Vulkan's heart was besieged by a relentless tide of shock as he gazed upon the various chanical entities moving with fluid autonomy all around him.
Ever since he had boarded the Void Sword, he had remained within its confines. Regarding these machines that identified themselves as Iron n, Vulkan maintained a posture of guarded vigilance and deep-seated concern. The chronicles of his sons had taught him the lethal peril posed by these Sapient Machines.
Yet, in every scrap of information the Iron n provided, he could detect no hint of a falsehood.
Among the Primarchs, perhaps only the Lion shared the Lord of Drakes' acute understanding of the threat these tallic husks represented. Before the Emperor had unified the Imperium, long before Vulkan had even been reunited with his kin, his genetic progeny had personally engaged in the most brutal theaters of war across Terra.
The accounts of what his sons called the Assault of the Tempest Galleries had long ago illustrated the horror of the Abominable Intelligence to Vulkan.
Tens of thousands of the sons of the Dragon, then still known as the Dragon Warriors, had followed the Emperor's decree to combat the ancient chanical relics of Old Earth. Those terrifying war-engines, along with their control hubs and manufactorums, had lain dormant deep beneath the Terran crust. A misguided incursion by the sons of the Eighteenth had tripped their proximity wards. Under the command of the Tempest Galleries' sapient logic-core, the Emperor's sons suffered a near-catastrophic blow.
Alloyed carapaces that neither bolt-shell nor lta-burn could mar tore through the ranks of the Eighteenth Legion. His sons, piloting Termite-pattern drills, had repeatedly attempted to grind the machines into scrap using the machines' own world-tearing cutters. The result, however, was always the sa: both Astartes and wargear were ripped into jagged fragnts by the machines' claws.
The mighty Astartes were as fragile as ragdolls before those horrific constructs. Ceramite plate was shorn like parchnt. Reliable bolters, plasma, and even lta-weapons were rendered farcical. In the end, the noble Astartes were forced into a role akin to that of the Death Korps of Krieg, relying on overwhelming numbers and a suicidal resolve to terminate the security legions of the Iron n through wave after wave of attrition.
Of the twenty thousand Astartes of the Eighteenth Legion, nearly two thousand were lost to non-combat attrition; of the remaining eighteen thousand, barely a thousand survived the fighting. The smallest of the Tempest-Automatons lood larger than an Astartes, while the largest exceeded a hundred ters in height. By the end, the Salamanders could confirm the destruction of only a few thousand units.
The casualty ratio was nearly 15:1.
Fifteen sons died for every single enemy unit destroyed. Had they not eventually crashed a captured subterranean drill-sphere into the primary power hub, the sons of the Dragon would likely have been the first Legion struck from the records. The resulting detonation consud everything within the core sectors; only the warriors on the periphery managed to escape the conflagration.
Though Vulkan had never witnessed that cruel war with his own eyes, he could confirm its veracity through the lingering agony and dread reflected in the eyes of his sons. The compassionate Vulkan had comforted his progeny, but he had also etched every detail into his own mory. Even after countless cycles of death and resurrection, he had never forgotten the legacy of his sons.
But now, these horrific machines stood on the side of the Imperium.
Vulkan had initially suspected the machines were mocking or deceiving him, but through his recent interactions, he had begun to believe their words. The reason was simple: there was no necessity for deceit.
Guided by a Sapient Machine Automaton, Vulkan toured the shattered behemoth. The technological prowess it displayed far eclipsed even the heights of the Great Crusade. chanical entities moved with systematic efficiency, a testant to the absolute precision of the machine.
Through the jagged rents in the hull, Vulkan beheld dormant chanical legions standing in silent rows. When his gaze fell upon the Punisher-class ga-Titans, the shock he felt was no less than when he had first encountered the Void Sword itself.
His expression grew even more stunned when he saw the tens of millions of unprocessed Drukhari corpses within the vessel. He inspected the xenos remains with ticulous care. There was no doubt.
Thus, the Lord of Drakes beca the first soul, preceding even Belisarius Cawl, to truly set foot upon a Titan-class vessel.
Sections of the hull that were originally marked for abandonnt were repaired before Vulkan's eyes. Warped tal girders, shorn bulkheads, and shattered structural fras were nded in re seconds. The silver radiance of nanomachines flowed across the hull, correcting every flaw.
In the days that followed, Vulkan truly experienced the care a Federation-era Iron Man provided to humanity. A massive chamber, thousands of square ters in size, was granted for his sole use; even his crude shuttle had been brought inside. The artificial environnt was perfect with fresh, natural air, the sound of running water, a warm artificial sun, and a day-night cycle synchronized with Terra. Synthetic soil covered the floor, and fast-growing synthetic flora carpeted the ground within hours.
This was how a Titan-class vessel was ant to be.
It was a comfort to which Vulkan was wholly unaccustod. On Nocturne, where he had been raised, the soil was charred black, the air reeked of sulfur, and erupting volcanoes and fissured earth were the only constants. As for the cycle of day and night, Nocturne knew no such thing.
After nearly a month in this artificial paradise, Vulkan felt a strange sense of guilt. The people of the Imperium were suffering, yet he was ensconced in such luxury. The intelligence of the Void Sword provided its guest with the human experience of the ancient Federation. Almost any conventional need was t the mont it was voiced. There was no labor required, and no restrictions imposed.
Even when Vulkan expressed a desire to "strike iron," the machines constructed a massive forge for him on the spot, supplying vast quantities of tallic alloys that even a Primarch could not identify.
Whenever Vulkan reached for a material or object he had never seen, a perfectly aligned holographic display would manifest beside him, as if every item carried its own instructional manual. A plasma-refining furnace, far more efficient than the volcanic forges of Nocturne, highlighted the Iron n's efficiency. Glistening ingots of tal were placed inside and reduced to molten slag in seconds.
Seizing the opportunity, Vulkan swung his beloved hamr, using the wondrous materials provided by the Iron n to thoroughly retemper his wargear. He even incorporated strange tals salvaged from the Drukhari by the Void Sword.
With the aid of alloys provided by ancient material science, Vulkan finally understood what his sons had faced. A longsword he had forged with his own hands sliced through his Draken Scale as if it were air, purely due to the superior quality of the materials.
As the internal nanite-repair systems of his armor were triggered into activation, an automaton approached Vulkan's side.
It was clear that just as the Iron n had shocked Vulkan, the Primarch had delivered a peculiar shock to the machines in return.
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