Within the subterranean tunnel.
The breach carved out by the excavation equipnt was wide enough to allow the exploration squad to easily pass through.
The group proceeded down the corridor toward the subterranean world at an absurdly fast pace—after all, not a single mber of this team was an ordinary human.
During the march, the silence was suddenly broken.
Cybia asked, "Lord Rowan, should we recall those renegade Astartes to join our operation? I believe doing so could compensate for our nurical disadvantage."
"That won't be necessary."
Rowan glanced at his surroundings. "The subterranean environnt is far too confined; a massive force wouldn't be able to properly deploy. If it becos truly necessary, I can simply summon them via warp teleportation."
He paused, then added, "Furthermore, those Astartes currently have another objective: hunting down the routed Greenskins across the Hive World."
"These Necrons are nothing more than walking tombstones; they possess no souls to consu. Even if we called those Astartes over, their utility would be limited. My sole objective here is to acquire high-tech artifacts, or perhaps the C'tan shards that might be buried deep within this tomb."
Receiving a logical explanation, Cybia said no more.
After walking a bit further, everyone present beca alert almost simultaneously, sensing approaching danger.
Archmagos Cawl looked at his auspex display and spoke rapidly: "Approximately 200 ters ahead, high-energy readings detected—"
Before he could finish, over a dozen grid-like dinsional portals suddenly tore open directly in front of them.
The Flayed Ones unceremoniously bared their claws at these uninvited guests.
However, these monsters, who usually reveled in the thrill of slaughter, had clearly kicked an adamantium plate this ti.
Alpha Primus and Cybia struck almost simultaneously. A massive surge of psychic power erupted, instantly paralyzing the horde of enemies in place.
Simultaneously, the rest of the squad opened fire. A diverse array of weaponry spat lethal tongues of fla, effortlessly turning the Flayed Ones into floor decorations.
Not even the most advanced Reanimation Protocols could recover them from this level of catastrophic damage.
Having swiftly dealt with this nuisance, soone asked, "Could the Necrons have already detected our incursion?"
"Not necessarily," Rowan explained. "Due to their curse, Flayed Ones are universally despised by normal Necrons and are actively exiled from all Tomb Worlds. It's highly unlikely the tomb's masters are using them to monitor our movents."
"Your understanding of these xenos is truly awe-inspiring," the Custodian couldn't help but praise after hearing Rowan's explanation.
In the current era, the Imperium of Man had not yet engaged in large-scale warfare against the Necrons; encounters were largely confined to isolated skirmishes.
Coupled with the Imperium's notoriously ossified information processing, the vast majority of Imperial combatants knew absolutely nothing about the Necrons, having never even heard the na.
Yet Rowan possessed such profound knowledge of these xenos, which genuinely astonished everyone present.
However, most of them simply attributed this to the omniscient might of the God-Emperor, accepting it as a matter of course.
Proceeding further, the exploration squad reached their destination—the exact coordinates of the anomalous signal Archmagos Cawl had detected earlier.
Appearing in everyone's field of vision was an incredibly thick, towering gateway forged from black tal. The intricate glyphs carved into its surface definitively did not belong to human culture. The structure exuded an archaic aura, steeped in the weight of countless eons, looking as if it had stood there for tens of thousands of years.
"Allow ." Archmagos Cawl stepped forward, intercepting Rowan, who was looking eager to simply annihilate a massive hole straight through the door with his reality-bending dominion.
As he walked, dirt and dust flew into the air, rapidly warping and restructuring around him. Several servo-skulls, heavily equipped with various specialized archeotech tools, materialized out of thin air and directly interfaced with the Tomb Gate's network.
Torrents of data-streams flowed rapidly across the servo-skulls' optical sensors. Very quickly, the heavy gateway reacted, emitting a violently grinding sound.
Under the combined decryption efforts of two Archmagi of the Adeptus chanicus—coupled with a little "assistance" from reality-bending—even the impenetrable lock protocols of a Necron Tomb Gate couldn't hold out for long.
RUMBLE—
With a deafening roar, the massive doors shuddered. The surrounding earth and rock trembled, and everyone felt a distinct vibration beneath their feet.
The gateway slowly parted, revealing the scene within. Simultaneously, as if to welco their arrival, a furious storm of Gauss flayer beams washed over them like torrential rain!
"Watch out!"
Directed by the psyker's will, a raging torrent of psychic energy materialized into a thick, shimring barrier, forcibly interposing itself in front of the squad. The Necron volley struck the shield, sending violent ripples cascading across its surface.
However, even representing the full defensive output of an Alpha-grade psyker, the kine-shield appeared precariously unstable under the concentrated crossfire of so many xenos weapons.
Rowan looked up and into the chamber, involuntarily drawing a sharp breath.
Before them stood a perfectly reginted, silent phalanx of Necron Warriors gripping Gauss Flayers, with nurous Immortals intermixed within their ranks. Their weapons fired in perfect synchronization, creating an unimaginably dense, terrifying web of Gauss fire.
Towering behind the infantry lines were hulking Canoptek Spyders and Doomsday Arks. Accompanied by deafening, roaring discharges, terrifying anti-matter particle beams—each packing enough yield to effortlessly vaporize a super-heavy tank—were unleashed one after another, rcilessly hamring the psychic shield.
If this were a conventional Imperial force, they would have been entirely helpless before such apocalyptic firepower. They would have been vaporized into ambient dust before they even had ti to react, their souls instantly returning to the Golden Throne.
However, the current situation was fundantally different.
The Domitar Battle-Automata strode forward, hoisting its heavy weaponry high. The vast array of archeotech relics integrated into its chassis opened fire simultaneously.
The Solar Atomiser projected searing beams, effortlessly reducing a cluster of elite units to molten slag; the Arc Scourge flashed repeatedly amidst the Necron ranks, whipping up violent lightning storms that mowed them down like wheat; the Quantum Annihilator executed surgical strikes, turning enemy vehicular assets into living bombs, detonating them one by one.
Yarrick, reacting with lightning speed, raised his massive Ork-k power klaw and swung it heavily, slapping the Living Saint directly on the back.
A blinding flash of teleportation light erupted, and Lucia instantaneously materialized dead center in the middle of the Necron phalanx.
"???"
Before the Necrons could even process the intrusion, the Living Saint's angelic wings snapped open. Her form blurred into afterimages as she darted back and forth. Exploiting the inherent sluggishness of Necrons in close-quarters combat, she carved a path of destruction; wherever she passed, Necrons fell in droves.
Fire support from the chanicus Archmagi also arrived swiftly. Under Cawl's direction, nurous servo-skulls took flight. The Machine Spirits of the diverse weaponry mounted upon them were instantly appeased and elated, vomiting lethal storms of fire.
Plasma, lta, specialized bolter rounds, arc weaponry, eradicator beams, volkite weaponry, gamma rays... A massive payload of hyper-lethal chanicus archeotech unleashed the wrath of the Machine God. In a complete reversal of the natural order, they actually managed to violently suppress the Necrons' own web of fire.
After a brief but intensely violent firefight, accompanied by a final plasma spear launched from Rowan's hand that utterly annihilated the last Doomsday Ark, the ticulously prepared resistance of this Tomb World was entirely eradicated.
At this exact mont, deep within the Tomb World.
Looking at the now-speechless Trazyn, Cryptek Sutekh asked in genuine bewildernt, "Is this... normal?"
"I, the Infinite, have lived for so long. There is virtually no spectacle I have not witnessed..."
Trazyn slowly shook his head, his vocal synthesizers sounding sowhat strained.
"But, I must admit, a scene like this... I have truly never seen before."
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