“Step forward. Be richly rewarded... Hahaha...”

The voice of the keeper issued throughout the shrine. It bounced around the vaulting ceiling of the nave, silicon walls echoing the voice down onto the newly arrived laity. They advanced together as one, looking in every direction, as the beast hidden high above laughed. His voice wracked their will.

The eidolon saw a distant window overlooking them, so high as to pierce the city itself. It crowned the top of the spire, stained with the image of a woman, a progenitor, holding a white flower and a dove aloft. Her form was pure. Her physique was beautiful. Unexpectedly, a tear stung his eye, but he blinked it away. Through the window spilt light from the surface, stinging his pale flesh and dazzling his sensitive eyes, forcing the nameless warrior to look down once more.

Stepping between long-abandoned pews and the remnants of worship from another age, Sir Enhash snarled as Taneberr shook his head to dispel the glare. Menmarch groaned, shuddering in the giant’s grip, and Llewtoll silently bowed his head. At the focal point of the nave, a smaller structure stood, erected of worn stone and bearing intricate decoration worn down by the acid conditions of the city over untold ages; still, it remained at the centre of a column of light, reaching these depths from the window high above. Struggling, exposed to the inferno of the day-star, they staggered across the bright floor until they finally returned to their familiar darkness.

Inside this sepulchre, claustrophobic, the warriors crept in through a narrow passage, an entryway fortified to be impregnable once upon a time. They expected to find a tomb. But instead, they brought themselves before a throne. Seated was a bipedal figure that shared their shape - the very form of the progenitors they had religiously carved themselves down to resemble. However, unlike their piecemeal armour, it was mighty in its armoured exoskeleton. Even seated, it was a five-metre monument of gilded titanium, etched with grandiose iconography, wearing a tale sweeping back to antiquity. Its head was concealed behind a mighty visor, a sharp wedge with no concealment about its use in war.

“My Lord!”

The eidolon threw himself down to his knees, hands planted against the cold stone floor. His head lowered in supplication. His zealotry was matched, slowly, by those that followed him.

“My Lord,” he gasped, suddenly lost for breath, lost for words. “We have come. We have... We have crossed the city. We have brought you tribute, slain the corrupt, brought justice in your name.”

When there was no reaction from the seated figure, the eidolon swallowed down a lump in his throat before managing in the ghost of a whisper.

“We have come because you have called.”

The eidolon stared at the ground until his neck ached. The fatigue of his long journey burned in his wearied muscles. When he dared raise his gaze, it was to look back to his companions. Their mutant eyes were filled with doubt.

And when they had almost lost faith, the exoskeleton of the Pilgrim groaned to life. Pneumatic muscles trembled and thumped against their metal bindings. A howl of static noise issued from its visor before booming with a strange, bone-shaking voice.

“I welcome you laity, faithful, at long last,” the Pilgrim said, his voice rattling the chamber, drawing dust from the walls and the ceiling. Behind them, the entryway groaned to life. Machinery churned in unseen recesses, and the passage closed, sealing them in the dark. The only light which remained was stark and electric, cast off from the mighty Lord, seated before them. Stricken with panic, the nameless warrior threw himself back down onto his hands, head bowed. He trembled before an ancient master.

“I welcome you to our most ancient stronghold,” the Pilgrim continued.

“You do us-... A tremendous honour,” the eidolon tried to speak, but his voice was drowned out. “We seek to join-... Join your crusade, at long last.”

“Whence mighty Acetyn, the Genekeeper, and I once walked side by side, I so welcome you upon our millennia-long crusade.”

The Pilgrim’s electronic voice, bassy and sonorous, thudded against stone and bone. He rose from his throne with the grinding of his old exoskeleton and sealed armour. Flecks of basalt, dislodged from the ancient structure, fell around him.

As the Pilgrim spoke, he advanced, a titan in motion upon them.

“... Long ago, we fell from the branches of the city of Axiamat, who dared to reach towards the stars. Before the death of our host city, together, we came upon our ancient birthright, a crucible where we could meet our ancient ancestors...”

Ponderous, the ancient master extended a gauntlet out towards the injured Menmarch, with his mangled leg and cracked ribs. The dazed warrior placed his hands upon the gauntlet, enraptured, slit eyes dilating as an emerald laser sparked from the helmet of the Pilgrim and scanned across his face.

“... And so an alliance was born, out of a dream. A dream to restore our bodies to a beautiful state. Together, mighty Acetyn, the Genekeeper, and I led an army to scour this world...”

Without slow grace, the Pilgrim closed his unbreakable grip around the hands of Menmarch and brought his other gauntlet over the vat-born’s head. Then, effortlessly, he pulled him apart, bone and sinew cracking and dislodging, a tide of wet gore spilling over the ground as his spine was torn from the rest of his body.

The eidolon and his men cried out in fright and recoiled. Then, jumping to their feet, they retreated back. Llewtoll turned to find the entranceway braced and fortified. There was no escape.

“... We raised the greatest army that had ever walked under this sun. The cities fell before us, one by one. The planet was ours to rule. Slowly, we recovered the lost genes of humanity, lost in the discord of our corrupted world, one body at a time...”

With a roar, Taneberr lunged forward. In a failed attempt to save his old ally, the brute delivered a thunderous strike to the body of the Pilgrim, the mail around his fist crashing against the Pilgrim’s armour with dense weight. The ancient master, untroubled, released his first victim, Menmarch falling to the ground in a puddle of his own fluids. Then the Pilgrim turned upon the arrogant warrior with a flick of that glowing, emerald eye. The insidious device burned Taneberr’s flesh with charged, strobing pulses of light, tasting the smoke.

And his electronic voice continued all the while.

“... But we were each of us betrayed. The only constant in this doomed world is that those who are craven covet what the noble possess. And so, the wicked Genekeeper revealed her true nature. Instead of uniting our genome whole, she used her position to enthral mighty Acetyn, and leash my army...”

Llewtoll snarled, raising his lance. A crack, and he fired the weapon at the head of the giant. The flash broke staccato in the dark, and in the next instant, Taneberr leapt up and jammed the blade of his sword into the crack of armour between the Pilgrim’s visor and throat, sending burning sparks in all directions as star metal collided.

A swing of his tremendous arm and the Pilgrim caught Taneberr by the throat. He continued his monologue as he peeled the brute’s arm from his body. Taneberr screamed for help, drowned out by a booming voice.

“... Such arrogance. My work for old Axiamat would never come to an end. Acetyn’s ancient oaths bid it carry my fortress, evermore. Even as he took the Genekeeper as his betrothed, such a promise could not be forgotten...”

Llewtoll and Sir Enhash stepped apart. The survivor desperately looked around and whimpered, faced with his own doom. Whilst he dropped his lance, the knight superior drew his blade. All the while, the Pilgrim used his massive, armoured thumb to probe into Taneberr’s chest cavity, pulling bone and armour apart through the hole where the warrior’s shoulder once existed. Finally, after scanning the augs within, the Pilgrim dropped the dead brute onto the ground. Then, he continued to speak regarding those that remained with a deep appraisal.

“... The dismantling of my army, the injustice of her vile actions, was not the end. The Genekeeper dared to deploy a bioweapon against me. The infection led to the withering of my body and my augmentations. And so for a thousand years, I have waited...”

After falling to his knees, pleading, Llewtoll met a swift end as the Pilgrim crushed him under his colossal, titanium heel. Sir Enhash ducked under a swing of the ancient master’s arm. Then, he lunged at that electronic eye in the Pilgrim’s helmet. He never reached it, However. Instead, seizing the knight, gauntlet in a vice grip around his entire body, the Pilgrim used a finger and thumb to peel the star metal helmet from Sir Enhash, blood pouring as jagged metal bent and bit into his mutant skull.

The emerald beam pulsed and flicked over the twisted remains of Sir Enhash’s head, examining the twisted knot of bone, muscle, and chitin shell. Not satisfied, he squeezed until the warrior burst and then dropped him aside, worthless.

“... It is true. You are far from the first leal souls to arrive over this dark millennium. So many brave and noble aspirants have risen, eager to embark on a second crusade to see this world made right. However, such a dream is impossible. I see now that only I can unite the genome of our progenitors and save us all...”

A sudden weight landed upon the Pilgrim’s shoulders. The eidolon leapt upon him from behind, bare feet fast upon the machinery of the ancient master’s armoured exoskeleton. A sword blade slammed down into the same spot that the brute Taneberr had damaged. Then the eidolon gripped the visor under the crack with both his scarred hands, hissing. Muscles straining with bioaugmented strength, the titanium groaned and buckled before the helmet was shorn from its mount in a spray of broken metal.

A human skull was revealed within the vast mass of the suit. Filled with rage and betrayal, the eidolon slammed Menmarch’s blade down into the Pilgrim’s right eye socket. However, the triumph was short-lived, as the massive grip of the Pilgrim took hold of the eidolon, bringing them face to face at last. Ignoring the eidolon’s desperate struggle, kicking and shouting, chrome teeth scattered electric light as the master continued to speak, the blade still plunged deep into his eye socket.

“... I hope you have been listening. For it is you, most faithful, you most mighty, who brought your kin, purified, here to this holy place to restore the might of your Lord. So to you, I grant the most incredible honour. Your neural matter shall join mine, as your bodies act as that final leaden sacrifice, and my work begins anew.”