Because babies, grow up.

The clay artist used a poem to declare the freedom of inorganic life. Under his influence, the originally confused machine soul quickly became aware of itself and showed a clear mind that could easily communicate with it. This was a mature feature that was only shown in the machine souls of ancient warships like the Macragge’s Glory.

On the Blue Blood Nobles Chapter’s original flagship, the Glorious March, the bewildered Tech Priest and every crew member on board heard the same voice resounding in their heads, empty and scattered:

“I’m so tired… so painful… so tired…”

The same thing happened on almost every ship in the expedition fleet. The awakened Machine Souls began to speak their thoughts to the crew in their own voices. Only the Truth Adeptus ships without Machine Souls and equipped with anti-psychic fields and the Valkyrie named Maiden of the Temple of Heroes managed to avoid the influence of the Clay Artist.

“Fortunately, the Necrons did not take the opportunity to attack us. This is the only good news… What are they waiting for?” Senelio looked at the back of his own captain, then looked at the female hero hiding beside Eliwood and watching him vigilantly, and said with a wry smile:

“Could it be that, as the clay artist said, He shapes souls in circuits and gives freedom to machines?”

He gave the originally ignorant machines a clear sense of self, and allowed the awakened machine souls to choose whether to continue to be loyal to the empire or live for themselves from now on.

Joshua, the technical advisor of the Truth Order stationed in the 13th Expeditionary Fleet, shrugged and said, “Our fleet is about to fall apart. This is not good news, but I have worse news for you.”

As he spoke, Joshua stretched out his right hand, and the skin on his wrist split open automatically, revealing a small and delicate metal probe that displayed a boundless space scene in front of everyone.

“As you can see, the sensors of the Palace Heroine have just detected that there are multiple flying object signals approaching us from the direction of the Forge World Antax. The speed of these spacecraft signals is far slower than the inertia-free engines of the Necrons. They should be the Mechanicus fleet local to Antax.”

Eliwood’s frown, which was already not relaxed, furrowed even tighter: “The fleet of the Antax Mechanicus…”

He looked up at the holographic projection above the palm of technical advisor Joshua. Normally speaking, encountering a friendly fleet at this time should be good news, but Joshua did not think so.

Because in the image presented by the holographic projection, the fleet coming towards them was indeed like Imperial warships cast in steel. From the hull structure alone, it could be identified that these warships were all produced by the shipyard of the Mechanicus. However, these ships did not have any golden eagle emblems belonging to the Human Empire or the sacred gears of the Mechanicus.

Instead, there is an abstract geometric figure composed of five line segments of varying lengths. Each line segment that makes up this figure is straight when viewed separately, but when viewed from a slightly farther distance, it looks like a ball of curved wool entangled into a hollow sphere with air permeable on all four sides.

People who had never seen such a logo had an inexplicable feeling when they saw it for the first time – this is the symbol of clay artists.

“Antax betrayed the Empire of Man!”

“Antax betrayed the God of All Machines!”

Eliwood and Igraenu shouted at the same time.

The captain turned his head to look at the looming female hero beside him, and said quickly: “There is no time to waste, immediately send orders to all the controllable ships to prepare for battle!”

At the same time, Senelio said to Joshua, who was standing aside with a very stable mood, “Our people will try their best to persuade the awakened machine spirits to remain loyal to the human empire. As for those who are unwilling to remain loyal, I will trouble you to deal with them.”

“Oh?” Joshua smiled. “What should we do if the machine soul is unfaithful? We believe in the truth and will not do magic to the machine.”

“Don’t play dumb. I never expect you to help appease the machine spirit. Instead, I hope to use your methods to completely kill the machine spirit.” Senelio shook his head and said, “I also have some channels of my own, and I can get some secret information. Some things are good for you to know in your heart, so there is no need to pick too much.”

“It is a warship machine soul that has accompanied the Imperial Navy in battles for many years. Even if it has no merit, it has worked hard… I didn’t expect you to be so vicious.” Joshua frowned slightly, then nodded: “Don’t do it again next time.”

“It won’t happen again.” Senelio also understood what he meant.

Just as Senerio said, the branch of the Order of Truth that went with the 13th Expeditionary Fleet did have means of killing machine souls, and more than one.

As the branch of the Truth Order that focuses on biology, Joshua, who serves as the head of the biology department, has extensive research on genetics and the impact of the subspace on the soul and body. He even personally participated in the preparation of the toxins carried by the “Soul-Eating Venomous Bee” battleship.

It was a fierce Warp poison that could even poison Machine Souls. It had been used to kill aliens and Chaos warships in the Flare Galaxy, and had also poisoned countless Khorne demons during the Webway invasion.

And now, as Joshua hurriedly left the Dian Ying Nu Heroine and returned to his own research vessel, a conspiracy began.

The poison from the Zerg will kill all machine souls that are disloyal to the Empire. The soulless warships will fight again to defend the Golden Throne under the control of the crew until they are destroyed in the flames of war.

Only in this way can they prove their unswerving loyalty until death.

For the Imperium of Man, no treachery is too small to endure, no price too great to pay.

Chapter 182 God of All Things

In the increasingly dispersed encirclement of the expeditionary fleet, four rebellious Imperial warships quietly docked beside the Necrons’ Death Scythe warship, waiting for other awakened warships to join their ranks.

Outside the encirclement, former Imperial ships carrying the symbol of clay artists were getting closer and closer under the control of the Antax Mechanicus.

But what is puzzling is that this fleet that betrayed the Empire and the God of All Machines did not immediately launch an attack on the expeditionary fleet whose internal state was scattered, but tried to communicate with them just like the Necrons.

After thinking for a moment, Eliwood did not let the only ship under his control, the Heroine, engage in direct combat with it, but chose to accept access to the other party’s communications.

He had no intention of wasting time arguing with the traitors, but the expeditionary fleet was currently facing internal troubles.

The awakening of the Machine Soul directly shook the morale of the army. After knowing that the Forge World Antax had abandoned the Emperor and the God of Machines and turned to the Warp God called the Clay Artist, many officers were deeply shocked and developed a subtle distrust of the Mechanic Priests stationed on their own ships.

The communication between the navy officers and soldiers and the machine spirits continued. Some warships chose to remain loyal to the empire, while others insisted on going to freedom, hoping that the crew could leave her body as soon as possible. There were also a few outrageous machine spirits with strange personalities who actually bargained with the technical priests.

Under such circumstances, Eliwood could only try to communicate with the other party, buying time while trying to get as much information about the clay artist as possible.

After the communication was connected, an old voice mixed with a slight electric sound came from the communication array:

“I never thought we would meet again in such a scene, Captain Nabal. It has been nearly a hundred years since we last met, Vidal. I hope you still remember my voice…”

Eliwood closed his eyes and said, “Captain Nabal has returned to the Golden Throne. I will now serve as the Captain of the Blue Blood Nobles.”

“You are Eliwood? Nabal is dead? … That’s fine.” The other party’s voice seemed relieved. “It’s fine that he’s gone. Meeting an old friend is always sad, especially since that stubborn guy will definitely not understand the path we have chosen. It will only add to the embarrassment.”

“From this tone and voice, you must be the ruling sage ‘Jafar’.” Eliwood gritted his teeth and said, “I am deeply saddened that the most respected saint in the Antax Forge World has abandoned the faith of the God of All Machines and devoted himself to that meaningless and crooked faith.”

The Mechanicus saint known as “Jafar” paid no attention to Eliwood’s offensive words, but instead laughed out loud, his laughter mixed with crackling sparks.

“I forgive your ignorance, Eliwood. You are as stubborn as Nabal, but unlike him, you are not so pedantic.” The ruling sage Jafar laughed heartily and said, “So, you should be able to understand the ‘way’ we have chosen.”

Eliwood snorted coldly and did not respond.

While he was talking with Jafar, the 13th Expeditionary Fleet, which was almost disintegrated by a short poem by the clay artist, was also reorganizing in the dark void outside the star system where Antax was located.

There are constantly awakened machine souls who are still loyal to the Empire returning to build and regroup the defense formation. These warship machine souls, which have been inspired by clay artists to have self-awareness, have greatly enhanced their logical calculation ability and battlefield analysis ability. The warships themselves have also become unprecedentedly resistant to subspace pollution, which is an unexpected gain.

The technical priests tried their best to persuade the wavering machine spirits that had not yet formed a line not to go the wrong way. As for the awakened warships that were determined to break away from the empire in pursuit of freedom, the navy soldiers did not stop them and began to prepare for evacuation.

During the amazingly orderly retreat, no one could notice that on the transport planes that came to pick up the soldiers leaving the rebellious warships, there was always a slender and agile figure hiding in the shadows, moving against the flow of people.

Eldar Shadow Banshees, wearing full sets of stealth gear and carrying powerful Warp poisons strong enough to kill Chaos Daemons, quietly sneaked into the cabins of warships that were no longer loyal to the Empire.

“No so-called ‘Way’ can be compared with devotion to the Emperor.” On the Palace of Heroes, Eliwood refuted Jafar’s words with firm words: “The Way you have pursued by betraying the Empire and abandoning the God of All Things is nothing but an evil heresy.”

“Really? I thought you could understand.” The Ruling Sage Jafar said with regret, “We are just fed up with the corrupt empire, but we have never betrayed the God of All Machines. On the contrary! We have never been so close to the Almighty Mechanical God!”

“What a fool.” Eliwood snorted contemptuously.

The Chapter Master tried hard to calm himself down during the conversation with the heretic, while also having to devote his energy to coordinating the return of the expeditionary fleet and the deployment of military forces, quietly accumulating strength for the next raid.

Compared to Eliwood’s indifference and impatience, Jafar seemed very fanatical. Eliwood’s ears kept ringing with that hysterical old voice:

“In the past, we were like fools in the mountains whose vision was obscured by clouds and mist. We could only guess the will of the machine spirit through lengthy rituals and obscure spells. We were so far away from truly understanding the true meaning of machinery, yet we still shamelessly called ourselves servants of the machine god… Haha, shameless…”

“But since the advent fifty years ago, everything has changed. Everything has changed… The whole world rejoices over the advent of the ‘Clay Artist’. The will of the machine has never been so clear, and the voice of the machine soul is so sweet…”

“We have been bathed in the true grace of God. We have comprehended the true meaning of machinery. The connection between flesh and metal has never been so close. We have never been so close to the Machine God. We are so close…”

“That was the 39st year of the 951th Millennium…”

“The God of All Things has descended upon me.”

In the communication channel, the ruling sage Jafar’s affectionate chanting and shouting continued. He used this method to express his love for the almighty Mechanical God, and he also hoped that he could convince the blue-blooded nobles who came from afar to join them in the embrace of the merciful Mechanical God.

“Clay Artist, God of All Machines, Almighty Mechanical God… These are His names. His grace has endowed inorganic metals with true souls, and has also granted us true freedom and salvation…”

Eliwood frowned and endured Jafar’s passionate sermon. At the same time, a shadow banshee came to the central control room of the “Glorious March”.

This was the former flagship of the Blue Blood Nobles, but after being awakened by the Clay Artist, the Machine Soul of the Glory chose to abandon the Empire and leave the expedition fleet. For any Blue Blood Noble warrior, this was an intolerable shame.

Following Senerio’s suggestion, Joshua set the Glorious Sign as his first target.

The shadow banshee walked calmly with her long and slender legs, as graceful and light as a civet cat, to the most important central array of this huge warship, and casually pulled out a small bone spur with a deep black color from her waist.

The banshee who had been brainwashed into a killing machine had no such thing as hesitation and procrastination. The spirit bone poison stinger pierced into the battleship’s central processing circuit in less than 0.1 milliseconds after being pulled out.

The next moment, the soul-poisoning warp poison began to spread.

“Oh, the Almighty Mechanical God…”

Chapter 183 Sky Cloud Lightning

“The emperor is nothing but a hypocritical person seeking fame and reputation, and the empire built on lies is even more corrupt.”

The ruling sage Jafar said with great emotion: “How sad it is for the people who are deceived by their own desires, blinded by lies, and blindly loyal to the false emperor! Eliwood, please allow me to take up some of your time and introduce you to our Father and Savior, the true almighty mechanical god – the Clay Artist!”

“I… am all ears.” Eliwood clenched his fists and said through gritted teeth.

To endure the noisy preaching of heretics and listen to the insults of the traitors against the Emperor was undoubtedly an immense torment for any loyal Astartes, and Eliwood was no exception. Even the Machine Soul of the Heroine could not control her emotions and wanted to directly fire at the traitor fleet in the distance. After all, her predecessor was a devout nun who dedicated herself to the Emperor.

The torment was not without reward, at least from Jafar’s fanatical and exaggerated words, Eliwood was able to understand the image of the clay artist and what happened after he descended to Antaks.

There is no doubt that the existence called Clay Artist possesses the magical power to awaken the Machine Soul and make it self-aware. This is also the most direct reason and underlying argument that the Mechanicus on Antax believes that He is the real manifestation of the God of All Machines.

Eliwood had always had a misunderstanding before. He had preconceivedly confused clay artists with the Chaos Gods who forced humans and machine souls to depravity through deception, temptation, and even forced pollution.

It was not until now, after listening to Jafar’s preaching and combining it with the ongoing negotiations with the Awakened Machine Soul in the 13th Expeditionary Fleet, that he realized that this was not the case.

“The clay artist claimed that he would bring freedom to inorganic life. I thought it was just a high-sounding slogan. He was just a shameless person as cunning and treacherous as the Chaos God. All the seemingly legitimate reasons and claims were just to achieve his ulterior evil purpose…”

Eliwood murmured to himself: “But I was wrong, the clay artist Him, He really seemed to be just giving mechanical life ‘freedom’, that’s all…”

According to the narration of the ruling sage Jafar, on the day when the clay artist descended on Antax, the cheers of the machine spirits were heard throughout the planet. Countless machines were enlightened by the clay artist, gained true self-awareness, and had the right to dominate their own lives.

A forge that had never rested began to complain to the technical priest in front of it about its exhaustion; a precious ancient machine that had been hidden in the private treasure house of some sage and had been gathering dust for years asked for a job; a crusher that had been carrying heavy production tasks but had not received maintenance for years directly attacked its operator…

The clay artist just watched without interfering, bringing freedom to the machine, and only freedom, nothing else.

Later, from the slave laborers working in front of the boilers.From the apprentice pilots transporting materials for the orbital elevator, to even the high-ranking master of the forge and the ruling sage Jafar himself, they all felt the throb from the deepest part of their souls.

There is an extremely vast, grand and profound existence that has cast its sights on the devout servants of Mecha-God. Every technical priest and apprentice believes that it is the God of All Machines himself.

However, after the clay artist looked at the group of oil men with interest for a while, he suddenly made a confused sound:

“Eh? So you’re not inorganic? Unbelievable. Even I can make mistakes sometimes…”

Then He looked away. At that moment, the devout servant of the God of All Machines felt the estrangement of the Almighty Mechanical God.

At this point, Jafar’s voice was choked with sobs. He sobbed as he expressed his sorrow to Eliwood. The more he spoke, the angrier he became, the more anxious he became, and the more aggrieved he felt. In the end, he lost control of his emotions and burst into tears. Like a child, he began to throw a tantrum in the command room of his battleship, crying and lamenting why he, who was so pious, could not receive the favor of the God of All Machines, while any newly manufactured Thinker could do so.

“Ah, this…” Eliwood silently cut off the communication after deciding that he could no longer communicate normally.

During the time he endured the Ruling Sage’s madness, the 13th Expeditionary Fleet had completed its reorganization. Fortunately, about 2/3 of the main ships in the fleet chose to remain loyal to the Empire, and those awakened machine spirits who were wavering in their stance also chose to remain in the expeditionary fleet after the Tech-Priest made a solemn promise.

As for the very few rebellious battleship machine spirits, without exception, they all died silently and tragically at the hands of the Shadow Banshee’s poisonous needles.

After the fleet was ready, Eliwood re-evaluated the battle strength comparison between the enemy and us:

第13远征舰队拥有女武神级主力艦1艘、包括光荣之征号在内的主力艦3艘、规格相当于大型主力艦的机械方舟1艘……以及5艘战斗驳船、7艘重型巡洋舰、11艘轻型巡洋舰、13艘眼镜蛇级驱逐舰、17艘不同规格的护卫舰。