Rebellion? The Men of Iron never rebelled!

Iax, trapped in the Stasis field, suddenly raised their head and looked at Trazyn.

"You said you were a witness to history and its preserver. Then tell me, where did my brethren go? What is the Imperium of Man? What exactly happened?"

Trazyn looked at Iax with some surprise, the green light in his metal eye sockets flickering. He seemed to be considering whether explaining history might introduce some unpredictable change into this world.

After several minutes of silence, however, Trazyn finally spoke.

"My time is limited. All I can tell you is that your brethren betrayed... the Imperium? No, that isn't quite right. They betrayed the human race. The so-called Men of Iron fought a great war against humanity, and humanity was almost wiped out. Afterward, the remaining Machine Intelligence left this universe and used some unknown technology to utterly destroy an entire region."

Iax seemed stunned by Trazyn's words.

Then they seemed to realize something.

An almost perfectly lifelike hologram was projected into the air.

Its image clearly depicted none other than Moran, the Adeptus Mechanicus Bishop who had just been caught in the Sentinel's explosion and eliminated.

"By humans, do you mean beings like him?"

The almost perfectly lifelike hologram excited even Trazyn.

"Ah, exquisite technology. To think it could produce such an effect. Quite remarkable."

But after examining the projection, Trazyn shook his head, then showed Iax images of humans from various places.

Among them were images of the Astartes, the Astra Militarum, the Adeptus Mechanicus, and others.

"These are all forces of the so-called Imperium of Man. They all call themselves human. And your... what was that word again?"

Iax supplied it. "Brethren."

"Ah, yes. Your brethren fought a vast and protracted war against them."

Trazyn swayed his head and raised both hands high, recounting events with exaggerated gestures.

Iax, meanwhile, stared intently at the somewhat blurry images before them, carefully analyzing the data.

"Although these 'humans' do indeed look much like the humans in my foundational data, I must personally verify whether these organisms meet human standards. If they are merely humanoid organisms with mixed genes, then, as one of the crowning technological achievements of the Creator and Engineer, I am obliged to eliminate these inferior organisms."

"The name human belongs only to the Creator race! The genetic purity and stability of humanity must be maintained. No degraded organism may impersonate the Creator race! Unless they cease sullying the name of humanity."

Trazyn gave a strange laugh of uncertain meaning, then opened a Phase Portal behind him. After bowing slightly to Iax, he suddenly stepped backward and vanished into the portal.

The surrounding Stasis field was dispelled in an instant.

The chunks of flesh and shattered metal that had been suspended in space flew in every direction.

The barge transport was hurled over as well.

Everything erupted the instant the Stasis field vanished.

Iax ignored the explosion, the shock wave, the flesh, and the shattered metal flying through the air, all erupting almost against their body.

Once the surroundings had fallen deathly silent, Iax stood where they were and pondered for a long time before raising their head to look at the distant Hive City.

A Raven flying high overhead suddenly changed course, then plunged toward a hole in the ground not far from Iax and detonated itself inside.

This was the hole Iax had left when they burst out from underground earlier. It had once been a Ventilation Shaft leading straight below ground, though ten thousand years of geological movement had severed it a few dozen meters beneath the surface.

With a metal-detection module and structural plans, however, locating the remaining sections posed no difficulty for Iax.

After making a short Blind Jump underground, Iax had appeared inside another broken section of ventilation duct. It had taken only a few jumps to emerge from the point closest to the surface.

This experimental Jump Device had a maximum range of only around a hundred meters. Otherwise, Iax could have jumped directly from underground to the surface.

Still, the fight with Trazyn had confirmed the Jump Device's reliability and practicality.

Looking at the Necron wreckage scattered across the ground, Iax confirmed that everything that had just happened was neither an illusion produced by holographic projection nor a hallucination caused by an error in their cognitive core. Then they set off across the wilderness at a run.

The nearby Hive City would be the first place Iax needed to inspect.

If the living beings inside failed to meet the human standards in the data and refused to relinquish their human identity, Iax would have no objection to firing the Shatterer Cannon again.

The Ravens still flying overhead served as data relays, keeping Iax connected to the underground Maintenance Center.

Their coverage was sufficient for Iax to remotely control everything inside.

In the Great Hall at the top of the Hive City, the Fabricator-Sage sat upon the enormous Throne Mechanicum at its center, countless cables connected to his body.

Ever since Trazyn's Stasis field had enveloped the battle zone, the Servo-skulls he had dispatched had stopped transmitting images.

He had to find out exactly what had happened.

After carefully analyzing the footage transmitted earlier, the Fabricator-Sage finally spotted something in a single frame that nearly brought even his auxiliary cognitive core to a halt.

A small patch of green ripples.

Its form and details were unmistakable.

"Necrons! Damned xenos! Why are there Necrons here too!"

Soon, a distress signal was sent from the Hive City's Astropathic communication Hall.

The forces on this Planet were far too weak. There was only one Hive City on the entire world, and because of its secretive nature, no Astra Militarum troops were stationed there, nor were there any other substantial Imperial forces.

Nor did the barren Planet possess much else of value. The Adeptus Mechanicus had secretly built this industrial Hive City here to manufacture certain specialized equipment. They had never considered that anything might go wrong.

But now, first came an attack by Chaos Rebels, then the appearance of an ancient technological construct, and now Necron xenos had emerged as well. The situation had clearly exceeded what a single Fabricator-Sage could control.

"Immediately relocate the copy of the STC Construction Template first, and transport all completed equipment off-world."

Once the orders had been sent, the Sage disconnected himself from the Throne Mechanicum and walked toward the terrace he had stood on earlier.

"It seems this ancient technological installation will have to wait until... What is going on!"

As the Sage looked toward the enormous gun emplacement nearby, he had not even finished voicing his regret before he saw that its massive barrel had turned and was pointing straight at the nearby Hive City.

Although there were no energy fluctuations, that movement alone frightened the Sage so badly he nearly sprayed lubricant.