"Get a move on, lads, we need ta speed up. Time ta get proper WAAAGH!"
Inside the Ork workshop, a mob of Orks was piling on every piece of scrap they could get their hands on with tremendous enthusiasm. Had Zhou Ye been standing there, he would have had to bow down before these things.
Even he needed to follow certain rules when crafting by hand. If he wanted to hand-build a set of Artificer Armor using Ceramite, he had to gradually work the raw materials into Ceramite first. He couldn't simply will it into existence the way Orks did. No matter how he thought about it, he had no way of stacking a pile of sheet metal together and calling it a Titan.
He could technically fabricate one from nothing, but the energy cost would be catastrophic, and it would only hold together for a limited time. Give Zhou Ye unlimited energy and he could do spectacular things, but under current conditions, absolutely not.
"Move yer bitz faster, boyz! Let dem pointy-eared runts an' dem stinky boyz see dat we're da most WAAAGH!!!"
The Big Mek kept hammering furiously away at the enormous pile of junk, and within just a few days the thing was already approaching a hundred meters in height.
---o---
Back on the human side of the battlefield, things had also taken an interesting turn.
Four Space Wolf warriors in ice-blue power armor were currently sneaking around in a huddle.
"Good, he's not here. Come on brothers, just a sip."
The four wolf cubs carefully produced a bottle of Fenrisian Mjød, watching their surroundings with great caution as they did so.
The reason for this....
The Dreadnought Ancient went berserk the instant he saw Mjød. He was sealed inside a Dreadnought sarcophagus with absolutely no way to drink. No biological means to consume liquids at all. Zhou Ye, in the interest of keeping the fabrication from being discovered if it was ever returned, had preserved only the bare minimum of organic material inside. Drinking was simply not an option.
So drinking Mjød in front of a Space Wolf who had not touched a drop in ten thousand years and was physically incapable of doing so was, to put it mildly, a touch provocative. Combined with the fact that Zhou Ye's modifications to its Gene-seed had left its cognitive patterns somewhat unusual by any standard measure.
Anyone who drank in front of him, especially Fenrisian Mjød, would get seized, lifted straight up, given a full Aruba against the nearest wall, and have the bottle confiscated on top of it.
And somehow, despite everything, the Dreadnought had retained an impossibly keen sense of smell. Even at a range of several kilometers it could pinpoint any Space Wolf who had drunk Mjød with absolute precision. The hundred-plus wolf cubs in the company had already been put through the wringer more times than they cared to count. Some of them had taken to rushing out to the front lines to enjoy a quick sip there, since at least the stench of Nurgle's corruption would mask the smell.
After all, Zhou Ye had said they were out there fighting Nurgle's daemons, but the reality was that they had started running a closed internal circuit. No outside air meant no smell getting through, and a nose crammed full of Nurgle's rot was at least different from the normal situation. It had not actually killed any of them, which they considered a minor victory.
These four were rotating through their duty as the Ancient's honor guard, part bodyguard duty and part story-time audience. It was a painful and joyful existence in equal measure. Right now they had simply reached the limit of their endurance and wanted just a single sip. Even just one....
Snap.
The bottle opened. A scent that was deeply alluring to the wolf cubs, and absolutely lethal to regular Imperial Guard soldiers, drifted through the air.
Hmmm.
A deep resonant hum followed. Three Space Wolf bodies stiffened simultaneously. An enormous pressure descended on them. Then they turned their heads and saw the vast silhouette of the Contemptor Dreadnought.
"An...Ancient, we were only.....only just..."
The Space Wolf leading the group said in a trembling voice. The other two, with perfect unspoken coordination, used the exact moment their senior officer was drawing the Ancient's attention to tip their heads back and pour their shares straight down.
"FOR THE ALL-FATHER AND RUSS!!!"
At that instant the Dreadnought's enormous power fist closed around the protesting Space Wolf and lifted him clean off the ground, bringing him toward the wall for a textbook Aruba. The other two who had seized their opportunity didn't fare any better. One boot each, planted firmly on top of them.
But the Aruba they had been anticipating did not actually arrive today. The Dreadnought set all three of them down again, to their considerable surprise and relief.
Because at that moment, a Dreadnought radiating an atmosphere of profound low pressure came walking past with a smaller figure trailing alongside it, for all the world like a big cat escorting a small one.
If the observer could have seen emotion indicators floating above their heads, the Dreadnought would have had a weeping cat face, and the smaller figure alongside it would have been visibly consoling the weeping cat face.
You may be miserable, but my misery surpasses yours.
This was the lived reality of two Dark Angels at this precise moment. Thisli, who had originally come to the Ancient seeking comfort for himself, had ended up comforting the Ancient instead.
"Has the old Lion been woken up?"
Seeing that silhouette, the Space Wolves' own Dreadnought shuddered once. Then it quietly pressed down on several wolf cubs who were looking over with very interested expressions and made clear that they were not to go cause trouble. If they did, it would not be solved with just a single Aruba. Though this moment gave everyone pause for a few seconds.
"Dark Angels. What is the Ancient's story?"
"Nothing much. Just got blown into his sarcophagus by the Ordinatus cannon that Perturabo had. The one the Lion gave him."
"....."
For one instant all three wolf cubs' faces contracted with violent muscle spasms, but none of them dared let a single sound escape. Even with their own Ancient present, this was not the kind of freshly exposed private disaster you wanted to invite the Dark Angels to notice you laughing at.
Ding....
But just at that moment, the urgent combat alert screamed across every channel, and the rare moment of relative ease evaporated instantly into seriousness. When everyone emerged from cover a moment later, they drew a collective sharp breath at the sight in front of them.
Because just at that moment, a colossal cylinder pieced together entirely from junk, looking as though it might fall apart at any second, was slowly walking toward them.
Honestly, Zhou Ye had always harbored a certain engineering skepticism about the structural logic of Imperial Titans. From a purely scientific standpoint, the enormous upper mass relative to the lower frame was deeply disproportionate, and the joint connecting the two was questionable at best.
He did not know exactly how much load the leg assemblies were being asked to bear. But looking at the Ork Mega Gargant's barrel-shaped construction, from a pure kinematic standpoint it was actually the more mechanically sound design.
When Zhou Ye saw the enormous thing approaching now, he understood that the real battle was beginning. As for whoever had been brave enough to dig into the back of Nurgle's host from behind, all Zhou Ye could do was wish them well.
"WAAAGH!!!"
A blast of driving music erupted from somewhere. An Ork band had set up directly on top of the Mega Gargant's head and was performing with absolute frenzy. Then, accompanied by enormous roars and the rising clatter of parts straining against each other, the Mega Gargant's vast frame charged toward Nurgle's forces without the slightest hesitation.
As for why Nurgle specifically....
Mainly because the distance between the Orks and the Imperials was too great. They weren't going to fly across the battlefield to kick the humans. And beyond that, Nurgle-corrupted ground was ground that grew no mushrooms. From an Ork perspective, that made Nurgle a fundamentally more offensive enemy than humans could ever be.
Zhou Ye understood. The Grand Free-for-All was beginning.
---o---