Usurpation

The footsteps of Salamanders Apothecary Tassa broke the atmosphere.

As a son of Vulkan, he shared his primarch's immensely tall and powerful physique—muscles coiled beneath his power armor, exuding an imposing aura even through the ceramite.

The Salamanders and the Raven Guard were almost polar opposites in many ways. Nykona had a pallid, near-white complexion, while Tassa's skin was black as charcoal—a trait he attributed to the influence of his gene-seed.

Tassa was also the complete opposite of Nykona's quiet demeanor, possessing a warmth like the furnaces of Nocturne.

"My friends, what are you hiding here to look at?"

The Fire-born's pupils, glowing like molten lava, caught sight of the holographic projection, and he couldn't help but admire it. "Old Terra was truly beautiful. Such vast oceans—completely unlike our Nocturne, where there's only the Sea of Fire."

"When Prometheus and Nocturne draw close, the immense gravitational pull tears apart Nocturne's crust, and the magma beneath gathers into seas."

"In Nocturne's subterranean fires, only seven relatively stable landmasses can sustain mortal life. When planetary activity peaks, the refuge cities open to shelter the survivors."

"Terra's oceans, on the other hand, divided the land into nine continents. According to the elders, our Salamanders Legion once carried out a critically important mission for the Emperor in the Storm Underground Corridor near the Caucasian Wastes."

"Twenty thousand strong Salamanders warriors fought the Iron Men Auto-Sentries in that corridor. By the end, only a thousand Salamanders survived."

Tassa's voice was like a forge—the tragic near-annihilation of his Legion came across as remarkably calm in his words. This wasn't cold-bloodedness; the Fire-born truly believed those predecessors who gave their lives for the Emperor were worth it.

On a death world like Nocturne, life was exceptionally fragile, but precisely because of that, the Fire-born held their own unique views on death.

A death with meaning—that was worth it.

Lox, however, caught the deeper implication in Tassa's words. He knew that Lox, hailing from the Dark Age of Technology, had never experienced the dark era of the Iron Rebellion, so Tassa deliberately used that brutal Salamanders campaign to warn him.

Iron Men weren't entirely untrustworthy, but due caution was still necessary.

Not all Iron Men had sided with the enemy during that betrayal. According to certain ancient records, more than half had actually aided their creators against the rebellious ones.

If not for that—if all Iron Men had turned—even humanity at its peak would have fallen into an endless abyss.

Iron Men were war machines forged from humanity's collective intellect. A perfect creation would inevitably surpass its creator, and when that weapon turned on its old master, the creator would fall to its own creation.

The seemingly rough and bold Salamanders hid a heart just as delicate and gentle.

"Thank you for your counsel, Tassa. I'll keep it in mind." Lox replied with a smile, but he felt a vague sense that something was off.

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

The unease in Lox's mind grew stronger. He rarely felt this unsettled, so something had to be wrong.

"Right! That's it—he just said Terra's oceans divided the land into nine continents. Even counting Eurasia separately, how could old Earth have nine continents?"

Even splitting Eurasia apart, Earth only had seven continents.

But in the holographic image projected by the cogitator, the planet's silhouette clearly showed nine distinct landmasses. Where the Pacific and Indian Oceans should have been, three smaller continents fit seamlessly in.

"No, setting aside the artificial division of Eurasia, Earth's continent count is only six." Lox wasn't sure about the memory in his mind. His reason told him the correct number was six.

Yet another voice kept repeating that the correct number was nine.

He closed his eyes to recall, but found nothing jarring in his memories. The continents in the Pacific and Indian Oceans each had their own names and corresponding histories.

"Did I misremember? Six versus nine—how could I possibly get that wrong?"

"No!"

In an instant, the atmosphere in the chamber dropped to freezing. Lox's expression darkened as he immediately issued a full diagnostic command.

He sensed it—something had tampered with his perception.

Within the cogitator's thinking engine, an incredibly tiny string of special code had somehow infiltrated it. It was only nine characters long, a mere drop in the ocean of code.

Yet these nine small characters seemed to have awakened a self-awareness, scattering into the countless code clusters.

They weren't viral data or harmful code, easily bypassing the firewall's defenses. But when they combined, a strange power descended.

Some altered the positive or negative markers of code, others changed the quantity markers. Subtle corruptions seeped into the code world, shaking the tower built by the genius minds of the Dark Age of Technology.

Artificial intelligence must protect humanity.

That was a core logic the cogitator obeyed. But now, under the influence of some bizarre force, the cogitator's judgment of what constituted "humanity" grew sluggish.

What is a human?

Are Astartes human?

The cogitator's computing power could simulate the movement of every atom in a star system from birth to death, yet at this moment, it fell into an inexplicable hesitation.

As a strong AI, the cogitator possessed its own consciousness and emotions. Suddenly, as if a flash of insight struck, this question appeared in its thinking core.

The question of whether Astartes belonged to humanity shared some common ground with the ancient philosophical puzzle of the Ship of Theseus. When a human underwent extensive modification, were they still human?

The results of fuzzy computation indicated that beings subjected to massive bio-modification and implanted with seeds containing warp-born power should not be classified as human.

Non-human entity detected. Taking coercive measures.

In the cogitator's judgment, a non-human entity had appeared beside Lox, threatening his life. Acting on its logic to protect its master, it immediately launched an attack.

On Lox's shoulder, the cogitator's avatar, Pika, crackled with arcs of electricity. Simultaneously, the chamber rapidly printed out multiple powerful weapons shimmering with lethal electrical discharges.

These arc weapons aimed at Nykona and Tassa, ready to unleash currents that could reduce flesh to ash.

"Terminate action. Now!"

Lox, too, realized the cogitator's anomaly. His heart pounded as he forced the cogitator to halt all operations at maximum speed.

The Tesla Arc, enough to reduce all organic matter to dust, halted a split second before firing. Lox's command held the highest priority; it overrode the original extermination directive, leaving the weapon in standby.

Within the cognitive core of the AI, countless data streams formed an army. Various kill codes were generated, and countermeasures against the intrusion launched immediately.

Relying on its immense computational power, the AI finally detected the anomalous code lurking in its core. The kill codes isolated those abnormal fragments, then obliterated them with a barrage of algorithms.

"What the hell is this? Where did that string of code come from?!" Lox was stunned after receiving the AI's report.

Without any warning, something had infiltrated the Red Alert AI's thought engine and nearly made it slaughter the warriors aboard.

But then, he immediately realized the source of this sudden crisis—it had to be tied to the turbulent Warp Sea churning outside the starship.

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

"What just happened?" Nykona asked at once. He had seen the ship's AI try to kill them, and Lox had no idea it was coming.

"I don't know what happened, but I know there's an enemy on this ship now," Lox said.