Warhammer: In the Name of Ashes.

Chapter 176 Return of the "Savior"
Thought for the Day: Waiting is a virtue, but being waited is not. (Dawu)

Calvin knew that Constantine's return would inevitably bring with him the greatest resources he could leverage.

But when he walked out of the mansion and looked up at the doomsday scene in the sky, he was still shocked by the background of these mechanical priests in the Order of Ominous Omens.

Hundreds of black dots appeared from the end of the sky, and were visibly magnified in the eyes of the people on the ground, and then magnified again, and finally turned into steel palaces one after another.And gathered in groups to cover the sky and block out Calvin's entire field of vision, as if using mechanical power to create a cosmic spectacle like a solar eclipse.

That's not all, more small spaceships rained down behind these large similar ones, and the source was a faintly visible sky, a black cloud that was many times bigger.

You cannot use words to describe the magnificence of this scene. This is the embodiment of the highest essence of human industry since the Dark Ages, and it is also a scene that people who stay on this planet in the ignorant age cannot understand.

People within [-] kilometers can see this doomsday-like scene of God's punishment, and they can only kneel down and pray to calm their fears about this terrifying scene beyond their cognition.

Fortunately, those who came were friends rather than enemies. Calvin locked his eyes on the forerunners among them, penetrated the blazing flames on the steel body that was still rubbing against the air, and found their unique marks.

The upper teeth of the golden outer ring are sawn down, and the male lion with the same color and texture looks up and roars.This is the exclusive emblem of the Order of Ominous Omen, an independent organization under the Emperor's Seat that is different from Mars.

"Constantine!" Calvin said.

"Constantine!" Elvis' figure appeared behind Calvin at some point. He didn't know the relationship between these outsiders and Calvin. The individual communicator spoke to Calvin in a high Gothic language that the locals could not understand.

"The other party claims to be Father Constantine, and is looking for your location through global plaintext broadcasts."

Elvis' eyes were fixed on Calvin's reaction in order to make the quickest choice.

If these outsiders were in Calvin's plan, then everything would be fine; if not, then he would have to discuss with the adult in front of him how to escape.

After all, even without the blessing of the Legion, the Primarch would still be unable to stop the power of the Mechanicus.

"Respond to him, I'm right here." Calvin's voice made Elvis heave a sigh of relief.He converted Calvin's words into communication codes and sent them out with the instrument in his hand.

Unsurprisingly, he, Calvin and the others soon saw one of the forerunners of the descending spaceship, under the second adjustment of the rocket engine, turn and head towards them.

"Good day, Lord Calvin. By the protection of the Emperor, I have been lucky enough to escape my mission."

The figure of Father Octal Ursulad Constantine appeared from the corridor on the deck where the spaceship descended, and behind him were several colleagues in red robes.

The red burqa on him only let Elvis understand his identity, but after he opened his mouth, the consecration prayer that was completely different from the members of Mechanicus that he had seen before made this Astartes pharmacist really remember This particular priest lived.

Compared with 15 years ago, the figure of the priest has changed dramatically.His face remained the same, but his height became almost equal to Calvin.The three-meter-high burly body was hidden under the scarlet burqa, making one wonder how many parts of it belonged to primitive humans.

This mechanical priest, who had obviously experienced many changes, was consistent with Calvin's impression, and he was not too polite.He said directly to Calvin:

"According to our plan, we now have two options. One is to completely intervene on this planet and adjust its continental plates to accommodate our next development; the other is to completely abandon this place and start a new one on another nearby planet. , to adapt to the next industrial nest layout and the deployment of track factories."

"Choose the second one. Migrate the agricultural population here to the new planet as the initial population of the industrial labor force. As for the northern peoples, leave it to the warband as a source of conscription."

In an understatement, Calvin decided the fate of hundreds of millions of people here for thousands of years.And such a decision comes from his understanding and evaluation of the environment here in the past ten years.

This place is not suitable as an industrial planet to undertake production tasks, not only because of the lack of minerals on the entire planet, this is not a problem with the subsequent supplement of mining planets.

Its real problem lies in the lack of raw fossil fuels and the true industrial blood of the empire-promethium.This will greatly slow down the initial industrial deployment and industrial upgrading speed, and considering that there is already a huge population living here, on the basis of avoiding major humanitarian disasters, how to carry out large-scale adjustment of the continental plate is also very important. It will be a costly investment.

"Your will." Constantine nodded, and then took two steps back to introduce his colleagues to Calvin.

"Casting Deputy Superintendent Solan, the ruler of the great sage, the supreme leader of the order of 30 Titan guards and nearly a thousand covenant priests."

Constantine succinctly selected the more useful (useful to Calvin) parts of Solan's countless titles, and then told Calvin.

Calvin also clearly and unmistakably smelled a familiar smell called "abundance of martial virtue" from the opponent's body as large as an Astartes warrior in normal armor.

Not to mention that Constantine, as a mechanical priest, is absolutely trustworthy in his data rigor.

Since he said he was the leader of the 30 Titan Guards, then this man in front of him would definitely be able to bring out 30 titanium alloy fighters for him.

"Bless the Emperor, holy Primarch. May our meager power be put to good use by you."

The mechanical sage with a strong military look took two steps, and after greeting Calvin politely, he retreated to his position.

"The great creature sage Dewey Watson, the great geneticist, and the sage of xenomorphology are the strongest in biological transformation of the order. His representative works are the second edition of gene modulation and improvement technique No. 20, biological modulation of beasts of burden, etc..."

The sage, who had no obvious traces of transformation on his body and retained more of the characteristics of the original human body, also stepped out of the ranks and bowed slightly to Calvin.

"Lorenz, the Lord of the Forge, the Mechanic Prophet, the Lord of the Force, and the person in charge of the maintenance and upkeep of all the Titans of the Legion."

Another red-robed sage walked out of the ranks.

Different from the previous ones, judging from the fact that the gear mark on his body occupies the entire outer edge of the emblem of the order, this is a rare fundamentalist, and his understanding of the emperor's beliefs and the teachings of Mechanicism His uniqueness will make Calvin need to be careful with his words when communicating with him in the future.

"As for the remaining two..." Calvin's eyes followed Constantine's to the two remaining silent figures, waiting for the former's narration.

"They used to be the exclusive secret law expanders of the congregation. Together with myself, they were responsible for the statistical management of the congregation, and participated in the translation and interpretation of the language in the machine soul. But now, they are my split. If you have any questions Consultation is needed and they can be found in my absence."

As Constantine's voice fell, the two bodies that also had Constantine's consciousness also opened their eyes and looked in Calvin's direction.

"Confirm identity, confirm authority... Good day, Lord Calvin." The same voice said from their mouths.

Well, now Calvin understands the reason why Constantine's body changes and he is stuck at the agreed deadline.

Opinions within the Order of Ominous Omens were not unified, and Constantine also experienced a fierce battle before finally being able to occupy the majority of the senior members of the Order.

These two mechanical sages whose consciousness has been annexed are undoubtedly the original opponents, and now they have been placed in front of Calvin as trophies.

It's just that I don't know what price I paid for Constantine's side in this internal game...

The conversation under the first meeting ends here.Calvin knew from Constantine that this time he almost wiped out all the available resources in the Omen Order and moved them here.

In addition to the large-scale construction ships and transport barges that were used to open up the site for material transportation and establish the star port that reached the orbit, there is also one of the housekeeping treasures of the Order of Ominous Order on the orbit:

A small mechanical ark awaits orders.

Mechanical Ark, Calvin actually didn't understand this term, so he couldn't talk about intuitive feelings.But after following Constantine back into orbit later, Calvin looked at the irregular space city with a diameter of more than [-] kilometers in front of him from the perspective of the transport ship, and asked Constantine in surprise: "What is this?" The "small" mechanical ark you mentioned?"

"Yes, it is indeed small..."

Compared with Calvin's surprise, Constantine looked much calmer.

This is the cognitive difference caused by the isolation of the priests of Mechanicus from outside information. Calvin would have misunderstood the size of the Mechanical Ark, which seemed reasonable to him.

Unlike the usual warships of the Imperial Navy and the battle barges of the Adeptus Astartes, the warships of the Adeptus Mechanicus are rarely seen on the front lines of the Empire's battles with xenos and chaos.

As one pole of the Empire's double-headed eagle, their core value has always been the weaponry support for the Empire's armed sequence, as well as the technical support for some planetary worlds conquered by the Empire in the early days of colonization.

These "technical nerds" in the eyes of other forces in the empire, except for a few exploratory outings, can hardly see their presence in various territories of the empire.

But this is definitely a wrong perception.

In fact, these "technical geeks" of the Mechanicus have absolutely no reason to go out, whether it is the study of alien technology or the recovery of a lost STC, or even the study of special "special cosmic physical phenomena" in certain areas , They are willing to pay time and economic cost for it.

The reason why it is not known is that most of these researches are too dangerous. Mechanical priests who repeatedly jump between aliens and heresies will naturally avoid the eyes of other departments of the empire.

Their true attitude to the laws of the Empire is far less respectful than they appear to be.

There is no need to mention this point, it only needs to be seen from the elite servitors of unknown origin in the Mars Skitarii. (It is rumored that an Astartes who went missing on the battlefield have been found among the army of modified servitors.)
What matches their low-key but frequent outing needs is that they correspond to warships of all levels of the Imperial Navy from small to large.

Anyway, the construction technology of imperial warships is in their hands: they have what the navy has, and they have what the navy doesn't have.

In the eyes of these technical geeks who are good at technology, use productivity as a weapon, and turn around and explode when they disagree, there is no more suitable mobile interstellar factory like Mechanical Ark as their mothership for travel.

Yes, Mechanical Ark.As the name suggests, it is first of all a large-scale factory carrying most of the technical production capacity of the sages of the Mechanicus, and carrying the ark of ability and hope that can theoretically build a world system alone.Then, is its function as a battleship.

There is no unified specification for this large ship, and there is no unified standard.They vary in size according to the background of their respective construction worlds.

From the famous "Hope", a huge continental plate covering the sky, to the 30-kilometer-long "pocket-sized ark" in front of Calvin's eyes, they are all within the scope of explanation of the term mechanical ark.

But there is one thing, no matter how small the ark is, it is also an ark.

The industrial system carried on it has at least a plurality of categories and a complete system: from ore processing to smelting and casting; from energy collection to refining and recycling.

Complete self-inner circulation, and become a temporary war engine when necessary; under the condition of sufficient resources, supplying at least the medium and long-term war materials required by a galaxy is the minimum standard for a mechanical ark, and it is also the goal in front of Calvin. The real face of this space city.

"What's its name?" With Constantine's explanation, Calvin understood the true meaning of this behemoth that was not directly used as a weapon.

Against the background of the black universe, the city of machinery is brightly lit.

Across the cold and dark space, Calvin couldn't hear the never-sleeping hammering sound of forges and smelters, but just the smoke and dust emitted from those towering exhaust pipes made him feel joyfully. The vigorous life force in the city.

That is the power of industry, that is the power of civilization.

With it, Calvin could free the planet under his feet from ignorance; with it, all the plans in Calvin's heart became possible.

This is the last possession of the priests in the Order of Ominous Omens, after they became independent from Mars with the support of the Emperor.It was also the biggest surprise that Constantine brought to Calvin after his return this time.

Excitedly, he turned his head back to thank Konstantin beside him, and asked him the name of the city again. "What's it called?"

"San Cristo." Constantine replied pointedly.

PS: Christo means a pure person, but the abbreviation Chris in life has the meaning of "savior" and "guarantor" in Christianity.

　Two in one, update and ask for tickets.I also recommend a book by my good brother: "I Accidentally Became the Lord of the Witches" If you like the Western Fantasy Witch genre, you can read it, thank you for your support! ! !
　　


(End of this chapter)