Gaia realized that this was no ordinary disturbance.
What was happening on Swuvi was very likely the tightening of a net that had been prepared long in advance.
And if the enemy's conspiracy succeeded, if Swuvi were successfully overturned, then the entire Jericho Sector might face enormous danger.
According to her memories, the Jericho Sector was among the first Imperial regions to fall during the Age of Apostasy.
That meant the current events, which looked sudden on the surface, were actually all part of a long-planned scheme by those seeking to subvert the Imperium.
The hidden hand was calculating against the open hand, the dark side against the visible side. Judging from the current situation, the branch of House Magris still loyal to the Imperium could not merely be described as being in danger. They were on the edge of death.
Worse still, the Mechanicus, originally allies of House Magris, had now openly entered this rebellion that aimed to replace Swuvi's ruling order, and they had acted with frighteningly sharp methods.
To achieve that, they had even laid their hands upon the veteran Knights, the living totems of the Knight House itself.
That kind of act was not only insane, it also showed just how determined they were to win.
After all, doing something equivalent to humiliating a revered Dreadnought veteran right in front of an entire Space Marine Chapter would inevitably bring down a desperate and furious retaliation from any Knight House once the truth came out.
Even though only the smallest corner of this conspiracy had been revealed to Gaia so far, it was already enough to make her feel immense pressure.
With the power granted to her by that mysterious system, she was far stronger than an ordinary Astartes warrior, but even so, against a planetary-scale conspiracy prepared over who knew how many years, there was very little she could truly do.
But so what?
Powerlessness was not a reason to refuse to struggle.
Avoidance was not a solution.
When someone knew full well that an entire world was about to be swallowed by disaster, how could they bear to watch hundreds of millions of their own people sink into despair?
At the very least, Gaia knew she could never do that.
Even if her efforts might fail to change the fate of the planet, she would still try.
More than that, if Swuvi, this knight world in the Jericho Sector of the Segmentum Ultima, fell into the hands of the enemies of the Imperium, then Gaia's own plan to stop Vandire's madness on the far side of this sector would inevitably be affected by the chain reaction of Swuvi's collapse.
At that thought, Gaia cast aside her last trace of hesitation.
She raised her head, and a resolute light shone from her beautiful phoenix-shaped eyes.
Remembering the lessons taught to her by her adoptive father, she solemnly crossed both hands over her chest and gave a proper Aquila salute.
"Knight, I will deliver your warning to your kin, and I will help them resist the enemies who have fallen into darkness."
"I will also find a successor worthy of your badge and your will."
"May your soul return to the Golden Throne here on this field."
The towering Imperial Knight looked down upon this supposed Dark Angel, and from her clear, unyielding face he could see the respect that came from the heart.
He did not think of his own death in quite so exalted a way. After all, every worthy Imperial Knight would make the same choice in his place.
But the respect Gaia offered still satisfied the sense of honor that had been carved into his very bones through countless battles.
"Thank you."
The Imperial Knight's hoarse voice answered her.
Then a seam in the cockpit assembly opened, and under the slanting light, an object dropped from the gap and struck the hard, glass-shard-like grass with a clear metallic sound.
"Take my badge of honor. Tell my kin that it was De Orik who warned you that those damned mechanical monsters had betrayed their ancient covenant with the High King."
"Tell them that I go ahead of them now, bearing the honor of my House upon the battlefields of Swuvi. May the bravest heirs of House Magris follow in my footsteps. I will prepare wine for them before the throne of the God-Emperor."
After saying that, he used the last of his strength to force his ruined body upright, bracing against the piercing agony flowing back through the neural throne from the complete failure of his left leg's power-bearing assembly, and once again stood tall upon the grass beneath the dusk.
The blood-red light of sunset fell across the Knight's body. Now that he had obtained Gaia's promise, he had no more concerns. He simply stood there in silence, waiting for the madmen who sought to defile the glory of House Magris.
Gaia lowered her head, bent down, and picked up the badge that shone with brilliant reflected light.
It was a shield-shaped heraldic badge. Along its thick edges ran carvings shaped like ears of wheat, and at its center a lion-bodied, human-faced beast glared forward with a sword clenched in its jaws, radiating a solemn majesty that stirred reverence almost by instinct.
Gaia took a deep breath and closed her hand around the badge, then lifted her head for one final look at the Knight beneath the setting sun.
He was staring wordlessly at the descending halo of the star, saying farewell in silence to the sky of the world that had carried his whole life.
The red afterglow of the sun spilled across the grassland, making it seem as though the Knight stood already upon a crimson battlefield.
Just as he had done countless times before, he would fight here.
Only this time, it might be his last battle.
And unlike all the times before, the enemies he would face were his former brothers-in-arms.
Gaia turned and left, heading back toward the ruined castle where she had come from.
At this point, it seemed that trying to use the Mechanicus as a bridge to locate Tylvius's reclusive mentor was going to be much harder than expected.
Because she was starting to suspect that the people on the other side might already have fallen to the Dark Mechanicum.
During the Horus Heresy, some members of the Mechanicum had believed that the Emperor who ruled Holy Terra was nothing more than a warlord of Terra's dark technological age who had seized the place of master of mankind through blood and violence.
These people were deeply angered that the official Mechanicum doctrine had declared the Emperor to be the Omnissiah.
When the flames of rebellion spread across the galaxy, those who had long hated the Imperium finally broke away from their fellow worshipers of the Machine God, and the Dark Mechanicum was born.
Under the excuse of pursuing knowledge, these people committed acts of extreme cruelty, trampling on every moral boundary humanity had left, all while claiming they were merely advancing along the path of evolution.
But what puzzled Gaia most was how those suspected Dark Mechanicum forces had managed to control the Imperial Knights of De Orik and the others.
Even now, every veteran Imperial Knight's mental circuit was filled with the loyal echoes of its previous pilots. Together with the machine spirit, those lingering souls should have been able to resist almost any outside interference.
So with that question in mind, she asked Dushi, who had for some reason been silent for quite a while.
The Man of Iron gave an irritated little huff, then replied in an offhand, displeased tone,
"With a system altered by such childishly crude techniques, if I still had a complete body, or if I got close enough to the automation system, I could hijack it myself and show you."
(End of Chapter)
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