"Such a powerful living metal body…"
Eden studied Szarekh the Silent King with open admiration. The silhouette alone looked absurdly imposing.
He even got the urge to clone it.
Later, he had to get himself a living metal body similar to that one, preferably even more majestic, so he could move around more conveniently.
Across the galaxy and the Warp, there was nothing the Savior couldn't "replicate." That was practically common knowledge.
Some beings even tried to smear him with the title "God of Knockoffs," but how was that not a compliment? If it made the enemy tilt, then it was a good method.
Eden could clearly feel the regret and sorrow Szarekh radiated, the aftertaste of having been deceived by the C'tan. Yet the will behind it was unwavering.
Even though what stood before him was only a phantom, the pressure was still unstoppable.
That being's living metal body was flawless. Every motion was smooth and elegant, its function and precision surpassing the limits of any flesh-and-blood organ.
The force field layered over him ignored the warped physical laws of the surrounding space. Noble bearing carried an irresistible weight of power, authority, and kingly presence.
Even facing a god of realspace head-on, he did not give ground.
"An arrogant king with too much pride. He thought he could use gods, and he lost everything.
"And he refuses to accept it. He's decided on revenge, to vent his rage on the gods and free his species from slavery.
"This is a guy who's weak and dangerous at the same time…"
Eden rendered his verdict. There was no doubt that this being would be one of his greatest enemies in the galaxy.
As the Pariah Nexus expanded, humanity and the Necrons would soon be locked in a fight to the death.
Humans could never allow the Pariah Nexus to spread unchecked. That special domain might sever the Warp, but it would also profoundly damage the human soul.
It would turn the vast majority of ordinary humans into living corpses.
Null-field technology suited the Necrons, but it would inflict catastrophic harm on mankind.
Of course, Eden also wanted to leverage that technology, to construct Warp-isolation zones suitable for humans, and shield the worlds of human civilization.
Given the current situation, if the Imperium wanted to dominate the galaxy and rise completely, it had to solve the problems of the Silent King and Chaos.
Otherwise, it would remain stuck in the mud of large-scale war.
With no way out.
Eden watched the scene more intently. This war within a residual memory might let him glimpse the Silent King's true strength, and that of the Necrons as a whole.
At that moment, Llandu'gor's vast god-body underwent a new change. A storm of metal and flesh tore through the temple's walls, making them bleed.
His voice was everywhere, carrying madness and shrieking:
"Pathetic slaves, dreaming of betraying their gods. How fresh.
"Is this not the future the Necrontyr wanted? To enter eternal immortality inside metal shells.
"We merely collected a trivial interest payment, and devoured your souls."
The Flayer C'tan mocked the Silent King with savage delight. "Since you have chosen betrayal, then prepare to pay the price.
"You and your species will welcome the end inside those ridiculous metal shells. No matter where you flee, you will be swallowed, bit by bit…"
"The Necrontyr will not flee. I will correct the mistakes of the past. You swindlers will face judgment."
The Silent King was silent no longer, his voice revealing iron resolve.
He rarely spoke so directly. This was the Necrontyr's declaration of war against the C'tan.
The moment their leader's words fell, the spiral of metal, flesh, and shadow twisted even harder, and the void itself trembled.
Darkness covered the stars. Even dying suns began to shiver.
Llandu'gor laughed.
He did not believe this slave could do anything to him. It was just pathetic struggling, pebbles thrown by angry slaves. How much harm could that possibly do?
Hm?
But in the next instant, the star god grew wary. The Silent King's spear ignited with another kind of law-bound flame.
It looked ready to burn everything clean.
A rule-flame like that belonged to only one being: Nyadra'zatha the Burning One.
When the spear shed its disguise, Llandu'gor saw a layer of C'tan skin stretched across its surface.
He realized one of his kind had already fallen. The Burning One had been killed by the slave Necrontyr.
Llandu'gor's fury detonated. Countless strips of flesh-metal ripped open the ground, exposing an abyss of unknown dimensional depth beneath.
He tried to drag the Silent King into another shadow-dimension and erase this traitorous slave utterly.
But the Silent King had already raised the godslayer spear and shot skyward, charging the abominable god-body. The warped physical laws seemed to have no effect on him.
The burning blaze incinerated every tentacle that struck toward him.
The storm of metal, flesh, and shadow vanished the moment it touched the Silent King's body, only to reappear in its original area.
Even the wounds where tentacles had punched through him restored themselves instantly.
As if no attack could harm him.
"Is that a brief manipulation of time?" Eden watched this godslaying battle, deeply impressed.
What he was seeing exceeded imagination, and it was happening in realspace. The temple, vast as an asteroid, tore apart like it had been made of paper.
In circumstances like this, even a human fleet would probably share the same fate, let alone ordinary ground vehicles.
He stared at the ripped-open void and the howling dimensional labyrinth, sucking in a sharp breath. "Damn. They're fighting so hard they're grinding the void away. Suns are getting shattered…"
In his vision, several dying stars were detonated outright. The power of their supernova eruptions condensed in some fashion into the godslayer spear, and drove toward Llandu'gor.
This battle was apocalypse-level: worlds collapsing, stars dying. The dimensional labyrinth weapons Szarekh threw out even had a faint "two-dimensional foil" vibe to them.
Of course, their true destructive output was still far weaker, not even in the same tier.
No matter what, this was pure top-end technology clashing with the fundamental laws of physics.
Hummm.
Layer upon layer of hyperdimensional labyrinth temporarily pinned Llandu'gor's spiraling god-body. Then the Silent King crossed the labyrinth in successive leaps, and the godslayer spear slammed into the star god's core-heart.
The Burning One's rule-flame erupted, like a furnace rising from the void. As the heat climbed, the flame's color shifted, turning pitch-black.
Llandu'gor's spiral body took a brutal hit.
He let out a soundless shriek. Ripples of shadow smashed the Silent King away, along with the godslayer spear.
The situation flipped instantly.
Llandu'gor's trembling tentacles wrapped the fallen Silent King and dragged him toward the dimensional abyss.
That would have been the killing blow.
Yet the Silent King showed no panic at all, maintaining a king's poise.
"You have lost, Llandu'gor, you creature that calls itself a god."
His voice was cold as judgment. "You underestimated the Necrontyr's capability, and our resolve for revenge…"
Just now, the Silent King had branded that ugly Flayer C'tan with a mark, and also a command.
A pulse signal spread beyond the temple in milliseconds. Shapes of countless eerie green mechanical platforms slowly emerged.
So the Silent King was not fighting alone. Behind him stood the entire Necrontyr species.
At the instant the battle began, vast weapon platforms and facilities had already translated into the star system containing the temple, to support their supreme king.
Countless Necrontyr scholars, researchers, warriors, and even the most ordinary technicians were contributing their strength to this battle.
They had lost their flesh, but absorbed even more knowledge and technique, and their technology surged forward.
The C'tan had personally raised their own pallbearers.
Now the platform-construct complex of the Maynarkh Dynasty moved into action. Endless arrays of mechanical pylons lit up, charging an attack of horrifying intensity.
And their target was the Flayer C'tan Llandu'gor, that brutal and hideous thing.
Llandu'gor sensed the danger. He no longer had time to finish off the slave-leader before him, and rapidly pulled all his power inward.
With metal, flesh, and shadow, he formed layered abyssal black holes.
It was defensive armor that could absorb almost all energy.
"Ugly, greedy creature. Your death is here."
The Silent King watched, as if delivering sentence. "For my people, for every soul you defiled, you will be reduced to zero."
Not killed, but zeroed out. More absolute than death.
As his words fell, the Maynarkh Dynasty's pylon arrays released their charge.
In an instant, the temple region seemed to lose all color.
It was the purest void in the galaxy. The ultimate silence of all sound. The ultimate blackness of all color.
This was not destruction.
It was complete erasure, reduced to nothing.
"You will be forgotten," the Silent King murmured as the attack descended.
"I won't!"
Llandu'gor screamed, shrill with agony. "I curse you. This gift will not fade, even across endless time…"
He attempted one final act of resistance, leaving the Necrontyr a curse that could not be erased.
After that, the temple region fell into silence.
Time itself seemed frozen. No explosion, no flash. Llandu'gor's terrible shriek cut off mid-note.
His god-body, that spiral of flayed flesh, metal, and shadow, began to crumble into meaningless dust, and then the dust collapsed again.
Not fragments. Not ash.
Erased from the level of reality itself, touching even on time.
Everything returned to dead stillness.
Llandu'gor was wiped out. The Silent King completed the godslaying, erasing a realspace god entirely.
"What a terrifying weapon…"
Eden stared, forgetting to breathe.
But fear did not take him. Instead, he felt steadier than before, and even more eager to acquire more technology.
Especially the horrific weapon the Maynarkh Dynasty had just used.
The power Szarekh displayed was terrifying, yes, but it also meant that as long as humanity mastered stronger technology, it could reach the same threshold.
Even if the C'tan returned, annihilation was not inevitable.
The Necrontyr's collective uprising proved something else as well.
Mortal strength could overturn heaven and earth, even slay gods, whether in the galaxy or in the Warp.
Even the Emperor's mighty power had been accumulated, little by little, by countless humans.
That was the importance of a united species. It could condense into world-ending force.
Besides, humanity was not a species without potential. Eden had seen the pinnacle tech of mankind's golden age. Time reversal, stronger than even what the Silent King possessed.
From that perspective, humanity's talent in both the galaxy and the Warp was maxed out. The only thing missing was time.
In short, the Silent King and the Necrons were not invincible. Otherwise, after destroying the C'tan and being left scarred as a species, they would not have entered hibernation to avoid the Aeldari's era of supremacy.
This war was insanely dangerous, but as long as he could stabilize the Imperium's situation and develop quickly before the Silent King fully restored his rule and strength, there was still a fight to be had.
Of course, the strongest fortress is often breached from within.
The Silent King had only just returned. Many beings refused to submit to him. If Eden could do something to delay, or even seriously damage, his control, all the better.
That was also why Eden wanted to deal with the Kalozasa Dynasty, and why he was taking the risk of researching the Flayer Virus.
He had to use Governor Zhabok to infiltrate the enemy from within, then cause real damage.
Eden was thinking when he suddenly jolted.
He looked up and found that, at some point, the Silent King had turned his head, staring toward the region where Eden's consciousness existed with an unreadable gaze.
That look seemed to cross time itself, as if he had noticed something.
What?
Eden was almost numb. Don't tell me he got spotted anyway. In ancient times, the Silent King saw him through a residual memory?
Before he could react, the memory echo within the Flayer Virus, the one originating from Llandu'gor, ended. Every image froze.
"Whew. Just a coincidence. I scared myself…"
Eden checked again. It really was only a coincidence in the residual footage, nothing more.
After peering into that ancient godslaying war, he accelerated his analysis and absorption of the Flayer Virus.
He needed to understand its structure and operating principles completely.
He didn't know how long passed.
Eden finally finished the analysis and slowly opened his eyes. The lab he was in was already covered in claw marks.
Even the heavy armor plating had deep gouges.
Without realizing it, he had attacked the surrounding equipment. That was probably the Flayer Virus's influence on a living metal body.
This Necron living metal clone-body had also, under the virus's effects, become shaped like a Flayed One.
"Good thing it's all over now." Eden flexed, and sensed no lingering impact.
He had fully brought the Flayer Virus under control and understood its structure and operational mode. More importantly, he now had a concrete path and method to control the Necrons.
The secret lay in the virus's logic.
Everyone knew the Flayer Virus could cause Necrons to exhibit living emotions, but those emotions were twisted, a craving for flesh.
It was a method of implanting emotion, originating from the Flayer god of realspace.
Now that Eden had grasped the operating logic of this realspace physical authority, he could also use a similar physical virus to implant living emotion into Necrons.
To create the effect of a pseudo-soul, making them believe their souls were returning.
Of course, that was not easy.
After all, even the Flayer C'tan who held that authority had been erased. If Eden handled it badly, the Necrons would still attack him.
Eden pondered, confident. "Good thing I've got plenty of experience, and I'm better at selling faith than Llandu'gor by a thousand times…"
He would use religion as the delivery mechanism. While he spread the virus through "blessings," he would also create a new god for the Necrons. Any worshiper could slowly recover their soul.
Once that god fully awakened, every Necron who believed would be redeemed, their soul fully restored.
In reality, it would all be an emotion-hallucination caused by a special virus.
But it would be enough.
Like a brain in a vat. How could a human know whether they were living inside simulated emotion?
"Yeah. Copy-paste really is faster."
Eden nodded, satisfied with this structure of belief.
In truth, he had copied the Aeldari god of death's faith-architecture, then tweaked it a little.
Either way, once the new god revived, the Necrons would be saved.
And of course, that new god was just a shell. Behind it was still the Hope Sun. Once that faith spread broadly, the Silent King would have to go sit at the kids' table.
In this world, royal authority could not withstand divine authority.
After that, Eden issued orders for the Archmagos Biologis to dig even deeper into the study of living emotion, especially Necron emotion.
He needed more knowledge and data, then, together with the Goddess of Life Isha and the Machine-Goddess, shape a blessing-authority specifically aimed at Necrons.
He would use Warp authority to conceal traces of the new virus, so it could not be detected.
It would be a dual application of realspace and Warp authority.
Soon, xenos bio-labs across the Imperium became busy again, heat and motion everywhere.
The Archmagos Biologis even celebrated loudly on the forums, because the Savior, the Imperial Emperor, had approved double the budget for their project.
The only requirement was simple.
Faster.
In some corner, the lurking Archmagos of the Machine, Sapphon, let out a miserable wail.
A few days later.
Dreamweaver led a fleet and began the journey home.
The Vigilus campaign was over. Blackstone extraction was going smoothly, being shipped in batches to the research institutes on various forge worlds.
Aside from Necron research, Perturabo was also actively organizing new institutes to study Blackstone technology that could counter the Warp.
"Finally heading back. We should get a stretch of peace, as long as the Silent King and the Chaos Gods don't decide to cause trouble…"
Eden looked out the window at the assembled fleet, and felt lighter than he had in a long time.
In his view, he could see a group of eerie green warships. They belonged to the Kalozasa Dynasty's fleet.
He had promised to bring them to Holy Terra to pay homage.
That would strengthen the loyalty of higher existences like Governor Zhabok, and during the pilgrimage he could quietly implant the transmissible new virus and the new god's faith.
Perfect.
Eden glanced at them a few times, then went to rest beneath the shade in the micro-garden, and fell asleep.
He was starting to like sleeping more and more.
Hummm.
Dreamweaver shuddered, then led the fleet into Warp transit.
The Warp, somewhere within it.
"Brother Corax, we've drifted for so long. Maybe it's time to go home. Back to Terra…"
Rogal Dorn stared at the shadow formed by the Blood Ravens and spoke quietly.
(End of Chapter)
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