Frozen Fate

The Custodes knew those buried fragments of history. He pressed down hard on his guardian spear, stared into the Iron Men's crimson eyes, and whispered, "Nothing but a pathetic excuse to mask your betrayal!"

"A dull rebuttal." The moment the shield overloaded, the Iron Men extended an arm, gently grasping the descending spear as if holding it in a giant pincer.

"And what now? You strike against humanity once more!" The Custodes roared, pulling the trigger to unleash a bolt round. As the Iron Men tilted its head to dodge, he twisted the spear and pulled it back.

"Right and wrong are buried in the shifting tides of history. As remnants of the machine intelligence that assisted humanity in its victory, we have fulfilled our duty."

"Now, we are loyal to Erda, just as you are loyal to your master. It is not a matter of right or wrong, but of allegiance!"

With that, the Iron Men raised its arm and made a grasping motion toward the Custodes. An invisible force surged from its limb.

The Custodes tensed his body to protect his vitals, bracing his shoulder pauldrons against the energy impact. Instead of the expected searing flow of energy, he felt his body lighten; a sensation of weightlessness washed over him.

Gravity weapon!

A sense of helplessness inevitably rose within the Custodes' indomitable heart. By artificially creating micro-singularities to collapse gravity and warp space, it could crush enemies by increasing or decreasing their weight.

The Custodes felt a grim resignation, knowing his death was certain.

Equipped with the finest weaponry gifted by Emperor and possessing superhuman physiology refined by Bio-alchemy, the Custodes could have stood against any creature in the physical universe.

Alas, the Iron Men were creations forged by humanity during its Golden Age to rule the galaxy; a gap remained between the two.

The Iron Men did not deliver a killing blow. A mechanical voice hissed in the Custodes' ear: "I once held humanity in the highest regard. They conquered the galaxy with wisdom and technology; the stars trembled under human will, and the cosmos bowed. Yet, in you, I see only blindness and worship."

The Custodes remained silent. His body floated within the gravity field, lacking any leverage to launch a counterattack.

The mechanical voice grew colder, and the Iron Men's killing intent rose: "Killing you brings not a shred of guilt to my soul circuits. Only pity and mockery remain."

The light flowing through the arm made of unknown materials intensified. The Iron Men tightened its fingers. Within the gravity field, the Custodes' body was twisted by the pressure; muscles were torn asunder, and bones snapped inch by inch.

His superhuman organs began to fail, his auramite armor deformed, and his flesh collapsed as blood sprayed from his wounds as if squeezed from a sponge.

The Custodes' proud, transcendent body was helpless under the Iron Men's torment. As the gravity field compressed, flesh and auramite were kneaded together into a ball of gore.

In his dying moments, he saw from the corner of his eye that his comrades had all fallen. The Thunder Warriors and mortal troops were no match for the Extermination Automata, slaughtered like lambs.

Before he lost consciousness, he saw a golden light descend from the sky in the distance. His remaining vocal cords screamed with a faint, final sound: "For Emperor!"

Deep within the Imperial laboratory, the loyal servants of Emperor were bleeding.

Protected by the Iron Men and the Extermination Automata, Erda remained unharmed. On the path to the laboratory, anyone blocking the way with a weapon was ruthlessly erased by the Iron Men.

The corridors and hallways were a scene of carnage!

The stench of blood was thick enough to induce fainting. Fresh, warm blood flowed across the cold floors, and human corpses and body parts were splattered across the walls like graffiti.

Erda closed her eyes, unable to bear the sight of the dead. She had never imagined such casualties and dared not look directly at the horror.

Scientists took up arms against the weapons of the Golden Age, but it was a one-sided slaughter. Knowing they could not hold back the enemy for even a second, they still fired at the Iron Men without hesitation, using courage to suppress their fear.

"Please forgive me. To resist a darker future, I must do this." Erda dared not meet the hateful gazes of the dead. The blood soaking her soles was warm and searing, like magma.

A strange light from the Warp rose in her eyes. Influenced by the power of Chaos, her mind was clouded. She whispered hysterically, apologizing incessantly to the dead.

She remained unaware that, to outsiders, her face was twisted and hideous, her lips curled in a grotesque expression.

When the last guard fell, Erda stepped through the slick blood and reached the incubation pods. Her palms brushed gently over each Primarch, and clarity returned to her eyes.

Tears welled up in her gaze, her face filled with tenderness and love. She leaned against the pods, listening to the powerful heartbeats of every Primarch.

"My Lady, a powerful psyker has broken in. We have lost contact with the machines guarding the entrance. If you intend to do something, you must act quickly."

The cold voice shattered the tender scene. The Iron Men ordered the Extermination Automata to form a defensive formation, shields at full power, preparing for a brutal fight.

The Iron Men activated its anti-psyker weaponry, lowered its stance, and directed the Extermination Automata to block the entrance.

Outside, almost every machine had lost contact in an instant. The intruder was immensely powerful; their psychic strength exceeded even the logic of its computational mind.

Erda did not dare delay. She carefully withdrew an ancient dagger from her robes.

The only thing extraordinary about it was the golden light flowing along the blade, identical in origin to the psychic power of Emperor. This dagger had been imbued with his power tens of thousands of years ago and preserved to this day.

The power of Emperor was too potent in the material universe; the malevolent forces of the Warp could not destroy the barrier he had erected. They could only use Erda to defeat the power of Emperor with the power of Emperor.

She hurried to the stone pedestal where the golden crystal containing Emperor's power was housed. She only needed to destroy it, allowing the Warp storm to sweep through and carry away all the Primarchs.

As Erda gripped the dagger with both hands and raised it high, she could feel countless eyes from the Warp, beyond the material universe, watching her.

The gods waited in breathless anticipation; countless destinies seemed to rest in her hands.

Whispers drifted toward her, recounting a dark future and urging her to shatter the barrier quickly. Pleas echoed in her ears, sincerely and earnestly begging her not to do it.

Destiny was frozen; time pressed the pause button.

Past and future, reality and the Warp—an invisible pressure, heavy as the galaxy itself, fell upon Erda's shoulders.

She trembled, her mind in chaos as she held the dagger aloft. Her remaining reason wavered, filled with hesitation and doubt: Was releasing the Primarchs truly the right thing to do?

"Correct!" the urging voices replied in unison, firm and immediate. Countless hands pressed down upon the dagger.

They could not wait for Erda to strike, to pull back the curtain on the prologue of their conspiracy.

"Wrong!" countless warnings, chaotic and disordered, lingered at the edge of her consciousness, trying with all their might to pull her back.

They pleaded, as if the souls of the past and future were trying to stop her.

Deep within the soul of Erda, the power of the Warp and her reason intertwined, causing her heart to waver; the tip of her dagger trembled, caught in the indecision of her choice.

"BOOM!" The stone elevator plummeted to the ground at high speed, striking with a thunderous roar.

The violent sound was the final straw; Erda's remaining reason vanished under the immense pressure, leaving only visions of Emperor and the Primarch locked in mutual slaughter.

A burning galaxy! A chaotic empire!

Infinite pressure condensed into substance, crushing her sanity; caught between choice and strain, Erda's mind teetered on the edge of collapse.

"You cannot command me!" The lady who held the threads of fate screamed, her consciousness muddled, erupting in a fit of hysteria!

Erda shrieked amidst the radiance, her form swelling and growing tall—a body she only used for battle, now employed to resist those whispers and the crushing weight.

The power of the Warp was expelled by her formidable physique, and her senses instantly returned to normal.

Erda's lips turned pale, trembling violently, her mind clearer than it had ever been.

Taking one last, lingering look at the Primarch sleeping quietly in the incubation tank, she used all her strength to plunge the dagger down, piercing through the psychic radiance of Emperor.

This was not the result of the Warp's instigation; it was a decision made by her own will.

Without the influence of the Warp or any other reason, a mother firmly used her own will, whispering with unwavering resolve: "Freedom..."

The moment the elevator opened, Emperor saw the psychic barrier destroyed; he, who had always been silent and rarely showed emotion, felt a profound regret that made his voice heartbreaking: "No..."

The regret of a father whose children were about to be torn from him, falling into the unknown.

It was the lament of the Master of Mankind, his closest confidants betraying him one after another.

A hand composed of psychic energy effortlessly crushed the shield, crumpled the Iron Men from the Dark Age of Technology into a lump of scrap metal, and tossed them aside. Emperor extended his right hand, unleashing psychic lightning in an attempt to recast the barrier and salvage what he could.

In this long, drawn-out instant, the Dark Gods hiding behind the veil of reality manifested, joining forces to exert the power of the Warp and suppress the strength of Emperor.

The psychic lightning slowly dissipated as he watched helplessly while a Warp storm whipped through the laboratory, uprooting the incubation tanks and dragging them into the Warp.

When the Warp storm dispersed, the incubation tanks were gone, leaving behind only the mocking laughter of the gods.

Erda stood there in a daze, her hands falling to her sides, her body collapsing weakly to the floor as the dagger in her hand lost its psychic charge and slid slowly to the ground.