As the first of the Reaver-Eviscerator Armed Reconnaissance Automata materialized outside the perimeter of the Iron Warriors' fortress, a targeted blast of psychic lightning erupted from the void. Amidst the ubiquitous, anomalous crystals scattered across the landscape, strange energies seemed to amplify the conjuration of the Chaos sorcery.
Crack!
With a sudden, thunderous detonation, a storm of fine arcs coalesced in the air, pinning a tall, indistinct figure within their reach. The erratic flare of psychic energy overloaded the automaton's outer layers, causing its relatively fragile holographic cloaking array to flicker and fail.
High atop the fortress firing gallery, a Thousand Sons sorcerer, his force staff crackling with warp-fire, widened his eyes in disbelief.
"By Chaos, what is this?!"
The Reaver-Eviscerator, now fully exposed, rotated its head. Its ocular sensors adjusted with rapid precision, sweeping the surroundings. An arcane weapon mounted on its mechanical arm pulsed with light, discharging a blue-white ray that struck the fortress wall head-on.
A silent eruption unfolded before the eyes of the defenders. The thick, reinforced bastion wall was systematically erased, leaving a massive, ragged void as if it had been vaporized by a Necron gauss weapon. All that remained on the ground was a layer of fine, unidentifiable dust. The sheer scale of the destruction sent a chill through the Thousand Sons on the ramparts.
Only now did the Iron Warriors realize an invasion was underway. Even though they were currently acting as reluctant allies to the Thousand Sons, the two Legions remained deeply divided.
Several Hunter-Killer missiles launched from within the fortress, their massive bodies trailing long exhaust plumes as they streaked toward the revealed enemy. Simultaneously, the roar of heavy artillery erupted from the bastion's firing points, spewing gargantuan shells from large-caliber autocannons at the machine.
Yet, the Reaver-Eviscerator suddenly shifted its gait, breaking into a rapid, low-slung assault. The automaton possessed a feline agility that defied its mechanical bulk, the shells whistling past the edges of its frame with inches to spare.
As the Hunter-Killer missiles arrived with a shrieking whine, the resulting conflagration briefly obscured the view. However, a shimmer of energy flared around the machine, easily shrugging off the enemy's payload.
From the breached fortress wall, swarms of mortal cultists and twisted Beastmen, known as Tzaangors, poured forth. A Tzaangor shaman brandished a crude staff, hurling dark Chaos sorcery at the mechanical unit. The very same magic that could warp a mortal into a Tzaangor had absolutely no effect on the machine. Possessing only a limited intellect, the shaman could not comprehend the failure of his arts.
Led by the cultist leaders and the shaman, the mortals and beast-kin formed the first line of defense. A dense mass of biological organisms surged from the ruins, unleashing a torrent of fire from lasguns and autoguns as they closed in on the advancing machine.
Yet, before these traitorous wretches and aliens could even finalize their formation, the automaton unleashed its fire once more. The beams of its dissociation cannons swept across the enemy, leaving behind a circular crater filled with falling dust. After the green arc of its neural-sensory pulverizers flashed, the remaining enemies were nothing but corpses. Each body bore the tell-tale signs of a nervous system and brain scorched from within. In truth, the attack had annihilated not just the flesh, but the soul itself. The fragmented, shattered remnants of their spirits dissolved into the air as a chorus of wretched, mournful wails, rendering the atmosphere of the battlefield increasingly macabre.
Seeing the first line of defense dissipate into fragmented ruin, a Shadowsword super-heavy tank rolled slowly into view, accompanied by several modified Sicaran-pattern tanks. These compact, agile tanks were outfitted with weapon arrays consisting of twin high-energy plasma cannons. Though their chassis and turrets appeared somewhat disproportionate, their lethality was absolute. At close range, they could even inflict crippling damage upon a Titan. However, this particular variant of the Sicaran suffered from a relatively short effective range.
Under the cold command of the Iron Warriors, the elite traitor crews drove these tanks in a dispersed formation, charging directly at the Reaver-Eviscerator. The chilling, high-pitched whine of the plasma cannons and their flickering blue light created an aura of profound dread.
Yet, the massive frame of the Reaver-Eviscerator evaded the majority of the plasma bolts. With a swift motion, its colossal power claws shredded the encroaching Sicarans with effortless ease. Gore sprayed from the twisted metal as the hulls were torn asunder. The crew within had no hope of survival; the scene was as blood-slicked and visceral as a creator from the Old Ages crudely tearing apart a foam shipping crate filled with raw meat. Shredded metal and mangled flesh danced in the air.
A thick, orange-red beam erupted from the massive barrel of the Shadowsword. The Volcano Cannon, ordinarily the armament of a Titan, unleashed its full, catastrophic power. Even with the Reaver-Eviscerator's rapid reflexes, a quarter of its chassis caught the brunt of the beam. The searing, incandescent heat instantly turned the automaton's left arm and a portion of its torso into molten slag.
Facing such catastrophic structural loss, the machine's primary nano-repair components were clearly unable to process the extent of the damage.
However, these little entities held another option in reserve.
As a one-time tactical repair module activated, a brilliant, golden light fused into the machine's frame. The damaged area was filled and fully restored by the golden radiance. Were it not for the pooling, molten metal still dripping onto the ground, the preceding attack would have seemed like a mere hallucination.
Enveloped in the golden light, the massive automaton vanished into thin air. The repair module had also restored the holographic cloaking array that had been damaged by the Thousand Sons' psychic lightning.
The vox-augurs employed by the Chaos traitors were utterly unable to scan the Reaver-Eviscerator while it operated in its stealth mode. The crew of the Shadowsword, having lost their target, scanned the area frantically, but their onboard sensors picked up nothing. In a panic, they fired their Volcano Cannon wildly, saturating the area where the machine had last been seen. Yet, other than carving a fresh crater of lava into the earth, they achieved nothing.
CLANG!
CREAK~
With a dull thud, something appeared to have leaped onto the massive hull of the Shadowsword. The tank's suspension system groaned under the weight, buckling from the sudden, immense strain.
High on the battlements, the Thousand Sons sorcerer waved his staff again, unleashing a gargantuan storm of lightning that swallowed the Shadowsword whole. The Iron Warriors, observing this, roared a curse at the sorcerers.
The psychic storm once again exposed the cloaked automaton. Inside the Shadowsword, the traitor crew was left with nothing but despair. Standing amidst the psychic lightning, the machine tore open the tank's roof armor and, before the psychic surge could flood the interior, aimed its neural-sensory pulverizers directly into the breach.
Sickly green arcs of electricity leapt into the hull. Amidst a spine-chilling chorus of screams, the crew was reduced to a heap of shattered, bloody meat.
The automaton's power claws ripped the top off the tank, then forcibly wrenched the Volcano Cannon from the center of the vehicle. Nanites flowed over the machine's limbs as energy conduits were rerouted; cables, twitching like living things, snaked out and found their connection points.
As the seized Volcano Cannon began to glow with lethal intent, panic seized everyone on the field.
Within the data core of the Reaver-Eviscerator, a single status tag flashed:
"Enemy possesses capability to bypass stealth systems. Recommend enabling Assault Reconnaissance Mode."
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