The moment Lucius beheld those grotesque mechanical entities, he understood that the Orks had failed.
For several years now, these ancient relics of Federation technology had been operating in service to the Imperium on a massive scale. Among the various factions of Chaos, the scions of Slaanesh had arguably suffered some of the most grievous wounds at their hands. Not only had the Doomrider been forcibly banished back into the Immaterium by them, but the Iron Men had even utilized unknown methods to detonate portions of Slaanesh's own sacred domains. That particular failure had made the Dark Prince the laughingstock of the Great Game among the Chaos Gods.
The lesser daemons and warp-entities cast back into the void by these remnants of the Federation were simply beyond counting. Every one of the Ruinous Powers had tasted bitter defeat at the hands of these technological antiquities. Though the actual number of Iron Men across the galaxy was relatively small, the rumors and intelligence reports surrounding them had left an indelible mark on Lucius's mind.
Compared to the other lapdogs of the False Emperor, these ancient mechanical units were infinitely more problematic. They possessed no souls, harbored no desires, and lacked even the most rudimentary capacity for emotion. Khorne could not sow fury within them; Tzeentch could not tempt them with forbidden knowledge; Slaanesh could not ensnare them with illicit desires; and as for Nurgle... mechanical constructs remained entirely untroubled by mortality, rot, or disease.
It was even rumored that these machines used the Panacea, the mythical miracle cure of antiquity, as mere disinfectant.
Yet, when these iron monstrosities finally stood before Lucius in the flesh, he could not help but stare intensely at these entities that bore an uncanny, eerie resemblance to the Necrons.
Axion overrode the neural systems of an Armored Warden. Sheathing its particle oscillation blade, the construct extended its four mechanical appendages and effortlessly hoisted the crude metal cage holding Lucius captive.
Clang!
With a dull, grinding screech, a massive hole tore open in the structure. Lucius tumbled out of the cage, crashing hard onto the deck plates. A flicker of genuine astonishment crossed his scarred features. The crude alloy cage was not composed of any exceptional material; it had simply been bolstered by the psychic arts of a Weirdboy and reinforced by the Waaagh! energy of Zog Steeltoof, making it deceptively resilient. However, with both the Weirdboy and Steeltoof now dead, a cage fashioned from mere starship hull plating was easily corroded away by the residual Chaos energy radiating from Lucius's body.
Lucius's reflexes were peerless. His shattered limbs had already been knit back together by the warping energies of Chaos. With a fluid, acrobatic twist, his agile silhouette lunged toward the deck nearby, plunging his hands into the gory filth of his own previous corpse to retrieve the Blade of Laer and the Lash of Torment strapped to its waist.
The moment Lucius gripped the exquisitely carved longsword, the massive amethyst gemstone embedded within its guard began to throb with brilliant, malignant light. This was the very blade that had seduced the Primarch Fulgrim into damnation. Following Fulgrim's apotheosis into a Daemon Prince, he had gifted the weapon to Lucius. A violet corona swirled around the blade, hissing violently with every arc of Lucius's stance as the raw energy of Chaos bled into the surrounding air.
With the longsword firmly in hand, Lucius flicked his wrist, sending the Lash of Torment snapping violently toward one of the Armored Warden's mechanical legs, intending to yank himself forward into close quarters.
The Armored Warden slightly swiveled its optical array, logging the incoming whip. Then, it spun its chassis with blinding, mechanical velocity.
Lucius, who had merely intended to close the distance and launch an assault, instantly realized he had made a fatal miscalculation. Before he could release his grip on the whip, the rotational force ripped him completely off his feet, launching his body into the air.
Though the automaton had stored its particle oscillation blade to carry the cage, being unarmed did not equate to being defenseless. Its four mechanical arms lashed out like a blur of pistons in mid-air.
One high-output hydraulic hand clamped down, brutally wrenching the longsword from Lucius's grasp by sheer mechanical force. The remaining three hands tore the Lash of Torment to shreds, clamping onto Lucius's arms and a leg simultaneously. The crushing power of the mechanical grip was immense; through armor and flesh alike, it effortlessly pulverized one of his scapulas and his knee joint.
Thud!
With half his body completely paralyzed, Lucius slammed face-first into the deck plates.
Crack!
The violent kinetic transfer snapped Lucius's neck like dry tinder.
With that, the Champion of Slaanesh plummeted instantly into total unconsciousness.
Axion hoisted Lucius's corpse back up with a note of mechanical bewilderment. Observing the unrestrained, limp rotation of the target's skull, the entity silently logged an update into the system databanks:
[Prisoner: Lucius – Deceased.]
Though Lucius was cursed to reincarnate through the pride or satisfaction of whoever slew him, Axion possessed no emotional architecture whatsoever. While the extensive battery of diagnostic tests planned upon capturing the target now had to be aborted, the concept of disappointment was entirely alien to an Iron Man. Everything proceeded exactly as probability dictated.
Even though it had inadvertently ended Lucius's life, Axion felt no remorse. For Lucius himself, there had been no time to react before he was cast into eternal, absolute darkness.
The dark blessings Slaanesh had bestowed upon Lucius were entirely useless against the Iron Men. Even the soulless Necrons retained a dim, hollow shadow within the Immaterium, a residual soul-echo sufficient for Lucius to initiate his parasitic rebirth. The Iron Men, however, lacked even the faintest trace of soul-residue. Their hollow hulls of iron and steel completely ignored all metaphysical mechanisms of the soul.
Given its deeply cautious protocols regarding the Warp, Axion nevertheless subjected the Armored Warden's chassis to a meticulous, high-resolution scan. No anomalous signatures manifested. Not a single trace of the warp-corruption or structural mutation recorded in Imperial archives was detected.
Casting Lucius's corpse casually aside, Axion relinquished direct control over the Armored Warden and returned to the standard operational parameters of the mission. The machines continued to sweep the environment with methodical precision, confirming whether any other latent threats remained, their cold, red optical lenses sweeping through every shadow without omission.
Meanwhile, far across the shifting tides of the Realm of Chaos, Slaanesh sensed the permanent death of Lucius, and a catastrophic fury erupted.
The Dark Prince's labyrinthine palaces shook as a tempest of rage echoed through the spires, sending the surrounding hosts of Slaanesh into trembling terror. Thwarted time and again, the Dark Prince refused to let this insult pass unanswered. Though the She-Who-Thirsts possessed no direct means to dismantle these iron anomalies, and her daemonic legions could not reliably crush these ancient human legacies in a war of attrition, the machines were aiding the rotting Imperium of the False Emperor. Therefore, the Imperium would serve as the canvas for her vengeance.
Vast swells of malevolent Chaos energy surged around Slaanesh as a boundless tide of daemons materialized from the Sea of Souls. The warp-entities unleashed piercing, discordant shrieks, giving voice to an unholy thirst for slaughter.
Simultaneously, across a multitude of Imperial worlds, numerous leaders of Slaaneshi cults suddenly felt the intimate, corrupting whisper of their deity. Even the most insignificant, subterranean cult cells received the call of Slaanesh at that exact moment.
Several high-ranking heretics embedded deep within the hives of the Imperium began orchestrating massive, decadent gatherings designed to push the boundaries of mortal desire. In the shadowed corners of these galas, profane blasphemies and runes of Chaos were carved into the architecture, surrounded by dark devices radiating warp-energy to catalyze the ritual.
As the collective depravity and hedonistic desires within these gatherings reached a fever pitch, tearing rifts of warp-space ruptured reality, opening violently in the centers of the banquet halls. The heretical masters who had engineered the gatherings were instantly mutated into grotesque daemonic heralds, while the remaining revelers were butchered on the spot, their lives claimed as living sacrifices to fuel the summoning of yet more daemons into the material universe.
——————
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)