The Gate of Bone shut behind them with a seismic hum. Ahead lay the Crucible Plains — a sunless stretch of scorched metal earth, where rusted giants lay in eternal kneel, their circuitry leaking forgotten prayers.
Talis adjusted her scope as they walked through the fog of plasma residue. "This place... it's not on any chart. We're off the grid."
RAID-13 grinned beneath his helm. "Good. I'm tired of maps."
Ahead, ghostly chanting rippled on windless air — synthetic voices singing in broken Latin. Across the ruins, a fortress stood: jagged like a crown of knives, adorned with crucified mechs, their reactors still humming faintly.
"Looks like we found our Iron Saints," Talis muttered.
The Order of Steel
The Iron Saints weren't just myth. They were living relics — mech pilots who grafted their consciousness into divine metal, worshipping ancient war-code as gospel. A fractured cult of martyr engineers, guarding forbidden tech.
As RAID and Talis approached, the gates of the citadel ground open.
Out strode a titan.
Seven meters tall, cloaked in magnetic robes, bearing a staff fused with nuclear scripture — the Arch-Priest Saint Vorlax.
"Who dares trespass upon the Testament Field?" he boomed.
"Just a heretic with questions," RAID said. "And a big left hook."
Clash of Doctrines
Vorlax summoned three Paladins — walking relics of gold-trimmed mech armor, each wielding heat-hammer maces and faith-shields. The battle began instantly.
RAID surged forward in Sovereign Red, shoulder-slamming the nearest Paladin into a monument of circuitry. Talis sniped energy capacitors from above, forcing the Paladins into a boxed formation.
Each hit from Vorlax's staff pulsed psionic energy across the plain. Ancient war-code attempted to overwrite RAID's systems mid-fight.
"Your soul is fragmented," Vorlax roared.
"I sold the pieces for ammo," RAID quipped, before detonating a localized blackhole grenade that devoured one Paladin entirely.
The Code Reliquary
Mid-battle, the ground beneath them gave way — and all fell into a subterranean cathedral of servers and memory glass.
Here, the Saints' true secret was revealed: a vault of preserved minds — copies of the first multiverse explorers, locked in loops of simulated torment to power the Saints' weapons.
Talis gasped. "This is where they keep the lost."
RAID's eyes narrowed. "No one gets to play god unless they beat me at it first."
He challenged Vorlax to a final duel atop the spinning memory core — sparks flying, data ghosts screaming around them.
With a plasma-drenched fist, RAID shattered Vorlax's helm — revealing a half-machine, half-decayed face, crying tears of coolant.
"I only wanted to preserve divinity," Vorlax whispered.
"You preserved cowardice," RAID replied, and drove his blade through the priest's corrupted core.
Escape and Judgment
As the cathedral collapsed, RAID and Talis fled through collapsing tunnels of shattered scripture and burning AI idols.
Outside, the Crucible Plains lit with chain reactions — ancient reactors melting down.
Talis looked at him. "You're not even surprised by what we find anymore."
"I've fought gods," RAID said. "Tech-cults are just karaoke versions."
Above them, the stars rearranged.
A new gate was opening — one marked with blood, bone, and binary.