The God Emperor had chosen to indulge himself in a game of cat and mouse, a form of entertainment he had not enjoyed in a very long time.
At the edge of the galaxy, deep within warped dimensional space, the secret royal court of the Silent King Szarekh radiated a cold, metallic gleam.
This mobile fortress, forged from stellar core crystals and Necron alloys, drifted through a lifeless nebula. Around it orbited more than a thousand of the most elite Doom Arks, each carrying phase cannons capable of annihilating entire planets alongside legions of Necron Warriors beyond counting.
Szarekh sat upon the obsidian throne at the heart of his royal court. He had just received the final transmission from the front lines: the vanguard fleet had been vaporised in a blaze of golden light, its mighty World Engine torn apart by an incomprehensible burst of energy.
Yet the supreme ruler who had governed the Necron dynasty for tens of millions of years felt no panic. He dismissed it as nothing more than the death throes of an inferior species.
He refused to believe that any single individual could stand against the Necrons. Even the mighty C'tan had been defeated by them.
"Merely the luck of lesser creatures," Szarekh intoned, and issued the order to transfer all reserve legions from every Tomb World into the primary dimension.
He would make those flesh-and-blood vermin understand that the price of defying the Undying was eternal annihilation.
Though a number within the Necron hierarchy had expressed curiosity toward the human species, the majority held no particular regard for them.
The galaxy could have only one master, and that master was the Necrons. Every other species was nothing but inferior refuse.
"Great Silent King, the intelligence you commanded us to gather has yielded its latest results. The dossier on the one called the Emperor is now complete." A Necron Overlord approached the throne, holding a dataslate, and presented himself with precise deference.
Szarekh turned to regard him, then gestured for the Overlord to proceed.
"Great Silent King, the one called the Emperor is said to have been born approximately one hundred and seventy to one hundred and eighty thousand years ago on ancient Terra, the world now known as Holy Terra.
"Humanity is an exceptionally young species. Their natural lifespan, in truth, was not much greater than our own at the very beginning of our race's history." There was, in certain respects, a surprising parallel between the ancient Necrontyr and humankind. Human lifespans were relatively short, at least when measured against other spacefaring civilisations.
Szarekh raised his head with a flicker of interest. According to the intelligence, this species lived no more than twice as long as the Necrontyr had, the life measured in a mere three or four decades.
"Their lives endure for only a handful of standard decades. Yet from within their numbers emerged a remarkable and singular category of individual. These exceptional beings are called Perpetuals.
"Their cellular structure has been altered by some mysterious psychic force, rendering them functionally immortal, their flesh impossible to destroy by conventional means. Humanity is also a formidable psychic species. Their collective psychic presence within the galaxy ranks among the foremost of all known races, second only to the Aeldari."
At this, Szarekh let out a cold, contemptuous sound. Psychic species were a source of deep revulsion to the Necrons. The Aeldari had become their ancient enemies precisely because of their potent psychic gifts, granted to them through modification by the Old Ones.
Before the Necrons had fully awakened, Aeldari assassins had slain the Phaerons of more than a few dynasties. Whatever small measure of interest he had briefly entertained in keeping a portion of this species as curiosities evaporated immediately.
"The human species entered the stars approximately thirty thousand years ago, reaching the apex of their civilization some twenty thousand years ago, after which they entered a prolonged period of decline.
"Roughly ten thousand years ago, the most powerful psyker in human history, a Perpetual known as the Emperor, arose and unified the human homeworld of Holy Terra. He then created a cadre of genetically engineered beings known as Primarchs, before launching a campaign known as the Great Crusade, which endured for more than two hundred years.
"Humanity reclaimed vast swathes of the galaxy's territories and rebuilt a formidable empire that persists to this day. However, by our calculations, the Imperium of Man is considerably weaker than it was ten thousand years ago, having lost more than half its former strength." The Necron Overlord delivered his report with measured reverence.
"So he is merely a more powerful psyker. Is that correct?" One of the Silent King's attendants spoke on his behalf, conveying his question.
The Silent King did not speak directly. In most circumstances, it was the two attendants at his side, or fellow members of the Triarch, who gave voice to his will.
"That is so, Great Silent King. This human is the most powerful psychic entity ever recorded, his strength far exceeding that of any mortal being within the galaxy. His psychic might have overcome a C'tan.
"According to our intelligence, there exists within the Sol System a sharded fragment of a C'tan, specifically of the Void Dragon, which was defeated by the human Emperor several tens of thousands of years ago."
"It seems he has some genuine ability." The other attendant transmitted the Silent King's meaning. "To overcome a C'tan through psychic power alone is no small thing. It appears I have somewhat underestimated this human. Small wonder he destroyed my fleet with a single strike."
Psychic force carried devastating potency against the Necrons, and the thought of it was not a welcome one.
Yet to annihilate an entire fleet with a single glance, through sheer psychic will alone, was genuinely impressive. Perhaps this Emperor warranted further study. Capturing him alive might prove worthwhile.
"Great Silent King, we have received further intelligence of the most urgent nature. By all rights, this individual known as the Emperor should have been incapable of independent action. Ten thousand years ago he was gravely wounded in an act of treachery by his own son, a Primarch named Horus, and was subsequently interred within a device known as the Golden Throne.
"By every measure, he should not be capable of moving freely throughout the galaxy. Yet for reasons unknown, he appears to have recently regained the ability to act. Furthermore, according to our intelligence, he has now been observed simultaneously in two separate locations: one on Holy Terra, leading the forces of humanity against the Tyranid advance, and another that is actively attacking our forces." The Overlord delivered this revelation like a second detonation within the silent court.
That a single individual could appear in two distinct locations across the galaxy simultaneously was, by Necron reckoning, a near impossibility.
"How can there be two separate instances of the same being? Are they two different individuals?"
"That is not the case, Great Silent King. Based on the intelligence we have assembled, the individual in question appears to command a singular and anomalous power. He may not originate from our own reality. The full account begins with a human known as Axis..." The Necron Overlord proceeded to brief the Silent King on everything they had gathered.
The Necrons' intelligence apparatus was formidably efficient. After Szarekh had issued his commands, virtually every accessible record in the galaxy had been forwarded to his court.
After the Crypteks had spent considerable effort collating and cross-referencing the data, they arrived at a startling conclusion: the being known as Axis was not native to their universe, but had come from a parallel reality entirely.
This also explained how the Emperor had risen from the Golden Throne and why two Emperors had come to exist.
"How very interesting." This time the Silent King did not rely on an intermediary but spoke himself, directly. "It appears our species stands on the threshold of a remarkable breakthrough, the acquisition of the means to traverse another universe."
It was a magnificent prospect. To command the power to cross between worlds was precisely what their species required.
Six million years ago, through deceit and manipulation, the Silent King had given the order that condemned his entire people to their cold, undying mechanical forms.
He had never forgiven himself for that. The weight of it had driven him, roughly six million years prior, to dissolve the overriding control protocols binding all his subjects, granting them their autonomy, before departing from the galaxy entirely to wander alone.
He had intended never to return, to leave his people to their freedom. But beyond the edge of the galaxy, a few centuries prior, he had witnessed something that filled even him with dread.
A Great Devourer, an entity that had consumed countless star systems and devoured world after world, was advancing directly toward the Milky Way. Within the coming centuries, a thousand years at most, it would reach the galaxy. When that time came, the only force capable of contending with it would be the Necrons.
The being known as Axis could bring the Necron species an entirely new form of technology: the means to cross the boundaries of reality and seek a solution to the long transformation of their race.
And the formidable individual known as the Emperor could accelerate their understanding of psychic power, perhaps even serve as the subject of cloning research, all in preparation for the enemy that was coming.
"Transmit my orders. The human known as the Emperor is to be killed, but his remains are to be preserved intact. We require him for dissection and analysis, to extract and study the source of his power. Simultaneously, dispatch commands across every Necron dynasty in the galaxy. Locate the being called Axis. He is to be taken alive without fail." The Silent King Szarekh issued his decree.
The words had barely left him when the entire royal court shuddered violently. The court's energy shields, like thin ice beneath a fierce sun, fractured instantly into a web of spreading cracks across their surfaces. Azure energy ripples pulsed in frantic bursts but held for less than a second.
"Alert! Unknown energy has penetrated all defensive systems! Dimensional coordinates are being forcibly overwritten!" Across the hololithic displays of the command console, blinding red light erupted in every direction.
The mechanical screaming of the Crypteks was cut short. The moment the golden light touched their metal forms, they dissolved into scattered particles.
Szarekh rose sharply from his throne, and for the first time, genuine astonishment crossed his features.
A pillar of pure golden light tore through the dimensional barrier like a divine lance thrust into the heart of the court. In its wake, Necron alloy ran molten, phase generators wailed and died, and even the hardest stellar core crystals crumbled without a sound.
As the pillar faded, the God-Emperor walked forth from the radiance.
He wore no power armour. A simple linen robe fell unmoving around him even as energy turbulence churned the air, and the divine power that flowed through him burned like a living sun, driving back every shadow and every trace of cold in the chamber.
The Necron constructs hovering throughout the hall moved to attack. The moment the golden light touched them, their vaunted undying bodies began to deteriorate at visible speed.
Metal shells rusted and split apart, energy conduits turned to cinders, and even the most deeply embedded phase matrices collapsed and disintegrated under the God-Emperor's sacred power, dissolving at last into cosmic dust.
"Silent King Szarekh." The God-Emperor's voice was calm, yet carried within it an authority that brooked no dispute, the weight of a final judgement. "We meet at last. Your dynasty is at its end. I have come to end it myself."
"Impossible! What manner of being are you? Psychic power? The Warp? No, these are laws of a higher dimension entirely! You dare intrude upon the domain of the Undying!" The Silent King recoiled in shock.
He had only just issued the order to kill this being and recover his corpse for dissection, and now that same terrifying entity had appeared within his own flagship. Worse, it had neutralised his subordinates with contemptuous ease.
His flagship was equipped with extensive anti-psychic countermeasures. Psychic power had no purchase within his domain. Not even the Chaos Gods themselves could reach the Necrons through the Warp in their own reality.
Szarekh raised his hand and summoned from the deepest vault of the court his ultimate reserve: three Void Constructs driven by the remnant shards of C'tan. These hundred-metre colossi swung claws capable of tearing reality itself and opened vast maws studded with dark matter fangs, lunging toward the God-Emperor with terrifying momentum.
They were forbidden creations that the Silent King had spent ten million years assembling, their bodies sealed around C'tan shards. Even Greater Daemons of Chaos would have been torn apart with ease by such entities.
But the God-Emperor merely raised one hand and gathered a single, nearly imperceptible point of golden light at his fingertip.
"Whatever you call your ultimate weapons, whatever you believe constitutes true power, it is nothing before me."
The point of light was released and blossomed in the air into three surging torrents of gold. The moment those torrents touched them, the dark matter forms of the Void Constructs began to dissolve as snow vanished in fire, emitting a sharp, sizzling sound.
Their reality-rending claws crumbled, and their living metal bodies offered no resistance whatsoever against the God-Emperor's divine power.
Even the C'tan shard fragments were purified and cleansed by the sacred life energy, reduced to glittering stardust. The three terrible constructs vanished into the golden light without even managing to cry out.
Szarekh's core logic banks went into catastrophic overload. For the first time in his existence, he experienced something he could only name as fear.
"You are afraid." The God-Emperor's voice carried no mockery, only cold certainty. "Good. You should be afraid. For you and your entire species are about to be extinguished."
Szarekh's mechanical voice carried the faintest tremor. "We are the victors of the War in Heaven! We are the masters of the cosmos! You cannot simply destroy us."
"Victors?" The God-Emperor gave a low, dismissive sound. "In my eyes, you are nothing but thieves who plundered the remnants of the C'tan, cowards who fled the inevitability of death inside metal shells.
"You do not even qualify as life in the most basic sense. You are nothing but ghosts, the lingering spectres of a species that has been extinct for sixty million years. Your immortality is the greatest joke the cosmos has ever told. Your dynasty is nothing but a note of rotting noise in the entropy of the universe."
He extended his hand, and the golden divine power of the Grand Supreme Kai surged toward Szarekh like a tide.
The Silent King's finely wrought living metal form began to undergo strange changes. Fractures spread across the surface of his metal shell. The light of his energy core dimmed rapidly.
To his horror, Szarekh discovered he could no longer transfer his consciousness data.
Something had fixed him in place. He was going to die. The being standing before him was genuinely going to kill him.
"Do not kill me, great one," Szarekh implored. "I can lead the entirety of the Necron dynasties in pledging absolute loyalty to you. The galaxy will face an unprecedented enemy before long, and we must stand united to face it. It is the Great Devourer. It will consume all organic life. And the only force capable of countering it is the living metal form of the Necron race."
The Silent King Szarekh deployed the one skill he had always possessed: the willingness to surrender. It had been the same approach he had taken sixty million years ago when he yielded to the C'tan.
The God-Emperor's gaze did not waver.
"Your submission means nothing to me, Szarekh." The golden light closed completely around the Silent King. "I destroy you on a whim, not in the name of justice. I have, in ages past, destroyed countless lesser civilisations myself.
"I do not care whether you pledge loyalty to me or not. As for the entity you have described, I believe the version of myself that belongs to this universe is fully capable of dealing with it."
Szarekh's body shuddered violently within the golden radiance. The last image his optical sensors recorded was the vast, star-deep golden light burning in the God-Emperor's eyes.
"No!"
The anguished cry ended abruptly. The Silent King's form, together with his obsidian throne, dissolved completely within the golden light, leaving not a single trace behind.
The mobile royal court that had once stood as the supreme symbol of Necron power was scoured by the Grand Kai's divine force and reduced to absolute nothingness.
After slaying the Silent King Szarekh, the God-Emperor raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
The sound rang out sharp and clean.
A wave of terrible divine power spread in an instant across the breadth of the entire galaxy.
Every Necron, every being encased within a living metal shell, began to burn with golden light. Then the screaming began. Under the God-Emperor's divine power, every last Necron was utterly and completely destroyed. The entire species ceased to exist in a single moment.
That was the terrifying truth of the Grand Kai-God's divine power.
"Contemptible fools." The God-Emperor paused, then reconsidered. "Though this Great Devourer does sound rather interesting. Let it serve as a trial. Emperor of this world, I trust you will prevail."
The Great Devourer advancing on the galaxy was formidable, certainly, but not so powerful as to inspire true despair.
The version of himself that belonged to this world could manage it well enough.
Having dealt with the Silent King, the God Emperor set course for Axis's location to reunite with him.
The time had come to leave this world. Everything he had set out to accomplish here was done, and how this world would unfold from that point forward was no longer his concern.
Meanwhile, at Axis's position, the Aeldari had already assembled all of their forces.
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