Mutation

Apothecary Tassa of the Salamanders broke the atmosphere with his footsteps.

As a son of Vulkan, he possessed a frame as massively built as his primarch's, his corded muscles exuding a formidable presence even encased in power armor.

The Salamanders and the Raven Guard were in many ways total extremes. For instance, Nykona possessed near-albino pale skin, whereas Tassa's skin was as pitch-black as charcoal, which he claimed was an effect brought by the geneseed.

Furthermore, Tassa was the exact opposite of Nykona's quietness, possessing an enthusiasm like a furnace of Nocturne.

"My friends, what are you hiding here looking at?"

The son of drakes noticed the holographic projection with his pupils radiating the fiery glow of molten lava, and could not help but praise in tandem, "Ancient Terra was truly beautiful, with such vast oceans completely unlike our Nocturne, where there is only a sea of magma."

"When Prometheus and Nocturne drew close, the massive planetary gravity tore apart Nocturne's crust, and the subterranean magma converged into seas."

"In the earth-fires of Nocturne, there are only seven relatively stable continents that allow mortals to survive. When planetary activity reaches its peak, the shelter-cities open to provide protection for the refugees."

"Terra's oceans, however, were divided into nine continents. According to the elders' accounts, back then our Salamander Legion executed a tremendously important mission for the Emperor in the Storm Underground Corridor near the Caucasian Wastes."

"A full twenty thousand mighty Salamander warriors fought Iron Men Auto-Sentries in the Storm Underground Corridor, and by the end of the campaign, only a thousand Salamanders survived."

Tassa's voice was like a smelting furnace, yet that near-total annihilation and tragic heroism sounded unusually plain in his mouth. This was not because he was cold-blooded and ruthless, but simply because this son of drakes genuinely believed that these predecessors who gave their lives for the Emperor were all worthy of it.

On a death world like Nocturne, life was exceptionally fragile, but precisely because of this, the sons of drakes held their own unique insights regarding death.

A worthwhile death was a worthy one.

Yet Lox heard the deeper meaning in Tassa's words. He knew that Lox, coming from the Dark Age of Technology, had never experienced the dark era of the Cybernetic Revolt, and thus Tassa was deliberately using that grim war of the Salamander Legion to warn him.

The Iron Men were not entirely unworthy of trust, but one also needed to maintain due vigilance.

Not all Iron Men stood on the opposite side during that betrayal. According to some handed-down ancient records, over half of the Iron Men actually continued to help their creators fight against their rebellious kind.

Had it not been for this—had all Iron Men rebelled together—even humanity at its zenith would have plunged into endless abysses.

Iron Men were weapons of war condensed from all of humanity's intellect, and a perfect creation would surely surpass its creator. When this weapon was pointed at its former master, the creator would also be harmed by the creation.

The seemingly rugged and bold Salamanders possessed a heart that was equally delicate and tender.

"Thank you for your admonition, Tassa. I'll keep it in mind," Lox replied with a smile, yet he vaguely felt something was not quite right.

Was it the history of the Salamanders... sentry Iron Men? No, it was earlier!

The sense of weirdness in Lox's heart grew increasingly intense. He rarely had moments of such unease, so something must have gone wrong somewhere.

"Right! It's here. He just said Terra's oceans were divided into nine continents. Even if Eurasia is calculated separately, how could the Earth of the past have had nine continents?"

Even counting Eurasia separately, Earth had only seven continents.

Yet in the holographic projection cast by the cogitator, the silhouette of that planet clearly possessed nine continents of various shapes. In the original locations of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, three slightly smaller continents were perfectly integrated.

"No, leaving aside the artificially divided Eurasia, Earth's continent count was only six." Lox could not quite pin down the memories in his mind, his reason telling him the correct number should be six.

Yet another voice kept repeating that the correct number should be nine.

He closed his eyes to recall, only to find that the memories in his mind had no abruptness whatsoever. The continents on the Pacific and Indian Oceans each had their own names and corresponding histories.

"Did I remember wrong? Six versus nine, how could I possibly remember wrong?"

"No!"

In an instant, the atmosphere inside the cabin dropped to freezing point. Lox's expression darkened, and he immediately issued a comprehensive self-diagnostic command.

He felt it—something had affected his cognition.

Within the cogitator's thought engine, an extremely tiny special code had mixed in without warning. It had only nine characters, merely a drop in the ocean compared to this vast sea of code.

Yet it was precisely these nine tiny codes that, as if having awakened self-awareness, scattered into the numerous code clusters.

They were neither virus data nor malicious encoding, easily bypassing the firewall's interception, but when they combined together, a bizarre power descended.

Either altering the positive and negative signs of the code, or altering the quantity markers of the code, the subtle mutation entered the digital world, causing this tall tower built by numerous genius brains of the Dark Age of Technology to shake.

Artificial intelligence must protect humans.

This was a core logic obeyed by the cogitator, but at this moment, under the interference of some bizarre power, the cogitator's judgment on the concept of humanity began to slow down.

What is a human?

Are the Astartes human?

The cogitator's processing power was sufficient to calculate the movement of every single atom from the birth to the destruction of a star system, but at this moment it fell into an incredible hesitation.

As a strong artificial intelligence, the cogitator possessed its own consciousness and emotions. Suddenly, as if struck by a flash of inspiration, this question appeared within its core thought process.

The question of whether Astartes belonged to humanity shared some common ground with the ancient philosophical question of the Ship of Theseus: when a human underwent extensive modification, did they still belong to humanity?

The fuzzy computation results indicated that these entities, who had undergone massive biochemical modifications and had seeds imbued with warp power implanted within their bodies, should not be classified as human.

Non-human creatures detected; take coercive measures.

In the cogitator's judgment, non-human creatures had appeared by Lox's side and threatened his personal safety. Out of the logic of protecting its master, it immediately adopted offensive means.

On Lox's shoulder, Pika, the avatar of the cogitator, flickered with electric arcs while multiple powerful weapons flashing with lethal electrical arcs were rapidly printed out inside the cabin.

These arc weapons were aimed at Nykona and Tassa, ready at any moment to fire terrifying currents sufficient to turn flesh into ash.

"Cease action, immediately!"

Lox also realized the cogitator's abnormality. His heart pounded wildly, and he forced the cogitator to halt all actions at top speed.

The Tesla arcs, capable of reducing all organic matter to dust, stopped the very instant before firing. Lox's command held the highest priority, overriding the previous eradication order and forcing it into standby.

Inside the cogitator's core thought process, countless data streams formed an army. Various slaughter codes were manufactured, and countermeasures against the intrusion were immediately launched.

Relying on its incomparably massive computing power, the cogitator finally discovered the abnormal code lurking in the core. The slaughter codes isolated those abnormal codes and then completely destroyed them using various algorithms.

"What on earth is this damn thing, and where did that string of code come from?!" Lox felt somewhat dazed after receiving the cogitator's report.

Without any warning, something had invaded the thought engine of the flagship Prometheus and almost made the cogitator slaughter these warriors aboard the ship.

Yet immediately, he realized that the source of this emergency crisis undoubtedly had an inseparable connection to the rolling sea of the Warp outside the starship.

Even under the protection of the Gellar Field, some unknown entity had still managed to sneak onto this starship.

"What just happened?" Nykona asked immediately. He had seen the ship's cogitator just moments ago attempt to kill them, and Lox had been unaware of it.

"I don't know what happened, but I know there are enemies on the ship now," Lox said.