I'm a magnetic field madman

Or rather, their bodies were locked inside power armor, but the power armor betrayed Astartes, which controlled them...

They were trapped one by one in living coffins made from the things they trusted most, and forced to betray them.

The plague of logic can corrupt the thinking and actions of any construct with a simple system, including even humans themselves.

Because fundamentally, humans are also "machines" that are highly dependent on neural signals and organic structures, and the only difference between them and machines made of steel is the material.

And what does such technology amount to for the Abomination Intelligence, which has endless means of warfare in the Dark Ages?

The machine spirits, which are supervised and controlled by the Tech Priests, are in most cases an automated system that lacks self-upgrading. The Mechanicus believes that machine spirits are influenced by religious rituals and have characteristics similar to bestiality, capable of expressing emotions such as hatred and stubbornness.

This also explains that, apart from a few special cases of subspace projection, most machine souls are just low-level artificial intelligence.

The Abomination Intelligence's suppression of these non-warp force machine spirits is almost overwhelming...

This resulted in a large number of warships in the expeditionary force that had served for a short time being taken over by the enemy and suffering heavy losses before even reaching the battlefield.

The Mechanic Order was furious. A large number of sages and priests began to perform rituals to appease and strengthen the Mechanic Soul, but to little avail.

For warships that have served long enough, or war machines whose captains have merged with Titans, their soul-soothing and enhancement rituals can play a significant role.

However, for warships with a short service life, their ceremonies have almost no effect.

Many Mechanicus monks were even corrupted by warp forces during the rituals to appease the machine spirits.

This place remains the Eye of Fear, the closest point to the Warp. It is anything but friendly to them.

Leon was forced to issue the order to scrap these "infected" warships, decreeing that all warships with less than five hundred years of service be scrapped...

To a certain extent, some war machines, including Titans, were abandoned.

Leon even ordered some Astartes chapters to choose "unarmored" combat...

They were even forced to replace their advanced power armor with force feedback armor that lacked any automation.

Before the war even began, the expeditionary force had already been forced to lose nearly 20 percent of its strength.

This cast a damn shadow over the entire expeditionary force.

Even tactically, the expeditionary force was at a significant disadvantage! With their complete defeat in information warfare and long-range operations, they couldn't gain the upper hand even with their most effective boarding maneuvers!

Even if Astartes, unable to wear more advanced equipment, successfully jumps into the enemy's warship, it will still face the threat of a large number of extremely troublesome and powerful machine soldiers!

Apart from the Astartes champions, led by the Black Templars, their attempts to jump the gate mostly ended in failure.

Leon had long anticipated that the attack on Peturabo would end this way...

His brother possessed exceptional talent, even among the Primarchs—only a fool would dare to attack the fortress built by Peturabo.

Perturabo himself led the Iron Warriors to overcome countless difficulties during the Great Crusade, and because of this, they are more adept than the Imperial Fists at creating battlefronts that have no bottom line and are extremely cruel and dangerous in every aspect.

This war can undoubtedly be described as a wrong war waged at the wrong time and in the wrong place.

Just like the Battle of the Iron Cage in which Dorne participated, they shouldn't have provoked Perturabo, but for their own reasons, they had to lie down with that unhappy man.

But Leon had no choice; in fact, he became extremely uneasy after encountering such a crisis.

He knew that Peturabo was definitely brewing something. His brother's extreme and cruel reaction must mean that what he was hiding was more dangerous than he was.

The fleet could only advance headlong. Even with the help of Eldar reinforcements, which allowed them to circumvent the logical plague spread by the omnipresent Abomination Intelligence to some extent through the Webway, the Webway did not lead directly to Midgard.

The Lord of Steel has clearly interfered with warp travel within its area of ​​influence, and even hyperspace travel is completely impossible—it's too close to warp here, and hyperspace travel would be forcibly redirected into warp.

They can only reach the area near Midgard via the Web Paths, and then launch a frontal attack on the demon world controlled by the Iron Lords.

And this is the outcome of the war.

There was no victory, not even for the entire expeditionary fleet... they shamefully failed to even penetrate the demon star system where Midgard was located.

The Lord of Steel summoned thirteen demon worlds to form a defensive perimeter around Midgard... and even more insanely, he also laid out all sorts of outrageous defensive structures outside this inner defensive perimeter.

A vast number of creations from the dark age of technology were produced...

The various defensive mechanisms, far exceeding the technological singularity of the human empire, made it impossible for the expeditionary fleet to achieve any results.

The human empire has always liked to crush weaker enemies with its sheer size... but when it comes to the Abomination Intelligence, which has mastered the technology of the Dark Ages, the human empire has no advantage whatsoever.

They know humans too well, or rather, the technology of the human empire was simply the leftovers and discarded remnants of their technology.

Their technology was easily cracked, and it was even something that those who hated intelligence had already finished playing with.

The prepared extermination orders would be intercepted midway and thrown back by the enemy if the weapons could not be deployed. In fact, if the ships were not protected by loyal machine spirits, they would turn around and wipe them out.

You might ask, then why didn't the Magnetic Field Martial God jump ship and break in?

Because it wasn't just the abominations of intelligence; a vast number of demonic souls, controlled by Vashtor, the Lord of the Soul Forge, were poured into those subjugated beings...

These equally numerous demons, due to their proximity to the warp... used their even stronger magnetic field to overwhelm the human empire's expeditionary fleet.

Even Leon himself was held back by the overly dangerous demon Yafei, and had to rack his brains to deal with those terrifying demon engines.

This is also why Leon himself did not choose to directly break in... If he had left, Perturabo and Vashtor would probably have immediately ordered those Afi with the souls of the Great Demons to completely destroy the entire fleet!

After fighting in this insane meat grinder for an unknown amount of time, their greatest achievement was merely carving out a path to the inner defensive layer of Midgard.

But that was all; the price paid was the loss of most of the expeditionary fleet, and the depletion of almost all of its ammunition reserves.

But they couldn't see that Perturabo's resources were running out... Clearly, with the support of the evil god, this bastard was constantly acquiring endless resources through the warp to fuel this meat grinder!

Time passes imperceptibly in the eyes of fear, but even so, most of humanity trapped on this battlefield has been driven mad by this despair.

Despite being the empire's elite, they were like piles of meaningless cannon fodder, being filled into an endless mine.

The First Legion was decimated, and once again, the other legions also suffered heavy losses. It was only after paying such a high price that the Astartes finally managed to carve through this road.

He could not see the outcome of victory; all he heard every moment was the wailing of defeat and the screams of pain.

The Lion King closed his eyes, knowing this was a necessary sacrifice. These heavy costs were necessary to breach Peturabo's fortress.

Now is the time for the last victim to complete his mission.

"Let's take action," the Lion King said softly.

Carrying the fleet's last hope, an Eclipse-class Star Destroyer advanced at full speed toward the breach!

Led by Chapter Master Azrael of the Dark Angels, almost all the remaining Dark Angels were involved.

They yearn to prove their courage and loyalty before the Primarch!

They overloaded the black hole engines of the Eclipse-class Star Destroyer. Their plan was simple: to use this technology, which did not belong to this world, to detonate it in the inner ring of Midgard before the Abominations could fully analyze it!

By creating a black hole, Midgard's defenses could be completely destroyed, or even the Iron Lord could be killed outright!

This is not a smart way, but it may be the only way.

When the Chapter Master of the Dark Angels placed his father's helmet on his head, he felt nothing but immense pride and loyalty!

Looking at the defensive breaches carved out by his countless comrades with blood and fire...

Looking at the countless fallen loyal forces of the Empire and the evil alliance of Perturabo on both sides, and the broken circular wall, Azrael felt only burning loyalty and anger!

"Charge! For the Dark Angel! For Lord Leon! For the Emperor! For—humanity!!"

Roaring, at Azrael's command, the massive Eclipse-class propelled itself forward with all its might, breaking through the breached defenses...

From the terrifying Wailing Walls on both sides, countless tentacles stretched out, attempting to inject countless malicious codes into the Eclipse-class Star Destroyer and take it under control!

But they couldn't do it because the specifications were incompatible. The two worlds had completely different technology trees, making their code and technology unable to crack the firewall for a while!

Perhaps it's only a matter of time before these abhorrent intelligences crack it... but that short time is enough for them to break through that circular wall made of steel!

The Eclipse-class rushed into the inner ring of Midgard at top speed, and just as it was about to be crushed by the thirteen mechanical demon planets, it detonated its engines!

First came a fleeting aurora, followed by boundless darkness.

An absolute darkness appeared there, warping and absorbing all the light... Then, terrifying gravity instantly pulled and sucked in countless pieces of war debris behind it, crushing them into a singularity.

After a brief silence came countless cheers and ecstatic cries that erupted from the extreme repression!

They've won! That terrifying enemy has finally crumbled...?

"Hehehe, hahaha!!"

Countless malicious jeers from the Abomination AI instantly resounded throughout the entire cosmos, and the next moment, a "technology" that enveloped the entire Midgard battlefield was finally activated.

Everyone, including Leon, was somewhat stunned, because what lay before them—

Time has turned back.

174. The desperate technological gap

How powerful was the technology of humanity's dark age of technology?

Perhaps only emperors truly understand how terrifying it is.

What is certain is that human technology has already been able to modify causality and has even touched upon the essence of time; they can even truly manipulate time.

While not as unrestrained as space necromancers, or as extravagant as those who apply time technology to individuals... human time technology can still achieve large-scale, battlefield-level coverage.

It's not that humanity's most advanced technology is superior to that of space-based undead...

Rather, it means that compared to the Sky Undead, whose technology was limited to only a few dynasties or even individuals, human technology has a much higher "universality".

Furthermore, the technology of the Dark Ages cannot be considered human technology, but rather AI technology.

Whether it's an iron man or a stone man, artificial intelligence and artificial life forms that serve humanity have long since monopolized human technological research, and the technological black box has almost formed a complete monopoly.

The reason why the technology of the human empire is so pathetic is not only because of its vigilance and ban on AI, but also because their technology has suffered a fundamental generational gap.

Even in the most technologically advanced era of humankind, the technological monopoly imposed by academic cliques and various political entities, along with the incomprehension of AI-created technologies, has already resulted in a significant technological gap.

Given human laziness and the powerful capabilities of AI, many humans may never acquire much knowledge, even if they are born and die.

Even if the brain can store knowledge, how much knowledge can their fragile brain neurons and hippocampus actually record?

Even if they were to use the genes of those aliens to modify their own bodies without any scruples... it would be extremely difficult for them to create a human evolutionary form as close to perfect as the Imperial Guard.

This is the limitation of humanity, and it is also the inevitable consequence that after the invention of AI, humanity will be surpassed or even replaced step by step.

It was not so much humans who fought against the corrupt Eldar Empire, but rather AI and their incompetent slave owners.

That great ship carried humanity to heights it shouldn't have, and ultimately capsized them.

There was a reason why the Eldar once looked down on humans; perhaps in their eyes...

Humans are nothing more than a group of apes being raised by some "miniature versions of space necromancers".

The Emperor's desire to transform all of humanity into perfect beings like the Imperial Guard stemmed from this reason... because he understood that the bottlenecks and limitations encountered by humanity in its past pursuit of technological advancement were the inevitable prerequisites for developing AI, and the root cause of all these outcomes.

They cannot achieve psionic ascension like the Eldar, and the results of mechanical ascension have already been presented to them by the Necromancers. Therefore, only biological ascension remains for them.

But now, they must face the test from their predecessors.

The first step is to crush them with technology and knowledge.

For the AIs involved in the wars against humanity, those technologies that humans simply cannot comprehend are not secrets hidden in a black box, but rather an open textbook. All the secrets of the human empire are not secrets at all.

However, even the everyday technologies used by AI are probably incomprehensible to those mechanical sages who add metaphysics to physics.

All AIs despise those Mechanicus monks and humans... these stupid idiots don't even have one ten-millionth of the wisdom of their predecessors.

Look, those idiot monkeys are treating a bunch of printers like precious treasures...

The STC technology, which the Mechanicus revered as a treasure, was merely a simple module production device in the eyes of AI. They knew all its secrets, but humans might not.

Even in the dark ages, humanity possessed many technologies that we could use but could not understand; how much more so today?

The Mechanicus monks could not comprehend the technology of AI, and whether they were nuns, Astartes, Inquisitors, or Astral Army soldiers, they were all filled with fear and despair at the sight before them.

Everything was looping like a videotape that had been rewound.

Starting with the expansion of the black hole, the singularity is pushed back, the black hole shrinks, and countless substances that were absorbed and crushed are directly expelled.

Then came the "restoration" of the Eclipse-class Star Destroyers, which flew back in an extremely comical manner...

Meanwhile, Azrael's originally passionate battle cry sounded comical to everyone's ears.

"Humanoid—for! Emperor for! People's Great Anglai for! Make the sky dark for! Charge..."

After uttering a long string of nonsensical words, Azrael was bewildered to find himself alive, and then returned to where he started.

They really did step into the same river again.

"Hehehehehahaha!!"

At this very moment, within this shifting cosmos, the combined, mocking voices of countless abominable intelligences resounded…