Warhammer: In the Name of Ashes

Woo...woo...woo...

Amid the shrill sirens, the light in the entire laboratory switched between red and white.

Hundreds of areas on the Relentless Jihad are under emergency blockade, and the temporary passages between various important areas are also closed, leaving only the main roads where the Gray Knights are stationed.

The psionic choir was already in place, and as their vocal chants echoed, the psionic arrays all over the Relentless Crusade were flashing.

The nearby real space, Leia Space, was forcibly stabilized without any fluctuations.

At this time, the Relentless Jihad was like a hedgehog with all its muscles contracted, looking around with the most dangerous eyes.

Once there is any disturbance around it, it will be greeted by a devastating blow from the light spear array on its body!

Seeing that the surrounding windows were closed by the gradually lowering armor, the entire test area was about to be completely isolated.

In the psychic channel, Calvin issued the last command to the astropath before entering silence:

“Get in touch with Terra Directions now!

Report to the Order of the Holy Hammer and file it in the Antarctic Archives!

Authorization code α6960013, key, order with my highest authority:

Go to Mars immediately to thoroughly investigate the background and past experience of Stovan, the third-level forging sage of the Adeptus Mechanicus!

Yes, don’t want their results!

Send a team directly to Mars! "

This is where Calvin's wariness lies.

He did not believe that fate was always so generous, especially in the face of such unexpected gifts.

Before ruling out the possibility of the conspiracy of the Chaos Gods to intervene, he would not, and could never, completely believe Stowan's words.

He just stood there quietly, no one dared to disturb his thinking.

It was not until he saw the Astropath projecting this message in his psychic vision and fainted because of this urgent announcement that Calvin turned his attention from the warp back to reality.

Calvin squinted his eyes slightly to prevent the thunder from escaping and frightening the mortals in front of him. He said to Stovan who was still remembering:

"You can talk now."

"say what?"

Stovan asked subconsciously, and then under the anxious gaze of everyone, he finally understood his situation.

“In its final form, it is a huge clock, but the way it counts is a reverse countdown.

It is a building that uses the technology of an older civilization to observe the impact of certain events in advance by folding the timeline;

Then use the stability of the physical rules of the real universe as a yardstick to infer the activity level of the subspace and the device's remaining lifespan of the real universe.

All in all, when its pointer reaches the end, it is the end of the universe. "

Advance observation, rules, stability, activity level, lifespan...

Stovan's words echoed in the laboratory, and several key words in his words aroused the thinking of everyone present.

Countdown?

Advance warning?

Can it be considered that the complete form of this artifact has similar functions to the prophet in the battle group?

And the performance of this artifact is even more powerful!

No matter the scope of observation or the continuity of observation!

Both the depth and accuracy of the event impact assessment!

The power of this artifact far exceeds the perception of any psychic prophecy?

Its power may not be as direct to an individual or a certain battle as the STC of a weapon.

But for a race, what a powerful artifact this is!

"Why have we never heard of its existence? If it really existed, how could it be unknown in human history?" Lyric asked.

"Haha~ If you were "them", would you allow this kind of thing to exist?" Stowan laughed nervously.

"It was just a concept and plan from beginning to end, and when it was actually about to be born, did you see that space hulk? This is its end..."

As if afraid that others would not believe it, Stovan raised his head and looked at Calvin:

"Let me introduce myself again. My name is Trinary Elfanio. I am currently the master of the high-level forge and the master of the first-level covenant. I belong to the Origin Return Order under the Titan Academy of the Mars Mechanical Order.

And before my body was activated and assigned to the Order of Origin, I had another identity - the last member of the Kress School, which is famous for its research and recovery. "

"That's wrong!" Father Lyric obviously knew something about the "Kress School". He subconsciously read out the information in his database:

"As far as I know, the Kress School has died out. The last pure member of the Kress School disappeared at the end of the Great Crusade and was declared dead within the next hundred years. His name..."

"It's called Trinary Elfanio, right?"

Facing the shocked looks of his colleagues from the Order of Omen, the mechanical priest wearing a "Stovan" vest said to Calvin:

“Some people don’t want this artifact to exist, so we become an eyesore.

Unlike you, the first thing my mentor and I came into contact with was another part of this artifact.

And it was also from that time that our school of thought experienced an inexplicable attrition of members. Experimental accidents, disappearances during exploration, struggles between colleagues, self-destruction...

From a huge school with nearly a thousand people, we have quietly shrunk to less than a hundred people without participating in any major battles.

And all this happened in less than a hundred years. "

"Stovan's" words made everyone present shudder.

Naturally, they were not afraid of war or sacrifice, but they felt a shiver through their bones just thinking about such a desperate situation where even the enemy could not be found and could only disappear without a trace.

"How did you survive?"

Calvin asked in a low voice. At this time, most of his doubts about Stovan have been eliminated. This sentence is not so much a question as a response and encouragement to Stovan's narrative.

"A seed lost accidentally gave birth to the unexpected fruit of 'I'."

Stovan blinked and explained his reason with a symbolic description.

"The real Elfanio is dead, physical or otherwise.

And I am just a product of his mistakes during his apprenticeship. "Stovan said mockingly.

When "Elfanio" was still an apprentice, during a "batch artificial consciousness" authorization for mechanical prosthetics, he mistakenly delegated part of his code authority.

After these mechanical prosthetics were assigned to the Source Returning Order, their consciousness was always in a backup and dormant state due to the data subject being online.

The subsequent story has no twists and turns.

When Elfanio "disappeared" during an exploration operation, and it was confirmed internally that there was no data backup, he was officially declared dead by the Adeptus Mechanicus.

In the War Reserve of the Order of Origin, Stowan, who received the information that "the subject is permanently offline", finally got the chance to inherit his personality and wake up.

After waking up again, "Elfanio" did not know the final fate of his subject, nor did he know why he participated in that expedition.

He didn't dare to know clearly.

In order to protect himself, he did not even dare to download the backup of his own data stored in the common database. To prevent those people from following the download records and finding him out of his hiding state.

He didn't even dare to use this body, for fear that he, who had become a "black household", would leave any traces of instructions on this body.

He consciously limited himself, limiting the current carrying his consciousness to a few tiny components.

Until this mission, a mechanical priest of the Origin Order activated this body and used it as a copy of consciousness to perform missions.

Stowan took advantage of the opportunity to be far away from the main body and took over the bottom control authority of the body in order to escape.

And if he hadn't seen the remains of this artifact here, I'm afraid this guy would have continued to lurk until he had a chance to escape the sight of the Mechanicum.

"So how complete is it, or what is it missing?"

After listening to the story of "Stowan", Calvin knew that the people he sent to investigate Mars were destined to return empty-handed.

But now the identity of this mechanical priest is no longer important. What is important is the missing parts of the incomplete artifact he talks about.

"Of course it's its 'pointer'," Stowan replied simply.

"We found a total of three hands that year, one of which was a completed product, which is the sacred object you see - the Bell of Gerstal. The other two were sealed by ourselves, but they have been The members of the school disappeared."

"Where is it? I mean the finished product." Calvin asked Stowan while entering the name of the holy object into the data terminal of the power armor.

However, both Stovan's answer and the trial court's database gave him an answer he had never expected in the next second:

"Storm Star Territory, Ophelia Star 7!"

renew