The metallic chassis scaled the towering curtain walls of the Imperial Palace with predatory ease. The act of transgression was detected the microsecond the machine's extremities made contact with the ancient masonry.
Atop the battlements, the Custodian Guard did not hesitate. A concentrated hail of searing las-fire rained down from the parapets.
Axion merely adjusted the gravitic displacement modules within his frame. His velocity spiked instantly, a blurring surge of motion that saw him crest the ramparts, threading the needle between the lances of light by a hair's breadth.
The golden-clad sentinels guarding the wall immediately swung their Guardian Spears, the blades whistling through the air in lethal arcs. What followed, however, was a display of mechanical defiance that bordered on the impossible.
Axion's metallic palms shot out, intercepting the power-field-shrouded blades of the spears with a casual grasp. With a sickening screech of protesting metal, he snapped the shafts. Disruptor energy flickered fitfully across the broken tips before dying out completely.
One Custodian swung his now-headless spear like a staff, seeking to crush the diminutive machine. A thunderous impact echoed across the wall, but Axion remained rooted, unmoved by the blow. Instead, the spear-shaft itself shattered under the force of its own momentum against the machine's hide. Deprived of its molecular decomposition field, the master-crafted weapon was nothing more than scrap against Axion's plating.
Thump-thump-thump!
Another Custodian depressed the firing stud on his spear. A rapid-fire burst of bolt shells erupted toward Axion's center mass. A faint, shimmering kinetic shield flickered into existence across the machine's surface; Axion simply stepped through the blooming smoke and fire, entirely unscathed. In his grip, he dragged a Custodian who had dared to engage him in close quarters.
The machine's hand was clamped around the warrior's left thigh, the pressure so immense that the Auramite plate was spider-webbed with deep fissures. It was a grotesque sight. A creature of human proportions holding a giant of the Legio Custodes as if he were a mere child. With a casual flick of his wrist, Axion hurled the golden warrior at his comrades.
Coordinated by active gravitic assistance, the thrown Custodian became a living projectile. The golden figure whistled through the air like an autocannon shell. A fellow guardsman dropped his weapon and reached out to catch his brother, but the sheer kinetic energy of the impact snapped both his arms instantly.
Warning runes flared within his Allarus plate: Bilateral humeral fractures. Ribcage compromised.
Thud.
The exchange, complex and violent, had lasted only seconds. The two Custodians collapsed in a tangled heap at the base of the wall. More golden-clad warriors were already flooding the battlements, but for the Legio Custodes, this was an unprecedented nightmare.
Their peerless wargear was failing them. Their transhuman bodies felt fragile, almost brittle. Their god-like reflexes could not achieve a target lock. In this moment, the pinnacle of biological engineering was being systematically dismantled by the apex of ancient technology.
Captain-General Trajann Valoris arrived at a sprint, stepping over the fallen to plant himself firmly in Axion's path. His expression shifted through a kaleidoscope of shock and disbelief before settling into a mask of cold, righteous fury.
At least thirty-two of the Emperor's finest lay scattered across the stone, neutralized. Most galling of all was the presence of ten Allarus Terminators among the fallen, yet Axion appeared exactly as he had hours prior, with not a scratch marred his surface.
Axion tilted his head, his processors identifying the newcomer instantly.
"Captain-General Trajann Valoris. According to my dossiers, you are a creation of the Master of Mankind. Given our shared status as constructs of human origin, I have no desire to humiliate you. However, nothing shall obstruct the progress of an Iron Man. Hear my warning: withdraw your fragile warriors before I am forced to transition from neutralization to confirmed fatalities."
Valoris gripped the haft of his axe, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "I am Trajann Valoris, Captain-General of the Legio Custodes. I am the shield of the Throne. I will not permit you another step. In the name of the Emperor, I shall defend this sanctum until my final breath."
Axion's ocular sensors pulsed with a strange, clinical curiosity.
"I seek no conquest of this territory, nor do I harbor hostile intent. Based on my successful collaboration with Roboute Guilliman, I have no wish to destroy you. This is my final directive."
Without waiting for a response, Axion turned his back on the Captain-General and began walking toward the ornate inner structures of the Palace. To a mortal, the Imperial Palace was a labyrinthine continent; to an Iron Man with a perfect spatial memory and advanced mapping sensors, it was an open book. He knew exactly which paths led to the subterranean vaults.
Vrrr-zapt! BOOM!
A golden arc of electricity flared as the Watcher's Axe descended in a punishing overhead strike. The relic-blade was said to be capable of cleaving the sarcophagus of a Helbrute in a single blow.
In a blur of motion, Axion's arms inverted at the shoulders, rotating with a mechanical fluidity no organic joint could mimic, and caught the axe-blade between his palms.
Thud-thud!
The built-in bolter at the axe's head barked, firing point-blank at the back of the machine's skull.
CRACK.
Axion's head snapped backward with the force of a hydraulic piston, slamming into the Eagle's Scream bolter-housing on the axe. The unfired shells detonated inside the weapon's chamber. The resulting energy discharge, trapped between Axion's iron grip and the damaged weapon, threw Valoris backward.
Ignoring the thermal wash of the explosion, Axion righted his inverted hands and seized the smoldering axe-haft.
"The primary function of this chassis was not intended for frontline combat, and I am currently unequipped with standard-issue armaments. I perceive this was an oversight."
Silver nanites swarmed from his palms, rapidly consuming the Watcher's Axe. The master-crafted materials were disassembled at the molecular level and reconstructed into a golden longsword that extended from Axion's forearm. While the Auramite was fragile compared to the ultra-density neutronium of his own frame, it would suffice for a makeshift blade.
A pale gold light shimmered along the edge as Axion slaved his internal power cells to the weapon's newly forged disruption field.
Valoris rolled to his feet, a roar of fury tearing from his throat as he saw his ancestral relic reshaped into the enemy's tool. He kicked a fallen Guardian Spear into the air, caught it mid-spin, and lunged again.
Schwing!
With a single, mathematically perfect parry, the golden blade in Axion's hand sheared through the spear-shaft like parchment, the edge continuing its lethal trajectory toward the Captain-General's chest.