Deus in Machina (a Warhammer 40K-setting inspired LitRPG)

Simo knelt in the desert's scorching sand, easing into the prone position with a grunt he didn't need to make. Old habits died hard.

His knees used to scream with every bend, his right shoulder a constant throb, his missing arm a phantom ache.

Not anymore. The Vitaelux Apexium bath had sloughed off decades, leaving him feeling like a man half his age. Even Veerta was allowed a dunk, and she looked great, with her rear just as plump as before her soak, just as he liked it.

Simo's right arm, still flesh, now moved smooth as silk with no pain at all.

His left, now a cybernetic marvel, real high-quality stuff, gleamed with a strength he hadn't earned and didn't deserve.

Since his main job on usual missions would be trailing Sir Angar and providing ranged support, both legs, too, were replaced with high-grade cybernetics.

The cost of it all gnawed at his pride, a debt he could never repay.

Saint Hidetada's wealth drowned Simo. Not just cybernetic limbs, each worth more than he could imagine, but sacred rites, most of them reserved for Crusaders or the elite, pumped his body with power.

And those sacred rites were far more effective for him. His Arcarius Class was one of the best Lay options for snipers, but his Attribute and Stats weren't nearly as effective as a Crusader's own.

Blessing of Siddhartha gave him 10 Resilience, not the Crusader's 6. Blessing of Samson, 5 Physique and 3 Endurance, not 3 and 2, and so on.

Seventeen rites total, some he'd never heard of granted things he thought impossible, each costing an absolute fortune.

He had heard Crusaders had enough Charges, they always skipped the Fervor Upgrade for Abilities, removing the cost but increasing the cooldown. That wasn't true at all for Lay Classes.

All three of his Abilities had a Charge cost, but none offered the Fervor Upgrade, which caused him to worry.

Before, that would've meant he'd barely be able to function. Now, even if Fervor was offered, he had enough Charges that he didn't need it, just like Crusaders, and a Feat that returned Energy, a Capstone returning Charges, even a chest implant Energy battery.

The main focus of his rebuild, as a battle against dark whispers only had to be lost once, was the Resilience Stat, and Simo's was way higher than it had been previously, his highest Stat by far, allowing him to support Angar in battles he would've previously had to run from.

His score was high enough he didn't even have to wear an Imperial Whisperguard Helm, standard for grunts. He didn't have to waste an armor mod slot on improving his Resilience score either. The only item he had equipped dedicated to the task was the Negatus Susurri trinket, his only old item from the army still equipped.

A Sanctapex Trivux implant, reserved for the Tier 3 elite, boosted all his Attributes by 2. A Cerebrum Accelerans boosted his processing speed, Competence, and Cognizance. A full dermal bioware was installed too.

He had all the best Traits he ever heard of, as well as the two most sought after Lay Capstones.

His fancy Tier 3 Vanquisher set, light power armor made of expensive duranium, the hardest metal besides galvornium, was one of the best sets non-Crusaders could get their hands on.

Not only did his armor increase Adroitness by a point, it was modded with the best HUD suite, camouflage, a support drone, and a short-term stealth effect mod, all made to fit over his cybernetics, leaving only half a cybernetic arm exposed.

He focused solely on his one Class. Its Abilities were Hide, Snipe, and Heat Sink, with all three Sacred Upgrades purchased for each, as he had a sixth Class Option from the refunded one he purchased with Glory Points years ago.

With Hide and his armor's stealth mode, he had two ways to escape enemies or detection.

Having been around the block a time or two, with the full Reset refunding mostly everything but Skill points, he had a lot of Classes to pick from, but only one best option for his new role, and that was Arcarius. Short of becoming a Crusader, the best for sniping.

It felt like cheating.

The amount of wealth Saint Hidetada poured into him was scary. He felt so in the man's debt, there was no way he could ever tell him no.

It was all too much. Simo hadn't earned any of it. Not the gear, not the power, not the youth in his bones. It was skirting blasphemous territory, where a man's wealth improved him more than the earned empowerment granted by Holy Theosis, where his obligations to this man could hedge out his fealty to the Three.

He disliked it.

But it was what it was. His family was safe and being taken care of, and that was Simo's main responsibility. He wished he felt more pride in how it was being done. He mostly felt shame, like he was a fraud.

He vowed to prove he was worth every credit spent on him.

Simo had never trained as a sniper or handled a lancer rifle much, but early on, as a team leader, he'd been forced to grasp the basics of their role and where they dug in best.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Rising to squad leader meant learning how to deploy them effectively, and climbing to platoon sergeant, then company sergeant, piled on even more know-how about how to best utilize them and from where.

He had little actual sniper experience, but he'd spend all his time since joining this crew learning and practicing. He wouldn't disappoint Saint Hidetada, Sir Angar, or his teammates.

But, like when he was an infantryman, this new job required a lot of hurry up and wait. Half a day he'd lain out here, watching the only entrance the Peregrines could find to the buried station.

He wasn't taken into the city with the others, scouring for clues of this station's location and inhabitants, bribing officials, all that, like a spy. They were training him for missions like that though, and maybe he'd be allowed to go on the next.

Simo had just repositioned to a better spot for if things got hot.

He checked his firing lines through his Doombringer lancer's scope, checked the position of his other teammates, and once satisfied, radioed in his change.

Then it was just waiting again. They all knew this was some sort of trap, but it'd be an easy one to handle, and no one was worried. They had intelligence on every leader of the Void Reapers and cultists. Rock-solid intelligence. Images and profiles and everything, all fancy-like.

Angar could easily tear this unholy filth apart.

Finally, the mission got greenlit. Soon after, Angar was falling through the sky. Two of the Deli's drones swooped in, slowing his descent, and he hit the dirt rolling as a dozen turrets erupted from the ground.

In a flash, Angar disappeared through the steel door of the entrance. A moment later, an explosion took out a handful of the turrets. The rest deactivated, going back in the dirt.

Simo could've taken one or two out with his Doombringer, but orders were to hold fire and observe.

So that's what he did.

The Imperial Army constantly fought Void Reapers, Heretical cults, and lower-mid-rated gateways.

Angar had closed gateways by himself as a Tier 1 the Imperial Army would've taken a lot of losses closing. Sir Angar was in no danger here. Not one bit of it.

An hour or so after Angar entered, a chill hit Simo's mind. Dark whispers, faint at first, slithered in, probing like cold fingers. His Resilience, sky-high now, pushed back, but the whispers grew sharper.

Blaster fire erupted, a cacophony tearing the desert's silence. Simo's HUD flared, registering hostile signatures everywhere.

His scope snapped to an assist call from Gux. He and his Mechanoid were swarmed, Void Reapers and Hellspawn exiting the ground right under them, tearing into them.

As Gux fell in a bloody heap, he detonated his Mechanoid, and a martyr's blast swallowed him and his foes.

Simo's heart lurched. They had known this was a trap, but it was supposed to be an easy one to handle.

This was a well-executed slaughter.

He glanced over at his old position. It was crawling with abominations, scrabbling where he'd lain for half a day.

The whispers surged, promising escape, power, surrender, as the Void Reapers and abominations at his last position moved towards him.

He scanned around. Every Peregrine was being overrun.

He nervously prayed to the Holy Trinity for Divine help and protection, gripping his Doombringer tighter.

He'd have to move soon, but he had some time.

He got to work, holding his breath with each squeeze of his lancer's trigger, sending powerful blasts of particle beams down range.

The whispers laughed.

Dread bloomed, and bloomed fully, gripping Angar's heart in icy talons.

To overcome it, he looked at the desecrated Trey that once adorned the center of the hunched Fallen's chest. Instead of an upward-facing triangle, it was downward pointing, and instead of an Eye of Providence in its center, an erect penis took its place.

The blasphemous sight filled him with a righteous fury, purging the dread from his heart, drowning out the dark whispers still probing his mind.

He had big plans. He wanted to see them all through to fruition. He wanted to grow much more powerful, and bathe the stars in crimson.

He didn't want to meet his end yet. Only the deranged craved death's embrace. But duty bound a man, unyielding as galvornium steel, and this fleeting life was but a single grain of sand dwarfed by the towering mountain of his soul's eternity.

These Fallen would try to corrupt him, to get him to fall off the Glorious Path, just as they had. He reaffirmed his vow he'd die before he'd succumb to the darkness. And he'd die fighting, not shaming his ancestors like a craven weakling.

The Lord still thirsted. On this day, Angar knew his own blood would sate it.

He steeled himself, psyching himself up to charge forward, and smite this filth before their blasphemous tongues could spew words to twist his mind, corrupt his duty, and damn his soul to Hell.

His grip tightened on his maul as he lifted his foot to rush forward.

A sudden darkness devoured his sight, plunging the world into an abyss of complete blackness, the air turned to ice in his lungs.

His vision flickered back, seeing the hunched Fallen was closer, its cyclopean eye blazing with malevolent hunger, its warped armor creaking like a coffin lid.

The whispers surged, no longer sibilant, now a chorus of razor-sharp voices clawing at the edges of his sanity, promising bliss and torment eternal.

His breath caught, and blackness stole his sight again, smothering him in a void once more. When light returned, the creature loomed nearer still, its barbed chains rattling with a sound like tortured screams.

A pressure bloomed in Angar's skull, a vise squeezing his thoughts, threatening to crack his resolve like brittle bone.

His hand trembled as he tried to form the sign of the trey, a desperate ward against the encroaching horror. His fingers fumbled, clumsy with dread, and his maul slipped from his grasp, clattering to the crude-slick floor with a clang echoing like a death knell.

He nervously bent to retrieve it, and the blackness swallowed all again, thicker now, alive with unseen eyes.

His hands groped the floor, slick with greasy crude and shards of bone.

His sight flickered back. The Fallen was far too close now, almost in striking distance, the cyclopean eye boring into him, peeling back his soul layer by layer, exposing every doubt, every fear.

Angar seized his maul with shaking hands, his heart frantic, his mind panicking. He willed Lightning Strike to ignite, but instead, a searing pain erupted from his core, a white-hot agony that clawed through his veins. He bit back a scream, the taste of blood flooding his mouth.

Darkness fell again like a suffocating shroud, crying with a thousand voices. His chest heaved, each breath a struggle, his weapon shaking in his hands. Desperate, he swung his maul in a wide, reckless arc, an attempt to utilize the darkness against his foe with a surprise attack.

Something seized it mid-swing, an unyielding grip with unnatural strength.

His sight returned. The hunched Fallen was upon him, its piston-fist clamped around the maul like a vice.

The tentacle-limb, writhing with obscene life, surged forward, the cluster of snapping mouths frenzied with hunger as they lunged for Angar's chest.

He jerked back, but the mouths latched on with a sickening slurp.

Like with the Harmongulan, a great pressure spread through Angar's mind, his body, his soul. His whole frame locked up, no longer his to control. He felt something slither its way into him, some dark corruption, hungering, seeking to warp, to devour, to dominate.

It probed, searching for what Angar wanted most, desires it could twist and exploit.

Unlike with the Harmongulan, this dark corruption was all consuming, and far more intelligent.

It quickly found purchase.