The "Hall of Conquest" mobile fortress owned by the Rakuan clan is ancient.

Its red-hot core reactor and bottommost chassis are made of a material that no one knows in detail, and according to the earliest records the Iron Hand can find, they date back to the time when the Protogens were still walking on the land of Medusa.

In the years that followed, chambers, walkways, cables, and more firepower platforms and defenses were added to it, and generations of Iron Fathers, Techno-Sergeants, and Techno-Priests left their own unique structures, and many of their ideas were realized through the redistribution of energy output due to the power of the core reactor, but this also made all drawings and architectural plans add or subtract from purely rational and practical considerations, ignoring any other inefficient non-essential work.

As a result, no one really knew how to maintain its old reactor in this era, and no one really knew whether the loud roar of the meching was a desire to fight, a frenzy of destruction, or a groan of pain every time the machine was awakened or exerted.

What each maintainer can realistically but only do for it is to maintain it carefully and reverently according to the ancient binary prayer and their own understanding.

In all fairness, it can never be said that they are poorly maintained, but because of this, it cannot be said that they are well maintained.

It is not surprising that the ancient mechs have become more violent and unpredictable, and everyone has become accustomed to it, and it is rare to fully awaken it.

But today......

Markan Ferros stepped thoughtfully onto the bridge, and the brother in charge of piloting it turned, and they exchanged opinions with each other in a millisecond: yes, not a data error, but the core meching of the Hall of Conquest of Rakuan was indeed in a very good mood today, and it was something that Ferros had never been better than he had since he first boarded the great mechanical relic.

Even the Iron Hand telecommunications electromagnetic signal, which had been enveloping the entire "Hall of Conquest" like a cloud, seemed to be much faster.

"At the same time," Astarte, who was monitoring the pilot, sent another message to the Iron Father, "The panels of the bridge show that the reactor output of the 'Hall of Conquest' has been restored from 42 percent to 88 percent, and about twenty minutes after that, the power supply to the left lower compartment, which had been unusable due to an unknown malfunction, is being restored, and the airtight doors that had been stuck are beginning to open one by one. — but we couldn't see who was moving there in the middle, someone was going deeper using a repair line that we hadn't noticed and therefore didn't have any sensors placed there. ”

They exchanged pulse signals again.

"I'll bring someone over and see what's going on." Philos replied briefly, though he already had some possible calculations.

————————

An hour later, the heavily armed team led by the Iron Father found a Dreadnought of the Holy Contempt in the lower chamber on the left side, hammering around with tools.

Seeing their arrival, before the "Elder Wieland" could say anything, the metal Garuda who had been sitting on his shoulder first looked down majestically at the group of Astartes in black armor with iron hands on their shoulders.

Its silvery eyes scrutinized each of the Space Marines with more mechanical modifications than necessary, and then opened its sharp metal beak—an extremely delicate chirp at the visitors—and Phyllos speculated that it might have been trying to alert its owner that someone was coming, as Garuda immediately closed his mouth tightly and crouched there again pretending to be just a decorative bird.

But that was enough time for Ferus to say the question in surprise, "You...... What to do here? Wieland Elder. ”

"Ahh Feros, what are you doing here? I just can't help it. It's a place full of people who have not come to take care of it for a long time. ”

Daring Do straightened up with a life-like lightness and fluidity that was incomparable to any model of Dreadnought or the existence of this body like any Iron Father, and Markan even suspected that his next second movement was to stretch his limbs gracefully, and thankfully, he didn't.

"As you can see, I'm repairing and cleaning it a little bit to make it look the way it should be, well, done...... Be complete. ”

"Complete?" The Iron Father tossed the word back and forth into his computing chip and extra thought loops, "Are you saying there's something missing here?" ”

"Ah, no, no, I mean, it's full of abrasive damage—accidental little breakage—accidental mistakes—these properties are missing, can you understand? I'm correcting and fixing them to make this place ...... again Pleasing to the eye. ”

Daring Do waved his arm, and Ferros suddenly realized that the palm of the "Wieland" Daring Daring at this time was not the ranged and melee weapons at first sight, but a pair of very delicate, unpainted relic-level power palms, this kind of power hand that completely mimicked the number and structure of human fingers, allowing the Contempt Dauntless to use the tools in his hand freely, who made a temporary replacement for him? And what about this pair of Relic Power Gloves?

- Wait, where did you find all those sets of adamantite tools and instruments whose grips were perfect for the dreadnought?

"Ah, do you mean these tools? I found a suitable size at the entrance and took it out and used it. Noticing the confusion in his flesh-and-blood eyes, Wieland pointed to an unopened alcove not far away with the mark of Purity and the Wax Seal of Hundreds of Years or more, "I noticed when I first arrived, that this place must have been pre-built with repair kits everywhere, but why did you leave these kit cabinets and their contents completely unused?" It doesn't have to be all these ordinary tools. ”

Philos' head was buzzing, and he could hear the eruption of argument and anger from the group of warriors behind him: it was indeed an enshrined alcove, and the reliquary tools inside were to be removed and carefully wiped under strict rituals and consecrations before being put back, and while no one knew why, generations of devotional rituals had made them considered to be similar to sacred offerings or guards offered to the Om Messiah to suppress the discontent of the ancient mechs and the darkness that might appear in the bilge.

Ferros had a bit of a headache, because of secrecy, most of the warriors were still only told of Wieland's file identity and Phyllus's own respect for him, but the Iron Hand was quite a techno-tribe martial custom in private-

Sure enough, one of the warriors strode out of the ranks, claiming that this was an act of extreme disrespect for the ancient relics of the Rakuan clan, and that what Sobek Wieland had done at the Rakuan Hall of Conquest as Rakuan's courteous guest was worthy of a duel challenge.

Yes.

This.

Thankfully, the duel ended immediately before the Auxiliary Ponderor chip, which was running at high speed in order to come up with a rounding phrase, burned out in an instant, before Ferros's Auxiliary Ponderor chip burned out in an instant.

Astarte, who had made the duel request, fell to his knees amid a hoarse cry filled with electronic noise.

"Ahh O Iron Hand! Is that you?! ”

The Iron Father looked up and saw a scene that he would never forget, and what was so exciting.

Argent.

It was a flowing silver, starting from where Garuda grasped Dreadnought, extending to Dreadnought's fingertips, the silver metal glowing with a subtle sheen, and as it shimmered like a dark lake under the moon, Dreadnought's palms seemed to be plated with a layer of moon silver, and then began to change its shape, from a pair of perfect hands to a weapon of destruction.

(End of chapter)