An "Angel" Bathed in Blood

"What is that?!"

Watching the figure flicker across the battlefield like a phantom, one of the Iron Warriors shouted the question.

But no one could answer.

Every Astra Militarum soldier in the hall had already fallen. Even had they survived, they would not have known where Iax came from.

Knowledge of humanity's creations from the Dark Age of Technology had long been lost. The entire Imperium retained only a handful of Men of Iron.

And those were all low-intelligence models built for basic combat. Their simple processing cores could respond only to rudimentary questions and simple emotions, with most of their processing power devoted to operating their numerous weapons and coordinating tactics.

Iax was nothing like those low-grade combat robots.

As a command unit, Iax also possessed logistical coordination capabilities. Had battlefield self-defense and essential protection not been considerations,

Iax's chassis might not have been designed with weapons at all.

Even so, that indestructible body had been equipped with some simple armaments.

Both arms carried Particle Oscillation Swords, along with transformation mechanisms that could convert the manipulators used for complex tasks into two Neutron Beam Emitters.

These Particle Oscillation Swords were far more powerful than the Power Weapons used by the Imperium. Their extraordinarily intense Particle Oscillation could even brute-force its way through Disruption Fields.

And Neutron Beam Weapons were even more devastating than the gauss beams employed by the Necrons.

When this extreme combination was paired with a Short-Range Jump system and a Mechanical Body capable of entering Hyper-Acceleration Mode,

even though Iax was not a Man of Iron specialized in personal combat, the battlefield still became a slaughterhouse.

With every flicker, Iax appeared beside an Iron Warrior. Then the slender blades flashed.

The ceramite armor that had once given the Space Marines confidence was now sliced apart as easily as paper.

The Iron Warriors fighting among the Rebels also had seasoned veterans in their ranks, men who had encountered this kind of flickering assault before.

After all, even though they had turned against the Emperor, they still fought certain former enemies of the Imperium.

Unlike other renegade Legions, which pledged themselves to the Chaos Gods of the Warp and launched indiscriminate attacks on the Imperium to win their favor,

the Iron Warriors did not trust those strange Chaos Gods. They placed greater faith in their meticulously crafted equipment and unshakable convictions.

They simply no longer accepted the leadership of humanity's ruler—the Emperor.

Before Iax could flicker to his side, one veteran swung his gun around and opened fire in anticipation.

Iax had barely emerged from the jump when a long burst of Bolter rounds struck the mechanical body.

But the Bolter rounds had almost no effect on Iax's all-alloy construction.

Instead, the smoke kicked up by their explosions briefly obscured Iax's optical vision. Yet after a switch in imaging modes, a scream still rang out from within the smoke.

The remaining Iron Warriors immediately repositioned and formed a rudimentary defensive formation.

They tried to use their positioning to restrict Iax's abrupt jumps.

But it was meaningless.

The formation of small groups guarding one another's flanks instantly collapsed when Iax's astonishingly dense body appeared among them.

Iax did not even attack after completing the jump, merely appearing in the center of the formation. The sudden extension of the limbs, aided by the pull of space, drove them into several warriors' bodies.

Looking at the Iron Warriors impaled on the mechanical body, Iax flicked the blades in apparent distaste, cutting the dying men apart.

For the first time, great quantities of blood drenched Iax's silver-white body.

Iron Warriors' blood ran down the silver mechanical frame, amid corpses strewn across the floor and long blades glowing faintly gold.

"Heavens, is that an angel reborn in hell?"

A Servo-skull that had been hovering in a corner of the hall relayed the scene to the Bridge in real time. Everyone in the cockpit exclaimed at the sight of the silver Ancient Construct, seemingly bathed in blood.

Iax swung both arms, the triangular swords tracing flourishes through the air.

The Iron Warriors, stunned by the sight, suddenly snapped back to their senses. In a panic, they aimed their weapons at the stationary Iax and fired wildly.

Several pale orange beams streaked through the hail of Bolter rounds.

Everyone present already knew that Bolt Weapons were ineffective against Iax. Their opponent had been moving at high speed, and they clearly could not win in close combat, so the Meltaguns carried by only a few of them were their last chance.

These infantry weapons, powerful enough to destroy light vehicles, were not uncommon among the Astartes. But their short range and rate of fire, far below that of Bolt Weapons, generally offered few opportunities for repeated shots.

Iax standing still to clear away the Iron Warriors' remains entangled around the mechanical body offered the perfect opportunity.

Iron Warriors positioned at several angles drew the Melta weapons they had previously used to breach the steel bulkhead doors and fired a volley at Iax.

But the sight that followed left everyone utterly silent.

Several orange-yellow Melta beams struck Iax's shell, but the special structure of the chassis surface instantly refracted the superheated beams.

The imagined sight of molten metal splashed across the floor never materialized.

Like a disco ball, Iax scattered the Melta beams in every direction.

The flesh and corpses littering the surrounding floor quickly erupted into roaring flames under the intense heat.

"Emergency venting, now! Hurry!"

As the flames spread rapidly, those who had been watching the spectacle from the cockpit immediately realized something was wrong. The Captain reacted first and ordered the compartment vented.

The deputy beside him hurriedly directed a group of Servitors to operate the ship's air systems, cutting off the air supply to the burning hall and opening a ventilation duct directly into space.

The Thunderhawk Gunship drilling into the thick outer hull from space soon spotted an armored hatch suddenly opening near the point it had been firing at.

Then a fierce jet of flame blasted out through the opening.

Whether because the preceding barrage had finally taken effect or because of the sudden surge of flame pressure from the vent, that section of armor abruptly burst apart.

Sien hurriedly signaled his battle-brother to fly the Thunderhawk through the breach.

Once they spotted an empty stretch of corridor, the Thunderhawk opened its hatch.

Sien and a group of Black Templars hurriedly jumped out of the Thunderhawk and sprinted down the corridor.

The brief intelligence report had told him only that the enemy had already engaged Iax in the last hall before the Bridge.

Although Iax's swordsmanship certainly surpassed his own, he had no idea whether this mechanical creation from ancient times could hold back nearly thirty Renegade Astartes.

As the air was sucked out of the hall, the raging flames were stripped away and quickly extinguished.