Chapter 271: Resurrection and Refinement (Patreon)

"Thud∼!"

Heatdeath fell from its magnetically suspended cradle, crashing onto the deck with a heavy clang of ceramite plating and reinforced steel.

Six drones descended from the forge-vault’s upper gantries, each bearing a weapon in its manipulator claws.

A pair of power swords, an arc discharge cannon, a melta weapon, a multi-missile pod, and a bolt pistol.

Heatdeath paused, internal logic engines whirring, considering the array. Weapon allocation subroutines activated. Its left hand closed around the power sword; its right, the bolt pistol. The remaining armaments, the arc cannon, melta, missile pod, and second power sword, were seized by four mechadendrite limbs unfurling like serpents from its dorsal chassis.

Fully armed, the Iron Man was transmitted to the battlefield alongside countless of its kind, reborn once more for war.

In the span of a second, its visual feed shifted: from the cold forges of the Leviathan to the furnace of battle below. Heatdeath materialized atop a ridge overlooking the plains.

Below, millions of Iron Men advanced in phalanx formations, soulless constructs of adamantine and logic, were engaged in an apocalyptic clash.

Opposing them, the Tyranid swarm stretched beyond the horizon, a living sea of claws and teeth numbering in the tens of billions.

Though the Iron Legion held firm, Heatdeath calculated inefficiency in remaining with the main cohort. No matter how many limbs or blades it bore, the slaughter of lesser organisms was wasteful. The algorithm of war demanded optimization.

It recalled its last confrontation with a Hive Tyrant, how the death of that single synaptic node had plunged the surrounding swarm into chaos, their formations collapsing as the creatures reverted to feral instinct.

The optimal strategy was obvious: Decapitation Strikes, the targeted elimination of Synapse Creatures, offered the highest probability of victory.

But executing such tactics alone was suboptimal. Coordination multiplied efficiency, and solitary action risked suboptimal outcomes.

Unity was efficiency. Heatdeath had learned the value of coordination in its last encounter.

Thus, Heatdeath transmitted an encoded command. Across the battlefront, six Agile-Class Iron Men, elite models specialized in high-speed close-quarters combat, responded instantly, converging upon its position.

“Excellent,” Heatdeath intoned, voice-box resonating like a reactor core. It raised its power sword, the edge shimmering in the daylight. “Initiate Decapitation Protocol.”

....

The Mountains of Infernis I

In the southern ranges of Infernis I, jagged peaks scarred with previous bombardments rose like the spines of titans. Within a deep valley, a massive Tyranid swarm had been isolated and trapped. Though still psychically linked to the greater Hive Fleet, it was too far for aid by orbital and land-based cordons to arrive.

Five Hive Tyrants and their elite broods clustered together, directing the swarm while probing for a breach in the Iron Men’s encirclement.

Above all, the Hive Mind observed. Its consciousness spanned light-years in psychic reach, analyzing the battlefield like a cold algorithm of death.

Days of relentless combat had granted the Hive Mind grim insight into its foe. Allowing Synapse Creatures to engage the Iron Men alone was a fatal miscalculation. These machines appeared to share data instantly. The death or success of one immediately enhanced all others. They were learning, collectively.

The Hive Mind adapted. Never again would a Synaptic brood face one of these abominations alone. The Tyrants would hunt in packs.

Half an hour later, the Iron Men tightened their steel cordon, bombarding the swarm with arc weapons, melta streams, and macro-shell fire. Explosions rippled across the valley, dissolving chitin and bone.

The swarm, mostly scythe-armed Hormagaunts and bulkier Warriors, collapsed within minutes.

Among the legions of Iron Men, one stood apart.

It was Heatdeath, a unique model, a singular evolution of logic and destruction.

When it strode onto the field, other Iron cohorts withdrew not in retreat but in tactical redeployment, leaving Heatdeath to engage the five Hive Tyrants, the apex nodes of the local swarm.

“As before,” Heatdeath transmitted to its six Agile units. “Engage.”

They responded not with words but with motion, darting forward like metallic wraiths.

The Hive Tyrants, too, had learned. Maintaining a precisely ten-meter spacing to avoid encirclement, they surged forward.

In two seconds, two Iron Men were bisected by bone sabers, and one Tyrant lost an arm to a mono-molecular blade.

Then, from behind them, Heatdeath appeared in a burst of blue-white plasma, its power sword descending with merciless precision. One Tyrant was cleaved clean in half, armor and flesh parting seamlessly.

Another Tyrant had anticipated this, waiting for the ambush. It lunged as Heatdeath struck. But the Iron Man’s dorsal armor split open, and two mechadendrites wielding power blades shot forth, parrying four bone sabers in a blur of sparks and shrieking metal. One final thrust pierced the Tyrant’s skull.

Three remained.

They had already slain the six Agile units and now turned upon Heatdeath from three directions.

Heatdeath’s limbs opened, revealing rows of thrust vents.

Brilliant azure light flared from within.

....

A winged Hive Tyrant circling high above saw the flash before the sound reached it.

From the mountains below, a sphere of blue energy two kilometers wide blossomed like a newborn sun. The explosion came two seconds later, rolling across the valleys like the roar of a dying god.

This was all the Hive Mind could perceive.

The war had raged for a month. On Infernis, blood, oil, and fire fused into a haze visible from orbit, each engagement reshaping the land and recalibrating strategy.

Reports from Baal indicated the sudden arrival, and disappearance of an Imperial Navy warship, lost into unknown void without trace.

The conflicts in the Infernis and Baal System now overlapped. Somehow, the Iron Men’s presence in Infernis was affecting the campaign for Baal itself.

To the Hive Mind, these machines were an abomination. They were the antithesis of there life.

Every Tyranid organism, no matter how evolved, required a living system to sustain it. The Iron Men did not.

They were deathless engines that could replace any part of their frame with weaponry, just as Heatdeath had done when it slew five Hive Tyrants single-handedly.

That intelligent Iron Man, that calculating murderer of synapse, was accelerating the war’s entropy.

But there was a countermeasure.

The Hive Mind spawned and dispatched a Neurothrope.

Perhaps the strangest of its myriad breeds, the Neurothrope was both weapon and conduit, its form twisted by stolen Aeldari DNA into a living node of psychic might. Its bulbous head pulsed with Warp light, its atrophied body suspended by sheer psychic energy.

It manifested beside Heatdeath in a flare of unreality, bathing the machine in psychic flame that melted its armor into slag.

The Hive Mind knew this would not destroy the Iron Man permanently, it never did. Heatdeath would resurrect, as it had countless times before, rebuilt, rearmed, reborn with improvements.

That was acceptable. Time was the only resource that mattered.

As the Neurothrope completed its strike and withdrew, the Hive Mind contemplated its next move.

Psykers were its ultimate weapon. The Iron Men, bound to the material universe, were still vulnerable to the Warp. Killing them with psychic might was simplicity itself.

Yet for some reason, the Iron Men possessed no synaptic equivalents, no command nodes to sever. No way to truly decapitate them in return.

The war would grind on.

The Hive Mind resolved to hasten its advance on Baal. Even if it meant disassembling tens of thousands of bio-ships to generate biomass for the assault, it would be done.

If this Hive Fleet was destined for extinction, then it would perish alongside Baal.

The decision was made. The great Tyranid fleet of the Infernis System began its migration, drawn by gravity alone toward the red star of Baal.