Flesh and Machine

The name Alexander von Lawrence, along with his mad yet effective philosophy known as Hearth Theory, began to spread quietly through the Imperium's core of power for the first time, like a virus.

Meanwhile, in Viridia Prime's highest-grade medical cloister, the young man debated by countless people had just awakened from a coma that had lasted several weeks.

The first thing he saw was a ceiling made of some expensive synthetic material. The air was thick with the blended scent of disinfectant and medical incense, so clean it was almost pungent. Various life-support machines ticked rhythmically beside him.

He lay on an unbelievably soft medical bed, covered by a silky temperature-controlled blanket.

"...A medical cloister?"

His memories as a Warhammer fan told him that only the Imperium's highest-level medical facilities possessed such "luxurious" equipment.

He tried to move, and excruciating pain immediately surged from every corner of his body, making him suck in a sharp breath. He lowered his head and looked at himself.

His right arm was still there, covered in tubes delivering nutrients and medicine in every color. His legs were still there too, wrapped in thick medical gel and bandages.

His left side... was empty.

Below his left shoulder, there was nothing.

The arm that had swung a power sword for him, that had embraced despairing veterans, had been left forever on the vitrified wasteland of Viridia Prime.

An unfamiliar emotion welled up in him, a mixture of loss, pain, and a trace of absurdity.

He, Liu Zhipeng, an office drone from a peaceful age, had truly lost part of his body on a 40K battlefield.

Just as he was overwhelmed by this belated "Warhammer-style sense of reality," the door to the ward was gently pushed open.

A Sister wearing the medical robes of the Order of the Sisters of Battle walked in. Her face showed a hint of exhaustion, but her eyes remained sharp as an eagle's. Seeing that Alexander had opened his eyes, a flicker of relief appeared on her usually ice-carved, stern face.

"Praise the Emperor. You are finally awake, Commissar." Her voice was as crisp and direct as her expression, devoid of excess emotion. "You have been unconscious for twenty-seven days. Your body looked like it had been run over head-on by a siege tank, then roasted from head to toe by a multi-melta. Seventy percent of your internal organs suffered functional failure. You had more than two hundred comminuted fractures throughout your skeleton. As for your skin... well, there was barely any left."

The Sister recited an injury report that would have driven any normal person to collapse on the spot in a tone as calm as someone listing vegetables at a market.

"But your vitality is the strongest I have ever seen. Stronger than any Ogryn brute I have dissected. So you survived."

She walked to the bedside and checked the stream of data on the life-support equipment.

"Your condition has mostly stabilized. Now, we should discuss your 'new arm.'"

She snapped her fingers.

Two servitors carrying a huge metal case marched in with heavy, synchronized steps.

The case opened. Beneath the soft glow of cold lamps, a mechanical arm full of violent beauty and gleaming with a frigid metallic sheen lay quietly upon velvet padding.

It was not one of the refined prosthetics used by Space Marines in Alexander's memories, filled with artistic craftsmanship and sacred runes.

This was... a pure killing tool, truly born for war.

Its main body was built from heavy adamantium and ceramic armor. Thick hydraulic lines and power transmission systems lay exposed at every joint. Its hand was a full size larger than that of an ordinary human, and each of its five fingers resembled a steel talon, their tips gleaming with a terrifying cold light. A simple chainsaw bayonet capable of snapping out in an instant was even built into the inside of its forearm.

It looked less like an arm than a combination of a small crane and an industrial cutter.

"Considering your contributions," the medical Sister explained, pointing at the mechanical arm with a metal probe, "this is the Punisher Type VII combat prosthetic, custom-made for you by the Adeptus Mechanicus. It can let you lift a Chimera armored transport one-handed, or crush a Chaos Space Marine's helmet into an iron pancake with your bare hand. Naturally, its drawbacks are high energy consumption and... it is rather noisy."

A smile that could only be described as malicious amusement appeared on the Sister's face.

"We will perform the connection surgery tomorrow. I hope your remarkably resilient nervous system can withstand its 'enthusiasm.'"

With that, she turned and left the ward with the servitors, leaving Alexander alone with the mechanical arm that radiated an aura of I'm expensive, and I'm violent.

"...Pretty cyberpunk."

Such was the sigh that rose from the depths of Liu Zhipeng's soul.

Over the next few days, Alexander underwent an intensely painful yet highly efficient medical process. Stimulated by drugs and radiation he could not even name, his body recovered at an unnatural, terrifying speed.

And just as the medical Sister had said, the connection surgery was full of "enthusiasm."

When the countless cold neural interface probes of the mechanical arm, like venomous snakes, pierced the newly grown and fragile nerve bundles in his left shoulder, agony erupted through him with such force that it felt as if his very soul were being torn apart.

But Alexander gritted his teeth and did not make a sound.

He had endured loops a hundred times more painful than this. He had witnessed scenes a thousand times more horrifying. Such pure physical pain could no longer shake his incomparably resilient soul.

When the surgery was over, when he first tried to use his will to control that brand-new steel arm brimming with power—

An unprecedented and wondrous sensation welled up in him.

He could feel the gears meshing inside the arm, the hydraulics flowing, the energy surging. It was like a part of his own body—an extension that was stronger, colder, and deadlier.

He slowly clenched his fist.

Clank—crunch—

The five steel fingers closed in the air, producing a teeth-grating scrape of metal against metal. That pure, explosive sense of power fed clearly back into his brain through the neural interface.

He even had the illusion that, if he wished it, he could punch straight through the alloy wall of this ward.

At that moment, the ward door was pushed open once more.

But this time, the one who entered was not the ice-faced medical Sister.