"My beauty! My beauty! I'm coming!"
Loken spread his arms and let out a bizarre, even twisted laugh, throwing himself straight toward YT-0001.
This sudden action startled even Armin, who montarily wondered if the Tech-Priest had contracted so sort of scrap-code plague.
"Ergency passive defense, activated."
Just as Loken was about to crash into it, YT-0001 suddenly moved.
Its right arm violently flicked out a pale green blade, plunging straight toward Loken's chest.
Without a doubt, this guy was going to die right then and there.
"Stop!"
With a furious roar, both Loken and YT-0001 froze simultaneously, the bizarre pale green blade halting less than a centiter from Loken's chest.
"My apologies, my apologies."
Loken awkwardly retracted his arms and patted his face in embarrassnt, while YT-0001 also retracted its blade without saying a word.
Soshyan snapped his head toward the latter and asked in a low voice:
"Where did you get that weapon?"
The mont YT-0001 flicked out that green blade, Soshyan instantly recalled that terrifying battle not too long ago. The lee weapons used by those Necrons were identical to the sword YT-0001 had produced.
That phantom, erald-green light—he would never mistake it.
Upon hearing Soshyan's questioning, YT-0001 uncharacteristically paused again before answering:
"Special-pattern Phase Sword, installed during chassis construction. It is an initial loadout weapon."
"A Phase Sword? Isn't that xenos—"
Just as Loken was about to finish his sentence, he suddenly felt a cold gaze fixed upon him. He imdiately swallowed his words and stood there sheepishly.
Soshyan didn't question further; he already had the answer in his heart.
And he could already roughly guess who had deployed these Battle Automata.
All that remained was to seek answers from Brother Zayd after returning. The most important thing right now was to transport these precious Battle Automata back to the Starfire as quickly as possible.
"Why are you here?"
Only now did Soshyan have the ti to deal with this bumbling Tech-Priest.
"Well... these Battle Automata suddenly appeared in the Teleportarium and gave quite a fright. I thought you had gone off and patronized so Forge World again, Chapter Master."
"Then you don't need to worry about that now."
"Of course, of course."
Loken wiped the sweat from his forehead, then glanced around.
"Chapter Master, this base... are we preparing to abandon it?"
"What do you an by that?"
"There are many things here that still possess extrely high value, including that maintenance and processing line, as well as these Stasis Field Generators, including the primary energy system..."
Soshyan understood the other's aning, but since this place still posed a certain level of danger, he didn't intend to stay here for too long.
"Give a tifra."
"Uh... if we can send a batch of Servitors down."
"What is the fastest tifra?"
"Three days! At the fastest, everything can be done in three days!"
"Alright, three days then. In three days, aside from packing up everything useful, I also need you to install sothing."
"What is it?"
Soshyan transmitted his idea in text format to Loken. The Tech-Priest took one look at it, then nodded to indicate he could do it.
"I will transfer the secondary authority over this Cohort to you. For the upcoming period, you and Logris will be responsible for their maintenance. This is a very heavy burden, but we don't have enough manpower at the mont."
Hearing that Soshyan would entrust the managent of the macro-clade of Battle Automata to him, Loken imdiately displayed undisguised ecstasy and anticipation.
"It is an utter honor!"
While speaking, Loken's eyes remained completely fixed on YT-0001. This could be considered the most cutting-edge unit among the Battle Automata, sothing that, to a cleric of the Adeptus chanicus, was virtually a Holy Relic.
He had only ever read about Thallax-class Battle-automata in ancient tos and data files. He had always been deeply fascinated by these intelligent machines that towed the red line of the Crimson Accords.
Loken's primary academic focus was on artificial intelligence and Battle Automata.
"My beauty, we will have plenty of ti to spend together in the future."
Rubbing his hands together, Loken approached YT-0001. After carefully looking it up and down from head to toe, he circled the entity once.
"These pistons, these gears, and this transmission... It's too perfect, absolutely amazing. I won't be able to sleep without you from now on."
"But—"
Suddenly, Soshyan's protracted tone made Loken's heart skip a beat.
"B-but?"
"You are only responsible for the Castellax-class Battle-Automata. As for this one,"
Soshyan reeled in his previously relaxed tone.
"It answers only to ."
"B-b-b-b—"
Loken's face instantly drastically changed. His hands gesticulated wildly as he tried to speak, yet for a mont he didn't know where to start. Finally, just before suffocating himself, he managed to organize the appropriate words.
"Its maintenance requires a professional! And if it incurs damage, it must also be repaired by a professional! It's an incredibly delicate treasure!"
"Logris is in charge of it, so you don't need to worry."
With that, Soshyan tilted his head toward YT-0001. Catching on imdiately, the entity opened its chest and presented its control panel to Loken.
In the end, the dejected Tech-Priest could only accept the transfer of secondary authority from the entity.
After teleporting the second batch of Battle Automata to the Starfire, Loken also returned to the ship to start arranging for personnel to deploy below to dismantle equipnt and transport materials. Concurrently, Farzad's squad was ordered to teleport underground.
Their mission would be to stand guard at the Webway portal to prevent any sudden attacks during the dismantling of the base equipnt.
While everything proceeded thodically, Soshyan had already led his squad back to their starting point via another safe route, reuniting with the two warriors standing guard there.
He felt there were still so matters he hadn't yet resolved.
At this ti, two full standard Terran days had passed since they left the settlent of Cetis. By the ti they quietly arrived outside Cetis City, it was already deep into the night.
Just like last ti.
But outside the city in the dead of night, massive bonfires were currently burning, arousing Soshyan's suspicions.
When he approached, a horrifying scene t his eyes.
Emaciated, gaunt corpses were piled together like stacks of firewood. After the city guards had stripped them of the few useful things on their bodies, they were tossed here, waiting to be tossed into the fire.
The corpses were already completely stiff, looking like blocks of ice, cold and hard. Among them were n, won, the elderly, and children.
All of them had their eyes wide open, bearing witness to their unwillingness to die. The vast majority of them were peppered with gunshots and bayonet wounds, and so had even been decapitated.
Worse still, so had their limbs severed.
Soshyan still vaguely rembered a few of those faces.
Looking at them, the Astartes' heart filled with fury and guilt. More horrifyingly, there was more than one such "firewood stack."
After departing the World Engine, once again, he was consud by an unparalleled rage...
(End of Chapter)
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