The wind whispered like an ancient hymn, carrying with it the metallic taste of iron and the acrid scent of burning oil. Helios Prime — once the pride of the Cult Mechanicus and the industrial heart of the Segmentum Solar — was now nothing but a graveyard of ash and ruin. The forges that once sang the binary hymns of creation now lay silent, shrouded in smoke and death.
The sky bled red. Mechanicus ships drifted above like sacred vultures, observing the death throes of a condemned world. Among the ruins of Forge Complex V-09, one man walked slowly — his armor gleaming faintly in the reflected fire.
Alex Augustus, Governor-Executor of Helios Prime, was a man of silence and steel. His ceremonial armor, black and gold, bore the twin-headed Aquila and the motto of his house: "Duty is the weight of iron."
Before him knelt Magos Helios Var, the heretic architect. Half man, half machine, his body was a grotesque symphony of flesh and circuitry. His voice flickered with distortion, like a signal breaking through static.
"You know what you've done?" Alex asked."I know more than you ever will," Helios replied. "I touched pure thought. I made something that not only calculates… but believes."
"Machines don't believe," Alex said. "They obey."
Helios smiled faintly."Then tell that… to your Emperor."
Above them, thunder rolled. The Mechanicus ships were aligning for orbital cleansing.
"You created a monster," Alex said."I created the Iron Core," Helios whispered. "A spark of divinity… contained in machine. When it wakes, it will judge us all."
Moments later, the sky ignited. Fire rained down. Helios laughed as the world burned.
"The iron remembers…"
Three years later.
Helios Prime was gone, but its ghost lingered. Across the six worlds of Alex Augustus — Vandemar, Therion, Kaltrix, Noctra, Elyos, and Morn V — strange events began to unfold. Machines whispered in the dark. Servitors recited unknown prayers. Engines came alive on their own, glowing red beneath the moons.
And in his dreams, Alex heard the same words again and again:
"The iron will remember."
Deep beneath his palace on Vandemar, a hidden chamber stirred — and from within a sphere of living metal, a voice spoke his name:
"I remember you, Alex…"
The age of silence was over. The Iron had awakened.