Warhammer: Striving to Be a Grinding Man

Chapter 108 The Great Sage Enpu

The elevator platform carried Orelius and his party down into the depths of Wangshu. The ark's berth gradually receded overhead, and all around them was the internal structure of Wangshu—a cabin with a fine gold frame supporting the bulkheads, the surface of which was covered with ceramic steel plates, and emergency lights flashing at intervals.

Two ceremonial attendants stood at the front of the lifting platform, their deep red ceremonial robes motionless.

The elevator platform descended several thousand meters and came to a stop. Ahead lay a wide corridor. Along both sides of the corridor, every five meters, stood a Starfortress-type intelligent mech from the Great Expedition era. Their over four-meter-tall steel bodies gleamed with a dark gray sheen under the cold white lights, layers of thick terracotta armor covering them. Heavy fist-shaped explosive cannons were integrated into their shoulders, and robust powered gauntlets hung at their sides. Their optical lenses glowed with a dark red light, forming two rows of silent dots in the dim corridor.

Orerius walked through them. His mechanical eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn't speak. The men behind him also remained silent. Footsteps echoed down the corridor.

At the end of the corridor stood a large door forged from fine gold. Above the doorframe was an inscription of binary code. A servant stepped forward and placed his palm on the sensor panel beside the door. The door slowly slid open.

Behind the door was a huge foundry hall.

The dome was so high that the beams of searchlights couldn't reach its top. The walls on either side were inlaid with arrays of Thinkers, stretching from the ground to the very top of the dome. In the dim light, the indicator lights formed a dark red vein, like a starry sea that had slumbered for millennia. Data cables dangled from the interfaces of each Thinker, converging into thick bundles that crawled along the walls, finally merging into the chair in the very center of the hall.

On both sides of the hall, dozens of Starfortress mechs stood in formation. More numerous and more orderly than those in the corridor. Their optical lenses simultaneously turned in the darkness, locking onto the crowd entering the hall, before slowly retracting.

In the very center of the hall, a chair made of fine gold is fixed to a high platform. Thousands of data cables extend from the chair's backrest and armrests, reaching upwards and connecting to the data bus in the hall's dome.

There was a person sitting in the chair.

No, it wasn't human. It was a body covered in machinery. His face still retained human features—dark gray skin, tightly closed eyes, and a mouth pressed into a thin line. Almost everything below the back of his head was mechanical. His spine was a data bus forged from adamantium, his ribs were fitted with heat dissipation grilles and energy conduits, and his arms from the shoulder joints down were sophisticated mechanical prosthetics, with micro-tool interfaces embedded in the fingertips. More than seventy percent of his body was mechanical; only his face retained the last trace of humanity.

He wore a deep red robe—the signature color of the Pronoris Casting World—trimmed with gold gear patterns, and the cuffs and collar inlaid with intricate brass gear ornaments. The hood was not pulled up. His head was bald; instead, countless extremely fine beams of electrons extended from the top of his skull and the back of his head, reaching upwards to connect to the data bus above the seat back. These beams shimmered with a dim, silvery-white light in the dim light, trembling slightly.

Dozens of servo skulls hovered around his head. Some hovered in front of the Thinker array, data cables dangling from the base of the skulls; others weaved between the data cables, their optical lenses repeatedly zooming in and out; still others rested on the dome of the hall, their pupils flashing a dark red light. They exchanged data with each other using high-frequency binary pulses, a low hum echoing beneath the dome.

All of this was a carefully crafted disguise by Cohen for the avatar of the Great Sage Enpu. An ancient backup of consciousness that had drifted back from the warp for millennia needed a stage befitting it. Only in this way would the people of Lucis be convinced, awe-inspiring, and believe in the authenticity of Pronoris's legacy.

A ceremonial servant stood inside the door and announced loudly via binary pulse: "The Sage Aurelius Cornelius, from the Lucius Forging World, has come to pay his respects on the orders of the Forging Master."

Binary pulses echoed through the hall. The hum of the Thinker array's cooling pumps seemed to subside for a moment, as if listening.

Aurelius led the entire inspection team into the hall. He stood at the front of the line, looking up at the chair, at the mechanically covered body on it, and at the countless electronic beams extending from above. His prosthetic eye's focus narrowed slightly before returning to normal.

He clenched his right fist, knuckles pressed against the gear and skull emblem on his chest, and slowly performed a gear salute. The movement was neither fast nor slow, every inch precise.

The technical priests behind him knelt. Their crimson robes spread out on the metal floor, their foreheads pressed against the cold metal. The chosen knights bowed their heads, their right fists pressed against their left chests. The legal sage bowed slightly, tucking the data tablet under his arm.

Aurelius did not kneel. He stood there, his right fist clenched against his chest, his back straight. He represented not only himself, but also the Forging Master of the Lucis Forging World—another Great Sage of Mechanics.

The Starforge mechs on both sides of the hall remained motionless. But the dark red light from the optical lenses flickered slightly.

The body on the chair remained still, but the electronic beam above its head flickered. A long binary pulse emanated from the speaker—not data, but a greeting, a chant, the oldest form of greeting from the Mechanicus. All the servo skulls in the hall simultaneously stopped moving, hovering in mid-air, their pupils aligned with the chair. The indicator lights on the Thinker array flashed in unison.

Then, low Gothic words squeezed out from the same vocal organ, deep and hoarse, each word as if dug out bit by bit from a thousand years of slumber.

"Fellow citizens of Lucius—welcome. Use logic to confirm your identity."

Enp opened his eyes. The focal length of the optical lens slowly shifted, and pale blue light shone through his pupils, sweeping across the people in the hall.

"I am Enpu Shakra. Punolis, the Great Sage of Machines who forges the world."

His voice paused for a moment.

"Ten thousand years ago, when Proxis was destroyed by Chaos, my consciousness was stored in the data core of the Ark and entered the warp with the Ark. Everything else—my body, my complete consciousness, the technological data I accumulated throughout my life—has perished in the warp's erosion."

He paused for a moment.

"I am incomplete. My consciousness cannot remain conscious for long. Cohen Severus is my representative, my hands and feet, my only bridge to the outside world. You should discuss the specifics of Garros with him."

Aurelius looked at Enp. His gaze moved from the steel body on the chair to the trembling electron beam above his head, to the servo skulls swirling around him, to the Starfortress soldiers lined up on both sides of the hall, to the prayer scrolls hanging from the dome. He looked very carefully.

"The Great Sage." His voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear. "The Forge Master of Lucis asked me to convey his respects."

"Punolis fought valiantly to his death, and the planet was pulled into warp by chaos and ceased to exist. This is a great loss to the Empire. The return of the Ark and the return of the Titan Legion is an honor for the Empire and for Lucis."

Enp's optical lens flickered. "Pronoris is gone. But its legacy remains."

He paused for a moment, then didn't continue.

Orelius didn't press the matter. Silence filled the hall, broken only by the hum of the servo skull and the sound of current flowing through the data cables.

Then Aurelius performed the cogwheel salute again.

"Great Sage. The Lucius Temple Council is only missing a written report to vouch for this. The Garros Autonomous Territory is already a Lucius-affiliated territory, and Sage Cohen himself is a fifth-order sage of Lucius. There are no problems with any of this."

Enpu's optical lens flickered.

"Om Messiah protects Lucis."

"Om Messiah protects you, Great Sage."

Aurelius turned and led the inspection team out of the hall. The people behind him followed him, silently retreating.

The elevator platform rose. The dome of the hall gradually shrank in view, and the indicator lights of the million Thinkers array connected into a dark red vein in the darkness. Enp Shakra sat in the adamantite chair, countless electronic beams connected to the data bus above his head, and servo skulls hovered around him. His figure grew smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared into the shadow of the dome.

The elevator reached its top, and Aurelius and his party returned to the Anvil. The ship's bridge shone with a cold white light under the dock lights of Wangshu. He walked up the gangway and sat down in the captain's chair. His prosthetic eye's aperture was fixed in a single focus.

"Departure. Back to Lucifer."

The Anvil's thrusters ignited, and the ship slowly slid out of its berth. The Wangshu's metallic hull rotated slowly under the starlight, the blue exhaust plumes of thousands of ion thrusters forming a dim halo on its back, like a moon encased in steel, silently hanging in the night sky above Garros.

Orelius stood at the porthole of the bridge, watching the steel moon gradually shrink in his field of vision.

He opened the data panel and wrote on the first line of the report: "Punoris Forging World, Enp Shakra, the Mechanical Sage, confirmed to be alive. Consciousness backup, flawed, no longer able to independently manage Garros, is being fully managed by Sage Cohen Severus. The Forging Ark truly exists. The Titan Legion truly exists. All technological backups truly exist."

He closed the data panel, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes.

The Anvil sailed toward Mandeville.

The ship shuddered, and purple chaos surged into the boundary of the Geller Field. The Anvil leaped into the subspace, heading towards Lucis.

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