As Sid Nora said.

The situation with the steel ring belt is complicated.

The situation here is complicated by the ......

I don't know who is a real traitor.

Fu Qinghai looked back at the entire battle at the Zellas space station, where the enemy was fighting a war that was doomed to defeat - scuttling all the warships, dismantling the ship's weapon systems and installing them on top of the orbital defenses. So what? They have no reinforcements, they cut themselves off, and this is a trapped beast fight.

Even if Fu Qinghai's infiltration plan is not successful, it is only a matter of time before an isolated casting world falls, the difference is only how much damage it can inflict on the Space Marines before it falls, and how much it will cost the Human Empire.

The five Astarte warbands were told that the Zelas space station was a rebellion and the forged world needed them to come and reclaim it, and when they came here, the Zelas space station was indeed ready to resist stubbornly.

A battle began, and after a bloody battle and a heavy cost, the Space Marines succeeded in suppressing the rebellion and reclaiming the Foundry World, returning it to the Empire and the Way of the Ohm Messiah.

It didn't feel like there was anything wrong.

But Fu Qinghai always felt a little strange.

If the Zellath space station belongs to the Cult of the Dark Mechanics, then why don't other Cults of the Dark Machines or Chaos Space Marines come to their aid? Why not take care of them? Let them be besieged by five warbands and fleets.

Most war commanders, as professional soldiers who are dedicated to their duties and obey orders, never think about these questions. Immersing themselves in the heat of battle and focusing on the battle objectives in front of them also gave them no time to think about these questions.

It wasn't until the vortex technician named "Protes" told Fu Qinghai the "truth of the matter": the Zellas space station never wanted to start a rebellion, and they didn't care who ruled the galaxy, they just wanted to study subspace without restrictions, without being disturbed, and as they wanted, but Terra and Mars did not allow it, branded their behavior as a "technological heresy", and sent troops to suppress it, so they were forced to resist.

Terra and Mars characterize the Techno-Priest of the Jelas space station as a "cult of the dark automatona" and a "heretic", but they don't see it that way, and that's where the disagreement lies.

Strictly speaking, in essence.

This is not an "insurgency operation".

Rather, it is an "academic dispute".

From Fu Qinghai's point of view, he can understand the decision of Mars and Terra, and the technocrats of the Zellas space station have been condemned as "dark technological heretics", and they are not wronged at all.

Can humans study subspace? Of course you can, otherwise how did you get these techniques such as subspace jumping, void shield technology, teleportation technology, Geller force field, etc.? It is through the research results of subspace that these technologies are of great significance, allowing the Human Empire to expedition to the sea of stars, recover the homeland of mankind, and restore the glory of mankind, rather than becoming one of the many pocket empires with advanced technology but extremely small size.

However, subspace cannot be studied without restraint and without limits, it must be studied within the constraints of the way of the Ohm Messiah. It's like in the real world, where governments don't allow genetic cloning of humans, and there's an ethical issue. It's just that for Warhammer 40k, the harm of chaos is far more serious than moral and ethical issues, so a simple problem of "academic misconduct" can evolve into a war.

According to Fu Qinghai, the degree of mutation of Protes' own flesh and blood, the divination instrument needs an evil sacrifice ritual to answer the question, whether it is physical characteristics or inventions, and there is no problem at all to call the "vortex technician" "black engine oil old".

But, on the other hand.

The Vortex Technician was also wronged.

If the fortune teller, a machine that needs to torture human souls to create psionic malice, is the so-called "demon engine" and "destruction engine......

So, what is the Star Torch?

So, what is the Golden Throne?

This is a double-standard logic of "only the governor is allowed to set fires, and the people are not allowed to light lamps".

Moreover, although the original Warhammer 40k book does not explicitly say it, it is implied in and out of the words - it was the emperor who invented the world's first demon engine.

Back in the Age of Strife, the so-called "Age of Warlord Scuffle", at that time Terra was still called "Earth", there was an unknown wanderer who came to Mars from Earth, at that time there was no Cult of the Mechanics on Mars, only a loose scientific group composed of a group of technocrats, silently conducting their own research, while watching the war and turmoil on the next planet with a cold eye. The Rover's level of technology was very high, surpassing all the scientific and technological groups on Mars at that time, and he invented a method to bind the demons and inorganic machinery in the subspace to create the world's first demon engine.

But instead of proliferating the technology, he sealed it in a cave. On the eve of the outbreak of the Horus Rebellion, the war commander Horus promised to unseal this cave, in order to tempt the Martian casting leader Calbo Hal in exchange for his support, but he did not know the so-called "heretical technology" sealed in the cave, and Kalbo Hal could not wait for the so-called "forbidden technology" that even did not hesitate to launch a rebellion for this purpose...... Most likely, it was created by the emperor himself.

Because many clues are hinting that the "nameless wanderer from Earth" is the emperor himself.

What's even more ironic, Fu Qinghai doesn't know.

Two of the three "dark heretical technological creations" he obtained, the Umbra Speculum and the Treacherous Matrix, were widely used by the three major Inquisitions and the Loyalist Forge World in later generations, the former used to interrogate ghosts for clues, and the latter used to torture and torture heretical technological priests, all of whom said that they were unclean forbidden technologies, but the major powers of the empire used them more simply than anyone else.

There are no psychological barriers.

…………

The world of the knights of Orestes.

There is a local sect of the Cult of the Mechanica.

They call themselves a sect of "data regulation."

Almost no one knew that the number two man in the Steel Ring Warzone, the Ruler of the Sage, Hieronymus Gantt, had arrived here in the safety of the Attar Median Forge World, but had arrived here aboard a Cult of the Mechanicus cruiser.

A telecommunications slave of the Data Guardian Sect has designated this dark chamber in a small forge temple as their meeting place. The temple is located in a remote outskirts outside the ebony fortress of the knight family, and is very remote.

As soon as the message arrived, the Dominating Sage recorded a synaptic fuse explosion in the brains of the servants, burning any memory of the message forever.

In order to keep a piece of information confidential, a machine servant slave was completely abolished, and he was very cautious. While the Dominating Sage considers this an unnecessary precaution, it is also fully in line with some of the dark rumors surrounding the sect of data regulation.

The Dominating Sage stepped up the stone steps step by step.

This abandoned temple of forging was well chosen.

It's so close to the front line that every veteran tech priest has fled, leaving only a cadre of sacrificial staff to oversee the final data transfer of its database.

Towering cabinets of dust flanked each other, the whirring sound of information transmission plates and binary choral chants were humming. A skrit-shaped sprayer mounted on the wall fills the air with the smell of cooled incense.

Information from the Data Guardian Sect told him that he had to come alone, but Hieronimus was the ruling sage of the Order of Mechanics, and a priest of his stature rarely came alone.

An elderly low-tech priest named "Cork-R-41", the last remaining veteran monk in this temple, is a very common form of name for low-level technical priests, a combination of short words + a few letters + a string of numbers, and their names are as lackluster as their academic level.

Cork-R-41 welcomed the Dominion to his humble temple with a demeanor as if Omni had appeared before him. Like a faithful cyber mastiff, he led the Dominating Sage to the data warehouse behind the temple, where the six noun mechanics, a kind of special machine servants and slaves for the data warehouse, were lined up like a guard of honor.

At the end of this meeting, Hieronymus will erase the memories of these lexical mechanics without any consent, which is his ability and his status.

The agreed time for the meeting has passed.

Where is he?

Hieronymus leaned over and impatiently tapped his fingertips on the black surface of a cabinet of stalls, the tactile implant creating a stack of glowing inward-looking panels. Without opening it, he already had an unobstructed view of the database in the cabinet.

"Brother Hieronymus?"

Cork-R-41 asked in a carnal voice, the voice revealing his fears and humble status.

I'm asking, Cork-R-41.

Hieronymus responded.

The techno-priest tilted his head to the side, and the Dominator narrowed his eyes, only to realize that the auditory input port of Cork-R-41 had not been modified for the encryption ritual level of the technical language. So the Dominator could only take a moment to rearrange the implants in his esophagus.

"Your superior, where is he?"

The Dominating Sage asked. Due to the seldom use of this mechanical vocal cord, his voice is somewhat unfamiliar.

"Ah, he, uh, in, probably, about fifteen minutes ago, he was still here, the Dominating Sage......"

Cork R-41 stammered.

Probably? Approximately?

Hieronymus glared disapprovingly, offended by the inaccuracies in the language of Cork-R-41, who at one point considered erasing the old priest from memory along with the lexical mechanic. It was unseemly for a fellow Mechanicus monk to act in such a drastic manner, but he was sure that no one who heard it would condemn him.

"I've been waiting a long time, Ruler Sage."

A voice came from the darkness:

"I asked you to come alone."

Despite the extensive modification of the Dominator's body, which was very different from the baseline human template, he was still shocked by the sudden and unexpected sound.

"It's not easy for a Dominating Sage to travel alone."

Hieronymus said in a deep voice.

It is impossible for a sage to travel without a bodyguard. Just outside this small foundry temple, there are several of his subordinates, all of whom are intelligent control mathematicians, a technical priest who specializes in programming and controlling intelligent control machines, and they each lead a team of Castellan intelligent control machines. Hieronymus had thought that the sect of data regulation would go unaware of it, because his information jamming methods had long since hidden it.

Concealment at the data level.

"There's some truth to that."

The voice of nothingness said.

"One person, a group of people? You can't hide your existence, and it makes no difference to us. ”

A figure disappeared between the two cabinets, and a row of Heronemus's prosthetic eyes buzzed, trying to focus, but never able to catch the figure.

"Brother Nemonix?"

Hieronymus asked.

"Do you have anyone else waiting?"

The voice asked rhetorically.

"No, but I'm connected to every system in this temple, and I haven't found any registrations." "And in fact, your existence is not recorded at all, at any level, why is that?" ”

The figure had been hiding in the shadows, but the Dominator had an uneasy illusion in his mind - even now standing in the bright light of a sodium lamp, he couldn't see anything.

"There are many benefits to being a ghost in a machine." The Technocratic Priest of the Data Supervision Sect said, his tone was light, as if it was a trivial matter that the various bird divination instruments in all corners of the Casting Temple could not see him clearly. "The most important of these is the freedom to roam without leaving any footprints."

"How did you do that?"

Hieronymus asked.

"If I hadn't told you in Greyar or Cobweb, why do you think I'd tell you now?"

The Dominating Sage made sure that the data disk in his brain was working properly, then shook his head and said:

"You and I have never met, Brother Nemonix."

"Quite the opposite." Nemonix said, the feminine voice understood by Hieronymus as mockery. "We've met six times before this, the Dominating Sage."

"You're wrong."

"No, you just forgot, and you'll forget."

This time it was Hieronymus' turn to scoff:

"This is impossible, the Cult of the Mechanics will not delete any data, we will always expand the memory storage."

"Really?" Nemonix smiled, he whispered something in binary cryptics, and suddenly asked, "What is the name of the technical priest next to you?"

"He's... He's ......"

Hieronymus's voice grew quieter and quieter, as he realized that he no longer remembered the identity of the technocracy, and that there was a strange atmosphere around the man, who was standing there like an inorganic sculpture.

There are no names, no numbers, no historical records, no traces of everything that ever existed. In an instant, the entire life of this technical priest was erased from every corner and every cranny of the data network.

For the technocracy.

He no longer exists.

Heronemus suppressed his anger and began to suspect that he had had such an experience many times. For the first time in his life, the Sooper wanted to retain some of his biological qualities—like a pair of naked eyes or a pair of flesh ears—as if to give a glimpse of the reality of the technocracy in front of him.

"This is an invasion of the mind, this is a heresy!"

The sage of Hieronimos said angrily.

"I know."

Nemonix Sage said calmly.

"What do you think you know?"

The other party's attitude of everything under control made him a little angry, and Hieronymus asked in a cold voice.

"More than you think, Dominating Sage." Nemonix Sage said slowly, "I can assure you that it is enough for you to have every achievement and title you have been stripped of by Mars. But should we abandon threats and counter-threats, disclosures and counter-disclosures? Every priest has secrets, every sect has secrets, and the dark secrets between the followers of the Machine cult are revealed, which is not good for anyone. Do you agree? ”

The Dominating Sage was eager to know more, but he restrained his instinct to ask questions, and for a moment he didn't talk about the subject, something more important had brought him to this place.

Heronemus nodded.

"Good."

The technical priest of the Data Supervision Sect slowly walked under the light and continued:

"Now, let's get down to business."

Hieronymus stared at him intensely, but Nemonix flickered like a negative exposure on a negative, an electronic ghost, a heartbeat and then vanished, as if it were just a void in the shape of a technocratic priest in the real world.

The Soopers don't want to be fooled by data anymore.

The Dominating Sage really wants to change back to the naked eye at the moment.

Nemonix looked casual, as if he had to wipe off the traces of a member of the Cult of the Mechanicus every day. Heronemos had a terrible suspicion – it might have been.

"The fall of the Ring of Steel has led to the Draconis family freeing themselves from their shackles."

Nemonix stresses responsibility for the disaster:

"The Viscount Sunderland of Ebony Castle is very willful, just because of some historical problems, you want to completely break away from the Cult of the Mechanics, the steel ring is rekindled, and the various casting worlds have ghosts, resulting in your position in Mars has been greatly weakened. If you let another knight family sneak away, you will most likely be kicked out of the council or even stripped of your title and property. ”

"Am I right, Dominator?"

The flickering electronic ghost asked softly.

"You know too much!"

Hieronymus tried his best to hide his surprise, but judging by Nemonix's tone of voice that followed, it was clear to him that his cover-up had failed completely.

"Don't be so surprised, Dominion Sage. For people like me, the flood of your thinking data leaks like a sieve. You might as well announce your intentions directly through a public communication link, which will save you trouble. ”

Let's try it soon, everyone. 】

Nemonix snapped his fingers and warned:

"If I were you, I would think twice about using unapproved STC fragments for a cranial nerve firewall. Also, I specifically advise against using proprietary interpolation codes to fill in the gaps, which is a significant vulnerability. ”

In a few words, he broke his loopholes.

Nemonix shook his hand to stop Hieronymus' stunned look.

"But it doesn't matter, back to the current problem, the Draconis family is not a powerful knight family, they don't even have the Knights of the Wrath River and the Knights of the Watch, not to mention the more powerful City Lord Knights and the Knights of the Giant, it is irrelevant and inevitable, and yours are worried that the other families will know about this, right, the Sage of Domination?"

"If the Draconis family can get rid of the Cult of the Mechanicus with impunity, and other families may follow their example, when will it end? This poor family of knights on the verge of destruction could become a domino for other knightly families allied with the Cult of the Mechanicus to think they could survive without the protection of Mars. ”

"So ......"

Hieronymus says:

"You already know my needs?"

"Let Viscount Sunderland know his mistake and return the Draconis family to Martian control."

Nemonix said.

"Yes, that's it."

Hieronymus said.

"What if that proves impossible? How far are you willing to go, Dominating the Sage? ”

Nemonix asked rhetorically.

Hieronymus raised his head and said:

"If Viscount Sunderland is determined not to yield to Mars, you have to make sure that the Draconis family can set an example to all the other knight families in the Iron Ring, and let them know what a bloody disaster such an action would bring!"

The voice of the Dominating Sage was loud.

The electronic ghost nodded, and in that instant, the outline of his lake suddenly became clear, and he gushed out a series of extremely obscure ciphers, a trickle of static electricity washed over the mechanical prosthetic eye of the ruling sage.

The Dominator blinked again, then looked around at the empty databases around him.

A technical priest he didn't know and a six-word mechanic stood with him in the middle of the buzzing cabinet. The glowing status screen flickered with twisted garbled ripples, telling the Dominator that every data file had been emptied.

"So, he didn't come?"

Hieronymus muttered to himself.

And wondered why he subconsciously wanted to use the voice of the mechanical vocal cord instead of the binary metaphor.

He looked around the empty stall one last time, and it was still just the two of them. There is no indication that the technocrats of the data regulation sect ever existed.

Hieronymus frowned and shook his head, annoyed that he had been forced to waste precious time.

He was released from the dove, and the sage Hieronymus Gantt, in his rage at such a grave violation, turned away from the dilapidated temple of foundry.

The Dominating Sage led a few of his men who had been waiting outside the Forge Temple and left the planet by shuttle.

Inside the empty temple of foundry.

Suddenly, a sound sounded from the sound of a mold lake.

Like an electric microphone hissing noisily:

"All will be as you wish, Ruler of the Sages."

"A Loyal Knight Family ......"

"Hehehehehe, I guess ......"

"Loving father will laugh at this great gift!"

…………