Each guard’s posture seemed to straighten slightly, but the expressions under their masks were likely softened a bit.
Just then, steady footsteps approached.
Calgar returned.
He had changed back into his usual combat armor, but it was still polished to a shine.
He walked to the bathroom door, his gaze sweeping over the Honour Guard standing like javelins.
“Stay sharp.” Calgar lowered his voice, but his tone was serious.
“Inside is the Primarch, the most precious hope of the Empire today.
Any abnormality, any suspicious approach, kill on sight.
If the Primarch has any needs, report through the channel immediately and satisfy them as quickly as possible.
Understand?” “Understood!
Chapter Master!” The six men shouted in unison, but the volume was well-controlled, not disturbing those inside.
Calgar nodded and listened for a moment.
The faint humming made even his hard facial features soften for an instant.
But he quickly composed himself and instructed Guard A: “I’m leaving for a while to visit Archmagos Cawl.
I leave this to you.” “Yes!
Guard with our lives!” Calgar turned and walked away with firm steps.
But his heart was far from calm.
(Go see if Archmagos Cawl is awake.
I hope this old machine…
didn’t do anything stupid out of overstimulation.) Calgar thought as he walked, his brow slightly furrowed.
(Although it was unexpected for the Primarch to become…
this way, come to think of it, perhaps it’s not all bad?
At least, the Primarch is alive, and she purged so many Chaos forces as soon as she woke up.
Her power is unquestionable.) (And…) Calgar’s footsteps paused imperceptibly, his face under the tactical mask heating up slightly.
(Mother…
ahem, Father is like this now.
Although it was shocking at first, it…
is very…
intimate.
It doesn’t feel like before, where although I revered her, there was always an unbridgeable distance.
The current Primarch is more…
vivid?
Easier to make one want to get close, to protect…) He was startled by this “blasphemous” thought and quickly shook his head.
(No!
The Primarch is always majestic!
It’s just a temporary change in form!
Archmagos Cawl is a ten-thousand-year-old sage, he must have a way…
a way…) Thinking of “having a way to change back,” a strange sense of resistance surged in Calgar’s heart, one he didn’t even want to delve into.
(Actually…
this form…
it seems…
we quite like it?) This thought sprouted quietly like a seed of sin.
(Although she might lack some deterrent power when commanding battles, the Primarch’s wisdom and strategic ability are surely still there.
And, this form might have miraculous effects on certain occasions?
Like negotiations?
Or…
boosting morale?) (No, no!
Calgar!
You are the Chapter Master!
How can you have such thoughts!
If Archmagos Cawl can really research a way to reverse it, that is for the benefit of the Primarch and the Empire!
I should…
I should thank him!
Yes, thank him for successfully awakening the Primarch!) Although this “gratitude” seemed to be mixed with more and more selfish desires of “please don’t actually change her back.” With this complex and contradictory mood, Calgar arrived outside Archmagos Cawl’s workshop.
AI Model: gemini-3.0-flash The doors to Cawl’s workshop were tightly shut, but the usually active defensive runes and energy barriers were currently at their lowest power setting, as if the owner no longer cared to maintain them.
Calgar entered an emergency access code.
As one of Macragge’s highest military Commanders, he possessed partial authorization, and the heavy adamantine doors slid aside.
The scene inside caused even the battle-hardened Calgar’s pupils to contract instantly.
In the center of the workshop, Belisarius Cawl’s massive mechanical body was fixed to a maintenance rack in a pathetic state.
His human left eye was bloodshot and filled with despair, while the red light of his mechanical right eye flickered frantically.
Most lethal of all—the only mechanical arm he could still move freely had a sharp, high-energy probe extended from its tip, which was trembling yet resolutely stabbing toward the core energy regulator at the very center of his chest, a component strictly protected by a shield and flashing with a dangerous red light!
“Archmagos Cawl!
What are you doing?!” Calgar roared, the Servo-systems of his Terminator armor overloading as he lunged forward with a speed that defied his massive bulk.
Cawl, at the peak of deep despair and suicidal resolve, shuddered all over from the thunderous roar, and his mechanical arm’s movement stalled.
With tearful eyes (the human one), he looked at the blue giant charging toward him, his Synthesized voice high-pitched with sobbing and hopelessness: “Don’t dismantle me!
Don’t format me!
And don’t turn me into a toilet!
I’ll find a way!
Just give me time!
I will definitely research a way to turn the Primarch back!
I beg you, give me one more chance—” His words came to an abrupt halt.
Because Calgar had already reached him.
That giant Power Fist, capable of crushing tank armor, did not smash or dismantle him as Cawl expected.
Instead, with surprising precision and gentleness, it firmly gripped the wrist joint of the mechanical arm that had been attempting to ‘end it all’.
A cringe-inducing sound of twisting metal rang out—Calgar’s control of his strength had slipped slightly, deforming Cawl’s mechanical wrist a little, but he successfully stopped the probe’s advance.
“Archmagos Cawl!” Calgar was both anxious and angry, his voice muffled through his helmet but his concern clearly discernible.
“Are you mad?!
Who said anything about dismantling you?!
Who’s turning you into a toilet?!
Calm down!” Cawl felt a sharp pain (feedback from his mechanical pain sensors), but he was also stunned by this completely unexpected turn of events.
His human eye blinked as he looked at the flickering red lenses of Calgar’s tactical mask inches away, then at his own gripped wrist, and finally at the probe just centimeters from his core valve.
“You…
you’re not here to carry out a sentence?” Cawl’s voice was full of disbelief, tinged with the tremor of a survivor.
“A sentence?
For what?” Calgar was utterly confused, but he was more concerned with something else at the moment.
He carefully moved Cawl’s mechanical arm away from the dangerous position before letting go.
Seeing the clear finger-shaped dents on the other’s wrist, he cleared his throat awkwardly.