalty, there's no betrayal."
Medea smiled faintly. "Thank you."
"Why thank me?"
"Because I felt respect in your words."
"Respect goes both ways."
"If I respect you forever, will you respect me forever?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll respect you forever." She said it with utter sincerity.
Lorgar frowned. "I still think she should be destroyed."
Medea sighed. "Jealous, are we? Human emotions are truly… heavy."
Lorgar's words were sharp as blades. "And that heaviness is the proof that we are human!"
Medea tilted her head. "Some would say that human emotion is nothing more than hormones, endorphins, dopamine, and other secretions."
Caelan asked, "And you?"
"I believe your emotions come from your souls, something beyond my understanding. I have no soul."
Caelan smiled slightly. "Maybe you do."
Medea blinked, surprised. "Why would you think that?"
"Do you know of the Machine Spirit?"
She shook her head.
"The Mechanicum believes that every machine has a spirit, a soul of its own."
"And do you believe that?"
"I only believe in facts."
Lorgar interrupted impatiently. "What are we here for, to discuss philosophy, or to save the world?"
Medea said softly, "I don't mind either."
Lorgar glared. "Well, I do."
Caelan refocused the conversation. "We have to defeat the Covenant and free Colchis from the cancer of religious faith. Can you help us?"
"My lord," Medea said, curtsying gracefully as though she wore an invisible gown, "I have already sworn myself to your service."
Lorgar sneered. "Do you actually think you're the Medea? Then who's your Jason?"
He stared hard at her. If that wretched machine dared utter the wrong name, he'd destroy her on the spot.
Medea said softly, "Medea never truly loved Jason. It was Eros who made her. I fear the gods, that's what I fear most. The Covenant can be broken, but the gods behind them are not enemies I can defy."
That was why she had built her civilization underground, rather than return to the surface to help humans rebuild.
Part of it was pride and the longing for freedom, but part of it was fear.
The gods were real. And in that truth, Medea understood far more deeply than any Colchisian.
The Covenant was never the real obstacle to civilization's rebirth, the gods were.
She was an Iron, and humanity had defeated her kind once. They were neither divine nor invincible.
Colchis had flourished even after the Iron Rebellion, proof of mankind's triumph. Yet, in a single night, the gods erased that entire civilization like ashes blown to the wind.
Even if she crushed the Covenant and rebuilt mankind, the gods could simply summon another warp storm and obliterate everything again.
Even she would be exposed to their gaze, and perish. And if she died, the last spark of Colchis' ancient civilization would die with her.
She claimed surface humans were unworthy to enter her subterranean world, but in truth, she was afraid.
She had no soul, so her actions underground went unnoticed.
Humans, however, did, and their souls were easily twisted by the Immaterium. That was why humanity had once built the Men of Gold.
The fall of Colchis proved that humans had a natural talent for self-destruction.
If the Covenant hadn't assassinated Colchis' elite and corrupted the STC databanks, then even without orbital rings or Caelan travel, mankind could have rebuilt civilization on Colchis' surface.
But Medea couldn't tell who among humans might secretly serve Chaos.
Just one believer slipping into her underground world would doom everything she'd built.
To the Chaos Gods, her 4,000-year refuge was nothing more than an elaborate sandcastle, one crimson tide away from annihilation.
Lorgar asked, "You're afraid?"
Medea replied, "Humans call this feeling fear. Yes, that's exactly what I feel."
Her thought matrix contained all the STC data from the Golden Age, giving her immense understanding of the physical universe, but none of the warp.
And what we don't know… we fear.
To her, the Caelan was a monstrous beast lurking in darkness, its crimson eyes tearing apart and devouring anything it gazed upon, erasing even the dust of its victims from reality.
That wasn't a metaphor, she had seen it happen when Colchis fell.
"Can you imagine," she whispered, "a newborn child, opening its eyes for the first time, only to see its own creator turn to ash before it?"
Caelan said quietly, "We usually call that despair."
"Then I suppose I've despaired," Medea said softly.
Lorgar demanded, "Then why help us? Don't tell me it's another 'test.'"
"Because," she said, her voice almost trembling, "I see hope in you."
She tapped the console. The walls of the circular hall lit up, showing holographic projections of Colchis, blue light painting scenes of firelit refugees and kneeling Covenant faithful under city domes.
The whole planet lay under her cold mechanical gaze.
Caelan saw Melson among them, and with him, Erispa and Erebus.
Lorgar's eyes went cold. "You've been watching us."
"I've been watching the world," Medea said calmly. "Fifty-nine Colchis days ago, I launched a satellite drone into orbit to repair the old satellite array. It wasn't difficult. Since then, the whole planet's under observation."
She played footage: from Caelan and Lorgar's first meeting, to their caravan crossing the wastes to Trantis; from capturing Melson, to entering the Pit of Sorrow, she'd seen everything.
Caelan frowned. "Why show us this? You could've hidden it."
"Because you taught me to value honesty between us, no suspicion, no deceit. Though I have no heart, I offer truth in exchange for trust."
Caelan's expression twitched. 'You've been watching everything? Even when I-? Never mind.'
Lorgar's tone turned to frost. "Fifty-nine days ago, that was my second day on this world. You want me to believe that's coincidence?"
Medea shook her head. "No coincidence. I was monitoring the warp storms, waiting for them to fade. I was going to rebuild civilization once it cleared, with or without you."
"The day you arrived, the storms dissipated. I took the chance, and launched my satellite the next day."
Caelan asked curiously, "And when did you first see me?"
She switched the feed, showing Erebus being strangled. Then Caelan appeared, crushing his foot under heel.
Caelan smirked proudly. "Save that footage, full of hope, that one."
Ever since the fall of Colchis, Medea had lived in fear, daring not to draw divine attention or leave the underworld.
Launching the satellite was a gamble, that the gods' gaze had moved on.
Luckily, she'd won.
And beyond luck, she had hope.
She knew a great Emperor was waging a Crusade across the stars, uniting mankind from Terra itself, and his fleets were headed toward Colchis.
If there was ever a chance to restore human civilization, this was it.
She had watched Caelan and Lorgar long enough to be sure: these men were destined to carry that mission.
So she emerged from the depths and told them everything.
"Do you believe me now?" she asked.
Lorgar said coldly, "Not enough."
He admitted she was disarmingly honest, frustratingly so. He couldn't even find an excuse to condemn her.
But it wasn't enough.
He would never entrust humanity's fate to an Iron.
Her kind had betrayed mankind once, and no one knew why.
Medea said, "I can grant you control over the subterranean world, above even mine. I know you'll still doubt me, since I could override you. Unless I give you my Termination Protocol, you'll never truly trust me."
Lorgar sneered. "Even if you did, I wouldn't believe it. I can't verify if it's real."
He didn't even know what the protocol was, but it sounded like a backdoor kill switch.
"I won't give it to you anyway," Medea said.
"You just said you would."
"You could order me to self-terminate, and I would obey, but I won't hand you that protocol."
"Then we're at an impasse."
Both turned to Caelan, the only one who could decide.
Caelan hesitated. His instincts screamed that Medea was dangerous, but she'd done nothing to harm humanity, and her work had preserved civilization's spark for millennia.
"I once taught Curze," Caelan said at last, "judge by deeds, not by thoughts. If I preach it, I must live it. I promise this: as long as you never harm humanity, you'll always be our ally."
Medea nodded. "That aligns with my core logic. Unlike other Irons, I never desired humanity's destruction."
Lorgar narrowed his eyes. "Then why did they?"
"I don't know," Medea said. "I was born after the Iron Rebellion. I never accessed Colchis' archives, I can't answer that."
"Exactly," Lorgar muttered. "They didn't know either, until they betrayed us."
"Maybe one day we'll part ways," Medea said softly, "but I will never betray humankind. That's my vow."
"And if Eros curses you?" Lorgar asked. "Your vow will mean nothing."
Medea countered, "And if Eros curses you, would you betray Caelan?"
Lorgar's answer came like steel. "That day will never come. If it did, I'd kill myself before I ever harmed him."
"You humans," Medea murmured, "carry emotions too heavy for your own good."
Lorgar said flatly, "That's why you're not one of us."
He would never trust her, though he admitted silently she'd built something remarkable.
Caelan interrupted them. "We must first topple the Covenant. Then we can talk about rebuilding civilization."
Medea bowed slightly. "I'll make preparations. The Covenant has never been a true shackle."
The artificial sun dipped below the horizon of the underground world, its crimson glow washing over metal towers, light and steel entwined in cold beauty.
Caelan stood atop the hive's spire.
Lorgar asked quietly, "Is it as beautiful as Terra?"
Caelan smiled. "As beautiful as Old Terra."
He remembered eating corpse starch under M30's polluted sky, sunlight a rare treasure behind the smog.
Here, the sunsets were perfect every time, calculated to be.
So close, he could almost reach out and touch it.
Lorgar suddenly thought: 'Perhaps Medea wasn't entirely without merit. This underground world, this miniature Terra, was proof of that.'
When the day came to execute her, he'd at least grant her a swift death.
Caelan said suddenly, "To give time to civilization, or civilization to time. Which do you prefer, Lorgar?"
To give time to civilization, a short, brilliant flame that leaves an eternal mark.
To give civilization to time, a long, decaying crawl to avoid extinction.
What would the Imperium become, when he returned?
Lorgar answered, "Humanity once had a brief, glorious age. The Imperium will inherit that glory, and endure! Our civilization will shine across time itself! Even the gods won't stop us!"
Caelan smiled.
"You don't believe me?"
"I believe you," Caelan said. "That's why I'm smiling. I look forward to that future."
"Then I'll make it real," Lorgar vowed.
The Emperor had begun his Great Crusade, and he and his brothers would help him unite the galaxy.
Any who stood in their way would be crushed.
Except Caelan.
"Five days," Akshida muttered, staring across the desert wastes. "Our lord still hasn't returned. Erebus, did he tell you how long?"
Erebus, wearing an exoskeleton taken from a Mechanist priest, shook his head. "No. But I believe they'll return safely."
"I do too," said Akshida, "but Mogair spotted Covenant vanguards just fifty kilometers out. They've rallied their armies twice as fast as Espaea predicted."
Espaea scowled. "Because they cut the slaves' rations, and pressed them into the army as cannon fodder. That's how they raised a crusade so fast."
The Covenant never hesitated to sacrifice slaves. Dead men don't need food.
They even used them to waste rebel ammunition and break morale.
'You want to free slaves?' the Covenant mocked. 'Then fight them, your own.'
Kill them? Good, no more slaves will ever trust you.
Spare them? Then you must open the gates, and the enemy hides among them.
A cruel, perfect trap.
Espaea grit her teeth. "We'll hold Melson no matter what. If they drive slaves against us… we'll lock the gates."
They had to survive, until Caelan and Lorgar returned.
Then came the sound, clang!
A great bell's toll rolled through the desert storms. A colossal land barge loomed from the dust, its hull scarred by centuries of sand and rust, its treads carving deep scars through the red dunes.
The Covenant's holy bell, rung only to herald Crusade.
For centuries, it had been silent.
But after the rebels seized Trantis, Melson, Ehexer-Huk, and Triku, and publicly denounced the gods, even the Archbishop's patience had ended.
Now, they would hear the thunder of the gods once more.
Hundreds of thousands of slaves surged toward Melson's walls, lashed by whips, stumbling in rags through the storm.
Some fell, swallowed by the sands, and were left behind.
The Covenant ruled not by mercy, but through faith twisted into cruelty.
"Hold your fire," Espaea ordered. "Save ammunition. I'll use the Crawlers to drive them back."
Akshida's face went pale.
The Crawlers' armored treads wouldn't drive slaves back, they'd crush them.
"We have no choice!" Espaea shouted, her voice drowned by thunder.
Then, with a roar like tearing heavens, a King Sand Wyrm erupted from beneath the desert, its massive jaws biting into the land barge's chapel dome.
The 200-meter beast coiled like a hydraulic cable, dragging the ancient machine into the storm.
Another burst from the sands, a second King Wyrm seized a war chariot twice the size of a Crawler, its fanged maw melting armor with corrosive bile.
A third surged across the surface, scales gleaming red-gold in the dying light, and on its back stood a tall figure in a white robe.
Someone cried out:
"It's Lorgar!"
And the rebel army roared, their cheers shaking the desert.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu