All feasts must eventually end. With the arrival of the Holy Necrons, both major cults had been comprehensively annihilated. Their profane relics and artifacts were disposed of along with them. As for large-scale corruption on this planet — there shouldn't be any left. Those kinds of things were items their leaders would have kept on their persons at all times.
Khorne had no interest in conspiracies and schemes. As for Tzeentch's handiwork — the Emperor's fragment of consciousness descending upon the hive city had already swept through and cleansed it, given that the corruption here had not yet progressed too deeply.
So the cleanup could be left to the Necrons at their leisure. They wouldn't be corrupted. Or rather, thanks to Zhou Ye's world-shaking ingenuity, they had been successfully — not corrupted, but sanctified — by the Emperor himself.
They were now known as the Holy Necrons. The Phaeron in particular. Having received thirteen psychic divine strikes which were simultaneously ordeal and blessing, it practically radiated the Emperor's presence from every joint and seam.
Nobody dared question its piety anymore. Chris, at least, had no interest in trying. He'd leave that theological headache to the local sector's Ecclesiarchy to sort out themselves.
Because he had discovered something far more terrifying. Something the Tech-Priest had said....
Twenty-two. Twenty-two what. (Note: the author edited the earlier chapter.)
Most people only knew there were nine Primarchs. Chris himself knew there were eighteen.
But twenty-two — what in the Emperor's name was that, and where did that number come from. He stopped himself there. He felt that if he kept pulling at that thread, he was going to cross a line that couldn't be uncrossed.
This might be the single greatest secret in the entire Imperium. Pursuing it further might bring the attention of the Golden Corn down on all of them. He was also deeply grateful that Zhou Ye had cut himself off when he did. If he hadn't, every single person in that room would have been purged for loyalty.
"What is that Tech-Priest's true origin. Whatever it is — I'm taking this to my grave. I've already warned the Blood Ravens. I heard their Librarian tried to run a prophecy about the past, and nearly ended up in a Dreadnought over it."
He buried the matter completely. Chris decided he would carry these secrets with him all the way back to the Golden Throne.
With the Warp slowly returning to calm, he began making preparations to depart.
As for the grief of the White Scars — it had echoed through every corner of Aestia for several days.
They had been in the middle of a story. And it had ended abruptly. The feeling was exactly like reading a novel that had just reached the most critical moment, only for the author to vanish mid-chapter and never be seen again.
And to make matters worse — they might never meet this Ancient again for the rest of their lives.
Qin Meng made a vow then and there. He would hear how that story ended, no matter what it took.
But he couldn't stay much longer either. When Chris's Black Ship finally arrived, they repainted their armor back to Deathwatch black. New assignments awaited.
As for the Blood Ravens at last....
"So we're missing a bolt rifle and a chainsword?"
The Blood Ravens captain's face had gone through several deeply unpleasant expressions. It was always other people's things that the Blood Ravens helped themselves to. How was it that today they were the ones being helped from?
And what made it worse — the hive city had nothing of real value left in it. They certainly weren't going to loot the civilian supplies. All of Aestia had just survived a catastrophe of that scale. If they didn't slide into a famine, that would already be a miracle. The Blood Ravens had no interest in rations — only relics.
So in the end, since they'd come all this way regardless, they had simply helped themselves to several of those rather rare sacred skeletal warriors to take home. Then they returned to their cruiser and discovered it had been burgled.
This was an outright slap to the face. The amount taken wasn't enormous, but it had been taken.
It was an absolute affront — a brazen punch aimed squarely at the Blood Ravens' reputation. The captain declared this was not something he could let go.
Though to be fair, they could hardly be blamed for failing to detect it. The Blood Ravens at least had to get close to steal something. Zhou Ye used the Authority of the Herrscher of the Void, lifting whatever he wanted from several kilometers away without leaving a trace.
And more to the point, no one in this galaxy had ever encountered Imaginary energy before. They had no frame of reference for it at all. Psychic power and Imaginary energy could cancel each other out in direct confrontation — but Imaginary energy was measurably more stable and far harder to detect by any conventional means.
Against someone who could reach across kilometers unseen and take whatever he pleased, they simply had no way of catching him. So this time, the captain commissioned a formal prophecy from his Librarians — the Blood Ravens had always kept an unusually well-stocked pool of psychic talent.
And then....
The Librarian nearly died from the psychic backlash. Prophecy came in many categories. It was rather like trying to divine through language whether the Emperor had ever paid a visit to an Aeldari brothel for personal recreation — see how quickly that kills you.
Of course this time no one died — but the immediate feedback nearly scared the Librarian out of his own body. He survived, though barely. It came distressingly close to sending their Librarian straight into a Dreadnought sarcophagus.
They had just lost a Dreadnought, which was unfortunate, but not insurmountable — they had more in reserve. The Blood Ravens, though not a founding Chapter, were unusually well-resourced by any measure. Their longstanding arrangement with the Adeptus Mechanicus, built on a foundation of mutually convenient acquisitions, had always been a profitable one.
But right now they had no time to deal with any of this.
Grab the holy skeletal warriors, leave immediately, and do not think about the burglary. Do not think about it. The losses weren't catastrophic. The other party had clearly exercised the same measured restraint they always applied themselves.
So they took their things, refused to look twice at any of it, and ran.
But the affairs of Aestia were not finished yet. Because the Ecclesiarchy had arrived.
When word reached them that the local branch of the Imperial Faith had been thoroughly corrupted, delegations came rushing in at once.
And then....
They walked in to find a Necron Phaeron delivering sermons to a congregation of worshippers. Said congregation was sitting and listening while a Necron Phaeron expounded upon the Imperial Catechism. It was also delivering lectures on doctrinal theology. And by every measure that mattered — it was doing so rather well.
The expressions on the worshippers' faces were, to put it diplomatically, extraordinary. The look of people whose entire understanding of the universe had fractured and then been reassembled wrongly.
But an incensed Ecclesiarchal priest charged in with his crozius raised, and was promptly slammed into the floor and thoroughly humiliated. The Archbishop of Aestia was a Necron Phaeron. In terms of raw combat capability, this placed it in the bracket of Chapter Masters and Chapter Champions. The most powerful among its kind could even reach the tier of the Three Pillars of the Imperium. There was simply no contest.
He was flattened, thoroughly, in front of the entire congregation — and was then held up by the Phaeron before the assembled faithful as an example of a mindless fanatic who was incapable of engaging with the God-Emperor's truth with rational clarity.
The Ecclesiarchy's newly appointed replacement Bishop then began a theological debate with the local Archbishop that stretched on for years. After continuously cycling through thirteen successive Bishop appointments, and burying six who had died of sheer fury in the interim, the Synod of the Ecclesiarchy finally issued a new formal ruling.
The new Archbishop of Aestia was declared to be the great and holy Sacred Necron — an Emperor-recognized Imperial Abhuman.
After all, there was no winning in a fight. The Archbishop's body bore undeniable genuine blessings from the Emperor himself. These could not be falsified. And there was no way to commission a Space Marine Crusade against a skeleton.
In the end, agreement seemed to be the only available option. And so it was done.
Aestia's income from religious tourism experienced a substantial and permanent increase as a result.
Because there were a great many people who wanted to come and see this extraordinary spectacle for themselves — the holy, utterly unhinged Sacred Necron.