Axion's testing methodology was simple and brutally direct.
Upon a blank, metallic foundation temporarily constructed within the Immaterium, twisting currents of warp energy lashed out, attempting to corrupt the realspace alloys. Several automatons, enveloped in a shimmering shroud of psychic luminescence, stood positioned around the perimeter of the platform. Mechanical appendages extended, grasping a handful of spirit stones, and systematically crushed them one by one into the raw void of the Warp.
The moment the ancient Aeldari souls were ripped from the sanctuary of their spirit stones, they unleashed agonized, terror-stricken shriekings. Bound by the eternal curse of Slaanesh, these souls vanished almost instantaneously, devoured by the True Enemy. Yet, the lingering fragments of soul-debris they left behind were more than enough to act as a beacon, drawing the predatory entities and daemons of the warp toward the coordinate.
Vicious, warp-born silhouettes quickly manifested upon the platform, lunging with feral malice toward the psychically radiant servitors. The automatons fled across the wide expanse of the platform, evading the daemonic onslaught while continuously shattering what few spirit stones remained.
Across this barren, isolated clearing, spanning several square kilometers amidst the churning tides of the Empyrean, the metallic automatons sprinted, flickering with pale blue psychic light. Behind them, a howling, snapping tide of daemons materialized to give chase. Around the fleeing machinery, the wailing remnants of shattered souls occasionally flashed through the gloom.
Under the corrosive influence of the unchecked warp energy, the pristine, metallic surface of the deck began to warp and distend. Morbid, anomalous growths of shifting flesh erupted from the alloy, twisting into grotesque, autonomous entities that joined the pursuit. The once-level metal floor buckled into jagged, uneven geometry, surrounded entirely by an oppressive miasma of pure, unadulterated malice.
The scene was a portrait of uncanny, blasphemous horror.
Then, the Luminous Destroyers were deployed onto the platform.
Several massive psychic crystals, each measuring five meters in diameter, flared to life. A torrential surge of warp energy swept across the staging ground. Simultaneously, the visual synchronization arrays of the chassis transmitted the surrounding environment and the oncoming foes directly into the biological cogitators of the internal cockpits via neural pathways.
Unfamiliar with this bizarre environment, the Grey Knights within had spent the preceding hours locked in deep meditation and solemn vows. The sudden shift caught them entirely off guard. The ambient, blasphemous power and enveloping malice pricked at their heightened senses. It felt not as though they were safely ensconced within the armored bulkheads of an Iron Man's creation, but as if they stood completely exposed upon a naked battlefield, encircled by the denizens of hell.
Devout intonations of faith rose from their lips, drawing down the shielding grace of the God-Emperor. The power of their psychically active bloodlines was unleashed.
From his observation post, Axion monitored the extraction and blending of the chassis's psychic reserves. The golden radiance of absolute faith fused with the raw warp energy, rapidly staining the entire output an immaculate, blinding gold. A tempest of psychic power erupted from the hulls of the Luminous Destroyers; even their standard, pale-blue psychic shielding was overwritten by a brilliant, auric sheen. Without so much as activating their primary weapon systems, the Raiders incinerated the surrounding daemons through the sheer, ambient heat of their kinetic barriers.
The warp entities unleashed shrieking roars of terror, breaking formation in a desperate bid to flee. Yet, these psychically overhauled Destroyer-class heavy automatons had long traded their traditional power claws and heavy flamer assemblies for far deadlier armaments.
The left arm of each unit housed a tri-linked, large-caliber disruptor, an upgraded variant of the Ectoplasmic Dissociation Cannon, integrated with a specialized temporal module to mathematically guarantee a flawless, absolute hit rate. The right arm was configured with a massive, anthropomorphic tearing power fist, under-slung with a newly designed weapon designated the Dark Reaper.
In engineering this weapon, Axion had reverse-engineered the unique energy conduction matrices of the Hand of Darkness. Utilizing an under-slung configuration and a specialized, wide-aperture projector nozzle reminiscent of a heavy flamer, the Dark Reaper could generate a hyper-concentrated, localized psychic maelstrom at close range.
Its terrifying torrents of warp-fire and psychic lightning reduced everything within its firing arc to molecular ash. Furthermore, the chaotic, unchecked discharge of psychic energy within the storm ripped open localized spatiotemporal rifts, tearing enemies limb from limb and scattering their broken remnants across disparate dimensions. For the daemonic host, it was the literal manifestation of the end times.
The sanctified psychic channeling of the Grey Knights transformed the Dark Reaper, originally designed to discharge pure, unfiltered warp energy, into a literal instrument of holy purgation. The highly compressed, stabilized psychic reserves, once touched by the concentrated intent of the psykers, uncoiled and expanded with explosive violence. The shifting, volatile nature of the warp energy was forcibly reordered into holy, golden fire that took root upon the metal deck.
The psychic flames lapped outward from the pale-gold shields of the Luminous Destroyers, enveloping the hulls in a brilliant, roaring aura of pure gold. In an instant, the pristine silver-white alloy of the machines was transfigured into walking monuments of shimmering gold.
Axion meticulously monitored the structural telemetry of the Luminous Destroyers.
The roaring flames appeared to possess no thermal mass; the internal systems operated within optimal parameters, the energy-blending sequences remained stable, and the external hull sensors indicated that the crackling fire was merely a visual manifestation of energy conversion rather than actual physical heat. Yet, observing the daemons thrashing and howling as they dissolved in those very same flames left even the logical mind of Axion deeply perplexed.
Amidst the roiling, golden inferno, several Space Marines, similarly draped in ethereal, ghostly fire, manifested out of nothingness.
Their eyes swept across the anomalous battlefield, taking in the bizarre environment and the scattering daemons currently being erased by the psychic firestorms of the Luminous Destroyers. In that frozen moment, even across the stark void of their bone-adorned helms, Axion and the Grey Knights sealed within the automatons could sense the profound bewilderment and utter disorientation of these newly arrived warriors.
"Anomalous psychic entities detected. Scanning... Potential unverified friendly targets identified: The Legion of the Damned."
Utilizing the advanced sensor suites of the Luminous Destroyers, Axion instantly locked onto the spectral Space Marines, his massive data-cores cross-referencing their signatures and producing an immediate match.
But a split second later, the ghostly warriors vanished back into the flames as abruptly as they had arrived.
For a fleeting moment, the Grey Knights within the Luminous Destroyers felt a sudden, echoing wave of awe reverberate through the Immaterium, a majestic, booming undertone of divine amusement, as if the Master of Mankind Himself had not anticipated such an absurdly effective exploit from an Iron Man.
The sudden disappearance of the locked targets sent Axion's processing cores into a localized computational spike. The agonized shrieking of the dying daemons flooded the audio-receptor arrays, generating immense quantities of corrupted, unidentifiable static data. Axion paid no heed to parsing the incomprehensible noise; his singular focus was deciphering the metaphysical nature of those bizarre psychic apparitions.
The Luminous Destroyers adjusted their firing arcs in perfect unison, and the disruptors in their hands spoke.
Beams of ash-grey light lanced forth, thoroughly erasing the screaming daemons, the golden flames, and every single entity that possessed even a fraction of an immaterial signature. Perhaps due to the unique metaphysics of the Warp, the metallic platform itself began to rapidly disintegrate wherever the ectoplasmic dissociation beams grazed it. Its conceptual material existence eroded far faster here than it ever would have in the physical universe.
Within moments, the entire foundation fractured into drifting, broken shards. Yet, just like their sudden appearance, the mysterious spectral warriors had vanished without a trace, leaving behind no physical or spiritual residue. From the depths of the Empyrean, a majestic, authoritative resonance seemed to echo, carrying the faint, triumphant humor of an undying monarch.
After logging the anomalous event into his archival vaults, Axion directed the Void Sword, which drifted in the distant gloom, to open its primary hangar bays. A complement of heavy transports was dispatched, systematically retrieving the Luminous Destroyers before they could begin to drift into the turbulent currents of the warp tides.
Inside the hulls of the heavy automatons, the Grey Knights fell into a state of even deeper, more fanatical prayer. Through the visual data streamed directly into their minds by technology they could barely comprehend, the daemon hunters had witnessed the truth with absolute clarity.
The divine golden radiance, the roaring, sanctified flames, the agonizing screams of a shattered daemonic host, and the miraculous appearance of those legendary, spectral Astartes… to their devout hearts, every single variable pointed to one undeniable truth: they had just witnessed the manifest wrath of the God-Emperor.
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