As Axion's voice echoed, the paralyzed Custodians suddenly regained their freedom.
The artificial muscle fiber bundles, abruptly returning to normal, ceased constraining the massive frames within. A dozen Custodians instantly twisted in a flurry of uncoordinated, awkward motions. Guilliman, his eyes flickering slightly, caught the subtle nuances of what had just transpired.
Axion turned his gaze toward the golden Dreadnought.
"Based on the anomaly that occurred during this trial, all losses will be handled by the Iron Men. Ersen's classified status precludes him from being calculated as an asset of the Imperium. This unit will extract the target for integration into subsequent testing protocols."
Leaving behind this cold, mechanical declaration, the silver-gleaming machine body lifted Ersen with one hand and departed the High Administratum of the Imperium.
The Custodians originally moved to intercept him, but a direct order from Fegrath compelled them to let the machine pass. Watching Axion's massive silhouette vanish down the hive city's roadways toward a distant landing field, Fegrath turned to Guilliman. He let out an unreadable, muffled grunt before leading the Custodians back toward the Imperial Palace.
The rapid sequence of events left even Guilliman feeling somewhat bewildered. None of this truly involved him, yet he could not shake the distinct impression that the Adeptus Custodes were holding a grudge against him.
To ensure the survival of this living subject, Axion summoned a Guardian-class vessel. Once the unconscious Ersen was secured aboard, the Guardian-class craft burned a direct course for the Void Sword.
Deep within Ersen's mind, Axion had extracted fragments of highly anomalous memories. Most were fractured, disjointed images. Axion held no interest in Ersen's past as a wanderer in the Imperium, his deeds of vigilante justice, or his covert purges of corrupt officials. The same applied to his memories as a gladiator in Commorragh or his imprisonment within the Dark Cells of Terra.
What had truly prompted Axion to extract Ersen was a sequence of bizarre combat memories that had abruptly materialized in the Dreadnought's recent consciousness.
The battlefield architecture surrounding Ersen in those memories featured distinct structural designs that Axion found remarkably familiar. After data cross-referencing and analysis, Axion quickly located near-identical schematics within his own database of blueprints. However, the structures in Ersen's memories clearly incorporated peculiar modifications.
Axion had already generated numerous analytical models regarding the sudden catastrophic detonation of the Psi-Titan. Evidently, trials involving pure psychic energy remained highly unstable.
Ersen's unique nature and classified status offered Axion an alternative testing methodology. He was a member of a Traitor Legion, permanently branded with the indelible mark of heresy. Yet, his loyalty belonged entirely to the Emperor and the Imperium; even if his fidelity was incomprehensible to the Imperium itself, his faith had never wavered.
Such individuals were perfectly suited for conscription into his experiments. Unrecognized by the Imperium, their utilization eliminated any risk of protocol violations or liability stemming from experimental accidents. Furthermore, Ersen had accumulated vast operational experience in psychic containment. If another failure occurred, Axion would at least not have to worry about a tortured psyker sacrificing themselves to manifest a Warp daemon.
Not long after Axion's departure, the Custodians received a set of orbital coordinates transmitted by the Iron Man fleet.
When they arrived at the designated location, five towering, humanoid war engines stood upon the landing field. These were the newly redesigned Psi-Titans, rebuilt by Axion using the modified blueprints previously gifted to the Warp Runners Chapter.
Deep within the subterranean reaches of the Palace, the tech-adepts clutched their data-slates, staring in sheer awe and horror at the specifications, structural schematics, and maintenance logs Axion had transmitted alongside the war engines.
These pristine Psi-Titans possessed a degree of mobility unimaginable for a standard Warlord-class chassis. The machine frames completely discarded the traditional hunched posture that had defined Imperial Titan design for ten millennia. They featured reinforced leg structures, massive modular weapon hardpoints, ancient arc reactors, and dense plating with a tensile strength far exceeding standard ceramite.
The weapon mounts were entirely standardized to remain compatible with the Imperium's existing arsenal of Titan-grade weaponry. Axion had even utilized decryption data extracted from the Golden Throne to significantly enhance the psychic siphoning efficiency of these engines.
According to Axion's consolidated performance data, these new-pattern Psi-Titans boasted an overall combat efficiency several times greater than the archaic variants retrofitted from Warlord-class hulls.
Their operational agility had tripled, incorporating dynamic maneuvers that traditional Tech-Priests and Imperial engineers would have deemed sacrilegious, such as leaping and rapid sprinting. Furthermore, the updated armor composition alone yielded an increase in defensive durability exceeding eighty percent. By eliminating the cumbersome dorsal superstructure and relocating the cockpit within a radical new joint configuration, the engines possessed a vastly expanded field of fire, effectively eliminating previous combat blind spots.
Yet, these five Titans were not the most valuable technological asset delivered. Arriving alongside the war engines was a complete STC template.
Once the template's compilation was complete, the tech-adepts rapidly produced a functional prototype. Deep beneath the crust of Terra, ten members of the Imperial Auxilia clad in the trial suits conducted a live demonstration before the Adeptus Custodes.
The mortals wielded training power swords coated in marking dye, launching strikes against the Custodians, who remained entirely on the defensive. When the first faint, colorful mark appeared upon a Custodian's auramite power armor, Fegrath, who stood watching nearby, crushed a sample block of the prototype armor in his fist.
"A treacherous gift," Fegrath rumbled. "This gear will make the rats of the Senatorum Imperialis smell the blood of power."
The relevant data files were swiftly seized by the Custodians, transferred to a hidden fortress deep within the subterranean vaults of Terra, and placed under maximum security.
In truth, the schematic detailed a simplified individual protection suit designated as the "Swiftshadow." Compared to the standard Federation-era hazard environment suits Axion had previously provided to Inquisitor Wayne and the Storm Troopers, this equipment was remarkably crude.
Those original hazard suits were integrated with autonomous decision-making cores. Following the enactment of the new pact with the Imperium, Axion could no longer supply the Imperium with independent silicon logic. To ensure compliance with the treaty, Axion had incorporated technical data harvested during his prior intrusion into T'au Empire battlesuit systems, degrading the performance metrics to create this basic, stripped-down design.
Even so, this modified gear remained deeply advanced by Imperial standards. Weighing nearly two tons, the suit featured a user-adaptive stabilization system. The chassis was powered by an embedded fusion cell capable of sustaining full-power operations for fifteen days.
Though the maximum output of the electronic fiber bundles was limited to five tons, the lightweight structural design meant the suit allowed its operator to sprint at breathtaking velocities. The dual-layer composite alloy plating and lightweight exoskeleton support allowed the armor to easily shrug off direct hits from standard-issue small arms.
Constrained by its modest power core, Axion had outfitted the suit with a pulse deflection shield derived from T'au xenos technology. While its defensive capability was somewhat inferior to the energy shields utilized by the Iron Men, its energy consumption was less than forty-two percent of a standard shield.
The armor featured mechanically extended bionic limbs and standardized cybernetic frameworks, allowing ordinary mortals to effortlessly wield heavy armaments usually reserved for the Adeptus Astartes. Furthermore, Axion had referenced the disparate array of Imperial auxiliary gear, adding a comprehensive suite of attachment hardpoints to ensure the armor could interface with the Imperium's primitive weapons.
A semi-neural link control system, paired with a component designated as a neural pulse accelerator, vastly enhanced the wearer's reaction times. Though it induced mild psychological side effects, this suite allowed a baseline human to exhibit a cognitive reflex response rivaling that of a Space Marine in the heat of battle.