Warhammer: Become a Saint Starting with the Banner of Souls

Its right-side armor was pierced by a high-energy weapon, leaving a hole the size of a washbasin. The edge of the piercing hole was burned dark red by the high temperature.

A pale green liquid was slowly seeping out of the hole.

Its left arm was almost completely torn apart; some kind of heavy weapon that was originally mounted on the left arm had become a pile of twisted metal debris, with only a few hydraulic lines still stubbornly connected.

Although the giant power gauntlet on his right arm was still intact, the servo mechanism at the joint had stopped working, and his entire arm hung limply at his side.

On its panel, on an armor plate resembling a visor, two eyepieces flickered faintly.

Qin Mo stared at the machine, extending his divine sense.

He sensed it.

Beneath that thick layer of armor, in the core sealed chamber known as the sarcophagus, there was a life.

An extremely weak life that is rapidly fading away.

But at the same time, it is also a powerful and ancient soul.

Even in its dying state, that soul still exuded a calm and resolute aura.

Qin Mo had seen countless cultivators and the souls of countless powerful beings in the cultivation world, but a soul that maintained such a strong will even in extreme weakness still moved him slightly.

This is a true warrior.

A veteran who has fought for countless years.

[Ding! Character encyclopedia unlocked - Fearless Mech]

The Dreadnought: One of the oldest and most sacred weapons of war in the Imperial Space Marine Chapters.

When a Space Marine suffers a fatal wound on the battlefield, so severe that even the life support systems of his power armor and the exceptional medical skills of his pharmacists cannot save his life, if the Chapter deems him brave enough, he will be placed in a sealed life support pod called a sarcophagus.

[Capable of keeping a Space Marine alive, even if only a torso or part of the torso and brain remains. The Space Marine's nervous system is connected to the Dreadnought's mechanical body via a neural interface within the sarcophagus, allowing them to control this walking weapon of war with their thoughts.]

During periods when combat is not required, the Space Marines inside the Dreadnoughts are placed in a time-freeze state by the stasis field inside the sarcophagus, theoretically allowing them to be preserved indefinitely.

[Technicians will only release the stasis field and awaken them when the chapter needs them.]

Some of the warriors in the Dreadnoughts have lived for thousands or even tens of thousands of years. They are respectfully called "Elders" or "Venerables," and some Dreadnoughts even hold a higher status than the Chapter Commander himself.

Within each chapter, only the bravest and most outstanding warriors are qualified to be placed in the Dreadnought. This is both a supreme honor and a cruel fate.

Qin Mo narrowed his eyes slightly after reading the introduction.

"Tsk tsk tsk."

He let out a profound sigh.

"This empire's methods are no less sophisticated than those of evil cultivators," he thought to the system.

"Put a dying man into an iron coffin, connect him to a tube, fill him with medicine, and then send him back to the battlefield to kill until every last bit of value is squeezed out of him."

He shook his head slightly.

"Back in the day, the Blood Fiend Puppets of the Asura Demon Sect were no better. They sealed the remains of cultivators into the puppet's core, using their residual divine consciousness to drive the puppet in battle. Although the methods differed, the essence was the same: not letting go of the last remaining value of every warrior."

[While the host's analogy is somewhat harsh, it's not wrong in a certain respect. However, the system would like to add that not every warrior in a Dreadnought is a volunteer.]

"oh?"

In many cases, a dying Space Marine would be placed in a sarcophagus by the decision of his comrade or superior, while he remained unconscious and had no say in the process. When he awoke in the sarcophagus to find himself transformed into a three-meter-tall metal can, well, the reaction was usually not pleasant.

According to anecdotal records in the system's database, many Dauntless pilots, upon being awakened for the first time, would immediately chase after the "good buddy" who had crammed them in, running all over the camp in an attempt to express their "gratitude" with their power gauntlets.

There are even rumors that a book titled "Please Put Me in the Dreadnought" is circulating within the Empire—supposedly an excerpt from another, more famous work titled "Don't Put Me in the Dreadnought."

"puff."

Qin Mo almost burst out laughing.

"Hehe, your system is quite interesting."

He chuckled and shook his head, his gaze returning to the Dreadnought that was kneeling on the ground.

The technical sergeant is dismantling the damaged armor plate on the right side of the Dreadnought in an attempt to access the damaged internal systems.

"However, on another note," he said to the system in his mind, "their technology is truly amazing."

His divine sense once again penetrated deep into the internal structure of that fearless machine.

This time, he specifically went to sense the static force field that the technical sergeant had mentioned before.

Although the static force field generator was damaged, residual force field traces remained on the inner wall of the stone coffin. When Qin Mo's divine sense touched those traces, his pupils contracted slightly.

He sensed the fluctuations of time.

Those residual force field traces contain an interference with the flow of time. Although extremely weak, it does indeed slow down or even stop the passage of time at the physical level.

This truly surprised Qin Mo.

It should be understood that in the Xuanhuang Realm, the Law of Time is one of the most difficult supreme laws to reach under the Heavenly Dao.

There are very few cultivators who can interfere with time. Even Qin Mo himself, who is at the peak of the Mahayana stage, can only use time-stopping on a very small area for a very short time, and the spiritual power and divine soul power consumed are astronomical figures.

But these ordinary people did it with just one machine.

Moreover, it is a mass-produced, standardized machine.

"I never imagined their technology could even interfere with the Great Dao of Time," Qin Mo exclaimed sincerely.

"Although its effect is far less sophisticated and powerful than a cultivator's time-manipulation techniques, it excels in stability and durability. With my cultivation level, I can only pause time for the duration of an incense stick burning, but this static force field can be maintained for thousands or even tens of thousands of years?"

That's right. This is also why some warriors in Dreadnoughts can survive for tens of thousands of years.

Qin Mo nodded thoughtfully.

"Of course, this is also one of the reasons why the Dreadnoughts are generally very grumpy when they wake up," the system added.

What do you mean?

[Host, imagine this: you fought valiantly on the battlefield today, then fell unconscious, severely wounded. The next second you wake up to find yourself stuffed into a metal canister.]

Before you could even figure out what was going on, you were told there were enemies outside again and you needed to go out and fight. After you finished fighting, you were frozen solid again. When you woke up, you had to fight again. You froze again, and then you had to fight again.

From the perspective of these fearless pilots, their lives are a never-ending series of battles. There is no rest. There is no respite.

One second you're fighting desperately against orcs, the next you open your eyes to clash with Tyrant Worms. Three hundred years have passed between these two battles, but to you it feels like only a blink of an eye.

Therefore, every time a Tech Sergeant awakens a Dreadnought, it's basically a high-risk operation. The Dreadnought pilot's first reaction upon waking is usually that the battle isn't over yet, followed by punching the nearest moving object. If the Tech Sergeant isn't fast enough...

Qin Mo's lips twitched slightly as an image flashed through his mind of a technical sergeant being smashed into a pulp by the fearless grandfather he served.