The Devouring Storm of fine particles battered the old, abandoned buildings, its sound ringing in Kasgar's ears.
Not long after leaving Karax Fortress, Fulgrim suggested they rest for a while in a nearby abandoned factory to avoid the successive natural disasters.
Walking through the abandoned factory of steel, with the dense pounding outside, oddly brought a sense of peace and leisure.
Though he did not know where Fulgrim would lead them, he continued to follow in her footsteps.
"The workers shouldn't need to worry too much."
"Karax Fortress currently depends entirely on factory production for its livelihood. Herod is busy fighting for power right now; he won't have time to make a move against them."
"Once the storm eases a little, we can sneak back into the factory through the secret passage from before and move the supplies we need to survive here."
"Then we can launch—"
"Wait, what are these?"
Descending the iron stairs step by step, Kasgar, following behind Fulgrim, pointed toward a room in the dark, abandoned basement.
There were large quantities of clean water, food, various sanitary and medical supplies, and protective suits piled inside.
Dozens of crates made the already cramped room feel even more crowded.
There were even several crates of ammunition, dozens of blades, and rifles.
Outside the room stood new machinery that occupied roughly two-thirds of the space, utterly out of place amid the rust and dust around it.
"Didn't expect that, did you?"
The puzzled Kasgar met Fulgrim's pale chin, raised proudly like a peacock spreading its tail.
She had been prepared all along.
She had already made thorough preparations for the turmoil caused by the failed political marriage, the nobles' internal disputes, and the struggle for power.
She had stockpiled essential supplies in an uninhabited area far from the fortress in advance, and she had even arranged every detail of the coming counterattack.
As for the plan of action she had discussed with Kasgar earlier—
Hehe.
She had only been teasing him.
Perfect Fulgrim had long since devised countless viable plans and would choose the most suitable one based on how events unfolded.
A Primarch's ability to calculate and plan was simply beyond what a mere mortal like Kasgar could hope to match.
Seeing Kasgar's slight embarrassment, Fulgrim consoled him.
"Although fleeing directly without preparation was somewhat rash, and your preparations for the climate, escape route, and future counterattack strategy were rather immature..."
"For an ordinary person, being able to guess Herod's scheme and offer corresponding solutions was already very impressive."
Pat, pat.
"After all, you said you would 'save' me."
Fulgrim put heavy emphasis on that word.
What she said was true.
But why did it always feel like she was mocking him?
Kasgar thought as Fulgrim rubbed his head and helped him into a protective suit.
Sigh.
Bad woman.
And Kasgar was about to be toyed with by this bad woman.
All he could say was that his luck was not very good.
He had ended up with one of the rare all-around perfectionists among the Primarchs.
If it had been another Primarch, one who was a little less clever, perhaps he could have taken the opportunity to become their strategist, Librarian, or some other advisory figure and earn their favor.
For example, Angron. Angron.
And Angron.
Even Russ would have worked!
"What do we do now?"
Kasgar asked helplessly.
They could not possibly just charge back in with this equipment.
Though it was indeed feasible given a Primarch's combat power, a large-scale armed conflict could very likely cause irreversible damage to the already fragile shelter ecosystem.
If the enemy chose to die together with them and blew up the entire fortress, every survivor would be exposed to a severe radiation storm. The consequences would be unimaginable.
"We need to repair this first."
Fulgrim answered.
"You may not believe it, but only around ten percent of the systems in Karax Fortress are currently functioning normally."
"I studied the system's operational pipelines before."
"In ancient times, this was Karax's power station. Most of the fortress's functions depended on the energy supplied from here."
After changing into her protective suit, Fulgrim approached the machine and explained as she repaired it.
"Fixing this place is equivalent to taking control of the fortress's various functions."
Fulgrim took several parts from a nearby piece of equipment and examined them closely.
"Give me the mechanical parts from Alpha-24."
"Before, the fortress relied on its internal emergency energy production equipment. But if we repair the power plant and restore electricity, most of the fortress's system functions will return to our control."
"Including the fire control, riot suppression, and surveillance systems."
As she spoke, several discordant alarms suddenly sounded from the instrument before her, accompanied by flashing red lights.
"Another error."
"Kasgar, give me the mechanical pliers from Sigma-3."
Click.
As the final green light indicating a connection lit up, Fulgrim wiped the fine beads of sweat from her fair forehead.
The repairs had taken quite a while, but fortunately, time was what they had most of right now.
"Whew. All right, now all that's left is to activate it and obtain authorization."
Their gazes fell upon an ancient computer connected to countless mechanical lines—or, as this world called it, a Thinker.
Starting up. 1% Starting up. 2%
She had put in no small amount of effort to reactivate this old Thinker.
Judging from the dense machinery and supplies newly assembled around it, she had secretly come here long ago to attempt repairs on the Thinker.
"I originally planned to restore the power supply after the political marriage was over, but Herod ruined the plan. I can only use this method to forcibly seize control of the fortress."
As she spoke, Fulgrim's fingers flew across the Thinker's buttons.
She moved so fast that Kasgar could see only afterimages.
"You did all this alone?"
"Of course!"
"It actually wasn't supposed to be this complicated," she answered Kasgar's question with a hint of pride. "Chemos just lacks too many critical materials. Otherwise, I could have repaired it ages ago."
"You could never imagine how I used such low-quality materials—"
"Kasgar."
Fulgrim, who had been speaking endlessly, suddenly stopped.
She looked around, confirmed once more that only the two of them were here, then leaned close to Kasgar's ear and whispered.
"Praise me. Quickly."
"Huh?"
"Praise me, right now. Say anything."
In most people's minds, Fulgrim was a composed, elegant human demigod full of strength and wisdom.
Yet only Kasgar had the fortune to glimpse her true form beneath that perfect exterior when they were alone.
Kasgar smiled at the sight.
"Ah, all right. Great Fulgrim, the smartest engineer in all Chemos—"
Baby, baby, you're a baby who's really good at building machines.
Starting up. 99%
".Eh?"
Everything had been proceeding smoothly according to Fulgrim's plan.
But the Thinker seemed to have developed a problem.
Genetic identification error! Please insert the correct human gene into the administrator authorization activation slot.
Fulgrim's expression was full of embarrassment as she looked at the message on the Thinker's display.
"Something must have gone wrong somewhere, so it can't recognize me—"
"Um. Let me borrow your genes."
As if trying to hide her embarrassment, Fulgrim lowered her head, swiftly drew a little blood from Kasgar's outstretched arm, placed it in a sample vial, and inserted it into the corresponding slot.
After hesitating for a moment, the Thinker entered the reading stage again.
"Whew, there shouldn't be any problems this time."
It was actually normal that it had been unable to identify her before.
After all, Primarchs were products of the Emperor's Warp experiments, far removed from humans.
A Thinker from the era of Old Night really might have been unable to identify their genes.
But Kasgar was a proper, ordinary human, so there was no way it could—
Beep!
The screen flashed with frantic red light.
Genetic identification error! Please insert the correct insert the correct insert the correct insert the correct correct correct correct correct correct correct correct correct correct correct correct correct correct correct correct correct correct correct correct
Countless garbled characters crawled across the entire display in an instant.
The contract process is currently underway.
However, there was a minor issue with identity verification. The formal contract signing may be delayed by a few days.
Before you continue