"What in the name of the Ruinous Powers is that?!"
One of the Iron Warriors screamed the question, watching the entity flicker and appear like a phantom across the battlefield.
But there was no one left to answer.
The Astra Militarum in the hall had been utterly annihilated; even if they had survived, they would not have known Axion's origin.
The creations of the Golden Age of humanity were long lost, and the entire Imperium possessed only a handful of the most basic Iron Men remnants.
These were, moreover, low-intelligence, basic combat models. Their simple processing cores could only respond to crude commands and basic emotional cues, with the majority of their processing power dedicated to operating their abundant weaponry and tactical coordination.
Axion, however, was not one of those low-level combat automatons.
As a command-tier unit, complete with logistical and organizational processing capacity, his chassis might not even have been equipped with weapons, were it not for the necessity of self-preservation and mandatory defence protocols.
Even so, this seemingly indestructible body was equipped with simple armaments.
His dual arms were fitted with Particle Oscillation Blades, complete with deformation mechanisms that allowed the complex manipulator hands to switch into a pair of Neutron Beam Projectors.
These Particle Oscillation Blades possessed a destructive force far greater than the Power Weapons utilized by the Imperium. Their incredibly powerful particle oscillation pattern could even crudely tear through and break down defensive force fields.
As for the Neutron Beam weapons, they were even more devastating than the Gauss Beams employed by the Necrons.
When this extreme combination was paired with a short-range jumping system and a chassis capable of ultra-acceleration modes, the scene quickly devolved into a massacre, even though Axion was not an Iron Man specialized purely in close combat.
With every flicker, Axion appeared beside an Iron Warrior. The slender blades then whipped through the air in swift, deadly arcs.
The Ceramite Armour, which once gave the Space Marines unwavering confidence, was now effortlessly sliced apart like mere parchment.
The Iron Warriors squad, being renegades, included seasoned veterans who had experience dealing with this type of flickering, high-speed attack.
Even after betraying the Emperor, they still fought against other enemies of the Imperium.
Unlike other traitor Legions, who threw themselves into uncoordinated assaults on the Imperium to curry favour with the Ruinous Powers, the Iron Warriors did not trust those bizarre Chaos Gods. They placed their faith in their carefully constructed equipment and their utterly rigid resolve.
It was merely that they no longer recognized the authority of the Human leader, the Emperor.
One veteran Iron Warrior anticipated Axion's jump, turning his weapon and pre-firing a burst of bolter rounds before Axion could materialize beside him.
Axion was struck by a stream of bolter rounds the moment he translated out of the void.
However, the power of the bolter rounds had virtually no effect on Axion's alloy-constructed body.
Instead, the billowing powder smoke briefly obscured Axion's optical sensors. Yet, after his vision modes shifted, a scream still echoed from within the smoke.
The remaining Iron Warriors immediately adjusted their formation and established a basic defensive perimeter.
They attempted to use their positioning to limit Axion's sudden, chaotic jumping.
But it was utterly meaningless.
The defensive formation of three or five warriors standing shoulder-to-shoulder was instantly shattered when Axion's incredibly dense form materialized in the centre of the formation.
Axion did not even need to launch an attack after the jump. As his limbs suddenly stretched out, the sheer spatial distortion caused by his body re-expanding pierced through the bodies of several warriors.
Axion looked at the Iron Warriors impaled upon his limbs, disgustedly brandishing the blades to slice the dying marines into pieces.
For the first time, a deluge of Iron Warriors' blood drenched Axion's silver-white chassis.
The silver mechanical body dripped with the blood of the Iron Warriors, surrounded by corpses and the pale, golden glow of the long blades.
"By the Omnissiah, is that an Angel reborn from the fires of hell?"
A Servo-Skull hovering in the corner of the hall was relaying the image to the Bridge in real-time. Everyone in the command deck exclaimed in awe, gazing at the silver ancient construct seemingly bathed in blood.
Axion flicked his arms, the triangular blades tracing a shimmering pattern in the air.
The shocked Iron Warriors suddenly snapped back to reality, frantically aiming their weapons at the motionless Axion and opening fire wildly.
The dense bolter rounds were interspersed with several dull orange beams.
The fact that bolter weapons had no effect on Axion was known to everyone present. The enemy was moving at extreme speed, making melee combat impossible, so the handful of Melta-guns were their last chance.
These man-portable weapons, powerful enough to destroy light vehicles, were not uncommon among Astartes. However, due to their short range and slow rate of fire compared to bolter weapons, continuous firing was rare.
Axion standing still to clean the remnants of the Iron Warriors from his body was the perfect opportunity.
The Iron Warriors, positioned at various angles, simultaneously brought out the Melta-weapons they had used to blast through bulkheads and unleashed a volley at Axion.
The scene that followed rendered everyone speechless.
Several orange Melta beams successfully struck Axion's outer shell, but the specialized surface structure of his chassis instantly refracted the superheated energy.
The expected sight of the metal melting into a pool of slag did not occur.
Axion scattered the Melta beams like a distorted disco ball.
The surrounding piles of blood and flesh were quickly ignited by the intense heat, blazing into fierce flames.
"Immediate emergency venting! Now!"
As the flames rapidly spread, the observers on the command deck instantly realized the danger. The Captain was the first to react, issuing the ventilation order.
The nearby Sub-Captain frantically directed a cohort of Servitors to isolate the air supply to the burning hall and open a ventilation channel, venting the compartment directly into the void.
The Thunderhawk Gunship, which was still trying to drill a hole through the thick outer hull in space, soon saw an armoured panel suddenly snap open near their firing point.
A violent torrent of flame erupted from the opening.
It was unclear whether the previous flurry of attacks or the sudden pressure from the venting flames was responsible, but the section of armour plating suddenly burst open.
Thien urgently signalled his battle-brother to guide the Thunderhawk through the breach.
Upon seeing a clear passage, the Thunderhawk deployed its rear ramp.
Thien and his cohort of Black Templars hurriedly leapt out of the gunship, racing forward through the corridor.
The rough intelligence report only told him that the enemy had engaged Axion in the final hall before the Bridge.
Though Axion's skill with the blade certainly exceeded his own, Thien had no way of knowing if the ancient mechanical construct could hold back the assault of nearly thirty renegade Astartes.
As the air within the hall was sucked out, the raging flames were stripped of their fuel and rapidly extinguished.
——————
If you want to read ahead of everyone, go to my pat-reon: pat-re-on.c-om/magnor (remove the hyphen to access normally)