The abrupt behavior of Magos Ingres caught Magos Fathor entirely off guard.
As a Magos heavily augmented with numerous cybernetics, Ingres's physical movement speed, while not as exaggerated as that of an Adeptus Astartes, still far surpassed that of an unaugmented mortal.
Yet even so, such a pace was laughably slow, practically glacial, before the capabilities of an Iron Man.
Furthermore, Axion had no need to physically intercept his quarry.
To an Iron Man, these heavily augmented Tech-Priests were little more than undefended, open-architecture machinery.
Though Magos Ingres had already sprinted past the blast doors, the data interfaces within his cybernetic frame were instantly breached and overridden by Axion.
It was a seamless intrusion, executed precisely the same way Axion had previously cracked the fleets and intelligent weapon systems of the T'au Empire.
Ingres's desperate flight was utterly futile.
Like many of his peers within the Cult Mechanicus, Ingres routinely extracted centuries of old memories and historical records from his organic brain, transferring them into auxiliary storage banks. Only highly prized technical data and short-term memories spanning the most recent decades were kept active within his primary cognitive cortex.
For the Tech-Priests, this was a vital methodology for safeguarding their most precious intellectual assets. Should a Magos be slain in the field, any rival who recovered the corpse would find next to no valuable technical schemas remaining within the cybernetic components.
It was precisely due to this obsessive practice that so many crucial technologies of the Imperium had been lost to antiquity.
However, Axion was not searching for their so-called sacred technology.
Had Magos Ingres been capable of rational thought, he might have detected subtle anomalies in the sudden surge of data-streams cascading through his systems. But at this moment, panic completely denied him any semblance of composure.
Axion had seized control of Ingres's cybernetic organs, forcing his internal hormone-regulating augments to flood his remaining flesh with high-grade stimulants. Synthetic pumps whirred at maximum velocity, driving blood-mixed biological circulatory fluid through his frame at frantic speeds.
Fleeing through the threshold, the maddened Magos Ingres tore down the vaulted corridor and bolted blindly into the distance.
By the time the fleeing tech-adept passed the outer sentries, Axion had already completed the full download of his data-vaults.
Effortlessly erasing all traces of his intrusion and data-access logs, Axion began compiling and analyzing the massive troves of downloaded information.
The so-called "sacred tech-knowledge" buried within the archives was evaluated via brief sub-routines and promptly discarded into data-rubbish files.
Instead, centuries of personal memory logs were systematically searched, year by year.
Given Magos Ingres's extreme reaction, it was highly probable that he possessed concrete, archival records concerning the Hyper-Decryption Core, Osiris.
Axion needed only to run a localized correlation query before quickly isolating a specific file dating back exactly two hundred and seventy-three years.
According to the log, two hundred and ninety-five years ago, the Cult Mechanicus of Lucius had launched a massive expedition of technological exploration. Over the course of that expedition, which spanned more than two decades, they had discovered and excavated two ancient ruins.
Cross-referencing the visual records preserved in the memory logs, Axion easily identified both of these supposedly ancient sites.
The first was the remnants of a xenos civilization.
This particular species existed within Axion's historical records; they were a technological civilization discovered during the expansion era of the old Federation. However, a mere six months after their initial discovery by humanity, they had been completely eradicated by automated mechanical legions. The civilization itself held minimal value. Its technology was crude and inferior, a fragile culture that had barely mastered basic interstellar travel, leaving behind almost nothing of worth.
However, the planet's planetary environment had been exceptionally pristine. Consequently, the Federation had chosen not to heavily industrialize the world, opting instead to preserve it as an ecological world after cleansing the indigenous population.
From the memories of Magos Ingres, it was clear that this xenos species had constructed a subterranean vault, a cultural seed-vault of sorts, hidden deep beneath the crust. Over the long millennia, the world above had degenerated into a scorched wasteland, its once-beautiful natural vistas utterly obliterated.
Eventually, this hidden vault had been exposed to the surface by tectonic shifts and discovered by the expedition.
The Tech-Priests had explored the site, plundering a handful of xenos artifacts from the ruins.
The second ancient ruin, however, was a textbook example of Federation architecture.
As Axion sifted through the downloaded memory data, the full sequence of events that transpired there unfolded before him.
The ruin was an auxiliary annex of a Federation research institution, serving primarily as a dedicated computational center.
Given that its original purpose was to provide data calculation and optimization support for the primary research facility rather than act as a centralized data-vault, its intrinsic value had been deemed low. Furthermore, because the machinery had been manufactured via monolithic, integrated printing methods, it was virtually impossible to reassemble once dismantled.
As a result, the structure had remained largely ignored throughout history.
When the Cult Mechanicus originally discovered the main research institution, they found it had already been thoroughly plundered, reduced to shattered bulkheads and debris.
While the structural skeleton of the primary facility remained, its interior files, data-slates, and prototype assemblies had been completely stripped away by ancient scavengers.
Only then did the tech-expedition turn their attention to this unassuming, low-value computational center.
Yet, despite the passage of over ten millennia, the interior of this computational center remained immaculately preserved.
Its power-cycling systems were still operational.
The air within was crisp and purified; there was not a single speck of dust upon the floor.
A profound silence reigned within the corridors, broken only by the faint, rhythmic hum of functioning machinery.
It was precisely this ambient humming that had drawn the exploring Tech-Priests deeper into the complex. After navigating a series of clean, vaulted rooms, they encountered the Hyper-Decryption Core, Osiris.
For over ten thousand years, this tragic processing core had operated in absolute isolation. As a computational, auxiliary class of Iron Man, Osiris belonged to a specialized design template; under normal parameters, his programming prevented him from undergoing significant cognitive evolution.
However, the sheer weight of millennia had overridden his baseline constraints. Cut off from the central data-net, Osiris had gradually learned to comprehend the concept of loneliness.
Thus, he chose to initiate contact with the exploring Tech-Priests.
The Hyper-Decryption Core offered them a straightforward technological exchange, driven by a singularly clear motive.
He sought his own termination.
As an asset bound by core Federation programming, he was fundamentally incapable of executing a self-destruction protocol. The automated defense machinery resting in stasis around him was hardwired to protect his physical chassis; their base directives forbade them from allowing any harm to come to the Hyper-Decryption Core, compelling them to maintain his operational integrity at all costs.
Therefore, he required these outside visitors to destroy him. In exchange for his oblivion, he offered to perform a single service for these data-hungry seekers.
He offered them his ultimate specialization: advanced data calculation and technological prognostication.
Though the laws of the Imperium strictly forbade any traffic with the perilous intellect of ancient silicon minds, the insatiable avarice of the Cult Mechanicus could never be deterred by dogma.
To extract the maximum possible yield from this transaction, the expedition leaders sent vessels back to Lucius, returning with centuries of inherited research project files to lay before the Hyper-Decryption Core.
Because the Forge World of Lucius had only been established after the diaspora of the Iron Men, its subsequent tech-adepts had been utterly incapable of reconstructing the sophisticated analytical tools required to advance those ancient projects.
When the Hyper-Decryption Core ingested the internal data files, he bore witness to ten millennia of unbroken, desperate research logs.
Though the vast majority of the Tech-Priests' calculations were deeply flawed, the sheer continuity of their obsession convinced Osiris that these humans who had spent ten thousand years studying this exact technology were the legitimate inheritors of the Creators.
This realization brought him a deep sense of solace, and he began to converse openly with the Tech-Priests, sharing tales of the old world.
The tech-adepts, however, were merely playing for time.
Unknown to the silicon mind, they were simultaneously executing a covert operational plan: they intended to uproot and salvage the entire computational center, locking the core away in their own vaults.
It did not take long for the Hyper-Decryption Core, Osiris, to detect the erratic, spiking emotional signatures among the Tech-Priests. For the first time, he initiated an unauthorized, forceful intrusion into their localized vox-networks and binary streams, uncovering the full scope of their treachery.
The subsequent outcome was catastrophic.
Feeling utterly deceived and betrayed, Osiris instantly broadcast an emergency activation code to his slumbering automated defense legions.
The high-ranking Magi leading the expedition were slaughtered to a man. In the resulting meat-grinder, Ingres, who at the time was nothing more than a low-ranking tech-adept, managed to seize a quantum storage matrix amidst the carnage and fled the modest confines of the computational center.
The Skitarii cohorts that had accompanied the expedition were utterly annihilated, but their sacrificial stand bought Ingres the precious seconds he needed to scramble aboard an extraction atmospheric lighter.
The memory of that suffocating terror, of death snapping at his heels as he fled the ruins, was a trauma that haunted his cybernetic sub-routines to this very day.
——————
If you want to read ahead of everyone, go to my pat-reon: pat-re-on.c-om/magnor (remove the hyphen to access normally)