Chapter 409: Expedition Road: Mechanical Priest

Firelight flickered in the dim, huge deep well, and bright flames sprayed in the dark and silent wide longitudinal tunnel. The sparks flew around, lighting up the surrounding rock walls shrouded in darkness in the flickering halo, and illuminating the layers of concave and convex gaps surrounding it.

Hong Suo fell downward, his exposed silver steel arm grasped the rope, and the hard iron rope woven from tens of millions of steel wires rubbed violently between his palms. Dazzling sparks gushed out from between his fingers, lighting up the dim space around him.

The entire rock wall around was full of jagged marks after being crushed. Those deep marks that twisted and clung to the surrounding rocks stretched in circles, like a staircase corridor winding on both sides of the mountain, and the lines in between perfectly matched the edge of the drill bit of the huge drilling rig parked on the ground at the end below.

Hong Suo looked down at the huge machine below. The huge shield machine had returned to its horizontal position. It was quietly parked on the ground, and around it were a large number of mechanical servants holding tools. Some of them held industrial hot melt guns, or small drill tools, etc. Bright searchlights were set up on both sides of the excavation site, just like an underground mine.

And the hardworking workers here are working hard. They are digging tunnels tirelessly. After all, mechanical servants can't speak, think, or feel tired, right? They are simply perfect workers. Especially here, in this bottomless underground, who else would dig here with clanging sounds?

The mechanical servant held a hot melt gun and sprayed a high-temperature fire column on the rock wall on the side. The wall was melted by the high temperature little by little and turned into a bright stream of fire. The flames flowed down and spread a little bit on the ground. The fire also illuminated another mechanical servant holding a drill on the side.

The pale light shone behind them, working on the surrounding rock walls to expand the excavation site below. In the clanging underground environment, the light of the lighting lamp also illuminated the mechanical priest standing behind them.

The priest in a dark red robe stood in front of the tall fuselage of the shield machine, turning his eyes on the ground, looking at the mechanical servants around him who were repeating mechanical movements. They did not complain, talk, or even breathe, repeating simple movements over and over again, and in that movement, the space here was also rapidly expanding.

He stood here alone, and Father Heimer walked alone beside the shield machine. Just as Hong Suo would not let any of his men avoid him to take the ancient artifact, Father Heimer would not allow any other Mechanicus priests except himself to step into this technical palace he had just discovered.

Everything here shocked Heimer. When the shield machine drilled through the hard granite, he stood in front of this magnificent tunnel. Everything in it, no matter how simple it was, made his long-mechanized, non-existent heart beat violently under his chest.

Heimer's mechanical eyes turned a circle, and his vision interface scanned the surrounding caves. Then he turned his head to look at the huge cave located there, or more precisely, a door, a huge door composed of and constructed of some metal that he could not analyze or scan at all.

Behind it, there was a deep corridor leading to a certain location. Heimer didn't know what was at the end of it, but he was sure that there was something powerful there, because on his vision interface, the energy scan map could almost be said to be an explosion reflecting the energy radiation in it.

At the end of the tunnel, Heimer discovered the existence of a powerful energy body. Heimer had only seen the same level of energy intensity in the ancient, mysterious, and more deadly fragments of the Star God of the Necrons. Heimer had heard that only one ancient fragment of the Star God was needed to blow up the entire galaxy.

And now, on the scanning interface in front of Heimer, he was witnessing an equally powerful energy. The constantly changing radiator was constantly moving irregularly on his graphic window, as if it had life, a living energy.

"What a surprising place. There are too many technologies and mysteries here. If more excavation and research can be carried out here, it will provide more help for the journey of seeking knowledge."

The priest walked to the door of the gate, and his eyes scanned the unique silver-gray steel-like surface on it. In fact, the priest didn't know what material it was. He could only name it "Silver-gray Alloy" through similar observations and comparisons. He stored this name in his database for subsequent research and analysis.

The surface of this metal is almost completely sealed, and all the molecules are locked together without even a gap. The priest once used the high-density metal of the dead spirit. As a priest of the Dark Mechanicus, Heimer was fortunate to be able to contact and study the technological products that were regarded as dangerous by the empire, including the technology of the dead spirit.

Heimer was not a member of the Mechanicum during the Great Crusade. He was an ordinary person born on Mars in the later Empire. Later, he lived there for the sake of survival and knowledge, perhaps more of the former. On that red planet filled with poisonous gas and harmful radiation, people had only two choices.

You can either become a short-lived low-nest worker, living under the factory gas that has been circulated countless times, working silently in the bottomless underground for a lifetime, and finally die in obscurity. Your body may be transformed into those hideous mechanical servants, or made into corpse starch and supplied to others.

Or you can become a technical priest, join the cult under the God of All Machines, convert to the Mechanicus to gain protection, transform your body to survive in that harmful environment, and have a longer life and good food and living environment.

Most people don't have much choice, right? Almost everyone wants to be a technical priest, all the children of Mars are like this, but only a very few of them are qualified to pass the rigorous test of the Mechanicus, and Heimer is one of the lucky ones.

He has forgotten how long it was, he has long forgotten the red planet, the steel factory on it and the never-ending forging sound. The only thing he remembers is exploration and knowledge, the journey of seeking knowledge and technology in the galaxy on the exploration fleet.

Heimer was once just an ordinary child who converted to the God of All Machines in order to survive, but perhaps it was the will of Ommissiah that he soon showed a strong talent and a natural keen insight into knowledge, which allowed Heimer to rise step by step in the Mechanicus and eventually became the chief of the exploration fleet under the priest.

When Heimer embarked on the road of seeking knowledge, he showed an infinite thirst for knowledge, no matter what kind of knowledge it was, even those taboos and technologies that were regarded as heresy. Heimer believed that knowledge was neither good nor bad, the only difference was the people who used it.

Although Heimer did not remember the specific life in the Low Nest, the hunger and physical pain never left him no matter how many times the data memory was iterated. Heimer wanted to change that miserable life, just as Ommissiah and the Emperor expected, to use technology to benefit mankind.

But with such a great dream, Heimer encountered obstacles everywhere. He soon found that the officials of the empire and the ruling nobles of the planet did not care about the lives of civilians. Even if there was a possibility of changing society, they would regard it as a scourge and resolutely refuse it on the grounds of shaking the foundation of the country.

They would rather watch millions of ordinary people in the empire live a hard life than lend a hand to help them, because it would be of no benefit. They would rather spend that time fighting for ridiculous power, as if what they have is not enough.

What made Heimer even more desperate was that his own colleagues, the members of the Mechanicus, did not care about all this at all. They were even worse than the officials of the empire. They only cared about technology and technology that could be used for themselves, and the technological heritage that allowed them to climb the pyramid of hierarchy in the Mechanicus.

"The Mechanicus has betrayed the Ohm Messiah."

This was Heimer's last words before he left the Empire and the Mechanicus. He left the corrupted cult and the Empire. Heimer once vowed to use the power of technology to change the Empire, a real change, then Heimer would do so, no matter who provided him with help, as long as the result could still serve the welfare of all mankind and overthrow the corrupt country, then Heimer would follow.

And Chaos provided him with this opportunity. In the Dark Mechanicus, Heimer could study more technologies, many of which came from alien races, which technologies could benefit the people of the Empire, more favorable medical technology, agriculture and construction technology, etc.

But all of this was previously banned by the Empire as "dangerous alien technology", how ridiculous and absurd, it was because of this that the country that was once built on reason and truth would become like this in just a thousand years. Heimer was almost certain that the Emperor and Ohm Messiah would also condemn them.

So for Heimer, he was not betraying. The real traitors were the people in the empire, the traitors who claimed to be loyalists but disobeyed and betrayed all the principles of the empire.

Therefore, when Hong Suo invited him and promised that the technology he was looking for would bring about a radical change for all mankind, Heimer agreed to his invitation and came here to help Hong Suo find the ancient technology. Now, he is standing in front of those technologies.

He has studied the polymer technology of the dead spirits and similar technologies of several other alien races, but they are completely incomparable to the metal in front of him. This metal door and the structure behind it completely lock all the molecules, and there is not even resonance. When you knock on its surface, there will not be even a slight vibration.

Its structure is locked by some unknown radiation energy body with special energy form. The priest believes that it is some unique spiritual energy, and only the one who can explain the complete randomness of this energy. The priest has observed them thousands of times, but has not found any repeatable rules at all. Each energy is random, but the results are completely consistent.

This makes the priest feel extremely curious. He is eager to study everything here and stay here for a while, a few months? Maybe a few years, or even longer to study these unknown ancient technologies.

The priest hopes that he can further dig out the technical mysteries here by studying these technological creations, but now he must inform his employer, so the priest's alarm clock opens the communication channel, "Lord Hong Suo, I have completed the excavation and am waiting for your arrival."

"Very good, Father." Hong Suo's voice echoed in his ears, but not from the communicator, but from behind him. The priest turned around and looked at Hong Suo who fell behind him under a huge impact. He fell heavily behind the priest, and his tall body slowly stood up with a battle axe.

"My Lord, I am glad that you can come here. I found a lot of technological products here, all of which have not been included. I request to conduct more research here, so as to facilitate more knowledge exploration."

"Very good, Father, I agree with your request, but it is precisely because of this that you must personally defend your technological heritage and buy time for me to go and get the technological holy relic that changes everything. Someone is chasing me from behind. Can you stop him?"

Hong Suo raised his head and looked up. Of course, he didn't expect Heimer to stop Vito. Unless the four gods came out in person, no one could stop the attack of the Supreme Marshal himself. That was no different from sending himself to death, so Hong Suo decisively chose to run.

He didn't have any of the four gods' blessing. The battle axe in his hand could kill ordinary space warriors, but it definitely couldn't be used to kill gods. He would definitely die if he confronted the marshal head-on. I'm afraid that if Vito wanted to, he wouldn't be able to hold on for even a moment and would be killed in seconds. What he needed now was time, time to get the artifact and run away. Heimer should at least be able to hold him back for a while so that he could reach the shrine.

"Of course, Lord Hongso, I will protect this valuable knowledge and gain precious time for you. In the name of Om Messiah, we will change the world together."

"Of course, priest, of course, now I wish you good luck, you will need good luck when you face him."

After saying this, Hongso turned and ran to the door on the side. Heimer turned around and looked around, scanning everything around him with his mechanical eyes, like a hunter checking his hunting ground.

He didn't know what the "he" Hongso was talking about, but the priest believed that it should be Astarte. Combining the recent situation with the dozens of endings he calculated, the possibility was as high as 88.12%.

Heimer was indeed lucky that his analysis was correct, and he had been prepared to deal with Astartes. His army of mechanical servants were all equipped with weapons, and he himself also had those weapons and equipment designed for Astartes.

But how should I put it? I think he probably had not prepared to deal with a guy who was "bigger" than Astartes, something that even his old boss Hongsuo would have to run away from.

Heimer stood in front of the shield machine. He suddenly detected that some huge object was approaching rapidly. The priest raised his mechanical eye and looked up, and then captured the figure that fell from the sky on the scanning interface, with sparks all the way above the thing.

The priest stared at him. Through the detailed description of the system, he could still be sure that it was an Astartes. He confirmed this from both the physique and the shape of the armor. The priest stared at the thing that fell from the sky. It suddenly hit not far from the priest, and the moment it fell, it crushed two mechanical servants to death.

The two unlucky guys who were digging raised their heads and looked at the source of the noise above, and then they were crushed by the noise. The huge giant crushed them into splattered flesh and blood, with wires and electrodes connected to them.

The broken body of the servitor fell to the ground, and the electrodes on the remaining cerebral cortex beat out weak arcs. The priest raised his head and looked at the Astartes who was slowly standing up in front of him. He was wearing golden armor and a huge power claw on his other hand.

The priest quickly scanned his whole body, but he did not find any recognizable regiment logo. The armor model was also never included in the priest's database. He could not match it to any regiment's power armor map. The Astartes in front of him, like everything here, was completely unknown to the priest.

"I can't recognize you, Brother Astarte." "That's not surprising, but can I ask you later? Did a big guy with a silver, shining arm run over here just now?"

"I think the person you're talking about is Lord Honso." "Ah, yes, it looks like you've seen him. Can you tell me where he ran to? I have something to do with him, so if you don't mind, I'll..."

Vito stood up and said with a smile, he raised his head and looked at the only tunnel ahead, then he saw a hot melt gun extending from the macro cannon behind the priest, and dozens of hot melt and plasma, heavy laser guns left around.

"Wow, your way of welcoming guests is so warm." Vito said jokingly, he looked up at the priest in front of him, shrugging his shoulders, "Is this place the same as in a fairy tale? Do I need to offer some gifts or sacrifices, and then you will let me go?"

"Let me guess, do you want a bouquet of rare flowers, or some glittering crystal shoes?" Vito shook his fingers and said happily, and then he heard the sound of the second gun being loaded. It was a plasma gun that stretched out from under the priest's robe and flashed at Vito's head.

"I want something, you surrender, you, can't go, traitor."

"Traitor? As a member of the Dark Mechanicus, you call me a traitor. Isn't that putting the cart before the horse?" Vito asked with a smile, but obviously, the muzzle of the loaded gun behind Heimer showed that he had no intention of arguing with Vito.

"You are the traitors, a group of traitors who betrayed the original will of the Emperor and the Om Messiah." Heimer said, and all the weapons behind him were raised. Dozens of guns were raised from the mechanical arms behind him and pointed at Vito's head.

The latter looked at him in silence for a moment. Vito narrowed his eyes at the priest in front of him, and his fingers gently slid to the grenade behind his waist, "Are you a mechanical priest from the Great Crusade period?"

"No, no, I was born after that." Heimer replied coldly, with no emotion in the synthesized voice. Vito looked surprised. He was not from the Great Crusade era, but he knew the current empire.

Vito looked at him in silence for a long time, and then the finger that was about to touch the trigger stopped. He gently tapped the butt of the gun and frowned at him, "Surrender, priest, I give you this chance, I don't want to kill you, join us, we will transform this empire together."

"Veto, false promises and lies, I have heard too many, now, you must be eliminated."

"For the future of mankind"