Steel Ball Forge World, also known as Steel Fortress, the forge world of Iron Star, lay in the Ultima Segmentum. It provided the Armageddon System with immense support and aid, and was also the homeworld of the Iron Skull Titan Legion.
There was not an inch of unused land on the entire planet. The sky was shrouded in dense smoke, while all seawater had been poured into cooling tanks, endlessly evaporating and condensing across this planetary factory.
Not a trace of water vapor was wasted in the air. This desiccated world permitted only steel factories and streams of molten iron. Any organic life, no matter how slight, was a blasphemy against this great factory of the gods.
Everyone underwent modification as soon as they were old enough to enter the factories and work, so they could better serve the Machine God. Their legs were removed and replaced with alloy limbs more resistant to heat and corrosion. Their lungs were also extracted and replaced with breathing sacs equipped with superior filtration and cooling systems.
They worked at their posts until their frail flesh could no longer sustain their labor. Then the ever-patrolling surveillance skulls found them, and they were taken away to be remade into servitors.
Of course, some fortunate ones were selected for the Skitarii and received the first decent bionic prosthetic of their lives. Afterward, they followed in the footsteps of the Archmagi, searching the endless galaxy for the treasures of the Machine God.
Or they joined the Titan Legion, looking up at these creations of the gods. Becoming a Skitarii merely meant becoming a more valuable cog. They were thrown from one filthy sack stained with isotopes and slag into another smeared with grease. That was all.
This unceasing heart of steel had fallen into anguish, not because