Warhammer: Don't Call Me the God of All Machines

Chapter 713 Interlude: Mr. Krabs and His Star God Offspring

The moment his soul left his body, Dantioch thought he was dead.

He knew that he was not a psychic and could not allow his soul to temporarily leave his body.

This was knowledge he had gained from a Thousand Sons sorcerer in the distant past, when the Fourth and Fifteenth Legions were on good terms.

Dantioch could clearly feel that he had become a kind of soul state, free from the constraints of his aging body.

"Am I not loyal enough to the Emperor's faith?"

"Why didn't my soul return to the Golden Throne?"

Countless questions arose in the War Blacksmith's mind, but he was not the kind of person who would worry about trivial matters. He quickly cleared his mind and faced the reality before him.

Since there is no way to return to the Golden Throne, let's take this opportunity to explore the Lighthouse of Pharos again.

He wanted to solve this puzzle, which had taken him more than thirty years and consumed countless energy, but had always been just one step away from being solved, before he died.

Dantioch's soul descended into the Tesseract Labyrinth.

This dimensional maze constructed with Necron technology is only the size of a Land Raider from the outside.

But inside it, an unimaginably vast space is folded and twisted.

A hypercube maze integrates the Necrons' incredible space and dimensional technologies.

"The four-dimensional space has completely formed a closed spacetime region, like a Klein bottle that traps a prisoner."

"This hypercube maze is just a cage. The real source of infinite energy is the prisoner imprisoned within."

Dantioch's research on Necron technology over the past few decades has reached an extremely advanced stage.

He even fully understood the necromancy technology contained in Faros.

As long as he could create a qualified energy source, Dantioch could immediately build a human version of the Lighthouse of Pharos.

Even Trazyn didn't know that his clan's precious Pharos system had been completely mastered by a human.

This son of Perturabo is the one who truly inherited the gene father's talent for invention and creation.

Perturabo was not so much a general on the battlefield as he was a genius inventor and scientist forced to engage in war.

When he was in Olympia, he showed extremely strong creative talent and helped his adoptive father build many war weapons and defensive fortresses.

His talent and intelligence would make even many sages of the Mechanicus sweat profusely and feel inferior to him.

Dantioch could hear the voice calling him, extremely faint, like a hallucination.

He had no fear in his heart and walked straight towards the source of the sound.

He didn't know how long or how far he had walked. In the soul state and without any objective reference, Dantioch only felt that his sense of time was being stripped away.

The surrounding space seemed to be absorbing his soul power, but this absorption was too weak to be detected without careful observation.

Dantioch lost his way in this intricate maze more than once, but he found his way again at the call of that voice.

Finally, when the War Blacksmith saw a fluorescent tower made of light-eating superalloy appear in front of him, the existence that had been calling it finally revealed its true form.

It was a humanoid being that was hundreds of meters tall, unable to be seen with the naked eye and could not be fully formed in the brain.

Its body was surrounded by pure blue energy that made one's heart palpitate. Even a little bit of it was enough to completely annihilate a human hive city.

And that tall tower is constantly drawing energy from it, never stopping.

"What...are you?"

Dantioch asked instinctively. He saw that his body was also stuck in front of the tower, standing still as if it had frozen.

After a while, the prisoner in the tower finally made his voice heard.

It can be seen that it is extremely difficult for it to do this. The pain in its voice is getting stronger and stronger, as if it is enduring some inhuman torture.

"I am... the Ruler."

"The Ruler... Zahurash!"

"Lord of the Stars, Son of the Universe."

As the guy who called himself the ruler spoke, the entire hypercube maze began to change.

A huge echo reverberated in the labyrinth, shaking Dantioch's soul.

Countless illusory threads were entangled on the tower, and the other end was linked like a chain to the guy who called himself the ruler.

It is continuously strengthening the restraining force and drawing out the power of the ruler to consolidate the maze.

Dantioch watched for a long time and finally saw the true power of this maze.

The hypercube maze not only confuses and imprisons people, but also converts the energy of prisoners into energy to keep itself running.

In fact, the stronger the imprisoned object and the more fierce the resistance, the stronger the restraint it can release.

"It's an ingenious design that uses the power of prisoners to restrict prisoners, perfectly maintaining the normal operation of the entire system." Dantioch praised.

As the saying goes, an expert knows the ins and outs of a business. His understanding of the hypercube maze quickly made him realize how remarkable this thing was.

In comparison, the Blackstone Fortress they built on the moon of Macragge looked much more crude and shoddy.

Over the years, the original Blackstone Fortress has been filled with defrauded Warp creatures.

They are deceived and abducted by their relatives, friends, or even mortal enemies, and then the cycle continues, expanding the scope of victims.

Dantioch only occasionally heard Opal Day mention it, and only then did he know that the thing that came out of his sudden inspiration had such a great effect.

"Stop looking, get me out!"

"In the name of the Ruler."

The guy who called himself the ruler was severely drained by the hypercube maze and now looked a little listless and extremely weak.

Even though it has infinite energy, it still needs some time to recover.

"Humanity……"

"Your body is breaking down. Some kind of entropy is entangled in your timeline, causing you to age and die faster."

"I can redeem you, I can give you eternal life."

The Ruler began to persuade it that it had been in this damn hypercube maze for too long, so long that it even had some memory problems.

It only remembered that it was blasted to pieces by those damned slaves with god-killing weapons, and changed from its original whole body to its current broken form.

This fragment of the ruler is relatively the largest of all the fragments, and therefore its consciousness is the most complete.

For decades, Ruler Zarahush has kept a watchful eye on Dantioch.

This tiny carbon-based monkey comes to Pharos every sidereal day to study the technology of the Necrons.

The ruler understood that this was its closest chance to escape.

If Dantioch dies completely, who knows who will be the next creature to enter the hypercube maze?
The Necron Dynasty guarding them is sleeping, and they have not yet reached the originally scheduled time of awakening.

If the guards were to wake up, the Ruler would realize that his escape would be almost impossible.

Dantioch ignored the nagging of the glowing humanoid creature in front of him.

He was a veteran who had experienced the entire Heresy and witnessed countless of his battle-brothers fall into Chaos and bewitched by the demons of the Warp.

If he was so easy to believe this promise that was obviously not a good one, Dantioch might as well cut off his own head and kick it around like a ball.

"stop."

"First, tell me what you are."

Dantioch interrupted, and the Ruler choked on his words.

How disrespectful, how blasphemous!
How dare a mere carbon-based monkey speak to the great Star God Ruler Zarahush in such a manner?!
The Ruler wanted to calm down his anger, but he wanted to escape even more.

So it had to be patient and explain its existence with its nose pinched.

"I am a Star God, the embodiment of the essence of the universe, and the only true God in this final galaxy..."

Dantioch used his interrupt skill again.

"Then if you are the only true God, why are you imprisoned?"

The Warsmith asked seriously, his expression showing no hint of sarcasm.

"Well……"

calm down!
"You asked a very good question. I was imprisoned in this damned maze because I was betrayed by those despicable undead slaves."

"Our Star God mercifully saved the Necrontyr and granted them endless life and power."

"But our kindness was betrayed. These guys betrayed us and joined forces with the enemies from the Warp, wielding the blade of betrayal against their masters."

The ruler recounted his experience with compassion, as if he were truly pure and innocent, and was only betrayed by his own kindness.

Dantiochka ignored these highly subjective responses.

What he needs is the most objective and rational explanation.

He had finally met a being who claimed to be God, so naturally he wanted to clarify all his doubts.

"Since you are God, can you explain your definition of God?"

The ruler was filled with speechlessness and anger. Why couldn't this mortal bow down like the Necrontyr of the past?

"Alright alright."

"Since you are so eager to learn, I will tell you what God is."

"I am the embodiment of the Universal Law, the star devourer, the embodiment of entropy.

I was born from the fission of the universe and feed on the foundation of the physical universe.

My physical body is an energy storm in the dimensional folds, which can cause galaxies to collapse into strings in a breath.

My existence requires no belief, my authority requires no reverence—I am the tyrant of the Second Law of Thermodynamics."

The Ruler explained proudly, and Dantioch questioned again.

"What do you think of the Warp and the evil gods within it? They are gods too, but they are contrary to what you say."

The ruler took a deep breath and calmed his temper and anger.

"Those are merely false gods. Their power comes from the ripples of the sea of souls, the condensation of the emotional power of countless lives."

"And I am the embodiment of the laws of the universe. As long as the universe exists, then we exist. Even if the universe is destroyed, as long as there is a day to restart, we will restart."

"Are you satisfied with my explanation?"

Dantioch closed his mouth and carefully considered whether the logic was self-consistent.

The Ruler was a little anxious and urged.

"Let me out first. When I return to the real universe and regain my freedom, we'll have plenty of time to communicate."

"I can tell you the nature of the universe, and the knowledge that you will never be able to learn in 100 million years."

"I can't answer your question very well here, can I?"

Dantioch raised his head and looked at poor Zahurash with a hint of sarcasm.

"What qualifications do you have to control my will?"

"I, Dantioch, am a warrior of the Emperor and a protector of humanity. My soul belongs to the Emperor and humanity. What are you?"

"A prisoner in a cage who thinks he's God?"

The humanoid being in the fluorescent tower suddenly went berserk. It angrily pounded on the barriers and shackles, but more energy was drained from it.

It realized that it seemed to have been tricked.

"Humble mortal, aren't you afraid of death? Your body is dying, and your soul cannot last long without the body."

Dantioch looked at his body and found that it was indeed as the other party said, it had begun to become a little dim and transparent.

"Death, what's there to fear?"

"Iron Warriors, steel inside and out!"

Dantioch's battle cry left the ruler feeling powerless.

If a person is not afraid of death, then what else can threaten him?
"In my concept, God must be omniscient and omnipotent.

But you are neither omniscient nor omnipotent, and you deceived me with clumsy lies. What kind of god are you? "

Dantioch mocked impudently.

"Wake up, Ruler, you are defeated."

"The Necrons use mathematics as chains, using the hypercube maze to reduce your divinity to a computable model."

Zakhurash was a little numb. Why did this carbon-based monkey have such deep philosophical thinking?

It calls the other to come in order to liberate itself, not to discuss philosophy.

"Enough, enough, what do you want in exchange for releasing me?" The Ruler revealed his cards.

"We can talk about terms, can't we?"

Yet Dantioch continued to make his point.

"Your fall has proven one thing: you are not a god, but merely a tiny will that controls divine power.

You are still the king of the physical universe, but you have already become a burning battery in a cage."

At this moment, even the Ruler was confused by Dantioch.

Star Gods have never been good at thinking. They are born with countless unfathomable knowledge, which is a gift from the universe to them.

They are the darlings of the universe. Without thinking or learning, they can master knowledge that many races cannot master even after spending countless years of hard work.

Compared to boring and tedious thinking, they would rather suck the stars or taste the soul desserts of living things.

Dantioch suddenly moved and headed towards the cage that imprisoned the Ruler's body.

It instantly became alert. This was the right thing to do. How could a mortal creature resist the temptation of a star god?
The Warsmith threw his soul into the fluorescent tower without hesitation.

He wanted to verify a conjecture he had just obtained from the Star God.

The Star God may not be able to be killed, but can his cognition be changed?
Dantioch's soul pierced the fluorescent tower like a silver-blue arc.

In an instant, his consciousness was thrown into a boiling star abyss - the essence of the ruler was not flesh and blood or energy, but the rules of the universe woven together by billions of mathematical formulas.

Mathematics is the language of the universe. If we analyze the Star God to the extreme, we may find that it is a living mathematical formula.

Every formula is screaming. They are equations of stellar annihilation, topological models of dimensional collapse, and the codes that the universe presets for its own birth and death.

The C'tan, soulless but self-aware, discovered Dantioch's dangerous intentions.

What this human was about to do was even more blasphemous and presumptuous than what those damn Necrons had done.

The Necrons just want to smash the Star God into pieces, then put the fragments into cages to extract energy.

But what Dantioch had to do was to imprint his own dirty and insignificant consciousness on the fragments of the Star God.

"Carbon-based ant, how dare you touch divinity?!"

"How dare you, how dare you, how dare you!"

The will of the Ruler transformed into a gravitational vortex like a black hole, trying to tear Dantioch's soul apart.

The Warsmith didn't flinch.

He unfolded his own mental matrix—the “logical cage” he had constructed during his thirty years of studying the hypercube maze.

The data torrent from the Pharos Lighthouse surged through his consciousness, and the dimensional algorithms of necromancy technology and the dialectical philosophy of humanity were fused into a sharp blade at this moment.

"Your divinity is nothing more than an expression of the universe's inertia." "Your power comes from the universe, not your consciousness. Don't you understand this?"

"You are not powerful, only the universe is powerful!"

"You are not brave, only humans are brave!"

Dantioch sneered.

He disassembled and reorganized the Ruler's energy formula, covered it with his own thought matrix, and polluted Zahorash's consciousness.

The screams of the Star God turned into a turbulent stream of data, and the human mind devoured every string of code like living metal.

"You say you're the tyrant of thermodynamics? But a tyrant never dares to question his throne!"

He triggered the paradox in the Ruler's logical chain - if the Star God is truly the embodiment of the laws of the universe, why is he confined by a lower-dimensional mathematical model?

If strength is truth, why can the Necrons kill gods with "imperfect" technology?

Zakhoury was unable to explain these questions.

As Dantiochus said, it is the universe itself that is great, not its consciousness called "Zakhurash".

The Necrons' extradimensional labyrinth is indeed unable to imprison the original rules represented by the Star God Ruler, but it can imprison the Star God Zahorash.

The fluorescent tower began to tremble violently.

Cracks appeared in the Ruler's energy storm, and Dantioch's will seeped in like a virus.

He was writing his own existence into the core of the C'tan fragment.

"No! This is impossible!"

"You're nothing but a lowly monkey!"

The Ruler's screams gradually became intertwined with mechanical sounds, and its glowing humanoid form began to take on steel patterns.

Although Dantioch's soul was dissipating, he was still smiling grimly.

He is using the same method that the Necrons use to drain the energy of the Star Gods to reversely extract the divinity of the Ruler to maintain his own existence.

When the last wisp of human consciousness was embedded in the core of the Star God, the hypercube maze suddenly fell silent.

In the fluorescent tower, a new silver-gray form slowly opened its eyes—the left pupil was a beating stellar fire core, while the right pupil was a cold mechanical iris.

"Now it's time for God to learn to be afraid."

"I am Dantioch, steel inside and out!"

The Star God Fragment raised his palm with a Dantioch-style sneer, and the light of the Pharos Lighthouse, which had been extinguished, suddenly surged.

In the outside world, his dying body suddenly stopped aging, and starlight flowed between the wrinkles.

Dantioch is using the power of the Star God to control the rules to reverse the injuries to his body caused by the entropy rays in the past.

His body is rejuvenating.

Ruler Zahurash never imagined that his "immortality" would continue in such a humiliating way - becoming the carrier of human will.

He would indeed be free, but it would be a freedom granted by Dantioch.

And Dantioch finally understood a truth: the so-called godslaying is nothing more than making the gods learn to speak human language.

He controlled his own body to destroy the key energy nodes of this hypercube maze, causing flaws in its self-sustaining operation.

As soon as a flaw appears, the Star God fragments will be released.

The Pharos Lighthouse was shaking violently, and its energy source was experiencing a devastating fluctuation.

In order to escape, Dantioch could only temporarily destroy its energy source.

Accompanied by a deafening explosion, the mountains of Pharos began to collapse and destroy as if they were hit by a violent earthquake.

This serious situation immediately shocked the Extreme Warriors.

"what happens?!"

Opal Day, the commander of the 199th Company stationed in Sosa, roared in horror.

He wanted to organize people to check the situation of those ancient caves, but now the mountains are collapsing, and even the Space Marines cannot disobey the wrath of nature.

They could only fly Stormbirds and Thunderhawks to scout the situation from high altitude.

"Dantioch is still inside!" Opal Day was anxious.

He didn't know how he would explain to his father if he lost Dantioch!
Dantioch broke free from the confines of the Tesseract Labyrinth and now possessed two bodies: his own flesh and the fragment of the Ruler's C'tan.

He thought about it and decided to integrate the fragments of the Star God into his own body and hide it temporarily.

Dantioch accomplished an unprecedented feat: he used his mortal will to overcome the will of a C'tan fragment.

He imprinted his thought matrix onto the consciousness of the fragments of the Star God, and he successfully made the God start speaking human language.

This is almost an unrepeatable miracle. No one has such a deep understanding of the Pharos system and the fragments of the Star God.

This fragment of the Star God was imprisoned and restricted by the Hypercube Labyrinth and Farrows, and it couldn't even use much power to resist.

The two sides can only engage in a battle of wills.

And the fragments of Zahurash were broken into just the right size. If it had been a little more powerful, only Dantioch would have been assimilated.

After decades of refinement, Dantioch's will has become so firm that even the Chaos God himself cannot distort it.

A true iron warrior, truly steel inside and out.

His love for humanity, his own firm belief, and his reunion with Kelvalen and others filled the gaps in his heart.

Everything merged together to form a sword that could kill the consciousness of a star god.

The War Blacksmith did not feel excited or arrogant about obtaining the power of the Star God fragment.

He had met Roxi and the Emperor, and he understood that these humans who were more powerful and fearless than him were still so humble.

Why should he be proud?
Is he like Perturabo, who is obviously not as capable as his other brothers, yet is still arrogant and self-righteous?
For no reason, the War Blacksmith thought of his genetic father.

Suddenly, when this thought came to him, abnormal disturbances occurred in the surrounding space and time.

A powerful subspace force emerged out of nowhere from the collapsed Pharos system.

It seemed that the collapse of this ancient relic caused a resonance in the Warp Ocean.

Two figures fell heavily from mid-air.

One of them was wearing gorgeous golden armor, covered in dust and looked quite disheveled.

The other person was only wearing a black and gray robe and looked very small.

But when Dantioch saw the appearance of the two men, even the war blacksmith who had played against the Star God fragments was completely stunned.

"Lord Dorne?"

"And you, damn it—Perturabo?!"

Dantioch was certain that the child, who was only sixty centimeters tall, was definitely his genetic father, the damned traitor who had brought corruption and shame to the Iron Warriors.

Dorn and Perturabo, who fell out of the Warp rift, looked at their surroundings with extreme vigilance.

They were dragged to various timelines by the time turbulence in their bodies, and the chaos had already reached an unimaginable level.

"This is where?"

"You are...Dantioch?!"

The two Primarchs focused their attention on the only living person here.

Dantioch's voice sounded particularly familiar to both of them, and little Perturabo recognized his offspring at the first moment.

"What time is it now?" Dorn asked seriously without losing any time.

He knew of Dantioch's existence. Back when he was still a member of the Trident, the Lord of the Imperial Fist had known about this veteran who was as tough as steel.

There are not many people in the Fourth Legion who are valued by Dorne. The citybreaker Fricks is one of them, and this Dantioch is also one of them.

"It has been thirty years since the Emperor ascended the Golden Throne again."

"For all this time, Lord Roboute Guilliman and the High Lords of Terra have been governing the Imperium."

Dantioch's attitude towards Dorn was much better than his attitude towards Perturabo.

"Thirty years? We've arrived at a point in the future of the meta-timeline."

Dawn muttered to himself.

Ever since he and Perturabo were caught in the turbulence of time and space, they have been drifting in different timelines.

The earliest time, they even came to the time of the War in Heaven and witnessed what it was like when the entire galaxy was in chaos.

Both Dorn and Perturabo were so shocked by what they saw that they could hardly express it in words.

"With all due respect, Lord Dorne, you seem to be entangled with a very strange kind of temporal entropy energy."

"Even more complicated and bizarre than what's in me."

"That's why you suddenly appeared here."

Dantioch, who successfully fused the fragments of the Star God, was able to see the essence of the universe with his own eyes.

The world in his eyes is no longer a simple optical image, but the movement of matter and the transformation of energy. The three states of information-matter-energy circulate over and over again.

Dorn was a little surprised. For some reason, he felt a strong threat from this ordinary, seemingly ordinary Astartes in front of him.

This threat was even stronger than the one he encountered on the battlefield.

"That's true. Do you have any ideas?" Dorn asked directly.

Dantioch began to analyze the conditions of the two Primarchs, and he was able to deal with the entropic field left by the Hrud on Perturabo.

But he didn't want to solve it.

The Primarch was entwined with an extremely powerful force of the Warp, and the power of the Star God was powerless against the Warp.

Seeing Dantioch shook his head, Dorne was not too disappointed. He had never expected to be lucky enough to solve the problem in one go.

"I don't know how long I can stay here. An inexplicable force draws us here."

"Dantioch, I hope you can tell the Imperial Fists warriors not to waste their time looking for me."

"The Empire is the most important. I, the son of Rogal Dorn, will never put selfishness before justice."

"When the time is right, I will return to the Empire."

Dantioch looked at Dorn, then at little Perturabo who was still making a fuss on the ground, and was speechless.

Look at others, then look at your own genetic father.

"Lord Dorne, I understand."

"But please agree to one condition of mine."

Dantioch turned his gaze towards little Perturabo and spoke through gritted teeth, each word spoken.

"Please let me beat him up."

Dorn didn't hesitate at all. He grabbed little Perturabo's collar with his right hand and lifted him up.

"Please."

"What are you doing! Dawn! How dare you!"

Little Perturabo flapped his arms and legs desperately, but he could not shake Dorn's fingers, which were as hard as pure gold.

Dantioch twisted his neck, adjusting to his newly rejuvenated body.

The long-lost vitality swept away the decadence of Dantioch.

"Perturabo." The Warsmith did not call out the Gene-Father, but called out his name directly.

There was a fierce gleam in his eyes, and he did not restrain himself at all because the other party was his original body.

"Dantioch, I am your Primarch!"

"I order you to stop!"

Dantioch seemed to be deaf, and he charged forward with a powerful punch that hit little Perturabo in the face.

His fist was even bigger than the Primarch's head, and when he swung it, a strong wind blew up.

The profile of little Perturabo was instantly deformed, and the bruised muscle and connective tissue suddenly became red, swollen and swollen.

He really didn't expect that his rebellious son could actually do such a thing.

"This punch is for the brothers who died at your tyranny."

"This blow is for the people of the Empire who died at your stupidity and arrogance."

"This punch is for the Emperor you have let down and betrayed!"

Even if all the ice oceans of Fenris were poured out, Dantioch's rage could not be extinguished. Perturabo was beaten so badly that he lost his mind, felt dizzy, and had broken bones.

The War Blacksmith rarely showed an excited and ecstatic smile. He looked at the blood on his fist and cried and laughed.

"Do you remember the Hrud Crusade?"

"Why do you take on a mission that other Legions and Primarchs avoid? What is the meaning of this war?"

"why why?"

In Dantioch's heart, he has always been resentful of that meaningless war.

The Fourth Legion paid a heavy price to expel those aliens, but what it received was not comfort and encouragement from the Primarch, but endless complaints and accusations.

"You always say you're made of steel, both inside and out, and you always demand that of others. When have you ever lived up to that?"

Dantioch's saliva almost covered Perturabo's entire body. Dorn silently learned the war blacksmith's art of language and suddenly felt his own shortcomings.

Jade from other mountains can be used to polish stone.

"It's not like that... I..." Perturabo wanted to say something, but he could no longer hold on and fainted.

The Primarch's physique was extremely strong, and he would not die even if he was hit by a barrage of punches from Dantioch.

At most, he just needs to recuperate.

Dantioch felt that his internal organs and limbs had never been so unobstructed.

He bowed to Dorne to express his gratitude and said that he would definitely complete the Primarch's instructions.

The collapse of Mount Pharos has gradually stopped, and the roar of Thunderhawk gunships can be heard in the air.

Dorn raised his head and looked at the approaching fighter planes of the Thirteenth Legion.

Just as he was about to say something else, his body and Perturabo's body began to fade away.

In the blink of an eye, the two disappeared from Dantioch's sight again.

If it weren't for the Primarch's blood on his fist, he would have thought all this was just an illusion.

"Dantioch!" Opal Day's voice sounded from the Thunderhawk.

Their auspex detected the Warsmith's vital signs, and they immediately launched an airborne operation to save his life.

Dantioch looked at the Thunderhawk gunship with a smile on his face. As long as he was there, there would be no chaos in the Far East.

Now that he has greater power, he naturally has to take on more responsibilities.

Perhaps he should reorganize a true Iron Warrior Legion to better atone for the Empire's past sins.

(End of this chapter)