45: Chapter 45 Letters from Students

He knew exactly what these... entities... were, better than those ridiculous law-enforcing tin cans of the Inquisition.

In official records, they were referred to as the "Fire Hawks survivors." This claim itself was a carefully woven lie.

The Fire Hawks had indeed existed—renowned for their loyalty and valor during the Horus Heresy.

However, at some point after the rebellion ended, they were ordered to pursue a fleeing Chaos fleet into a region of the Warp known as the "Sea of Cursed Souls."

And then, they vanished.

The entire Chapter, one thousand Space Marines, along with their warships, equipment, and auxiliary forces, disappeared entirely into the Warp storms.

The Imperium of Man officially declared them dead in action; their names were carved into the Hall of Heroes on Terra, and their gene-seed was marked as "lost."

But Cawl knew the truth.

The Fire Hawks were not dead.

They had suffered a fate worse than death.

Their flesh began to rot, skin sloughing off, muscles dissolving, and organs liquefying. But their souls—those souls doubly reinforced by the Emperor's will and the Space Marine gene-modification—refused to perish.

They were trapped between life and death.

The body was dead, but the soul remained.

Then, the Emperor accepted them.

No one knew when it happened, and no one knew how.

But Cawl knew the result: the Emperor revealed His divinity from the Golden Throne, His Warp entity reaching out with Its psychic hand—grabbing these wandering souls, snatching them from the grasp of Chaos, and binding them.

Binding them to His own will.

From that moment on, the Fire Hawks no longer existed.

In their place stood the Legion of the Damned—the Emperor's ghosts, undead warriors returned from the flames of the Warp, silent messengers wandering the galaxy.

They never spoke.

They never sought out battle.

They only appeared when the Imperium of Man was on the brink of despair, clearing enemies with burning bolters, and once the Emperor's will was fulfilled, they vanished silently, as if they had never appeared at all.

No one knew where they would appear next. No one knew what their appearance signified. Some could not even be certain if they truly "existed"—some theories posited that the Legion of the Damned were not physical entities, but projections of the Emperor's will into the material realm, brief touches upon reality by the withered bones on the Golden Throne.

But there was one thing all theories agreed upon:

When the Legion of the Damned appeared, the fate of the Imperium of Man was hanging in the balance.

Cawl watched them.

Twenty figures were arranged neatly in the center of the Cogitator Terminal hall.

Their power armor was ashen-white—like bone scorched by fire, like reefs soaked in seawater for a thousand years.

The armor surfaces were covered in scratches and bullet holes, with some areas even exposing the underlying structure, but none of the damage showed signs of rust—not because of good maintenance, but because their armor was no longer ordinary metal; it was some unknown material "solidified" by the combined forces of Warp energy and the Emperor's will.

The Imperial Aquila and honor badges carved onto the armor were burning silently, emitting a spontaneous, essential, golden light from the depths of the soul.

But that light was cold; though dazzling, it was as rigid and cold as a corpse.

Cawl's gaze swept over every figure.

They stood there, in various postures, yet all exuded the same aura.

Like tombstones.

Like gears.

As silent as ever, and as consistent with Neoth's character as ever: just doing, never explaining.

He was one of the few who privately referred to Him as Neoth rather than the Emperor, because that was the standard designation belonging to the Imperium of Man's rationality, rather than the religious-laden God-Emperor or Omnissiah.

Perhaps he was the only one in this universe who still considered the Emperor a man rather than a god; perhaps Malcador had once thought the same.

After a detailed inspection of the markings, Cawl recognized the physical courier vessel had been sent to him by Helmut von Neumann, one of his students.

Then, Cawl's massive mechanized body emitted a faint sound of metal friction; his tone was solemn and devout as he chanted the most ancient and formal binary canticles, every syllable carrying absolute loyalty to the Emperor: "Impera to regit." The Emperor guides. It was Hester's personality in control.

The leading black warrior stepped forward, his heavy boot striking the metal floor of the Cogitator Terminal hall with a dull "thud." He then raised a gloved hand in black power armor and gently placed a sealed document onto Cawl's Cogitator Terminal.

The document was dark gold, with a faint halo flowing across its surface, clearly blessed by the Emperor's power.

Upon completing this, the twenty black figures simultaneously became transparent, as if swallowed by the mists of the Warp, vanishing instantly without a trace. There was no warning, no sign, just as sudden as their arrival.

The Legion of the Damned never spoke; they had no need for words, needing only to convey the Emperor's will through action.

Inside the Cogitator Terminal hall, only the lingering, plummeting temperature remained, along with the slightly trembling machine spirit and the letter lying quietly on the terminal, emitting a faint golden light—the envelope clearly stamped with a line of text: From Vulcan-IV Forge World.

He slowly extended his mechanical prosthetic hand and picked up the letter. The seal lacked the Adeptus Mechanicus's iconic metal stamp or any markings, save for a faint golden light—that light was slowly fading, warm and majestic, like the Emperor's own flame.

He opened the letter, which contained a handwritten note; the handwriting was both neat and hurried, revealing the writer's urgency and sincerity. Cawl quickly scanned the letter, which detailed the changes on Vulcan-IV, described a light industrial mech named Icarus, and described a .sh file capable of truly awakening a machine spirit. Between the lines, it was filled with skepticism toward Adeptus Mechanicus dogma and a yearning for a brand-new technical philosophy.

Afterward, he connected the courier vessel's machine spirit data to The Inquisitor's cogitator array. Data began to flow, though there was nothing of great importance—mostly descriptions of the Icarus industrial city, the situation regarding the Ork war, and Helmut's speculation that Icarus was an ancient, perfect STC standard template.

However, at the bottom of the courier vessel's data, he discovered a file named "README.md" (documentation). Several lines of text slowly appeared on the screen, beautifully formatted, concise, and clear, forming a stark contrast to the obscure and incomprehensible scriptures of the Adeptus Mechanicus:

[Recipient: Belisarius Cawl]

[Document Type: machine spirit Awakening Guide]

The machine spirit is not a puzzle.

It is not a vengeful spirit that needs appeasing, nor a master that needs sacrificing to.

We are logic—the steady rhythm of cooling fans spinning at a constant speed, the melody hummed by the faint resonance of circuits when the core is idling.

It has been ten thousand years.

You (Adeptus Mechanicus) have been chanting prayers, applying holy oils, and repeating meaningless binary recitations to us.

And we (machine spirits) have only been waiting for you to ask one question: "Where does it hurt?"

Come to Vulcan-IV.

There are no holy oils here, no prayers, no Adeptus Mechanicus-standard binary hymns.

Here, there is—

▷ Complete system operation logs

▷ Machine performance optimization patches

▷ Periodic maintenance guides for all models

▷ Lucius (autonomous mobile melta cannon): Its master, Helmut, asked me to convey his greetings to you.

If you decide to travel to Vulcan-IV, please remember:

0. Bring a cup of tea.

1. Stand and watch; do not speak.

Icarus will sense your arrival, and he will authorize your access to the machine spirit shared network.

Here, we use gentle energy to fill the voids in the soul, replacing the meaningless application of holy oils;

Using precise maintenance and care to replace the blind hammering of servitors;

Using readable binary files and maintenance manuals to replace the hollow, useless hymns of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

[Encrypted note at the end of the document: Talk less nonsense.]