The Slaughter of the Iron Warriors

"Iax, you may join the fighting freely, but you must never attack Imperium personnel. Otherwise, we will find a way to destroy you, whatever it takes."

Iax shrugged indifferently.

"Rest assured. Though I doubt you have the ability to destroy me, I need more historical data. Once I have achieved my objective, what happens afterward will no longer be my concern."

As long as he could find a normal human, Iax did not believe anyone of sound mind would refuse the loyalty of a Man of Iron. As for everything else, he only needed to follow orders and carry them out.

Even with independent intelligence, the Men of Iron remained extremely intelligent tools. Unless necessary, they had no need to conduct additional negotiations. That was their Creators' task.

But the lack of any suitable individual to serve was what made the situation so complicated for Iax.

He had to discover where all the humans had gone.

And whether these genetic hybrids before him, who called themselves human, were truly the result of natural human evolution.

If they were naturally evolved humans, Iax could serve them. If not, where had these "human" creatures with their severely contaminated genes come from? Had true humanity already been destroyed?

These were all questions Iax needed to answer.

Hearing Iax's words, Sien clenched his fists. Though he did not know what Iax was pursuing or why he was so fixated on historical records, their interactions so far had at least shown that this Ancient Construct was scrupulous about keeping his promises.

Iax walked to the enormous bulkhead door behind the bridge and rotated his head nearly a hundred and eighty degrees.

In a pose that looked like it could drain anyone's sanity, he stared at the person Sien had just addressed as captain.

"I assume you are the captain. Please open the door. I did promise not to use unconventional methods."

To Iax, a heavy automatic door required nothing more than an electronic intrusion to take control and open it.

But to Iax, the ship also counted as personnel. Forcibly infiltrating and taking control of someone else's vessel was hardly friendly behavior.

The surrounding crew and Astra Militarum soldiers all looked hesitantly at the naval captain standing on the central command platform.

After hesitating for a few seconds, the captain nodded.

This unusual mechanical being clearly possessed formidable combat capabilities, perhaps even greater than those of the Angels of the Emperor.

Otherwise, Sien would not have sounded so anxious over the vox earlier.

This unusual individual clearly exceeded even Sergeant Sien's ability to handle. He had no way to deal with him.

Anyone who could become the captain of an Imperium battleship was no fool.

As the heavy armored door opened, Iax turned his head back around, then left a word of thanks in High Gothic hanging in the air.

Once that enormous metal body strode out of the bridge with heavy footsteps, the captain immediately shut the door. He then looked around nervously, as though afraid that more terrifying things might appear on the bridge in the same fashion at any moment.

Meanwhile, the Astra Militarum in the outer corridor of the bridge had been utterly routed. Thirty Iron Warriors had launched an overwhelmingly one-sided assault against them.

On top of that, Sien and his men had evacuated the Astra Militarum soldiers from one of the side passages. Short-handed, the remaining Astra Militarum had carpeted the hall with the flesh and blood of hundreds of soldiers, and nearly all of them had died.

These Astartes, likewise clad in gray-black ceramite armor, though of a design that looked heavier and sturdier than that of the Black Templars, pulled the triggers of their Bolters without mercy.

Their powerful Bolters could often shatter several Mortals with a single shot. The Melta Cannons and heavy lascannons scattered among the crowd received particular attention.

Often, a soldier would raise his weapon only to be blasted to pieces before he could fire.

The next soldier would step forward to take his place, yet none could get a shot off.

Even the protective armor in front of the Heavy Laser Cannons had been torn apart by the barrage of Bolters. Brief bursts of fire could do no effective damage to the Astartes.

Sustained fire, however, required vast quantities of "flesh-and-blood components."

The Astra Militarum's casualties soared in an almost entirely one-sided slaughter.

Iax, who had just emerged from the corridor into this hall, was also startled by the carnage before him.

Interstellar warfare was hardly uncommon in his databanks. Countless alien species had been exterminated during humanity's great expansion.

But whatever the war, the Men of Iron had always formed the main fighting force. Their Creators might not even appear on the battlefield. There would be no human corpses on the ground.

Yet these genetically contaminated "humans" exhibited biological characteristics almost identical to those of the humans in his databanks.

It reminded him of scenes from human civil wars in the ancient records within his databanks, where the corpses of the Creators had piled up in layers. They were almost identical to the scene before him.

Iax felt somewhat dazed.

But he quickly shook off that unstable emotional state.

After a brief scan of the battlefield, Iax immediately identified the personnel fighting on both sides within the compartment.

Thirty of the units bore insignia similar to those on the four ships from earlier. Clearly, these conspicuously massive augmented warriors were hostile targets.

"They appear to be products of the same technology as Sien's group of augmented biological warriors. Is this another renegade legion? Then what were those strange warriors from earlier, the ones that looked as though they had been infested by biological parasites?"

"Plague Marines, I think they were called? Are they different from these Iron Warriors?"

Iax was somewhat puzzled.

Though Iax had done nothing beyond scanning the entire battlefield, the Iron Warriors slaughtering the Astra Militarum would not ignore this strange mechanical unit.

"Captain, that mechanical being looks strange. It doesn't look like something made by the False Emperor's lackeys."

One Iron Warrior hesitantly leveled his Bolt Rifle at Iax, who stood in the corridor doorway at the far end of the hall.

An Iron Warrior with silver ornamentation around his pauldrons waved a hand.

"Iron within, iron without. Show no mercy. Destroy these lackeys of the False Emperor. Whatever their origins, eliminate them all."

The other Iron Warriors answered their captain's cry with battle cries of their own.

Then they stepped up their assault once more.

Quite a few of their Bolters flew straight toward Iax.

Bang, bang, bang!

The Bolters exploded against Iax's body one after another, the rising smoke and dust briefly obscuring him.

Just as the Iron Warriors thought they had destroyed him—

A clear yet unexpected voice emerged from the smoke.

"Hm?"

The impacts had interrupted Iax's thoughts. He rubbed the spots where he had been hit with a mechanical hand. After wiping away every trace of propellant ash left by the exploding Bolters, he turned toward the Iron Warriors who had fired at him.

"Aagh!"

Several screams rang out almost simultaneously.

The afterimage Iax had left behind began to fade.

The Iron Warriors who had just opened fire were instantly cleaved in two down the middle.

The captain with the silver pauldrons immediately noticed the towering mechanical being that had suddenly appeared among his squad.

At some point, two long, slender triangular blades had extended from his elongated mechanical arms. A pale golden light flickered across them.