Guided by the machine, Ersen stepped inside the chamber and took his seat. The interior of the pod was scored with relief-like runes that pulsed with a strange, eerie luminescence.
These geomantic seals were derived from the bizarre phenomena left behind by the ashes of countless previous test subjects. Through relentless, iterative trials, Axion had isolated over a dozen distinct patterns from a myriad of anomalous geometries. Though the underlying metaphysics eluded full rational comprehension, empirical data proved that these specific configurations could actively suppress and stabilize the roiling tides of the Warp, smoothing out the flow of psychic energy.
"Commencing test," a cold, synthesized vox-shred issued into Ersen's ears, and an avalanche of phantasmagoria erupted before his eyes.
Back on Terra, Axion had scanned Ersen's cerebrum, mapping every deep-seated regret and simmering grievance harbored within the Space Marine. What manifested before Ersen now was the absolute zenith of his hatred.
He beheld the betrayal of his battle-brothers, the tragic day their gene-sire turned his back on the Emperor's light and dragged the Legion's honor into damnation. Spurred by the visceral illusions, Ersen's psychic output surged violently, a tempest of righteous fury igniting within his soul. The sheer force of his wrath caused his latent empyric power to hemorrhage outward.
Yet, this heavily modified apparatus was no longer designed to plunge the psyker directly into the unadulterated sea of the Warp, as prior prototypes had. The raw psychic bleed harvested from Ersen was now channeled through a sophisticated empyric amplifier meticulously engineered by Axion.
Ersen's psychic resonance engulfed the smallest of the psychic crystals, corrupting its pure warp energy before cascading downward into the next tier of the apparatus. While the influx of vast quantities of pristine psychic energy would gradually dilute the raw emotional imprint, the volatile feedback risks inherent to this method were infinitely lower than their previous direct-immersion attempts.
The legacy equipment had been akin to forcing a single psyker to contaminate an entire ocean of warp energy all at once; this new system, by contrast, directed the psyker's output to taint several isolated streams, building the corruption tier by tier.
Axion monitored the telemetry of the psychic stabilization sequence with clinical precision. Ersen, possessing the robust physiology of the Adeptus Astartes, proved to be an incomparably superior subject to the frail mortals who had preceded him. The energy extraction remained perfectly linear, and his vitals held remarkably stable.
Not far from the testing pod, within a colossal containment vat, the immense psychic energy harvested from a massive psychic crystal was undergoing an alchemical blending process. A swirling, red-gold aether churned within the tank, tangible proof that the sacrifices of over a hundred thousand souls had finally borne fruit.
Psykers did not necessarily need to manually regulate the Warp; their souls were far better utilized as a catalytic additive. The Imperium's primitive method of burning through psykers to power the engines of its Titans was, by Axion's metrics, laughably crude.
However, scaling these applications up to interface with heavy ordnance mandated rigorous thresholds of physical endurance and psychic fortitude. Mortal psykers could be adapted for ship-borne psychic weaponry, deployed in multi-matrix arrays to act as elemental augmentations for the macro-cannons, but they were entirely unsuited for certain ground-based engines of war.
Axion swiftly categorized his subjects. Mortal psykers would be relegated to voidships, serving as auxiliary component nodes for macroscopic psychic weapons. The Astartes psykers, conversely, were earmarked for installation within the Luminous-type Punisher Titans and other high-mobility vanguard ground assets. Given the violent, high-g maneuvers typical of those war engines, a mortal psyker would be pulverized into a slurry of ruptured organs within their crèche before ever firing a shot. Even if secured by rigid skeletal locking harnesses, their internal anatomy simply could not withstand the kinetic stresses.
Even with the Astartes, Axion conceded that additional kinetic-dampening cocoons would be required to prevent sudden concussive impacts from fracturing the critical bioware interfaces.
Throughout the testing phase, Axion had actively combed the galaxy for subjects mirroring Ersen's profile. Yet these displaced, masterless Astartes possessed an exasperating array of methods for vanishing into the dark. An Astartes bent on self-imposed exile could evade the collective gaze of the Imperium itself; the repositories of the Inquisition held frustratingly sparse intel on such renegades. Concluding that searching the cosmos was an inefficient waste of computational resources, Axion abandoned this needle-in-a-haystack endeavor.
If he required a reliable supply of Space Marine psykers, he would have to secure the cooperation of Roboute Guilliman.
The Redeemer Project was the instrument forged for that purpose, a highly unorthodox pact whose immense strategic value would force the Lord Regent to weigh it with absolute gravity.
The Iron Man would furnish the Imperium with an armored pattern designated the Luminous Raider Warsuit, an asset the Adeptus Terra would likely view as a radical variant of the Invictor Tactical Warsuit. For every Astartes psyker the Imperium transferred into his custody, Axion would exchange a corresponding chassis of the Luminous Raider.
These warsuits bore no resemblance to the crude, lumbering fabrications of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Their chassis designs were vastly more refined, agile, and considerably larger. Beyond the exceptionally dense plasteel and ceramite plating characteristic of the Iron Man's designs, these suits were outfitted with permanent localized psychic kine-shields and autonomous warp-teleportation modules, alongside massive hardpoints engineered to support weapons typically reserved for Knight suits.
Furthermore, these machines integrated a suite of empyric beam weapons reverse-engineered from the Hand of Darkness, paired with a wide-spectrum psychic broadcast array. Librarians could seamlessly channel and focus their inner fire through the suit's integrated weapon systems, while the psychic crystals embedded within the chassis permanently amplified the pilot's baseline psychic potency.
This permanent empowerment was achieved through a specialized apparatus developed from Axion's observations of early test subjects, whose psychic thresholds expanded after prolonged immersion in highly saturated warp fields. The fully sealed cockpit of the Luminous Raider meticulously regulated the internal empyric environment, maintaining it at a high but tolerable threshold to gradually expand the Librarian's warp capacity.
However, due to individual genetic and spiritual variances, this developmental arc was not infinite. Ersen had undergone similar psychic tempering in subsequent trials, but his power had already plateaued. Axion's cogitations suggested that the Panacea used on Ersen had already pushed his physiology to its absolute biological zenith, rendering further expansion impossible.
Beyond the delivery of the Luminous Raider warsuits, Axion's accord stipulated that the Iron Man would oversee all subsequent maintenance of the wargear and guarantee a steady supply of consumable psychic crystals. Axion harbored no illusions about the Imperium's capacity to service such sophisticated war machines; certain internal components of the warsuits utilized xenos wraithbone harvested from the Aeldari to optimize psychic conductivity, a blasphemy the Mechanicus could neither comprehend nor maintain.
In return, the Imperium was obligated to yield psyker convicts to the Iron Man. These outcasts could comprise both loyalist scions of the Traitor Legions and psyker criminals within Imperial Chapters who had been condemned for transgressions against their internal codes. Axion was well aware of the Adeptus Astartes' unique mechanisms for 'repentance,' noting that most disgraced battle-brothers were cast into the Deathwatch to fulfill their death oaths.
But ordinary Space Marines were useless to Axion. He required those who bore the 'psychic mutation.'
Extrapolating from Ersen's data, four Omega-level Astartes psykers were sufficient to synchronize with the macro-psychic crystals mounted aboard a Luminous Punisher Titan. If an initiate's psychic grade fell short, Axion could artificially elevate their potential through the high-saturation immersion protocols. According to his calculations, a standard Codex-compliant Codicier or Epistolary would suffice.
As for the Luminous Destroyer Automata scheduled for imminent production, a standard Battle-Brother of the Librarius would easily meet the interface requirements, even without undergoing psychic augmentation.
Unlike the crude designs of Imperial Titans, the Iron Man's psychic void shields operated independently of the pilot's willpower. The psykers, serving purely as a spiritual 'additive,' were tasked solely with the targeting and discharge matrices of the heavy ordnance.
Within these cradles, the psykers would face no risk of termination.