The “red robe” finally spoke, its mechanical voice cutting every word into fragmented pieces.
Alex picked up the sight that matched the firearm, which was covered in sacred scriptures, his expression complex.
“…The sign of my promotion is an extra sticker?” The “red robe” ignored his remark.
It simply turned around and uttered a word like a command: “Follow.” Alex glanced at Tros and the other veterans still huddled in the corner.
Tros looked at him with a complex gaze—filled with both envy and worry.
“Go on, veteran,” Tros said softly.
“The Angels need you.” Alex opened his mouth, wanting to say something.
But in the end, he just picked up the pile of gear and followed the red robe out of the quarantine zone.
The door behind them closed once more.
Click—Hum— …The moment Alex stepped into the hangar, he once again felt that suffocating religious industrialism.
This wasn’t a hangar; it was more like an altar dedicated to machinery.
Several chimera armored vehicles were suspended in mid-air by massive chains, looking like livestock waiting to be slaughtered.
Red-robed Servitors swarmed around the tracks and engine bays, using brushes dipped in black sacred oil to coat every part, chanting unintelligible prayers under their breath.
Every time “maintenance” on a component was completed, another Servitor would step forward to wrap it in wax seals and prayer strips.
Alex watched a Servitor applying a seal to a chimera’s track bolt.
The seal featured a gear-like pattern and was covered in dense golden text…
Are you guys repairing a vehicle or holding a funeral?
He complained inwardly.
“That is your position.” The Priest who had led the way pointed to a spot and then turned to leave.
Alex looked in that direction.
Beside the turret of that chimera, several crates of power cells and ammo belts were stacked.
The quantity was absurdly high.
A red figure stood by the chimera, using a mechanical tentacle to very gently stroke the cooling vents of its Multi-laser.
This was a female Tech-Priest.
Or rather, she had once been female.
Most of her body had now been replaced by brass-colored cybernetics, and four tireless Servo-arms extended from beneath her dark red robes.
She didn’t turn around, but a flat yet dense synthetic voice, sounding like a chant, began to buzz in the air: “You need a vehicle to keep up with the Angels as they head to Typhon.
Look, this is a mortal war machine I personally modified.
This is a holy Alpha-pattern chimera chassis; I have optimized its power core, increasing its thermal conversion rate by zero point three percent.” “To appease its machine spirit, I used Grade-III sacred oil produced from the Forge Temples of Mars and recited the ‘Litany of Engine Awakening’ nine times.
Pay attention to that Multi-laser; its focusing lens has been repolished by me.
Although it increases the risk of overheating by two percent, it can output praise to the Omnissiah in a short time…” She spoke extremely fast, her voice devoid of any inflection, like a printer outputting logs at high speed.
“…Go up and take a look.
Do not rub off the sacred oil; that would displease the machine spirit.” Alex sighed; this was probably what they called a quiet chatterbox.
He nimbly climbed onto the chimera’s turret.
Meanwhile, the Priest was still rambling below: “The track tension has been adjusted to a perfect ratio.
To make it adapt to the jungles of Typhon, I even…” The view before Alex’s eyes was blocked by a long strip of yellow paper.
It was a freshly applied seal covered in 0s and 1s, which happened to be pasted right over the infrared receiver of the aiming scope.
“It’s blocking my line of sight.” Alex instinctively reached out, pinched a corner of the seal, and with a rip, tore off half of it.
The rambling below stopped abruptly.
Alex swore that the moment the seal was torn, the mechanical arm behind the Priest, which had been holding an incense burner, twitched violently.
Alex froze for a moment and looked down at the Priest.
The Priest looked up, the sole electronic eye on her metal mask flickering with a dangerous red light, but she didn’t speak, only stared intently at Alex’s hand.
Alex blinked and tentatively tugged at the remaining half.
Riiip.
A distinct “bzzzt—” sound came from the servo motors all over the Priest’s body, as if the voltage was unstable.
The three mechanical tentacles behind her trembled simultaneously.
“Enough!!” The Priest snapped.
She let out an angry roar, and a Servo-arm suddenly extended like an enraged cobra, grabbing Alex’s wrist as he was tearing the seal.
“This is sacrilege!
You ignorant mortal, you are stinging its spi—” However, the moment that cold metallic mechanical claw touched Alex’s skin.
The sound cut off.
Neural signals with extremely high bandwidth and pure logic traveled up the mechanical arm, bypassing any firewalls, and blasted directly into the Priest’s logical center.
It was a smooth data stream, free of any code redundancy, the likes of which she had never experienced.
“Oh…
oh?!” “heretic…
her…
ee…
ee?!” The Priest’s originally angry electronic voice suddenly shifted pitch, turning into a series of high-pitched trills that shouldn’t have appeared on a warship at this moment.
“What is this…
such pure…
logic…” “Ha—ah—!” The Priest’s previously tense body instantly went limp, and the hydraulic locks at her knees failed completely.
Her heavy mechanical body slumped backward, nearly falling off the chimera’s track guard.
Alex was quick and grabbed the armor plate on her chest with his other hand, pulling her back forcefully.
He swore he had never seen such a blatant attempt at framing someone in all his life; he felt like those big Angel guys were going to rush out and chop him into mincemeat any second.
But this was undoubtedly adding fuel to the fire.
The large area of physical contact allowed Alex’s active signals to surge even more violently into the Priest’s sensors.
The cooling fans all over the Priest’s body instantly spun at full speed, emitting roars.
The electronic eye on her mask turned the color of overload, and she kept babbling unintelligible gibberish: “Bzzzt…
data…
overflow…
praise…
oh-ho-ho…
Omnissiah…
too fast…
can’t process…” Her mechanical arms tightly coiled around Alex’s arm—not to attack, but like a drowning person grabbing a lifebuoy.
Her body had fallen into a state of grand harmony that only the Adeptus Mechanicus could understand.
Clack.
The mechanical arm holding Alex went limp and dropped.
The Tech-Priest who had been so aggressive just moments ago now lay slumped on the chimera’s hood like a puddle of mud, her mouth still spewing meaningless binary code: “0101…
memory…
full…” The surrounding red-robed Servitors continued to apply paint mechanically, completely ignoring their superior’s cyber-seizure.
Watching this scene, with the crumpled seal still in his hand, Alex was completely stunned.
He turned to look at the nearby Armed Attendant.
“…Do I still need to be responsible for this?”