"What is it that you seek?"
"Other than truth, your humble servants seek nothing."
"What is truth?"
"Life is a vector. The soul is the catalyst of life. Perception is the capacity to grasp the value of acquired knowledge. Intellect is the comprehension of knowledge. Sensation is the foundation of intellect. Understanding is the proper path to comprehension. Comprehension is the key to all things. The Omnissiah knows all and understands all. You—the Apocalypse, the Machine God, the true Omnissiah—are truth itself."
"Hm? So even those electronic brains of yours, reduced to binary alone, with hearts pumping motor oil, lubricants, coolant, and plasma fluid, can produce flattery? The Machine God? The Omnissiah? Why don't I recall ever having such an elegant title?"
"This is our failing. I know that at every moment You are with Your lambs, for I can feel Your boundless love! You have heard the pleas of the lambs and fulfilled them. It is only that we were foolish, lost within the burning galaxy..."
"Get to the point."
"Praise and thanks be to You, almighty Machine God! The Omnissiah's guidance has bestowed upon the Adeptus Mechanicus the direction of destiny. You have shown the lost lambs the road back to the fold. Your passing glance allows us to manifest Your glory in this world. Now, we return all earthly glory to You, Omnissiah in the heavens!"
Oh. So this is blatant sycophancy.
Selene's lips curved in a half-smile.
In order to secure their ticket aboard the ship—and to provide legal and theological justification for their own actions and continued existence—the Adeptus Mechanicus required that the Emperor of the "New Firmament" Empire, Selene, be the Machine God, be the Omnissiah.
It did not matter in the slightest that Selene understood nothing of Mechanicus doctrine. Any theological endorsements, any dismissal of inconvenient facts regarding the hierarchy between master and servant, god and follower—the Fabricator-General of Mars and the ruling Archmagos Dominus of each Forge World would find ways to "refine" them.
They would rather burn out their own electronic brains and data processors to invent explanations, hastily compiling new scriptures and artificially aging them into legitimacy.
And the results had been remarkably effective.
As Selene knew, this Mechanicus pilgrimage delegation—led by the Fabricator-General of Mars, with members including the Archmagos Dominus of famed Forge Worlds such as Stygies VIII, Ryza, Lucius, and Agripinaa—had quietly slipped in a bit of private cargo among their vast offerings.
Well, perhaps "private cargo" was not quite the right term.
It consisted of several freshly compiled volumes: The Holy Scripture of the Omnissiah, The Origin of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and The Apocalypse of the Machine God—mandatory introductory texts for Mechanicus initiates.
They were impressively grounded in "historical reality," forcefully redirecting the founding impetus of the Mechanicus toward Selene herself. Claims such as having once glimpsed one aspect among the myriad incarnations of the Divine Empress.
What? At that time the Sacred Selene Empire might not yet have been established? Ahem. Perhaps they had glimpsed the Divine Empress still in gestation. And was that not divine revelation? We of the Mechanicus are the orthodox faithful of Saint Selene!
As for the Emperor of Mankind—well, ahem, that was merely the lambs' foolishness. It just so happened that the Emperor of Mankind had once made a transaction with the Machine God and possessed a trace of the Machine God's divine bearing, which led them to mistake him for the true Omnissiah. (The widely circulated claim on Terra now holds that the birth of the Primarchs resulted from the Emperor's "theft of fire" from the Warp and cooperation—also rivalry—with the Chaos God of "Finality." Unfortunately, he was betrayed by his own son and eliminated before the contest even began.)
Did that not only demonstrate their piety all the more?
The logic was hazy yet clear, the arguments obscure yet obvious. Even Selene almost believed it herself.
Still, she was not displeased.
Subjects who act of their own accord are good subjects.
To be honest, when the Imperium of Man's situation had first stabilized, Selene had not truly decided how to settle the matter of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Later, when the old Emperor took up the position of Grand Sector Governor, she simply forgot about it. Leave it to him—she only cared about results.
Was output sufficient?
Sufficient.
Were taxes paid?
Paid.
Were rebellions suppressed?
Suppressed.
Very well. Basically passable.
Selene's standards were not high.
Tap.
She set down the newly compiled Mechanicus scripture in her hand and examined the red-robed mechanical monstrosities prostrated at her feet.
Clad in dark crimson robes, bodies subjected to extreme augmentation, scarcely a few pounds of flesh remaining, each towering several stories high—aside from their upper torsos retaining a hunched, multi-armed humanoid outline, they resembled grotesque metal aberrations.
As everyone knew, within the Mechanicus, the longer one served, the faster one's flesh diminished. In parallel, mechanical components accumulated and compounded exponentially.
From replacing limbs with metal prosthetics and adding auxiliary arms, to swapping out hearts for synthetic ones, converting skin and muscle into reinforced artificial reconstructions, weaponizing the body, grafting servo apparatus into the skull—even replacing the brain itself...
Everything that could be replaced—and much that should not be—was replaced without hesitation.
Those qualified to stand before Selene were undoubtedly the heads of their respective Forge Worlds—the ultimate embodiment of cyberpunk extremism, technological fanaticism, machine fetishism, and medieval industrial aesthetics.
The sheer density of reinforced implants made them resemble absurd metallic edifices rather than living beings.
"All 'glory' belongs to me."
Seated upright with elegant poise, Selene angled her gaze sideways, a faint smile curling her lips. "If you would share my burdens, how should you proceed?"
Upon hearing this, the current Fabricator-General of Mars, Oud Oudia Raskian, was overjoyed.
It was settled!
To be permitted to share the Empress' burdens meant the Adeptus Mechanicus had successfully secured its place aboard the ship.
"Xenos machinery is a distortion of the proper path. The soul is the conscience of perception. Only the Omnissiah may bestow souls. Knowledge without soul is the greatest enemy of all things. Pure knowledge admits no doubt. The machine-spirit safeguards pure knowledge. Flesh is prone to error. Ritual honors the machine-spirit. To destroy ritual is to destroy faith..."
Upon flesh reconstructed from synthetic musculature, a rigid and unsettling fervor congealed. Oud raised, with the two limbs most closely resembling human arms, the Axe of Dominion—engraved with the skull-and-gear sigil that symbolized the supreme authority of the Mechanicus—high above his head.
Listening to this oil-soaked torrent of Mechanicus rhetoric, Selene's brow twitched.
Speaking in this tone with them was exhausting.
Wasn't it simply that they had seen the changes within the A-13 Grand Sector Governorate—the arrival of the Imperial Department of Fabrication, the reorganization and refitting of all former Imperium of Man departments, the deployment of various new "divine machines"—and grown envious, wishing to partake in the spoils?
From excavating relics and grave-robbing in one corner of the galaxy, to venturing across infinite worlds in the multiverse to seize new technologies and knowledge; from approaching xenos civilizations under the pretext of "suspected research into weapons of mass destruction," to accusing certain human interstellar civilizations of harboring "dangerous knowledge"...
All of it was irresistibly tempting to the Mechanicus.
Even so, the curtailment of Mechanicus power was necessary.
With a casual gesture, Selene summoned the Axe of Dominion. Compared to her own stature, it was excessively large. As she examined it, she fell into silent contemplation.
"Since you have taken the initiative to seek Me out, I trust you have already prepared yourselves mentally. No one who rises to the position of Archmagos Dominus is incompetent.
"The first cut—abolish the Treaty of Olympus."
Under the Imperium of Man's policy of indiscriminate religious prohibition, the Mechanicus had received special exemption, standing as equals. Terra and Mars—two independent powers allied through the Treaty of Olympia—had together formed the most fundamental power structure of the Imperium of Man.
Though on the surface the two had cooperated smoothly, even presenting a united front to the outside world, in essence they had always remained separate forces.
From this arose the dualistic foundation of the Imperium of Man. The double-headed eagle—its two heads subtly different upon closer inspection—symbolized precisely that.
But the double-headed eagle of the Sacred Selene Empire did not mean "two heads."
This was the Imperial Capital of the Honkai dimension—not Terra. Dualism? Impossible.
If anyone dared to propose a dual system, Selene would not even need to speak. The Imperial military and government would be the first to object.
On what grounds are you equal to us?
"The Adeptus Mechanicus shall be incorporated into the Imperial Department of Fabrication. Lord Oud, you will assume the vacant position of Senior Fabrication Director of the A-13 Grand Sector Governorate. You shall remain Fabricator-General of Mars. The rest of you likewise retain governance over your respective Forge Worlds. First-level autonomy. Your traditions may be preserved—but do not overstep."
Selene's tone brooked no argument, setting the direction of the audience at once.
"For the specifics, consult your Grand Sector Governor."
Without hesitation, she kicked the matter to the old Emperor.
He truly ought to thank her. She had just handed him another opportunity to deal with Mechanicus separatists. Given his temperament, sharing authority with the Mechanicus in the first place had likely been an act of necessity—the Great Crusade had required astronomical industrial output.
Now that the Fabricator-General of Mars and the Mechanicus high council had come in person to negotiate, there was no reason for the Emperor not to take a blade to these oil-soaked zealots.
Previously, he had refrained—waiting for Selene's stance. Besides, the "great purge" across Terra and the other human worlds had consumed immense time and effort.
The Warhammer universe was rightly called a cesspit—filth hidden everywhere. Even though large-scale galactic wars had subsided, planetary-scale unrest and ever-lower moral degeneracy continued to surface without end.
The Fabricator-General's expression shifted repeatedly. The electronic augmetics embedded within his grotesque flesh flashed red and green like neon lights. At last, his hunched body bent forward. His lower limbs—like those of a metallic centipede—curled inward as he prostrated himself before Selene.
"Your will be done. Praise the Machine God. Praise the Omnissiah. Selene above."
He was desperate to advance.
As the Fabricator-General knelt, even the notoriously defiant Archmagos Dominus of Yelena-8 and Ryza followed suit, bowing in unison and offering praise.
The era of the Mechanicus walking its own path had ended entirely.
Perhaps their power had already been lost when the Imperium of Man changed banners—but procedurally, it had not yet been terminated. The Sacred Selene Empire, inheritor of all imperial legitimacy, was no makeshift regime. Naturally, the treaty would be revised through the most formal and legitimate means.
"Very good."
Another force beneath her banner—darkly aesthetic and hardly resembling "good people"—had joined the ranks.
So many Forge World Skitarii legions… where should they be sent to hold the line?
Selene sighed inwardly. Raising her head, she gazed at the bizarre and radiant starfield above the Imperial Capital, a trace of wistfulness in her eyes.
Or perhaps their greatest value lay in leveraging the Mechanicus fleet's initiative and obsessive tendency to unearth STCs—Standard Template Constructs. Use them as treasure-hunting fleets, excavating "divine machines," seeking remnants of highly advanced civilizations?
"The best choice is… I want them all."
Leaning back, Selene clenched her fist lightly in the air.
"Order: After conducting constructive exchanges with their counterparts in the Imperial Department of Fabrication and the Science Directorate, the Fabricator-General and the Archmagos Dominus shall return to their respective Forge Worlds. Upgrade fabrication processes. Make preparations… to share My burdens."
With that, Selene clapped her hands softly, and the grotesque "demons and serpents" within the Hall of Diligent Governance were dismissed.
Watching the hall empty in an instant, Selene smiled faintly. Her fingers brushed the armrest as she selected a secure channel on the communication console and activated it.
After a moment, a white-clad figure wreathed in a golden halo like a burning sun appeared before her.
"You truly have laid down your burdens. Untroubled and light—no armor even."
Seeing the old Emperor in a Roman-style toga, Selene burst into laughter.
"It seems the faithful of the Omnissiah have already paid homage to their Machine God, Your Majesty."
Dignified and majestic, the Emperor offered his greeting softly.
"Yes. From beginning to end. I've sent them to you to revise the Treaty of Olympia. Once the Mechanicus matter is concluded and the former Imperium of Man's territories are stabilized, you should come to the Imperial Capital to share My burdens.
"There are matters I require you to coordinate. My 'Malcador.'"
The Emperor: "..."
...
Meanwhile, within the Imperial Capital—Science Directorate, a certain facility.
The sign reading "Ninja" had been taken down. It now officially belonged to the Empire's assassination forces—the Shinobi Conscription Garrison.
Emerging from the gravity chamber after completing the day's physical training, Sasuke Uchiha walked alongside Hatake Kakashi and the others. For some time now, they had lived days in this garrison where they could be jolted awake at any hour for grueling drills.
Why grueling?
Because aside from ending up covered in mud and the blood of training beasts, classroom-style schooling had reentered their lives. Yes—they were required to attend lessons and pursue advanced studies. Intensive remedial education across multiple disciplines.
According to the instructors, their foundational cultural education was entirely failing.
Suddenly, the roar of interlocking steel—like clashing blades—mixed with a sonorous chant drew everyone's attention.
What was that? Who had arrived now?
With a powerful leap onto a high structure within the garrison, Sasuke activated his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan. In the large training field not far away, several towering steel behemoths were being activated under the manipulation of red-robed, tentacled figures.
"Toll the Great Bell Once!
Pull the Lever forward to engage the Piston and Pump...
Toll the Great Bell Twice!
With push of Button fire the Engine and spark Turbine into life...
Toll the Great Bell Thrice!
Sing Praise to the God of All Machines"
What in the world was that?
Sasuke's Sharingan widened. He did not understand their performance art.
But he was deeply shaken by it.
—
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