Solemnace.
This planet was not marked on any Imperial star chart, and even its exact coordinates remained an unknown secret. It was the largest collection vault in the galaxy, perhaps even the only one of its kind. As the master of this place, Trazyn had always considered himself a formidable existence. Among the Necrons, a race teeming with various mentally unstable peers, he was a rare sane soul—at least, that was what he believed.
However, at this moment, Trazyn's voice couldn't help but carry a hint of confusion.
"I don't know what you are talking about."
Sannet—Trazyn the Infinite's chief cryptek—answered calmly. He had grown accustomed to his master's occasional eccentricities. His multi-jointed fingers danced across the optical rune panel, buried in the endless maintenance work of the museum.
"The current state of the galaxy is beyond my understanding. What should I do?" the Infinite muttered to himself.
What is he on about now? Sannet sighed inwardly and diverted the topic based on past experience: "My Lord, I suggest you go appreciate your own collection. It might help improve your mood."
Trazyn fell silent. He once again felt sad about his cryptek's lack of romantic sentiment. Fine then. Interesting souls like mine are indeed too rare among the Necrons.
But his previous doubt was sincere. The current situation of the Human Empire was so dazzling that Trazyn, who considered himself an "expert on humanity," felt completely lost. The Custodes leaving the palace, Guilliman's resurrection, the return of Ferrus, the revival of Sanguinius, the Chaos Gods' core domains being burned, large-scale Warp disturbances, the total reorganization of the Mechanicus, the manifestation of the Omnissiah... too much had happened.
Others might not be as shaken—or rather, they were so stunned they hadn't even had time to think. But as an observer who had watched this Empire slowly rot away over ten thousand years, Trazyn felt like he was reading a ghost story. It was like a patient who had been paralyzed for ten thousand years suddenly doing a flip off the bed, saying, "I was just messing with you guys," and then proceeding to spin everyone around him like tops.
It was utterly absurd. If this continued, Trazyn wondered if the Silent King would also be spun like a top by this revived Empire when the Necrons fully awakened. That thought wasn't particularly funny.
"Let me think, it must be your doing, isn't it?" Trazyn walked over to a picture frame.
A historical portrait was protected within a stasis field. The person in the painting had black hair and black eyes, depicted with such lifelike detail that it was clearly a master's work—provided one ignored the fact that the subject looked remarkably like a certain reality warper. Even though this was the least "historical" item in Trazyn's collection—it had been commissioned from an Imperial master artist just a month ago—Trazyn had placed it in a very prominent position.
"Adam." Trazyn looked at the portrait, the green light in his eyes flashing brighter.
He believed that everything changed the moment this individual arrived. Since their encounter in the Necron tomb, Trazyn had been tracking his movements. By now, Trazyn no longer thought of him as a humanoid C'tan. No C'tan could charge into the Warp and slap the Chaos Powers; as gods of the material universe, they would simply disintegrate in the Warp.
But that made it even more puzzling. What exactly was this thing? Surely not an Old One? Forget it, thinking was useless. Trazyn sighed and began to wander aimlessly through his vast museum. He quietly enjoyed the atmosphere of walking among his collection. Eventually, he stopped before a massive iron bell.
Blood and iron. Iron and blood. One fed the other, and the other existed within the first. Warm blood shimmered on the surface of the cold bell, these two elements combined in a symbolic meaning that felt almost accidental.
Trazyn knew the origin of this piece. It was said that centuries after the Great Heresy, when Saint Gerstal—a patron saint beloved by Cadian soldiers—fell while defending the Cadian Gate, his followers collected his blood in a crystal reliquary. Eventually, a cardinal extracted iron from the solidified relic and forged it into a sacred bell.
As one of Trazyn's most cherished treasures, he had meticulously recreated the scene where he obtained it. It hung motionless in a hall dedicated to the Cadian theme. Cadian officers snatched from the battlefield looked up at it, trenches were filled with Shock Troops, and numerous Chimera armored vehicles were parked nearby. This was a collection piece from Abaddon the Despoiler's Twelfth Black Crusade.
Looking at the bell, Trazyn's mood improved. He smiled, then hesitantly rubbed his cold metal eye sockets. Am I seeing things? Just now, the bell seemed to sway without any external force. Is it a hallucination?
Trazyn blinked. The bell moved again. This time, the motion was unmistakable. The violent movement even flung a drop of blood from the bell's surface, splashing it onto the face of a nearby Cadian Shock Trooper.
Trazyn: ???
He suddenly had an ominous feeling.
DONG—
A leisurely tolling of the bell rang out. The pendulum swung wider and wider, the clapper striking the iron body with heavy blows. The blackstone floor began to vibrate, and row upon row of collection items started to shake. The neatly arranged stasis fields in the museum failed one by one. The objects sealed within saw the light of day for the first time.
"Sannet, what on earth is going on?!" Trazyn's consciousness transferred directly to a backup body.
The moment that bell had tolled, his original shell had been pulverized by the sound waves, turned into fine metal shards as if crushed by an invisible hand. Trazyn screamed in rage, "Find out who is doing this!"
"Unknown," Sannet replied calmly while adjusting instruments, his voice devoid of emotion. "Unknown resonance. Museum dome shattered, releasing coolant, calling Canoptek Scarabs... no response."
"Dammit!" Trazyn raised his Empathic Obliterator, enveloped himself in an energy shield, and charged into the exhibition hall. He stretched out his hands, attempting to release code signals to restart the anti-gravity generators and protect his fragile artifacts.
Wait.
"No—no—no—no—no—no—no—!" Trazyn screamed in horror as he watched the bell continue to swing. The clapper fell like a scepter.
DONG—DONG—DONG—DONG!
The gates, twice the size of a tomb obelisk, were blown apart and collapsed toward Trazyn. He felt his body shaking violently; even with the shield, the Necrodermis alloy of his skull vibrated. He moved forward in rage. I don't believe this!
The bell continued to toll, over and over. Until—the thirteenth toll.
By this time, Trazyn had tried seven times, losing about seven or eight backup bodies. He finally reached the vicinity of the bell. Trazyn opened his hands in fury, and a Tomb Gate suddenly opened. He grabbed the object—this must be sorcery played by that rotting corpse on the throne! He would throw this thing into the Webway and be done with it!
Trazyn threw the bell toward the Webway gate with all his might—
Then, he missed. Another arm caught the bell and placed it gently aside.
???
Trazyn was dazed. His mind felt like mush; the events of this single day were more exciting than his millions of years of existence.
Sutton, a former Necron cryptek and current senior researcher of Prometheus, smiled at his old friend whom he hadn't seen in a long time—and who likely didn't recognize him. He took a deep breath, raised his hand, and pointed forward to the person behind him:
"Mr. Adam, this way!"