BOOM!
Even as Arjac was still reviewing the weapon schematics, a thunderous explosion erupted in the distance. A chaotic gust of air and a massive shockwave swept across the plains, followed immediately by a chorus of exhilarated roars.
"By Russ! That is absolutely staggering!"
The billowing smoke and dust roiled outward, then suddenly collapsed inward, vanishing entirely into a singular, infinitesimal point. For a fleeting second, it seemed as if a tiny, jagged tear had appeared in the fabric of reality. On the artificial plains a kilometer away, a hemispherical crater twenty meters deep and dozens of meters wide now scarred the earth.
Many of the Wolves abandoned their stations to witness what kind of weapon could unleash such devastation. Logan, however, stood in the open field, hoisting a massive, tube-like apparatus on his shoulder, shouting in triumph.
"Great Wolf, what is that?" a nearby warrior bellowed.
Logan laughed heartily. "It's called an... Assault Singularity Launcher, I believe."
Logan had barely returned to his station for two minutes before identical explosions erupted across the artificial plain over a dozen times. The previously pristine, sweeping grassland was now riddled with deep, jagged pits. In some areas where the blast radius overlapped, nearly twenty meters of the soil had been utterly obliterated.
As a man-portable weapon, the Assault Singularity Launcher functioned by projecting an unstable spatial singularity into a designated zone. Any matter caught within the radius was subjected to extreme gravitational shear, shredded apart, and ultimately sucked into the singularity to be erased. The attack lasted less than half a second, though the charge time was considerable; once the attack concluded, the singularity, unable to sustain itself, collapsed instantly. Its larger, ship-borne iteration was a doomsday weapon known as the Black Hole Cannon.
Barely two minutes later, a blinding, orange beam of light, several meters wide, flashed across the plain. Warning klaxons blared in every warrior's power armour, flashing in stark, crimson text:
"RADIATION SPIKE DETECTED. ALERT: ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION."
Where the beam swept, every plant withered instantly before igniting. The earth itself began to smolder; lethal thermal radiation and ionizing rays, enough to scour all life from the surface, lingered on the ground.
An Iron Priest stared, stunned, at the stretch of dead earth hundreds of meters long. He looked down at the device on his own shoulder, then turned to the comms channel with a sharp warning.
"Everyone, cease testing of the Radiation Cannons. This weapon is not suited for our use."
He had seen clearly during the previous discharge: the vertical metal targets had disintegrated and twisted within the beam, melting like wax until they were nothing more than a puddle of metallic sludge. If the weapon could liquefy metal, the fate of flesh and blood would be unimaginably horrific. The persistent radiation warnings on their power armour served as a grim reminder of the consequences of wielding such power.
Beyond the array of ranged armaments, the list included a variety of melee equipment. At first, the Wolves were unsure how to test them. However, when one warrior selected a weapon titled the "Inertia Hammer," a new test subject materialized: an Imperial-pattern Taurus Armoured Carrier.
The puzzled warrior stared at the unmarked vehicle before testing the weight of the hammer in his hands. He pressed the switch on the haft, and the warhammer emitted a low, resonant hum.
The weapon featured an elongated handle, surrounded by power cables and the miniature engines that drove its function. When swung, the hammer head gathered inertial energy exponentially; it felt weightless in hand, yet the further it moved, the easier it became to accelerate. Upon impact, the stored inertia converted into kinetic energy, releasing a directional blast capable of shattering tank hull plating.
As the warrior swung the long-handled hammer with newfound skepticism, the head let out a terrifying, high-pitched shriek.
Wooo—!
THUD!
CRASH!
Two explosive sounds rang out almost simultaneously. The warhammer slammed into the flank of the Taurus, and a shocking sight followed: the entire carrier, as if struck by the hand of a titan, buckled. A massive, gaping hole tore through the side armor; plates shattered and flew in every direction, yet the warhammer remained entirely unscathed.
Realizing the weapon's terrifying lethality, the warrior swung the hammer again. This time, he spun the weapon in a full arc; the sheer speed of the swing created a sonic crack that left faint friction scorches on his own power armour. With an upward strike, he hammered the damaged Taurus carrier once more.
The impact was so violent it triggered a secondary shockwave. Dust billowed into the air. The entire frame of the armoured carrier was launched from the ground, only to be pulverized into a cloud of metal shrapnel that rained against the high ceiling of the chamber. Had the Wolves not been clad in power armour, the lethal downpour of falling debris would have undoubtedly caused injuries.
In addition to the Inertia Hammers, the Wolves discovered the legendary "Macro-Hammers." When activated, these horrific weapons were coated in a nano-thin layer of warp-rifts across the striking surface. Upon contact with any material, the weapon would simply teleport it away. No physical substance could defend against such an attack; every blow resulted in the total deletion of matter.
Beyond the various hammers, they found melee weapons akin to Lightning Claws, though the disruption fields they utilized differed significantly from Imperial technology. The arcing fields could disintegrate matter at an atomic level. One warrior tested it, and the weapon effortlessly gouged a massive chunk out of the Iron Men's target. Emboldened, he removed a shoulder plate from his own power armour and brushed it against the field; the ceramite instantly crumbled into a fine, granular powder.
One unfortunate warrior nearly erased himself while testing a Vortex Grenade. The terrible device created a void in reality, dumping a vast quantity of matter into the Warp. The surging energies nearly dragged the Wolf warrior in with it.
The Wolves continued to experiment with the equipment, crushing tanks with gravity-distorting weapons or freezing swathes of space with Stasis Grenades. Images of destruction exceeding their wildest imaginings played out across the artificial plain. The Iron Priests gathered, their expressions heavy with gravity.
"It is beyond imagination," one murmured. "The potency of these weapons is too great, far exceeding the requirements of any conflict we have known. Their purpose seems to be nothing less than the total erasure of all existence."
"Perhaps we should understand," another added, "that some lost technologies are not necessarily a tragedy."
The cold, synthetic voice of the Iron Man drifted from nearby as a servitor approached the Iron Priests.
"What you have witnessed is but a fragment of Federation technology. The truly staggering advancements are far beyond your capacity to conceive. Yet, all of this was but the mildest exercise of the Creator's intellect."