The Boundary Between Man and God

War—this cruel word showed its truest face in countless corners of the universe: soldiers charging, civilians dying, and the Chaos Gods behind the scenes forever watching every poor wretch struggling on the battlefield with bloodthirsty, tyrannical eyes.

Curtis Mannheim had experienced countless wars. Every war involving a Titan Legion was no different from the coming of doomsday. Once his Legion took the field, even the most beautiful garden worlds, painstakingly terraformed and restored, would wither beneath their apocalyptic weapons. Mannheim did not like war, but in this endless, cruel, dark Milky Way, he had never had a choice.

Power—this was a word laden with meaning for many, the simple thing everyone craved. Under the terror of power, world joined with world. In the desire for power, brothers became strangers. It drove every person through their life with irresistible force, and it was also the greatest cause of their death and silence. Few had ever truly considered its meaning, or personally felt the weight of its embrace.

Fortunately, Curtis Mannheim was one of those who understood power. When countless interfaces had been installed in your flesh, when your body had undergone precise and prolonged mechanical replacement to adapt to communion and fusion with a god-engine's machine spirit, your body became frail and hunched. Heavy components within you restricted your physical growth, while the cables sustaining your life crushed your spine. Mannheim did not like how he looked when he left the god-engine and became a man. He was so thin and small that he had to raise his head slightly even to look at Astra Militarum soldiers. He preferred to immerse himself in the god-engine's machine spirit, enjoyed the singular sensation of fully linking his consciousness with it. From that perspective, everything that required him to look up vanished, becoming tiny black specks on the ground. It felt wonderful for one who looked up to be looked up at instead.

Gods—this was an even more meaningful word. Ever since humanity had learned to gaze upon the stars and tremble beneath nature's roaring fury, they had worshipped gods. They contemplated the nature of divinity, sought to understand divine will, and prayed for divine favor. They waged wars of extermination in the names of gods, and died for their blessings and for a single glimpse of them.

The shipbuilding docks floating in the skies above primitive worlds became temples where entire planets worshipped their gods over the course of centuries. In humble devotion, the people transported the ore they had mined up to them, then held grand rites of worship for the immense temples that gradually took shape before the eyes of generations.

Until the ships were finally completed and slowly departed from their sight beneath their devout gaze. In that sky, unattainably high above them, and in the vaster universe beyond, lay the dwelling places of the gods. Mannheim's Titan was likewise regarded as a walking god. He knew he could easily crush mountains beneath his feet, sever rivers, and boil away oceans with the weapons mounted upon it. Yet he had never considered himself a god. He was merely a humble creature of flesh, fortunate enough to follow the greatest miracle of the Omnissiah during his brief life and witness all that existed in the Milky Way.

Explosions and tremors reached him. The amniotic tank enclosing Mannheim ruptured, and his vast field of vision shrank in an instant. Unable to connect to the Titan's senses, his world was once again severely constrained by his limited human faculties. He could no longer see the terror ahead.

The operators, radar officers, and engineers on the bridge had all died beneath Ork fire. The Void Shield had completely overloaded several minutes earlier and still had not been repaired. The luxurious, sturdy bridge had become ruins, and power cables dangled from the shattered ceiling. Mannheim painfully untangled the connection lines wrapped around his limbs, but his body pitched uncontrollably out of the amniotic tank.

Glass shards and the buckled deck scraped Mannheim's body, drawing milky-white blood that had been heavily altered and replaced. Mannheim climbed to his feet, troubled by his own insignificant weakness and fear. As a human, as a member of the Collegia Titanica, he had dreamed of following in the footsteps of gods, sharing consciousness with a sacred Titan, and dwelling within its mighty body.

From the moment of his first link, the depth of the universe and the terror of being human had never again shaken his soul. But now, the god-engine burned beneath Ork bombardment, suffering amid its damaged mechanical structures. He knew he had lost the honor of being captain of a sacred Titan. But now, he had to protect his final honor.

If we are to protect our final honor, then we must remember everything it means to be human.

Mannheim slowly and painfully inched forward, dragging the remnants of his mortal flesh through the chamber toward the console.

Another burst of groaning, twisting metal and poorly lubricated machinery sounded out. The Titan's body tilted downward, as though it could no longer withstand the Orks' fire and was about to topple headlong to the ground. Losing his balance, Mannheim fell toward the console. He hid his entire body behind it to keep from slipping through the ruptured opening ahead and falling to his death because of the slanted deck.

More Orks saw the dying Titan and let out savage roars as they climbed over this sacred creation. Gu Juji's earth-shaking cannon fire did not sound again. The Orks wanted to loot it, tear away everything useful from its body, and use its blessed components to construct more bizarre contraptions. They intended to subject the Titan to utter desecration.

Mannheim, abruptly severed from the link, leaned against the console to regain his strength and clarity. Being disconnected without the proper procedure had left the ports in his back and at the rear of his head wracked by cramp-like pain. His lungs, soaked in amniotic fluid, were constantly contracting. Within minutes, he would die from weakness.

He opened a medkit from a sealed compartment beneath the console and drew out a dose of violently toxic sedative that could forcibly prolong life. This green-glowing sedative had been extracted from a wild animal on a jungle world. When near death, the creature injected this special hormone throughout its body, making itself stronger, faster, and causing its blood to clot more quickly—then, in the final five minutes of its life, it perished together with its enemy.

The cold sting of the needle came from Mannheim's neck, and a burning sensation instantly spread through his chilled body. "Omnissiah, have mercy and let me complete my final task." Regaining his strength and clarity, Mannheim prayed to the god. He moved aside the charred remains of an operator connected to the console and pulled out the interfaces.

After carefully adjusting the parameters and configuration of the interfaces in his hands, Mannheim managed to barely connect the cables at the back of his head. He had gone from controlling the entire body to controlling the data flow of the entire Titan. The utterly different sensation left Mannheim uncomfortable. He struggled to recall everything he had learned in the Collegia Titanica, searching for the Titan's machine spirit amid the cloud-sea of Binary Cant.