The tranquility of the Amarah Prime system was shattered by a grand and terrifying anomaly.
It did not come from the dark depths of the void, but from the heart of the system itself—the star that had burned for billions of years. Without warning, the sun's stable radiance turned violent and chaotic. The corona seethed like boiling water before erupting in a series of highly abnormal flares.
This surge of violent energy swept through the system at the speed of light, instantly drowning out the communication frequencies of the massive Imperial fleet.
"Vox communication down! Experiencing extreme interference!"
"Augur arrays overloaded! We're blind!"
On the bridges of various warships, harsh static replaced orderly reports, and tactical hololiths dissolved into snow. Had this been an ordinary Imperial Navy fleet facing such an unprecedented—perhaps unheard of—"stellar-class" jamming attack, they likely would have descended into panic and chaos.
However, those stationed here were no amateurs, and they already knew the nature of their enemy.
"Maintain calm! This is the signal for an enemy attack!"
In the exact same second communications were severed, the captains of the ships positioned in the solar near-orbit defense perimeter made their decision. They didn't try to repair communications or frantically query the flagship for orders. Instead, following extreme pre-war contingencies to the letter, they immediately sounded battle stations.
Countless turrets swiveled in the silence, their massive macro-cannon arrays pointing toward the source of the violent flares. That was no natural solar storm; it was the gateway for an invasion.
Sure enough, amidst the blinding light and interference waves, eerie green Necron energy ignited like ghost fire.
The Necron fleet had brazenly used the star's energy eruption as cover, "translating" directly out of the solar corona. This technology—using a star as a springboard—was entirely beyond the scope of human physics. They had expected this raid to be like a farmer harvesting wheat, easily paralyzing a group of primitive species stuck in a communication blackout.
But as those black, crescent-shaped Necron vessels charged out of the solar flares, they weren't met by panicked prey, but by countless muzzles already charged and ready.
In that moment, even for a soulless Necron Overlord, a flicker of data resembling "astonishment" likely pulsed through its logic core—these humans had actually predicted their path?
"Fire!!"
Despite the vox failure, the Imperial fleet, guided by their pre-arranged plans, executed an effective strike.
The void around the star was instantly ignited by the fury of the Imperium. Tens of thousands of macro-cannon shells and lance beams wove into a dense web of fire, slamming into the emerging Necron fleet.
The battle turned white-hot in an instant.
Realizing the ambush had failed, the Necron fleet immediately displayed their despair-inducing technological gap. The massive Tomb Ships accelerated from a standstill to sub-light speeds without warning, carving sharp-angled trajectories in the void that defied the laws of inertia to evade the incoming destruction.
They moved like ghosts, weaving through the gaps of the dense barrage, lunging forward at extreme speeds one moment and coming to a dead stop the next.
But the Imperium's preparations were too thorough, and the volume of fire was simply too immense.
In this sector of space filled with steel and gunpowder, not even a fly could survive, let alone massive warships.
Blasts of fire bloomed against the backdrop of the solar flares. This interstellar war, destined for the history books, entered the most brutal "meat grinder" mode the second the two sides met.
Despite the Imperium holding the initiative and fire-control radars being locked onto those cursed coordinates, the flow of battle left the Imperial captains feeling a deep sense of humiliation and frustration.
The macro-cannon barrages were enough to blanket the sector, and the lance volleys could vaporize asteroids, but hitting the Necron ships felt like trying to hit a teleporting fly with a sledgehammer. The Necron vessels always managed to dodge with unnatural maneuvers at the last millisecond or use their cursed shields to deflect energy capable of leveling cities. Conversely, the Imperium, despite a several-fold numerical advantage, could only rely on thick armor and void shields to tank the terrifyingly precise Gauss arcs of the enemy.
"Damn it! Damn it all!" A cruiser captain slammed his fist onto the tactical console. Watching a friendly ship's hull sliced open like butter by a green beam, he felt an unprecedented sense of powerlessness. "We knew they were coming, we fired first—so why is it still going like this?"
It felt like a fully armored knight facing a future soldier with a laser rifle; no matter how thick the plate or how fine the swordsmanship, it all seemed clumsy and ridiculous in the face of an absolute technological gap.
However, if the humans felt frustrated, the Overlord commanding this Necron fleet felt nothing but pure rage.
Deep within the magnificent Tomb Ship, the Overlord's logic core was whirring frantically, nearly burning out from overloaded fury. Who were they? They were the Necrontyr! The ones who ended the C'tan and once dominated the entire galaxy!
And now, at their own front door, facing a group of primitive monkeys with only tens of thousands of years of history—monkeys still playing with gunpowder and crude plasma—they had failed to achieve a crushing victory?
It was an utter disgrace. It was as if a 21st-century special forces soldier with an assault rifle had traveled back to the Stone Age, only to be forced into a frantic struggle with a caveman wielding a wooden club. Logically, this was impossible!
"Unpardonable—the tenacity of these vermin is a desecration of the Dynasty's dignity."
The Overlord's cold, electronic voice echoed through the command frequency. It decided to stop testing and stop hoarding energy; it would teach these arrogant primitives a painful lesson.
"Activate Phase Shifting Protocols. Crush them."
A second later, disaster struck the high orbit of Amarah Prime.
Without warning, Orbital Defense Station Four, suspended in near-orbit, exploded from the inside with a piercing green light. It wasn't hit by external fire; some weapon had acted directly upon its core. The massive metal structure disintegrated silently before turning into a colossal fireball, trailing black smoke like a falling star as it plummeted hopelessly into the atmosphere.
In the gap left by the falling station, space rippled once more.
An entirely new Necron fleet, utilizing the FTL engine technology that drove the Imperium to despair, bypassed the gridlocked outer defenses and appeared out of thin air directly above Amarah Prime!
"Warning! Large-scale high-energy reactions detected in near-orbit! They've breached the line!"
The remaining missile silos and orbital stations, acting on their standing pre-war orders, immediately retaliated. Thousands of anti-orbital missiles roared skyward, their laser beams weaving into a final celestial shield.
This frantic retaliation did work, successfully repelling the first wave of Necron bombardment and preventing the surface from being instantly turned to ash.
However, a technological gap of millions of years is a trench that cannot be filled by intelligence and courage alone.
Though the fleet did not bombard directly, countless black pyramidal landing craft and obelisks had already forced their way into the atmosphere, braving the Imperial AA fire.
In an instant, the skies above the major population centers of Amarah Prime changed. The blue sky was obscured by a black storm that was clearly no natural phenomenon. Inky thunder rolled through the clouds as ominous Necron energy gathered.
No matter how much the players and Imperial defenders had prepared, and no matter how hard they fought in space, that cold, green death-light finally pierced the clouds and shone upon the earth.