Before Ulizar stood a giant cultivation chamber shrouded in a purple-pink energy field filled with sinister power.
"Excellent, excellent..."
"Thank the Omnissiah! Praise the Machine God!"
Looking at the masterpiece before him, now growing black carapace plating, he raised his staff in excitement.
The theory recorded on that scroll had been correct.
By "borrowing" the special power of certain beings in the Warp, it was possible to blur the distinction between the X chromosome and the Y chromosome within a localized space.
And if the implantation surgeries were carried out in that state of blurred distinction, then this body would not suffer severe rejection reactions.
At that thought, Ulizar's augmetic eye began to flash with blazing red light.
Now that he had succeeded with the first step, all future repetitions would have a working example to compare against.
Fanatical joy filled his half-mechanized heart.
He knew very well what this research meant.
It would be the greatest challenge yet to the Codex Astartes.
But so what?
In his view, neither the Emperor of Mankind nor the Codex had any authority over the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Only the great Omnissiah had the right to command him.
"Warning! Warning! The void shields are under attack!"
Before his excitement could settle, a shrill alarm rang through the secret research base.
"Magos, the fleet of the Knights of the Holy Crusade is conducting orbital bombardment on us."
A Tech-Priest informed Ulizar of the source of the alarm through the audio array.
"The reason?"
"No reason. They refuse to communicate with us."
Hearing that, Ulizar's augmetic eye turned fully red.
"Then in the name of the Omnissiah, let destruction be delivered upon these vermin."
Over the years, as the Ecclesiarchy had continued expanding its influence, friction between it and the Adeptus Mechanicus had steadily worsened.
And now, when the Knights of the Holy Crusade, who belonged to the Ecclesiarchy, came directly to Ingulaba without any deliberation from the High Lords, the conflict between the two sides erupted in full.
In space, the fleet, fanatically chanting the name of the God-Emperor, hurled one ship-grade shell after another down upon the world.
Although most of the bombardment was intercepted by the deployed void shields, some massive shells still struck the planet's surface and burst into destructive firestorms.
The Adeptus Mechanicus retaliated without hesitation.
Under the devout prayers of the Magos, the machine spirits of the planetwide ground defense network were stirred to pleasure.
The large-caliber anti-air batteries now fired like rapid autocannons, spewing deadly shells into the heavens in a frenzy.
For a time, the two sides exchanged fire with great enthusiasm.
During this fierce battle, no one noticed that a small escort frigate silently emerged from the chaotic Warp in secret.
It drifted soundlessly into position above the crust directly over the experimental base, and then dropped something toward the depths below.
A cryo-capsule wrapped entirely in a disintegration field.
In the blink of an eye, the impossibly thick planetary crust was pierced through, and the cryo-capsule cut its way downward like a blazing knife through butter, traveling unimpeded until it reached the research facility itself.
The Magos stared in shock at the cryo-capsule that had landed not far away, as a deadly sense of danger struck straight through his soul.
With the opening of a pressure valve, thick clouds of freezing vapor spilled from its surface.
Through the white mist, he could vaguely make out a tall, thin figure standing within the chamber.
The Magos was just preparing to resist with his life when the Tech-Priest who had followed him all this time pressed a blade against his back.
"Do not move. The Officio Assassinorum did not come for your life this time."
Under that mortal threat, the Magos froze.
And at the same time, the figure in the white vapor slowly began to awaken.
Large doses of biochemical agents were injected into his body, enhancing his physical abilities while also rousing his desire to kill.
With a hoarse growl, one thought flashed through his mind.
Kill every living thing except the assassins and Magos Ulizar.
And at that moment, the first target in his path was the one lying dormant in the cultivation chamber behind the Magos.
Like a beast loosed from its chains, he burst free from the frozen restraints and charged madly toward his target.
Yet just as the monomolecular claws on his hands were about to slice both the chamber and the target inside apart as easily as chopping vegetables, a horrifying change erupted across the planet called Ingulaba.
...
All things in existence are threads, and when those threads become entangled together, they form fate.
When every thread reaches exactly the right position, the Weaver can lower supreme power into the material world with invisible hands.
It casually picked up a few fine strands, then gave them a soft breath...
...
Perhaps the fleet's large-scale translation had destabilized the Warp, or perhaps Ulizar's act of borrowing without signing the loan contract had angered a supreme being.
A massive Warp storm, vast in scale yet frighteningly precise, swept across the whole of Ingulaba.
Although the Knights of the Holy Crusade fleet carried out emergency evasive maneuvers, several of its warships still vanished without warning.
Under the force of that immense storm, Magos Ulizar and his masterpiece disappeared without a trace right before the eyes of the two assassins of the Officio Assassinorum.
That small-scale civil war triggered by the Ecclesiarchy ended in a way no one had expected.
Later, after postwar debate in the High Lords, the military founding plan so fiercely opposed by the Ecclesiarchy was retained, but most of the related records were destroyed by the Fabricator-General of Mars, while Ingulaba itself was subjected to Exterminatus by the Inquisition.
The only thing later generations would know was the special name given to this Twenty-First Founding.
The Cursed Founding.
...
The endless storm raged on, carrying the cultivation chamber wrapped in purple-pink Warp energy onward through the void.
The great Weaver of Fate laughed softly, its echoing voice sounding as though countless mouths were speaking at once throughout that twisted realm of chaos.
"I told you, you cannot escape..."
Yet even as that Warp storm continued to rage, it seemed that some unseen existence paused to think.
Traveling through the Warp by riding a cultivation chamber within a Warp storm...
In a certain sense, that counted as flying in an aircraft...
And so, in the very next moment, an accident occurred.
The purple-pink Warp field surrounding the cultivation chamber suddenly exploded, disrupting the carefully guided stream of Warp energy.
A massive rift opened beside the chamber and swallowed it whole.
In other words,
the cultivation chamber crashed during Warp transit...
That absurdly dramatic mishap threw the threads of fate into disorder.
The Weaver watched everything in silence for a long time, saying nothing.
Only at the end did it let out a faint laugh.
"Everything is proceeding according to plan..."
(End of Chapter)
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