Warhammer 40K in a box

Chapter 262 Awakening the Divine Machine
At the end of the 41st millennium, the Grey Knights and the Mechanicus jointly launched an exploration mission targeting anomalous celestial bodies in the Extreme Starfield.

The celestial body that suddenly appeared on the Imperial star map was confirmed by surveying to be the former Mechanicus world of Calonia, which had disappeared more than a hundred years ago.

When the Imperial fleet arrived in orbit, investigations revealed that the Dark Mechanicus had used the difference in time flow between the warp and the physical universe to place the planet in a distorted timeline.

In the century that has passed in the real universe, Calonia has undergone a full ten centuries of decadent production under the influence of the subspace.

Hundreds of demonic titans were born in the Chaos Foundries scattered across the planet's surface. These war machines, a fusion of dark mechanical technology and demonic nature, were the secret weapons prepared for Warmaster Abaddon's thirteenth Black Crusade.

A combined force of purification troops, personally led by the Grey Knights and the Mechanicus exploration fleet, forcibly landed on the planet's surface. Their mission was to destroy all the demonic titans and prevent these forbidden weapons from flowing into the Chaos faction.

During the Grey Knights and the Mechanicus's operation, they discovered a brand-new, unknown type of Titan on this planet. It was even larger than the Imperial Titan and had exceptionally advanced technology, and was known as the Punisher Titan.

This Titan prototype is equipped with self-repair technology and a large number of powerful technologies from the long-lost Dark Ages. It can act autonomously without a pilot. At its core is an STC template called the Castiglione-class bipedal autonomous weapon platform.

Further testing revealed that this precious STC template had been contaminated by warp energy, but its chaotic nature was hidden beneath false memories due to the distortion of millennia—it firmly believed itself to be the original Titan prototype and had no recollection of being corrupted by demons.

Later, at the request of their fellow Inquisitors, the Grey Knights and Mechanicus destroyed all the demonic Titans on the planet and convinced STC to realize that it had been parasitized by demons. They then destroyed the STC template and the Punisher-class Titan.

This is the only Titan with autonomous action capabilities recorded in the Empire's official records to date.

But if you asked Caul to comment, he would only say that the Mechanicus had already developed similar technologies and ruthless feats during the Great Crusade.

The proof of this assertion was standing right in front of Chen Xi—an ancient and unique Warrior-class Titan.

This Titan is not a product of the modern empire's creation of the world, but rather originates from a long-lost STC template from the dark age of technology.

Unlike the Punisher class, it does not possess true self-awareness, but for the pioneers of the Mechanicus during the Great Crusade, this was not an insurmountable obstacle.

In that era before technology was restricted, the technology of intelligent mechs was not subject to the strict limitations that followed. The size of the Death-class intelligent mechs could even approach that of the Knight mechs.

Therefore, it is theoretically entirely feasible to transplant the control system of intelligent mechs onto Titan-level war machines to create intelligent Titans that do not require pilots.

However, due to various reasons, such as the instability of the technology, the Empire's wariness of autonomous war machines, or the knowledge gap caused by the turmoil of the civil war, this intelligently controlled Titan ultimately failed to enter mass production.

The valuable related technologies were gradually lost, leaving only a prototype abandoned deep in a forgotten ancient ruin until Caul unearthed it in the ruins of a remote star sector and spent centuries repairing and modifying it.

To conceal its existence, Kaul reshaped the prototype to resemble a General-class Titan, but its essence remained a bipedal autonomous weapon platform from the Dark Ages. While it did resemble the common General-class Titans of the Empire, closer inspection revealed differences: this General-class Titan stood more upright, its form as straight as an ancient knight, rather than the hunched, heavy posture of modern Titans.

The armor features smoother lines, and the joint structure exhibits a level of flexibility far exceeding that of standard Imperial Titans.

Its right arm is equipped with a Titan-class incendiary weapon called "Burning Embrace," capable of instantly vaporizing the armor of an Emperor-class Titan; its left arm is a giant power fist, powerful enough to shatter the outer walls of the hive city with a single blow.

Even more terrifying, it also has two incredibly powerful plasma destroyers mounted on its shoulders, whose humming sound when charging is enough to terrify any enemy.

This Titan is just one of many secret research projects that Caul has scattered throughout the galaxy. It was carefully deployed in the core area beneath this forge as the ultimate weapon to guard the last line of defense.

Any unauthorized intruder that breaches the outer defenses and ventures into the underground facilities of this forge will trigger an alarm. The Thinker Array will immediately send an awakening protocol to this ancient, intelligent Titan, activating this ancient divine machine to utterly annihilate the intruder.

In this narrow and cramped underground environment, this specially modified intelligent Titan demonstrated tactical advantages far exceeding those of conventional models.

Its form is more flexible, its weapons are more powerful, and it even has the self-repair technology that other divine machines of the Empire dream of.

For any plunderer who dares to covet the results of Kaul's research, facing such a war machine that integrates the essence of the dark age of technology, there is only one outcome—to be reduced to ashes in the scorching torrent of explosive weapons, or to be crushed into a blurry mixture of flesh and metal by that enormous power fist.

Furthermore, this Titan will strictly enforce the annihilation agreement, leaving no survivors and accepting no form of surrender.

Once the last intruder's vital signs disappear, it will quietly return to its dedicated compartment, awaiting the next moment when it will be awakened by the machine spirit.

However, to Chen Xi, the dormant divine machine before him was not a terrifying guardian, but a war machine that could be used.

His power armor display screen flashed with the binary key personally granted by Caul, which allowed him to pass through layers of heavily guarded restricted areas without hindrance, directly to the Titan Sanctuary at the heart of the forge.

Chen Xi stood in front of the massive armored compartment, gazing up at the sleeping divine machine.

The viewfinder of the Terminator power armor swept across the entire Sanctuary and then locked onto a control panel located at the feet of the God Machine.

Chen Xi went to the control panel, took out a key from the power armor's storage compartment, inserted it into the control panel's interface, and sent a digital command: "Awaken this divine machine, the Thinker."

"Command received, authorization verified, awakening process in progress." The Thinker's machine soul completed the verification, rows of indicator lights lit up, and the massive divine machine began to awaken.

(End of this chapter)