As the canisters carrying the Reaver-Eviscerator Armed Reconnaissance Automata were projected directly onto the planetary surface like shells, intermingled with an overwhelming barrage of ordinance, the covering fire gradually subsided after a sustained period.
The traitors possessed woefully insufficient knowledge of the Iron Men.
In truth, even without deploying planet-killing weaponry, the Iron Men could systematically tear a world apart by concentrating their fire on a single structural weakness. The traitors lacked the terrifying predictive capabilities of the Iron Men; had they possessed such insight, they would have noticed that each volley of fire fell in a precise, curious ring pattern.
Dense fire erupted from the central zone, spreading outward, while only the outer perimeter of the target location was subjected to repetitive strikes. The firestorm wove a web of destruction that obscured everything. Furthermore, neither the Thousand Sons nor the Iron Warriors dared to stand near the impact sites to observe, risking being vaporized into dust, while the mortal thralls and cultists lacked the capacity to discern anything at all.
When the Imperium first encountered the Leviathan Hive Fleet in the Segmentum Ultima, many units had already witnessed the Iron Men's synchronized artillery advance. Shells would detonate mere meters from the side of a mechanical host, yet the resulting blast would stop just centimeters from the front of the automaton army. Any residual energy was utterly insufficient to exert even the slightest negative impact on the machine bodies.
Within the Imperium, only the Death Korps of Krieg employed such tactics. The Guardsmen would launch frontal assaults, pushing through a hail of fire while Earthshaker cannons and Basilisk artillery shells rained down, detonating just ahead of them. Yet, the coordination of the Iron Men was even more extreme. Unlike the Krieg soldiers, for whom artillery support was integrated with ground pushes, the Iron Men utilized their warships' broadsides in perfect tandem.
The Kriegers might inadvertently blow their own men to pieces; the Iron Men did not. Every explosion and the subsequent shockwave was calculated with absolute precision.
On the landing zone of Sortiarius, now razed flat by the bombardment, a dense rain of crystalline dust was descending. The specialized metal canisters were gradually obscured as churning Warp energies re-enveloped the sky, instantly severing communications between the planetary surface and the Void Sword in high orbit. The state of the surface became as absurd and bizarre as the Warp itself. Great swathes of rock and mountain ranges floated in the sky, while ribbons of iridescent light bled across the ground. The terrain was saturated with peculiar, psychic-reactive crystals.
The canisters unfolded, revealing empty interiors. Dimly, one could see massive, semi-transparent silhouettes leaping forth in constant succession. Those weightless crystalline powders ceased their descent, instead drifting subtly upward.
To ensure comprehensive reconnaissance, Axion had deployed one hundred thousand Reaver-Eviscerators across the six planets of the system. Upon landing, these reconnaissance automata immediately activated their information-cloaking systems, then began to surge outward from those dozens of canisters. Each mechanical unit maintained continuous data-relay synchronization with the others.
The mission of the Reaver-Eviscerators was simple: locate the two traitor Primarchs, attempt to capture them alive, and simultaneously search for any potential Imperial survivors while completing the sweep. As these terrifying mechanical ghosts commenced their operations, strange phenomena began to manifest across every world occupied by the rebels.
Magnus was the first to detect the anomaly.
Sortiarius was unlike Prospero or any other world; the planet was, in a sense, alive. Even if the colossal frames of the Reaver-Eviscerators were not easily identified by the naked eye, the energy signatures generated by their operation and the subtle air currents they displaced were impossible to hide from psychic perception. The Thousand Sons sorcerers sensed the arrival of unidentified units the moment the machines exited the landing zone. Realizing they were under invasion, the Thousand Sons responded immediately.
The powers of Chaos roiled across the world. Gravity fluctuated wildly; the ground began to heave and collapse. Vast plains transformed into mountain ranges and chasms, creating massive natural hazards, while mists of Chaos blanketed the surface.
Such tactics might have been devastating against Imperial forces, but against the Iron Men, they were futile. Gravitic stabilizers adjusted constantly, dynamically maintaining the equilibrium of the Reaver-Eviscerators as the ten-meter-tall hulks sprinted across the terrain. They observed the shifting earth, silently recording every supernatural phenomenon.
Then, they leaped.
The rupturing earth proved utterly ineffective. The massive mechanical units, moving in groups of four, utilized the anti-gravitic fields generated by their stabilizers to vault directly over the chasms. When they encountered near-vertical cliffs, the gravity adjusters pinned them firmly against the rock faces. The machines set their limbs against the vertical surface and sprinted forward unabated. In reality, such movement was immensely taxing, comparable to a mortal running into the teeth of a hurricane, but for the machines, it was a trivial expenditure.
As for the savage and grotesque Beasts of Chaos, they posed no obstacle to the Iron Men's reconnaissance units. Unlike the scout detachments dispatched to the surface by Calgar, most of the Reaver-Eviscerators simply ignored these twisted, freakish creatures. They were not threats, nor was there any need to deal with them specifically. Of course, occasionally trampling dozens underfoot was inevitable. After all, the mechanical units were simply too massive, and these strange creatures were indeed quite numerous.
The surface of Sortiarius was covered in vast, glassy plains that refracted light, creating blinding reflections and peculiar optical illusions. Beyond these lay shifting, kaleidoscopic mirror-labyrinths where the corridors and walls rearranged themselves, designed to disorient the traveler.
Yet, such visual trickery was not a concern for the Iron Men. The six articulated composite ocular sensors arranged in a semi-circle on the mechanical heads constantly adjusted to the shifting light, while the scanning arrays concealed within their torsos remained locked on target. From the moment they landed, these machines had been advancing on a fixed bearing. They performed multi-point triangulation at every instant to confirm their trajectory.
As for those physical mirror-labyrinths, they were utterly useless before these machines, which plowed through them like juggernauts. Their dissociation cannons would flicker slightly, and beams of pale blue light would silently tear massive fissures through the obstacles. All matter struck by the beams was disintegrated into its primal particles.
A gale roared across the planet's surface, laden with razor-sharp crystalline shards. Debris that could have pierced ceramite armor shattered into harmless dust upon impact with the Reaver-Eviscerators. Meanwhile, the grotesque swamps, saturated with gore and twisted, alien organic tissue, were purged by neural-sensory pulverizers. Sickly green bolts erupted from their weaponry, plunging into the pits that would drive any mortal to madness; instantly, the writhing flesh ceased all movement, truly rendered into nothing more than a swamp of inanimate gore.
Curious, the Thousand Sons sorcerers sensed their enemy approaching and used psychic teleportation to manifest atop the fortified bastions constructed by the Iron Warriors. They wanted to see, with their own eyes, exactly what these invaders were.
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