"What does it an that it's better to sacrifice your life than betray your superior?! These despicable villains don't have a single shred of loyalty!"
Szeras decided then and there that the fool Deathmark would pay the ultimate price — and while he was at it, he would show these humans the true might of a Necron.
He opened the authority interface and issued the command.
"Activate maximum-priority awakening protocol. Eliminate every invading low-level organism."
The instant the words left his vocal emitters, the floor heaved violently. Deep tremors rolled up from the tomb's core. The underground vaults groaned to life.
One by one the ancient undead sentinels awoke. Green oculars flickered with swirling data-streams as they assessed the battlefield in milliseconds. Tens of millions of years of slumber ended in a single heartbeat. The immortal warriors rose, marched out of their stasis-crypts, and poured onto the field.
Szeras's hand swept sideways. Another hololithic panel flared.
"Necron Scarabs — comnce fortress-wide reinforcent protocol."
Fingers of living tal traced glowing runes across the display, marking critical structural nodes. From hidden nests the scarabs erupted in a tallic swarm. Click-clack, rattle-rattle — they scuttled across floors, walls and ceilings, obeying pre-loaded construction directives. Living tal flowed like muscle fiber, spiraling, weaving, extruding. In seconds a new labyrinth of battlents and choke-points rose around the intruders.
Szeras's intervention turned the tide in monts.
Datch and his strike team, who had been driving forward at breakneck speed, suddenly found themselves wading through an endless silver tide. High-tier Necron cohorts had awakened and the advance slowed to a crawl. They were drowning in a sea of cosmic ghosts.
Zarhulash — fragnt of a C'tan — roared and hurled searing energy beams from both palms. Brilliant lances carved montary corridors through the tal flood. A massive anti-gravity platform bearing a steel-skull cannon took a direct hit and detonated, vaporizing dozens of nearby warriors. The gap closed almost instantly as fresh reinforcents flowed in.
Sa'kan's demolition gun thundered without pause, each micro-munition punching through immortal bodies and sending them screaming back to the forges for reforging. Brutus's chainsword howled, its crimson teeth ripping living tal with every swing. Mordachi, guarding the flank, spun his power tomahawk and sheared a Necron's head from its shoulders, then bisected another at the waist in a single fluid motion.
The Astartes fought with flawless coordination. Green light-trails marked every fallen warrior returning to the resurrection forges. Yet after minutes of savage combat the team had advanced only a handful of ters. The enemy showed no sign of thinning.
Nasus, Dark Angel, cut down another Necron and pressed close to Datch.
"My lord, enemy numbers continue to climb. We are still deadlocked. If this drags on we will be ground down. We should consider withdrawal."
Datch answered by spinning his Star Spear in a wide arc, lightning-wreathed blade punching through a ruined Scorpion Destroyer and shattering its core. He yanked the weapon free and stared ahead.
The corridor that had existed minutes earlier was now sealed behind ters-thick black walls. Only the writhing mass of space-undead remained visible. Ghost-scarabs had reshaped the entire pyramid, cutting off every forward route. At this rate they really would be overwheld.
Silence stretched for three heartbeats. Then Datch holstered his spear and drew the ghost pickaxe.
Before the astonished eyes of his brothers he swung the spectral tool and struck the living-tal floor again and again.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Chunks of active tal tore free, compressed into floating cubes, and vanished into his ga inventory. In under a minute Datch had carved a wide, straight tunnel straight into the pyramid's heart.
"Brothers — move! Everyone through here, now!"
Nasus whooped with joy and bellowed the order. The rest of the team sprinted for the opening and dropped in one after another. The naless ones' tunnel was far safer than any Necron corridor — no teleport traps, no hidden entrances. Enemies could only co from behind, and the pressure dropped dramatically. When a fresh Necron cohort tried to follow, their nurical superiority beca useless. A handful of Astartes could hold the narrow passage indefinitely.
Datch kept digging, uncaring of what happened behind him. At last the pickaxe broke through into the inner sanctum.
Szeras watched the wall explode outward and Datch step through. For the first ti in millennia the Necron Overlord's chanical face registered pure shock. He knew exactly how durable living tal was. These humans had just tunneled through it with a pickaxe?
The cubes the pickaxe produced… turned into inventory items? Could this universe possibly beco any more illogical?!
Zarhulash burst out right behind Datch and locked eyes with his ancient foe. Brutus, Mordachi and the rest of the Astartes held the tunnel mouth, buying ti for the entire team to erge. Once everyone was clear, Datch sealed the passage behind them with the very blocks he had mined, trapping the pursuing Necrons inside.
Szeras had watched the entire maneuver in stunned silence. For several seconds his processors simply… stopped. This was cheating. Blatant, shaless cheating. Was there no moderator in this broken reality?!
The surprise attack had been so absurd that Szeras never had ti to summon more than a handful of honor guards. They were massive, wielding glowing green war-scythes that could carve through anything. The Imperials opened fire first. The sudden barrage jolted Szeras back to awareness. He snapped orders and the honor guard counter-charged.
The hall beca a storm of explosions and Gauss beams.
"Lord Szeras. We et again." Deathmark's voice drifted from behind cover.
"No more words are needed. I brought these humans here to erase vermin like you."
The other death-marked soul smiled at the proclamation. The words sumd up everything they felt.
Loyalty? To hell with it. Anyone who wanted to be a slave could be one. Better humanity rule the galaxy than leave these cold-hearted monsters free.
Szeras's rage boiled over. He lunged, determined to capture the traitor and make him suffer for every syllable.
"I will make you pay in full."
The mont the threat left his vocalizer a thunderous roar shook the chamber.
"Szeras, you fool — pay the price for your ancient betrayal!"
It was Zarhulash, the C'tan fragnt. After carving through several elite guardians he charged straight at the Necron Overlord.
Long ago, when the C'tans first walked among mortals, a man had knelt and begged for their knowledge. The War in Heaven had barely ended, yet that sa man turned the gods' gifts against them. The Silent King Szarekh had planned it all; Szeras had been tasked with forging the weapon that could unmake the gods.
Szeras glared at Overlord Zarhulash, hatred blazing in his oculars. "Why are you still alive?!"
No further words were exchanged. Both moved at once.
CLANG! CLANG! BOOM!!!
Weapons and energy blasts collided with cataclysmic force, shaking the entire tomb complex.
"I never imagined the once-noble C'tans would be reduced to lapdogs of humanity."
Szeras taunted while weaving between strikes. Zarhulash answered with a point-blank energy blast that hurled the Necron backward, then pressed the assault.
"Szeras — do you truly believe you were chosen because you were special?"
"No. We simply refuse to waste ti on slaves. Who performs the labor is irrelevant to us."
"We were dogs to humans. You were dogs to us. That makes you nothing more than dogs of dogs to humanity!"
Perhaps prolonged contact with the unknown had sharpened Zarhulash's tongue to a razor's edge. A few cutting sentences stripped away Szeras's composure. The Necron who had always looked down on humans now found himself ranked even lower than a human's pet. The humiliation burned worse than any wound.
Szeras charged, four tal limbs driving him forward, green-lit staff pulsing with destructive power. Before biotransference he had been rely a scientist. Afterward he possessed a body of living tal far superior to frail flesh. Yet even this pinnacle of Necron engineering was nothing compared to a C'tan — even a fragnt empowered by Datch's long-term "nutritional support."
The outco had never been in doubt.
Szeras fought like a man possessed, staff whistling through the air, occasionally spitting annihilating beams. Zarhulash dodged, conserving strength. The mont Szeras's strikes began to slow, the C'tan fragnt exploded into motion — slamd the Necron off his feet, ripped the staff from his grip and shattered it, then drove a searing energy lance straight through the Overlord's cranial unit.
BOOM!!
The colossal tal body crashed to the floor with a thunderous impact.
Datch spared the fallen lord a single glance, then looked away, expression unchanged. These Necron bosses always had resurrection contingencies. Trazyn, the obsessive collector, had died and possessed new bodies countless tis. Szeras would be no different. A permanent solution would have to wait for later chapters.
With their master destroyed, the remaining Necrons fell into total disarray. Their once-coordinated assault collapsed into panic. Imperial forces cut them down like wheat before the scythe — chainswords roaring, demolition guns thundering, Necron death-screams forming a victory chorus.
Imperial warships that had already begun orbital withdrawal received new orders the instant the ground situation was relayed. Fighters scread back through the atmosphere, saturating the surface with ordnance. Necron structures collapsed in deafening roars, debris raining across the wasteland.
Landing craft settled in cleared zones. Astartes, Battle Sisters, Knight Houses, Astra Militarum and every available formation poured out, seizing key objectives and mopping up the last pockets of resistance.
The final Necron invader had fallen. The Imperium had reclaid the planet.
The golden Aquila once more flew proudly above the ruins.
Datch's mission-complete notification chid.
[Mission Complete — Szeras Repelled! Rewards: 1,000 EXP | 1,000 Points | 150 Reputation]
He checked the minimap. Several green blips marked surviving civilians. Summoning his chanical steed, Datch rode into the rubble to begin the second objective: planetary evacuation.
The Exorcism Dead Zone's corruption would not vanish simply because Szeras was gone. Any civilian left behind would eventually beco a soulless husk or take their own life. The local court had already sentenced them all to death — until an anonymous individual intervened. The judges, knowing exactly who that individual was, quietly rescinded the order. Defying the Naless One was never wise.
After the last civilian had been ferried to orbit, Datch received the survivor-search completion reward:
[1,800 EXP | 1,800 Points | 300 Reputation | 3× Kratos Summon Cards]
Three beautiful cards materialized in his palm. They depicted Kratos in all his glory — animal pelts, massive axe, eyes burning with primal fury.
"Damn, he looks cool."
Datch nodded in satisfaction and stored the cards in his inventory.
Standing atop the shattered pyramid, he surveyed the devastation. The technological chasm between humanity and the Necrons was vast. If the Imperium could not rapidly absorb living-tal, spatial teleportation and every other scrap of advanced technology the Necrons possessed, the coming wars against Tyranids and worse would end in extinction.
Datch had chosen the Imperial path. The early missions were only tutorials — resource gathering and world-building. The true main quest began now: elevate the Imperium, conquer the galaxy, and secure humanity's dominion.
He drew Rick's teleporter, dialed the coordinates for the Macragge's Honour, and stepped through the green portal.
He erged inside the grand strategium of Macragge. A vast holographic star map dominated the chamber. Roboute Guilliman, clad in the Armor of Fate, stood at its center, directing the Imperium's endless wars.
The Primarch's face lit with genuine delight the mont he saw the green light.
"You're back. Took you long enough… I was beginning to think the Naless One had forgotten ."
Guilliman instantly composed himself, regal mask sliding back into place. Datch ignored the performance and walked straight to the armored observation window.
"I'm heading into the Immaterium," he said simply, already activating the two new summon cards. "With Kratos and Doom watching my back, this little tech raid should be easy."
…
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