Guilliman left Yvraine’s luxurious guest chamber, which was still steeped in the faint, delicate fragrance of the Aeldari, and turned to step into a completely different world.
Listening to music at a pleasure house was important, but for a man, nothing surpassed his career!
Without a career, where would the money to visit pleasure houses come from?
Belisarius Cawl’s temporary workshop was situated deep within the Fortress of Hera.
As Guilliman pushed open the heavy blast doors, a sweltering wave of air hit him—a thick, murky heat smelling of heavy machine oil, scorching metal, cheap incense, and some indescribable electrolyte solution.
What met his eyes could only be described as an “orderly disaster.”
The room was crammed with spare parts hastily requisitioned from warehouses across Macragge or stripped on the spot from destroyed vehicles.
Engine blocks from old Leman Russ tanks, vector nozzles from Thunderhawk gunships, damaged cuirasses of Mark III power armor, bundles of cabling, and servo-components…
It was a metallic jungle, chaotic yet imbued with a strange sense of order forcibly imposed by a manic willpower.
(Macragge’s stockpiles are stretched thin as well… Cawl really has it rough, forced to conduct research with mere scrap.)
Guilliman understood the situation well, though he could not help but sigh.
He would make it up to Cawl later.
Once the invasion… once he reclaimed the Imperial worlds, he would crack open a few Planetary Governors’ private vaults.
Those parasites were bound to have amassed plenty of treasures, and when the time came, he would let Cawl pick whatever he pleased.
The center of the room stood in stark contrast to the surrounding filth and chaos.
A sanctuary had been deliberately cleared there.
On the spotlessly clean floor sat the faster-than-light engine from the Viltrum Empire.
Its sleek, silver-white hull radiated a cold, flawless sheen under the dim workshop lights.
It looked entirely out of place amidst the rusted metal and oil-stained ground, like a sacred relic enshrined inside a garbage heap.
As for Archmagos Belisarius Cawl himself…
His massive mechanical form was nearly curled up, his remaining biological lips twitching slightly.
He was chanting low, rapid binary hymns and mechanical prayers.
Every word without exception was dedicated to the “perfect creation” before him.
“…Praise the fluid curves, honor the flawless seams, exalt the machine spirit that lies silent yet brimming with infinite, majestic power… Oh, what a divine structure! This could never have been forged by mortal hands…”
Guilliman found it somewhat amusing.
(Machine spirit? I only pulled this thing out of the System a short while ago. Where would a machine spirit even come from?)
He was well acquainted with the concept of machine spirits in the Warhammer universe.
When humanity—especially the Adeptus Mechanicus—poured belief into machines over long periods, maintaining and operating them through ritualistic care, a faint corresponding projection would form in the Warp.
That was what they called a machine spirit.
The Adeptus Mechanicus interpreted it as a fragment of the Omnissiah.
To Guilliman, however, it seemed more like the product of a collective unconscious.
Or, to put it in terms from his old world, a low-grade deity fueled by incense and worship.
It had a few quirky effects, but expecting it to possess immense combat power was purely wishful thinking.
The smell in the air was truly atrocious.
Guilliman held his breath—an effortless task for his current body.
Having merged with the traits of Thragg, the Grand Regent of Viltrum, his physical capabilities had reached an astounding level.
An ordinary Viltrumite could survive in the vacuum of space for months, while an exceptional individual like Thragg could endure for over half a year.
Now merged with his Primarch biology, Guilliman estimated that he could survive in deep space without food, water, or breath for a full year without his combat effectiveness noticeably dropping.
He stepped inside silently, using a newly acquired trick to avoid startling the deeply engrossed Archmagos.
An imperceptible aura of golden-blue psychic light flickered at his fingertips.
It was one of the knowledge fragments he had gained after consuming the Tzeentch demon: a low-level psychic spell meant to soothe emotions and enhance affinity, which Guilliman casually dubbed the Clarity Spell.
He gently tapped this faint psychic ripple onto the mechanical armor covering Cawl’s back.
*Hum…*
He turned his head somewhat sluggishly, the optical lenses of his multi-eyed array focusing on Guilliman.
Immediately, a mechanical buzz filled with apologetic static and excitement burst forth:
“Ah! Lord Primarch! How… how terribly rude of me! I was… completely captivated by the beauty of this creation! It radiates the waves of truth every second, pulling at my every logic-unit!”
“I understand, Cawl,” Guilliman replied with a tolerant smile, walking over to the engine and adopting a posture of appreciation.
“After all, this is very likely one of the greatest masterpieces from the lost Golden Age of humanity.”
“No! No, no, no, Lord Primarch!”
Unexpectedly, Cawl reacted vehemently.
He waved a mechanical appendage and scuttled over to the engine in a posture of fiercely defending the truth, gently stroking its smooth casing.
His voice was filled with fanatical certainty.
“Although you told me this originated from humanity’s Golden Age, and its technological level indeed matches that era…”
“I can say with absolute certainty…”
“This is definitely not a product of humanity’s Golden Age!”
Cawl’s mechanical eyes flashed wildly, data streams cascading through them like waterfalls.
“Look at these lines! They completely defy traditional human engineering aesthetics and physical redundancy design principles! Its internal structure… even with my most advanced non-invasive scans, I cannot fully analyze it! The foundational principles it operates on are fundamentally different from the laws of physics as we know them! It is like… like it was created by an entity similar to us humans, yet existing at a level of life and technology far beyond our imagination! A creation of… ‘super-humans’!”
Guilliman inhaled sharply in his mind.
(Damn, impressive! As expected of Doraemon Cawl! Just by looking at the exterior and a bit of psychic scan data, he managed to conclude that this isn’t human tech, and even deduced the concept of ‘super-humans’! With this level of insight and a mindset bold enough to break past dogmatic limits, it’s no wonder you’re an anomaly in the Adeptus Mechanicus—and one of the hopes for the future.)
Still, Guilliman had no doubts about Cawl’s loyalty.
The Archmagos might hold certain rigid dogmas of the Adeptus Mechanicus in disdain, but his faith in the Empire and the Emperor was unwavering.
After all, in this galaxy, the Imperium might be a bloated, rotting giant corpse, but Chaos was undoubtedly the absolute sewage pit of sewage pits!
Cawl knew full well which side to stand on.