After leaving the icebreaker, which was packed with multipurpose bipedal combat dogs, Hogg and his two companions were escorted by Blot to his personal flagship, the Wraith, so that the two ancient sages from ten thousand years ago could demonstrate their wisdom and statecraft.
This time, there was no shocking anyone. The dogs had seen too much to be impressed, and instead they were skeptical of the chitinous Zerg Hogg had created. One big dog even called Hogg an idiot. After all, even the weakest piece of standard Dog-man infantry equipment, no matter how you looked at it, could blow a hole right through these so-called Zerg.
When Hogg heard the half-mechanical dog in the red robe, honored as the Dog Sage, say that, he didn't argue. Instead, he invited the green-furred big dog named Dog-chimedes to join his experiment.
Knowledge had no absolute authority. Compared to humanity in the future, who would find a way to drag religion into even reverse-engineering toaster technology, the Dog-men had a fairly progressive scientific outlook—maybe even an excessively wild one.
When they learned that Hogg was the founding emperor who had established the Dog-man Empire and founded the Adeptus Mechanicus, the red-robed dogs let out excited howls and swarmed around him.
"Your Majesty, I knew at a glance that you were a man of great wisdom. Which bastard said Your Majesty's creations were no good? I'll be the first to chop him up!"
To prove he meant what he said, Dog-chimedes took off his red robe, revealing his muscular body, completely transformed by nano-electronic beams. Along with the other gear-dogs who had also stripped off their robes, he showed off the perfect results of combining physical training with mechanical enhancement.
Judging by the power output Hogg had just learned about, he suspected this