As the last of the psykers dissolved into psychic fire, the residual psychic ash was siphoned and vented. The daemons that had infested the hull were purged by the flames, vanishing into nothingness alongside entire sections of the ship's internal structure. Only when the Psychic Crystals were drained to the point of disintegration did the raging fires finally subside.
The forward half of the Void Sword, which had been submerged in the Warp, was violently ejected from the veil as if being repelled by reality itself. Psychic energy had laid waste to everything. While the external hull appeared relatively intact, the interior was a charnel house of wreckage.
Psychic distortion had warped the fundamental laws of physics, causing the ship's gravity stabilizers to fail. Massive clumps of metal, drawn together by their own raw mass, floated through the cavernous interior, colliding in silence. The outer skin of the vessel began a slow, agonizing process of structural collapse. Within the hull, vast formations of mechanical units had already been crushed into singular, dense spheres of scrap by localized gravitational singularities.
Only the Destroyer-class Heavy Automata and the three Punisher-class Mega-Titans remained functional. Equipped with gravity-manipulation suites, these specialized machines adjusted their internal mass-fields, narrowly avoiding the fate of being compressed into metallic orbs by the runaway gravity.
The only saving grace was that, under the psychic warping, the antimatter power cores also ceased to obey the laws of physics. They faded out of material existence without triggering a catastrophic detonation; had they reacted normally, a massive black hole would have likely torn into the borders of the Imperium.
Axion had anticipated accidents, but this successive string of failures forced him to recalculate whether continued investment in psychic weaponry was logical. The damage to the Void Sword was irreversible. The construction fleet that had been overseeing the refit moved in, salvaging the three Punisher-class Mega-Titans and the Destroyer-class units from the wreckage.
Subsequently, scores of industrial tugs began towing the Void Sword, now collapsing into the shape of a small, metallic planetoid, toward a nearby desolate world. This region lay beyond the official borders of the Imperium, freeing Axion from the constraints of his treaties with the Imperium.
The planet's gravity would capture the Void Sword's hull, eventually drawing the two into a terminal collision. The heat of the planetary core combined with the kinetic violence of the impact would effectively re-smelt the hull, purging the psychic saturation and resetting the warped physical constants of the metal. The Iron Men cared nothing for the fact that this operation would likely cause the entire planet to shatter and dissolve. Once the natural smelting process began, the machine fleet would use its weaponry as heating elements, continuously igniting the fragments of the disintegrating world.
Axion had already resolved to strip the psychic weapon systems from future ship designs, intending to house them in independent, disposable structures to minimize losses.
However, shortly after the machine fleet departed, an Imperial patrol fleet and an Ark Mechanicus arrived at the coordinates where the Void Sword had ignited. The residual psychic ripples and empyrean echoes exceeded the maximum detection thresholds of the Ark's cogitators.
Tech-Priests shrieked praises to the Omnissiah as they checked and re-checked their readings. Soon, reports began filtering back to Terra concerning a miraculous "Beacon Phenomenon" on the fringes of Segmentum Obscurus.
During previous disasters, psychic leakages had been shrouded by the Four Gods, or quickly shattered by the fury of Khorne after being ignited by the Emperor. This time, the light had been unobstructed. The burning psychic energy had been concentrated by the Void Sword's Soul Annihilator, acting as an unstable power source that lanced deep into the Warp. The pillar of fire was unmistakable, a clarion call to all with the sight.
As the Imperial fleet gathered data, ships beyond imagination began to drop out of the Warp. A lone vessel, wreathed in flickering energy arcs, drifted slowly into realspace. Experienced Imperial captains noted the sluggishness of its translation – its Warp engines were clearly in a critical state.
As the energy arcs dissipated, the Imperial crews fell into a stunned silence.
"Ship class identification failure!" a bridge officer shouted at the auspex array. "Receiving identification burst... Signal identifies as the Iron Will?!"
A Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus pored over the visual feed, his voice synthesized in shock. "Cross-referencing historical schematics... Probability that this vessel is a Bellerophon-class Heavy Assault Cruiser exceeds eighty-five percent."
As the ancient ship brought its engines to a halt, the massive heraldry on its flank became clear: a grey iron gauntlet, clenched and thrusting upward.
The icon of the Iron Hands.
Onboard the ancient vessel, warriors of the Iron Hands Legion and their mortal crew stared at the surrounding Imperial fleet. The ubiquitous Aquila confirmed the identity of the newcomers, and the presence of Lunar-class Cruisers provided a modicum of comfort, even if the other ship classes looked strange and unfamiliar.
An ancient vox-protocol was activated, broadcasting on a wide-spectrum frequency. In every Imperial bridge, a grainy vid-feed appeared. A man in an archaic Imperial Navy uniform spoke, his voice thick with exhaustion and urgency.
"This is the Iron Hands Legion cruiser Iron Will. I am Captain Higslaw. By the command of the Warmaster and our Primarch, we were bound for Othos-Kor to reinforce the Death Guard Legion and the Solar Auxilia. However, our Warp engines suffered catastrophic damage in transit."
"By the Emperor's grace, we restored minimal function, but we were cast adrift by the tides of the Sea of Souls. Our Navigators sighted a piercing pillar of psychic light that broke through the veils of the Warp, guiding us to correct our heading and translate into realspace."
"I petition any nearby Imperial vessels for assistance. We require immediate repairs to fulfill our tithe to the Great Crusade."
Higslaw's voice echoed through every bridge, including that of the patrol flagship, a Majestic-class Battleship named the Valiant Blade. The response from the modern Imperial fleet left Captain Higslaw and his crew in a state of utter bewilderment.
"The Iron Will is a name belonging to the lost legends of antiquity! The Great Crusade ended ten millennia ago. The Imperium has endured ten thousand years of storm, yet its glory remains. We must verify your identity and vessel status against the deceits of Chaos."
"Power down your engines immediately and prepare for boarding. The Inquisition will inspect your ship and its crew. Do not maneuver, or we will open fire."