The Nob, who was covered, head to toe, in Mega Armor, exploded before me, utterly breaking apart and shattering into a thousand super-heated particles, which then scattered into the atmosphere, leaving only its feet, its stumps of which steamed and smoked. The rest of it was just... gone, turned into particles so tiny that my power no longer recognized them as Biomass. As it turned out, altering the weight of [Ruyi Jingu Bang] was... more complicated and far-far-far more powerful than I previously thought. For instance, I could adjust its weight to be one thousand kilograms, but also make it so that it'd only feel like a kilogram to me and to everything else, except for whatever I wanted to feel the full weight of it. In this case, neither me nor the ground, nor everything else but the Ork Nob, for that matter, felt the full weight of [Ruyi Jingu Bang] when I adjusted its weight to one hundred million kilograms just for the heck of it.

I had no idea what I was expecting. But, in the name of the God Emperor, that hadn't been it. In theory, I could kill just about any physical opponent with this weapon. One whack to the center mass and... that was it; they'd be naught but cosmic dust and ashes. The same thing happened when I struck an Ork Tank, followed by a whole squad of Ork Boyz. I actually found myself laughing as I walked forward and killed and destroyed just about anything I encountered. Nothing could stand before me – not even the most heavily armored Ork, the largest Gargant, nothing. All the enemies of mankind, at least the ones within striking distance, were destroyed – one by one, not even the slightest trace of them remaining and the best part was that I didn't have to worry about collateral damage at all.

A Gargant crumbled to dust before me as I extended [Ruyi Jingu Bang] and struck it with an overhanded vertical swing, briefly splitting it in two, before the two separate halves, not even a nanosecond later, crumbled into particles of light and dust and ashes.

As the Gargant disintegrated into dust before me, I paused for a moment, marveling at the sheer, destructive power of [Ruyi Jingu Bang]. Each swing, each strike, delivered an unthinkable amount of force—enough to wipe away anything in my path without a trace. The weapon had surpassed all my expectations, its weight manipulation ability proving to be far more versatile than I'd initially imagined. Even now, as I held it in my hand, it felt weightless, despite being capable of bearing the crushing force of entire mountains on those unfortunate enough to feel its true impact.

The battlefield had gone quiet. The Orks, who moments ago had been roaring with their bloodlust, were now either dust or running for their lives. I could see it in their eyes: the realization that no number of WAAAGH! banners, no war chants, and no hulking Nobz or Gargants could save them now. I was no longer just a warrior in their eyes—I had become a force of nature.

A flash of green in the corner of my vision broke my thoughts. Another group of Ork Boyz, desperate and charging towards me, firing wildly with their shootas. The bullets pinged off my armor harmlessly, and before they could get any closer, I extended the staff with a thought, and it grew faster than the Orks could react. I swung horizontally, and just like that, the entire mob was reduced to nothing—scattered particles left floating in the air. The sound of their screams didn't even have time to echo before they were erased.

I couldn't help but laugh again. There was something almost surreal about the ease with which I was cutting through these enemies—creatures that had once been considered the bane of entire Imperial worlds, now reduced to less than dust at my whim. But there was no joy in it, not really. This was duty. This was vengeance. And it was a reminder of the incredible weight of responsibility that came with the power I now wielded.

As the dust settled, I noticed something strange. The battlefield had grown eerily silent. No more Orks charged at me. The green tide had turned into a pitiful trickle of terrified, disoriented survivors. I could sense their fear. It rippled through the air like a tangible force, thick and heavy, almost like the oppressive calm before a storm. This wasn't just the fear of death—this was the primal fear of something far greater. Something unstoppable.

The WAAAGH! itself was faltering.

The energy that had once driven the Orks forward was starting to wane, and I realized something: I was draining it. It wasn't just the sheer slaughter I had unleashed; it was more than that. The perk, [Bane of the Greenskins], had come into effect in full force. The Orks' fear of me was weakening their collective psychic energy. They could sense their impending doom, and as I grew stronger with each swing, their will to fight grew weaker. For the first time, I felt like I was using the Orks' own WAAAGH! energy against them.

A few stragglers still stumbled toward me—Nobz, mostly, with more armor and more muscle, but with none of the confidence they had before. I could see the hesitation in their movements, the doubt in their eyes as they swung their massive weapons. I didn't even bother dodging their attacks anymore. It was pointless. With a flick of the staff, they were gone. Nothing but dust.

The silence that now hung over the battlefield felt unnatural. It was as if the planet itself was holding its breath, waiting for something—perhaps for me to leave, perhaps for the storm of my power to pass. I gazed over the smoking ruins and the scattering remains of Ork forces. My body still hummed with the remnants of the energy I'd unleashed, but the thrill of battle had long since faded. Duty remained. There was still work to do, and the Golden Core was waiting.

I began walking, the wind carrying dust and ashes through the air, remnants of the war I had brought. Despite the devastation, the planet was eerily beautiful in its brokenness. The wreckage of the Ork hordes stretched far in all directions, but it was no longer my concern. The mission was all that mattered now.

Northward.

I set off, guided only by the faint whisper of the God Emperor's will. The manufactorums were a sprawling labyrinth of industrial ruins, twisted and rusted over centuries. Most had been looted by Orks or fallen into disrepair long before the greenskins arrived. My search for the Golden Core would not be quick, but it was inevitable.

Hours passed in relative silence. I came across a few more straggling Orks—lone survivors who were too broken or too stupid to know when they were beaten. I dispatched them with a casual flick of the [Ruyi Jingu Bang], their bodies evaporating before they could register what had happened. Each death filled me with a fleeting sense of satisfaction. Not joy, but purpose.

It wasn't until I reached the northern edge of the Hive ruins that I saw something peculiar—a plateau, standing tall and solitary in the middle of the barren wasteland.

A plateau? Here?

It was strange. The ground here was as flat as could be for miles in every direction. The sight of this lone formation immediately piqued my interest. But what really caught my attention was what was perched atop it. A manufactorum, unlike any of the crumbling ruins I'd seen thus far.

The structure was ancient—older than anything else around it, yet it was immaculate. The walls were forged from an unknown alloy, one that hadn't suffered the wear of time or war. The metallic surface reflected the faint glow of the twin suns, creating an almost ethereal aura around it. There were no Ork banners or signs of corruption. It stood unclaimed, untouched by the chaos that had ravaged the rest of the world.

I narrowed my eyes, suspicion tingling at the back of my mind.

"This must be it," I muttered under my breath. "The Golden Core."

The placement made sense—hidden in plain sight, yet away from the madness of battle. The Orks had no interest in a structure they couldn't defile, but I could feel something emanating from within. It was faint, but unmistakable—a low hum of power, ancient and dormant, waiting.

I wasted no time.

Channeling a burst of energy, I vaulted onto the plateau in a single leap, the ground beneath my boots cracking as I landed. The manufactorum loomed before me now, its immense gates towering overhead. For the first time in what felt like hours, I felt a surge of anticipation. My heart raced—not from the thrill of battle, but from the prospect of discovery. Idly, I noted all the corpses of not-Orks, but Tech-Priests, the vaunted keepers of ancient technological knowledge; their bodies were strewn about all over the place, their flesh and bone long since devoured by the passage of time and all that was left of them were their metal chassis. The Orks clearly hadn't been the ones to kill them as their bodies suffered no wounds indicative of Orkish violence. Instead, whatever killed them had done so instantly.

The old machineries scattered about the entrance told me that this place... probably hadn't even been opened since its discovery.

I placed my hand on the cold surface of the gate, and the metal beneath my fingers thrummed with life. I wasn't sure how it seemed to open without a hatch or a console – or anything, really, to guide it, but I immediately felt suspicious. This reeked of the presence of Abominable Intelligence. Still, I steeled myself. Something within the manufactorum recognized me—or perhaps it recognized the power I carried, the will of the God Emperor guiding my steps. Either way, the massive doors began to shift and grind open, revealing a dark interior bathed in an eerie, unnatural light.

I stepped inside. And I took no chances as I summoned [Mjolnir] in my left hand, even as I wielded [Ruyi Jingu Bang] with the other.

The air was thick with the scent of old machinery, oil, rust, and something else—something otherworldly. The interior was vast, filled with ancient mechanisms and machinery far beyond my understanding. Everything seemed designed for a singular purpose, though what that purpose was remained a mystery. I didn't recognize any of the symbols and letters on the walls, though they were clearly of human design, simply written in a language that was foreign to me, likely one that came before the Imperium itself; among the symbols on the walls were... men... but many of them had skins of stone... others had skins of iron... and a few, standing above them, had skins of gold.

The path forward did not branch out as I'd expected; instead, it went down and down, a stairway that seemed to stretch infinitely into the dark. And then, from the shadows came a pulse of golden light, briefly illuminating the entirety of the manufactorum's interior and, for a moment, revealed even more detailed scenes of stone, iron, and golden men carved upon the walls. I stopped and took out a lamp from my [Inventory], which I then raised up high just enough to clear away the shadows that'd only briefly been banished away from the carvings. For a reason I could not quite place or understand, I wanted to understand what the images upon the metal walls meant. Who were these? They seemed and looked human enough.

And then came another pulse of golden light from the depths of the manufactorum, almost as though this place was coming alive, like an ancient titan, rousing from eons of slumber. The ground and the walls shook, minutely – so faint that I almost did not feel it.

My eyes narrowed.

Quest Received!
Defeat the last of the True Men of Iron!
Reward/s:
?

AN: Chapter 68 is out on (Pat)reon! (New Arc starts at Chapter 66)