A frontal assault? Taking Tech-Priests hostage? Both were far too inefficient.
The Machine Spirit Throne possessed its own energy barriers and mental defenses; attempting to infect it by external force would only trigger the most violent backlash.
However, if the machine spirit's own power was used as a vehicle—riding upstream along the very lightning it had actively discharged—everything would naturally fall into place.
Did you not wish to burn me to ash?
Then I shall ride your thunder, step onto your stage, and enter your inner sanctum.
The true essence of the Rot-Rust Plague awakened completely the moment it touched the energy circuits. Like a drop of ink falling into clear water, dark brown rust marks spread rapidly along the flow of electric current, corroding toward the machine spirit consciousness at the throne's innermost core along the dense network of conduits.
Wherever it passed, loose rust crusts sprouted across metal surfaces, the luster of the power loops turned murky and dull, and even the leaping electric arcs were stained with a sickly, dark green hue.
The machine spirit instantly sensed the intrusion.
It let out a furious roar.
Not a sound, but a piercing screech acting directly upon all electronic equipment.
The warning lights throughout the entire Mechanicus Shrine flashed frantically at once, the optical lenses of every servo-skull turned instantly red, and the data streams on the control consoles scrolled like boiling water, frequently freezing into corrupted gibberish.
"What is happening?!"
"Abnormal fluctuations in the power loops! The rate of corrosion is rising!"
"The machine spirit's will is declining! It... it is being polluted!"
The Tech-Priests fell into absolute chaos.
They watched helplessly as the golden readings representing the machine spirit's purity plunged downward at a terrifying speed.
From an original 97%, it broke below 90% within mere tens of seconds, and continued to crash violently.
The electric arcs around the throne were no longer pure blue-white, but mingled with more and more dark green rust color.
The raging iron beast seemed to have its limbs entangled by an invisible virus; every struggle it made only caused the rust to spread faster.
Phelps' will was extremely weak.
Speaking purely of soul strength and mass, his fragment of a remnant soul was less than an ant before the machine spirit of a millennium-old battleship.
Yet the most terrifying aspect of the Rot-Rust Plague had never been frontal pressure, but rather its relentless nibbling.
It acted like the most stubborn mold, taking root the moment it landed on metal and spreading the instant it touched energy.
Every counterattack by the machine spirit, every time it mobilized energy to flush the system, only allowed the plague's power to follow the energy currents and spread deeper within.
It polluted conduits, corroded nodes, and dismantled the machine spirit's control over the entire warship bit by bit.
The weaker the control grew, the less power the machine spirit could mobilize, and the less power it had, the harder it became to purge the rust.
A vicious cycle—a dead end with no solution.
Dominic was halfway down the corridor when the report reached the bridge.
"General! Emergency from the Mechanicus Shrine! The machine spirit core has been contaminated by the Rot-Rust Plague! Shipwide systems are experiencing massive losses of control!"
The voice in the communicator carried a tearful strain, set against a background of rising alarm screeches.
Dominic's steps ground to a violent halt, every trace of color draining from his face.
The very thing he feared most had come to pass.
He whirled around almost instantly, sprinting back toward the Mechanicus Shrine at top speed.
The Celestial Lion Terminators followed right behind him, their heavy armored footsteps joining into a frantic drumbeat down the corridor.
The closer they drew to the shrine, the more blatant the signs of chaos became.
The lighting on both sides of the corridor flickered erratically, turning pale white one moment and dark green the next.
The ventilation system emitted an ominous hum, the air blowing through carrying a faint metallic tang of blood.
Dark brown rust seeped from the conduit joints on the bulkheads, spreading slowly like ruptured blood vessels.
Gravity began to fluctuate erratically as well; occasionally, there would be a fleeting moment of weightlessness before snapping back to normal, leaving everyone dizzy and disoriented.
The moment he burst into the Mechanicus Shrine, Dominic's heart sank to the absolute bottom.
The Machine Spirit Throne—once swirling with golden light and enveloped in arcs of electricity—was now draped in a dull, hazy layer of rust.
Dark green mold crept over the surface of the throne like spiderwebs, the electric arcs grew sparse and faint, and even its levitation height had dropped by dozens of centimeters.
The air no longer held that fierce aroma of iron and thunder; in its place was the damp smell of mildew and the metallic tang of rust.
"General!"
The senior Tech-Priest in the lead turned around, the voice beneath his faceplate carrying unhideable panic:
"It is the Rot-Rust Plague! It hitched a ride inside the machine spirit's lightning and bored straight into the core!"
"We... we cannot stop it!"
"Have all purification protocols been attempted?" Dominic's voice was tight.
"Holy oil flushes, litany calibrations, overload burnouts... we have tried them all!" The Tech-Priest's voice dripped with despair. "The plague has fused directly with the energy loops. For every inch we cleanse, it follows the power currents to pollute two inches more!"
"If this continues, in twelve hours at most, the machine spirit will be completely corrupted!"
Twelve hours.
Dominic gazed at the constantly dimming throne, feeling cold all over.
The Gemstone was his foundation, the glory of his house, and his life's work.
If the machine spirit completely fell, this battleship would no longer belong to the Imperium—it would become a plague fortress floating in the void.
When that time came, before the enemy could even raise a hand, he would have to personally issue the order to scuttle her.
"Summon all Tech-Priests to assemble in the shrine immediately," he took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. "Initiate the highest-level purification ritual. Use every holy relic, every drop of holy oil, and every litany!"
"Understood!"
The ritual commenced half an hour later.
Nearly one hundred Tech-Priests and Ecclesiarchy Chaplains gathered within the Mechanicus Shrine, forming three concentric rings.
Red robes mingled with black, holy hymns intertwined with binary litanies, and the golden radiance of faith layered over silver-white mechanical holy light, converging into a massive pillar of light that enveloped the central Machine Spirit Throne.
Holy oil flowed along the intricate carvings on the throne's surface, while golden flames leaped and burned atop the holy runes.
This was the largest purification ritual conducted aboard the Gemstone in nearly a decade.
When the light reached its absolute peak, the speed of the rust's expansion indeed slowed down.
Dark green mold crackled and hissed beneath the holy flames, shrinking continuously, yet it could never be fully eradicated.
The plague's power had long since penetrated deep into the core, taking root like tree roots inside the deepest recesses of the machine spirit's consciousness.
The ritual lasted for three whole hours.
The Tech-Priests were drenched in sweat, the Chaplains grew hoarse, and the golden pillar of light gradually thinned.
When the last wisp of holy flame flickered out and everyone collapsed to their knees in sheer exhaustion, the crowd discovered with horror that the machine spirit's purity had recovered by less than one percent.
And the rust was still slowly seeping back outward.
Only the speed had shifted from a sprint to a crawl.
It was useless.
The exact same thought rose in everyone's mind.
They could only watch helplessly—watching this millennium-old warship, watching this unruly soul of iron, being gnawed away and rotted by the plague bit by bit, stepping toward a slow, agonizing death.
A massive weight of powerlessness pressed down like iron on everyone's heart.
Dominic stood outside the ring, his military uniform immaculately straight, yet his silhouette exuded an unhideable exhaustion.
He gazed at the throne, its rust growing heavier by the second, his eyes burning slightly.
From the assault by the Lorgar forces, to the Nurgle fleet's attack, to the boarding of the Death Guard, he had endured wave after wave.
Yet this time, he felt as if he truly could hold out no longer.
His mind grew gradually dazed under days of unrelenting pressure, and the screeches of the alarms in his ears began to sound distant.
Just then, in the corner of his eye, an extremely faint micro-glimmer of silver-red flashed briefly within the shadows of the shrine's side door.
Like a floating particle of stardust—faint, yet extraordinarily familiar.
Dominic snapped out of his daze instantly.
It was her.
The Inquisitor who had appeared twice during desperate crises—that mysterious figure who always passed along warnings at the most critical junctures.
Almost instinctively, he raised his foot and walked toward that patch of shadow.
His heartbeat inexplicably quickened by a fraction, for reasons he himself could not explain.
Even though her identity was unknown and her origins were a complete mystery, simply seeing that trace of silver-red made the crumbling dam inside his heart feel as though it had gained another supporting pillar.
He passed through the side door and entered the maintenance passage behind the shrine.
The light dimmed, and the humming of conduits replaced the noise of the shrine.
Sarah stood in the shadows at the end of the passage, her silver xenos light armor outlining her slender frame. Her hood was pulled down very low, and at her fingertips, a faint silver-red psi-glimmer flashed and faded in an instant.
Just like the previous two times—cold, distant, as if she never belonged to the mundane world.
"You have a way, don't you?" Dominic spoke first, his voice carrying an urgency he hadn't even noticed himself.
Sarah did not answer immediately.
Her consciousness was currently communicating with Raynor through that marvelous system link.
Just a few minutes ago, she had synchronized the status of the Gemstone's machine spirit being infected by the Rot-Rust Plague to Raynor on the underground battlefield.
Right as Raynor was feeling a headache coming on, a brand-new prompt popped up before his eyes on the system interface in the very next second.
[Interactable Consciousness Detected: Gemstone Machine Spirit]
[Status: Damaged, infected by Rot-Rust Plague]
[Executable Action: Remote Domination]
[Prerequisite: As the host is not physically present, a soul deeply bound to the machine spirit is required as a proxy to perform the domination ritual]
Domination.
Not "conquest," but absolute, unadulterated "domination."
The roar of artillery from the third underground level still echoed in his ears, yet as Raynor looked toward the ruins of the barrier, a knowing curve curled at the corner of his lips.
So that's how it is.
He had previously thought it strange why this system insisted on using a format like "conquest," to the point where even Tyranids and Orks could be conquered.
Now it seemed "conquest" had never been the ultimate goal, merely the means to an end.
Altering perception, twisting willpower—the ultimate essence of it was domination.
From thought to soul, from individuals to groups, spanning even across interspecies consciousnesses.
As long as an entity possessed self-awareness, it fell within the system's operational reach.
A machine spirit, naturally, counted as well.
And when it came to a soul deeply bound to the machine spirit of the Gemstone, there was only one most suitable candidate in the entire star system.
Dominic Ventria.
The captain of this warship, the generational heir of his family, the man who spent day and night alongside the machine spirit and shared the deepest soul resonance with it.
In the passage, Sarah raised her head.
Beneath the shadows of her hood, pale pink lips parted slightly, her voice cold and clear, like ice beads striking metal:
"There is a way, but it requires your cooperation."
Dominic's breathing hitched abruptly.
The air inside the Mechanicus Shrine was colder than the ice plains of Brevis.
Beneath the brass dome, nearly a hundred exhausted Tech-Priests and Chaplains sat or knelt; sweat soaked their robes, and the scorched smell of burned holy oil mingled with the metallic tang of rust, saturating every inch of space.
The suspended Machine Spirit Throne at the center no longer possessed its former fierce brilliance, dark green mold creeping over its pure steel structure like bone-deep rot.
The originally violent blue-white electrical arcs had grown sparse and dim, dragging a sickly dark green trail behind every leap.
The reading symbolizing the machine spirit's purity froze at 76%, still dropping at a slow yet irreversible speed.
Three senior Tech-Priests gathered before the control console, data streams rapidly scrolling across their optical lenses; purification commands were issued one after another, only to be neutralized by the power of rust time and time again.
Bishop Venca stood at the edge of the perimeter, the rosary in his hands rubbed warm, his graying beard trembling slightly.
Having lived for nearly a century and presided over hundreds of purification rituals, he had never felt as powerless as he did today.
The plague was no surface filth; it was a poisonous root planted deep within the machine spirit's consciousness.
Dominic stood outside the cordon with his back to the crowd, his upright posture in his military uniform carrying an indescribable weariness.
His fingertips were slightly numb; days of fierce battles and consecutive heavy blows had slammed into his nerves like a sledgehammer, yet he could not retreat.
Behind him were the officers and crew of the entire warship, the thousand-year glory of his house; to take one step back meant total damnation.
Just then, the hydraulic axle of the shrine's side door let out a soft hiss.
Everyone instinctively looked toward the sound, only to see Rear Admiral Dominic step aside by half a pace, as a figure clad in a pure black robe walked in unhurriedly.
The hood was pulled very low, concealing most of the face, leaving exposed only a cold-lined jawline and a hint of pale pink lips.
A few strands of silver-gray hair peeked out from the edge of the hood, glinting with fine luster under the brass lighting, revealing that the intruder was a woman.
She did not walk fast, her footsteps as light as falling snow, yet an indescribable sense of detachment radiated from her whole being.
It was as though the surrounding stench of rust, the smell of holy oil, and the noisy voices of the crowd were separated from her by an invisible barrier.
"Rear Admiral, who is this?"
The senior Tech-Priest in the lead was the first to recover, a flash of doubt passing through his optical lens.
The Mechanicus Shrine was the most core sacred ground of the warship; aside from clergy and authorized technicians, no unauthorized personnel were allowed to set foot inside, let alone an unidentified black-robed individual like this.
Bishop Venca also furled his brows, stepping forward:
"Rear Admiral Dominic, the machine spirit is in imminent peril. The shrine cannot accommodate..."
"She can save the Gemstone."
Dominic cut him off, his voice not loud, yet brimming with certainty.
He tilted his head to glance at the black-robed figure beside him. The other party did not speak, merely nodding slightly as her gaze from beneath the hood crossed the crowd and landed straight on the rusted Machine Spirit Throne in the distance.
No one knew who this mysterious black-robed woman was, nor did anyone know what method she would use to save a machine spirit deeply infected by the Rot-Rust Plague.
In fact, even Sarah herself was unclear about the specific operational path.
Just ten minutes ago, when Raynor's voice echoed in her mind through the conscious link, the plan had been simple to the point of being almost crude:
Have Dominic make close physical contact with the Machine Spirit Throne, use his soul as an anchor, and leave the rest to him.
Sarah's initial reaction had been that it was absurd.
Machine spirit infection was a curse on the level of the Warp—something even high-ranking Tech-Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus and Ecclesiarchy Bishops joining forces were utterly helpless against.
Relying solely on the soul contact of a mortal captain could reverse the situation?
This sounded more outrageous than whispers emanating from the Warp.
Yet as the words reached her lips, she swallowed them back down.
She recalled those Tyranids on the surface of Brevis who obeyed his commands, and how this man had repeatedly produced mind-boggling solutions in desperate situations, single-handedly turning dead ends around.
It was as if before him, the word "impossible" had never existed.
Doubts lingered on the surface of her consciousness, but what ultimately remained was a level of trust she herself hadn't even realized.
And so she came, standing at the very heart of this millennium-old warship.
Dominic's gaze swept across everyone present, finally settling on Bishop Venca and the Senior Tech-Priest:
"Everyone, evacuate the Mechanicus Shrine immediately. Without my order, no one is permitted to take half a step inside."
As his words fell, a hush descended upon the shrine, followed by a low murmur of uproar.
"Rear Admiral, you cannot!" The Senior Tech-Priest snapped his head up, his metal vocalizer crackling with hurried static. "The machine spirit core tolerates not the slightest mishap! To allow an outsider..."
"The machine spirit is already suffering a mishap right now." Dominic's voice went cold, his blue-gray eyes glinting with a soldier's distinct toughness. "Rituals were performed, holy oil was poured, litanies were recited for three full hours—and what was the result? Its purity is still plunging."
He raised a hand to point at the throne, his tone absolute:
"Either watch the Gemstone become completely reduced to a plague fortress—only to burn alongside all of us in the end—or trust me once and give me one hour."
"If anything goes wrong, I, Dominic Ventria, shall bear full responsibility."
That final sentence landed on everyone's heart like a heavy hammer.
Bishop Venca's lips twitched, wanting to persuade him further, but seeing the utter resolve deep in Dominic's eyes, he swallowed his words back down. Everyone was well aware of this Rear Admiral's temperament; once his mind was set, not even nine oxen could drag him back.
More importantly, they truly had no other options left.
"...We obey your command."
The old bishop let out a heavy sigh, making the Aquila sign toward the throne before waving a hand to signal the clergy and Tech-Priests to evacuate. Though unwilling, the Senior Tech-Priest could only lead the technical staff out in a single file.
As Adjutant Cullen passed by Dominic, he whispered, "Take care, General," before leading the guards to shut the heavy bronze doors of the shrine.
After the deep thud of the hydraulic axles, absolute quiet returned to the interior of the shrine.
Only two people remained, alongside a rusted throne and the faint, crackling sounds of weak electric arcs in the air.
Dominic turned around, meeting Sarah's gaze.
The eyes beneath the hood were exceedingly quiet, like a frozen lake—devoid of emotion, yet radiating a strange sense of certainty.
He suddenly recalled their encounters during the previous two desperate crises, thought of that trace of silver-red micro-glimmer, and remembered the warnings that always struck right at the heart of the matter.
Perhaps this truly was guidance dispatched by the God-Emperor.
He traced an Imperial Sigil across his chest, closed his eyes, and recited the shortest prayer in a low whisper. No tedious litanies—just a single, most modest wish: May the Emperor protect the Gemstone, and protect all the soldiers and people aboard her.
Prayer finished, he opened his eyes, spared no further glance at Sarah , and whirled around to stride straight toward the rust-covered Machine Spirit Throne.
CRACKLE!
The moment he stepped within the ten-meter perimeter, a dark-green bolt of electricity, as thick as a wrist, shot out from the throne and struck him violently.
Dominic's entire body went stark rigid.
It was no ordinary burning pain, but a numbness and searing agony that bared into his bone marrow along his blood vessels and nerves. The power of rust bored frenziedly into his pores via the electric current, like countless tiny maggots gnawing at his flesh and blood, causing dark spots to flash before his eyes instantly.
He staggered, his right hand clenching into a tight fist as his fingernails dug deep into his palm, using the sharp pain to forcibly pull back his fading consciousness.
One step, two steps, three steps...
With every step forward, the electric arcs grew denser.
Eventually, dozens of lightning bolts of varying sizes wove into a net, striking his uniform, his exposed skin, and the sides of his face. The edges of his uniform began to scorch black and red welts rose on his skin, yet his spine remained straight as a rod throughout, like a spear planted right inside a thunderstorm.
Adrenaline surged furiously through his body, sustaining him across the final few meters.
At last, he reached the front of the throne.
Looking up, the once-gleaming, smooth pure-steel backrest was now covered in jagged rust patches, with dark-green slime pooling inside the runic grooves. The once-majestic throne now resembled a withered skeleton dragged straight out of a mass grave.
Yet looking at it, Dominic suddenly smiled.
A soft smile, carrying a touch of relief and warmth.
From the day he took command of this warship, he knew that one day he would face life and death together with her. He simply hadn't expected this day to arrive so quickly, and in such a battered state.
If she truly couldn't be saved...
Walking this final stretch of the path alongside her wasn't a bad outcome either.
He raised his hand, brushing away a layer of fine hyphae from the armrest, before turning around and sitting down without a second's hesitation.
BOOM!!
In that instant, all the electric arcs erupted into a wild frenzy!
It was not merely a physical electrocution, but an impact upon his very soul. It felt as though hundreds of millions of steel needles were driving in through the crown of his skull, boring deep along the pathways of his consciousness.
Dominic let out a muffled groan, his right hand gripping the armrest so hard that his knuckles turned white. The bionic prosthesis of his left arm had already shorted out completely in the high-voltage current.
He "saw" it.
Not with his eyes, but with his soul.
Deep within the consciousness of the Gemstone, he witnessed a vast, wild expanse of iron wasteland.
Dark gray storm clouds pressed down exceptionally low, thunder tumbling and surging within the cloud layers, smashing onto the earth to kick up innumerable sparks. Beneath his feet lay cracked metal terrain, crossed with deep fissures like the warship's keel and conduits—desolate, untamed, and brimming with the wildness forged by a millennium of war-fires.
This was the machine spirit realm of the Gemstone.
Yet now, this wasteland was being swallowed by corrupt green.
Filthy, dark-green toxic rain rained down from the sky, landing on the metallic earth with sizzling corrosive noises, leaving behind patch after patch of mold-like rust marks. The storm clouds were stained a repulsive ink-green, expanding continuously like rotting cotton fibers. Howling gales swept past carrying plague pathogens, causing steel to crumble into dust and the earth to rot wherever they touched.
Deep in the sky, a grand battle raged at its peak.
Countless dark-green moths formed a massive, twisted demonic face—the exact likeness of Phelps. The swarm covered the sky and obscured the sun, every wing dusted with rusty powder as they frantically gnawed away at the thunder in the clouds. Meanwhile, though the lightning representing the machine spirit's will remained violent, it had clearly fallen into a disadvantage. The thunderbolts grew dimmer and their reach shrank, like a trapped wild beast roaring powerlessly within the envelope of plague.
Phelps.
Dominic recognized that demonic face instantly.
He truly hadn't died, having fused his remnant soul with the Rot-Rust Plague to bore straight into the core world of the machine spirit!
Almost simultaneously, the demonic face composed of moths looked down, "staring" at the puny human consciousness standing on the ground below.
"Oh? Quite a pleasant surprise."
Phelps' voice sounded like rusty iron plates scraping together, dripping with unbridled mockery:
"Rear Admiral Dominic, you actually dared to barge in here. What's the matter? Have you run out of ideas on the outside, planning to come in and throw your life away in person?"
The swarm of moths let out a buzzing hum of beating wings as dense masses detached from the demonic face, surging toward Dominic like a green sandstorm.
"With just your frail, mortal soul, you think you can contend with the Grandfather's plague?"
"Laughable!"
Dominic wanted to fight back, wanted to raise his hand, wanted to summon the thunder.
Yet his consciousness within this vast, expansive realm was as puny as a grain of dust; he could not mobilize even a fraction of the machine spirit's power.
The swarm of moths arrived in a heartbeat.
The moment the first moth landed on his arm, an agonizing, heart-wrenching itch instantly surged through his consciousness, followed by a corrosive feeling that bored deep into his soul.
More moths flooded in, overwhelming the sky and obscuring the sun, drowning him completely.
Darkness, foul stench, and a numbing sensation of rot—his consciousness felt as though it were soaked in formaldehyde, swelling up bit by bit, blurring inch by inch.
He strained with all his might to struggle, yet could not kick up even the slightest ripple.
So... it really won't work after all?
The edges of his consciousness began to blacken, and Phelps' mocking laughter grew increasingly distant.
Dominic seemed to see his family's coat of arms, saw the scene of the Gemstone rotting and disintegrating in the void, and saw the tragic plight of countless officers and men reduced to plague-ridden walking corpses.
Unwillingness burned up like fire, yet he could do nothing.
Right as his consciousness was on the absolute brink of dissipating, within the Mechanicus Shrine in the outside world, a silver-haired figure braved the storm of electric arcs, stepping unhurriedly before the throne.
Sarah's black robe snapped and fluttered in the gale of electricity, her silver-gray hair dancing wildly within the light of the thunder.
A psi-force field expanded around her body to prop open a narrow patch of pure land, yet the violent currents of the machine spirit continuously slammed into her defenses, bringing wave after wave of stinging pain.
She did not falter.
Stepping in front of Dominic, she raised her right hand.
Her fingertips carried a faint micro-glimmer of pink psychic light. Across that hairbreadth distance, she lightly tapped Dominic's forehead.
At that exact moment, three levels underground beneath Castle San Gallus, upon the battlefield enveloped in continuous artillery fire, a pale-pink system prompt popped up before Raynor's eyes.
[Proxy Soul Anchor Detected in Position; Target Machine Spirit Consciousness Available for Access]
[Take over target consciousness domination rights via conquest target Sarah?]
[Warning: Consciousness takeover carries unknown risks; host's will requires synchronized intervention]
Standing at the highest point of the fire position, Raynor's gaze swept across the Chaos horde charging below, a curve curling at the corner of his lips.
Risk?
From the day he took over Brevis, on which day had he not been walking a tightrope across a ten-thousand-foot abyss?
"Take over."
He uttered two words calmly in his mind.
The instant the words fell, deep within the consciousness of Dominic—far away on the orbital warship's Machine Spirit Throne—a flash of purple light exploded violently!
The consciousness projection that had previously been as faint as a firefly erupted in this moment with a monstrous, towering flame of purple light!
Like a blazing purple sun rising above the iron wasteland.
The swarm of moths clinging to Dominic couldn't even hold out for half a second before being instantly swept away by the purple light. Swallowed, dissolved, without even a speck of dust left behind.
A raging pillar of purple light shot straight into the heavens, tearing a massive gap straight through the corrupt green storm clouds by sheer force.
Within the pillar of light, a slender human silhouette rose slowly into the air, long hair flying wildly in the psychic gale. His features were refined, yet between his brows lay a controlling authority that looked down upon all creation.
The phantom looked down, "staring" at the sky full of bewildered moths, then swept a glance at the frozen demonic face in the distance, a slightly playful smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
In the next second, he raised his right hand, and a bone-white broadsword over four meters long slowly condensed out of thin air.
The spine of the blade consisted of layered vertebral segments, and the blade's edge gleamed with a pale purple psychic halo—an exact projection modeled after Rena's spine broadsword.
"Oh, isn't this the lapdog under that giant fluttering moth?"
Raynor's voice carried a smile, yet the sharp words pierced straight into Phelps' consciousness.
"Don't be in such a hurry to leave. Allow me to introduce myself."
With a flick of his wrist, he pointed the spine broadsword diagonally toward the firmament. Purple psychic energy climbed frantically along the blade, causing even the surrounding space to ripple with fine creases.
Within that power lay both the shadowed texture of the Tyranid hive mind swallowing all things and an absolute sense of domination that brooked no resistance or defiance.
"I am,"
He held the sword with both hands, raising it high overhead.
"—Raynor Corvaner."
The instant his words fell, he swung the sword downward!
No flashy moves—just the simplest, most direct vertical slash.
Yet as this single slash descended, the entire machine spirit realm seemed to shudder violently.
The purple sword-trail resembled a rift spanning heaven and earth; wherever it passed, the corrupt green toxic rain evaporated in an instant, and the rusted earth once more exposed its metallic base color.
The dense, sky-covering mass of plague moths had no time to even let out a scream before being erased in batches by the devouring force atop the blade.
The plague moth swarm that Phelps had spent every ounce of his strength to condense in order to suppress the machine spirit was violently obliterated by a full third with just a single slash!
"NOOO~~~!!!"
The demonic face let out a screech of utter agony. The moths forming the face scattered frantically, only to barely reaggregate.
The arrogant tone from before was completely gone, leaving behind only unbelievable horror.
This was impossible!
How could a mere mortal possess consciousness power of this caliber?!
What on earth was that purple flame? It could directly devour and dominate even the Grandfather's plague power!
Yet Raynor gave him no time to overthink.
Having delivered the slash, the phantom stood holding the sword, looking down at the shaken Phelps below, his smile carrying a hint of cat-and-mouse playfulness.
"Shouting so loud the moment we meet."
"Don't rush; you'll have plenty more to scream about later."
Though he said this, Raynor's brows furrowed slightly.
He was actually having a bit of trouble holding back his strength.
Having just accessed the machine spirit realm with this consciousness projection, he had not yet grasped the load capacity limit of this realm, delivering that slash almost by instinct by twisting the Shadow in the Warp together with the system's power of domination.
The sword-light had indeed shredded the plague, but the excess power acted like a runaway flood, slamming hard against the core earth of the machine spirit.
The metallic wasteland beneath their feet was trembling.
Dense networks of cracks spread outward along the sword-trail like steel plates struck by a heavy sledgehammer, with silver-gray energy light seeping from the deep fissures.
That was a sign of damage to the machine spirit's core foundation.
The thunder deep within the clouds went completely out of control; the blue-white electrical arcs that had been battling the moths began shooting around erratically. Some collided and exploded into sky-covering sparks, while others struck directly onto undamaged earth, blasting out charred craters.
The entire machine spirit realm was shaking like a warship out of control inside a Warp storm.
Raynor's phantom hovered in midair, the purple light at the tip of his sword slowly receding.
The cost of damaging the machine spirit was by no means small.
In the naval system of the Imperium of Man, warships were never mere piles of cold steel. Every capital ship that had served for over a millennium had birthed its own machine spirit through endless voyages and war-fires.
It was the baseline for weapon calibration, the dispatcher for energy circuits, the first barrier against Chaos whispers during Warp travel, and, above all, the anchor for the morale and faith of all crew members aboard the entire vessel.
If he defeated Phelps only to cripple the Gemstone's machine spirit in the process, the outcome would be only slightly better than being infected by the plague.
At best, the fire control systems would lose accuracy, power output would fluctuate, and shipwide combat capability would drop by thirty percent.
At worst, major core circuits would paralyze, leaving the warship severely crippled and stumbling even during routine sub-light navigation.
Even more fatal was that a weakened machine spirit possessed almost zero Warp resistance. Let alone traversing Warp routes, simply drawing near a Chaos fleet would allow Warp energy to penetrate easily; when that time came, the entire ship would slowly corrupt from within without the enemy having to lift a finger.
Raynor never made trades that inflicted mutual destruction.
"Looks like I still need to hold back my strength a bit."