What the Seventh Overlord had not expected even more was this: the cannon fodder forces, which made up over half of his total strength, being cut off outside the dome shield was not the end—it was only the beginning.
The subsequent basic combat units that were dropped—Necron Warriors, the backbone of the Fearless—were likewise unable to break through that damned dome shield.
Although the bodies of the Necron Warriors were forged from living metal a grade higher than that of the cannon fodder, already the same material as the primary structure inside the pyramid ships, their toughness ranked among the finest known materials in the galaxy.
Coupled with the unique properties of living metal, they naturally possessed a certain degree of bonus destructive capability against various energy-based weapons and defenses.
Yet, under the pull of the planet's gravity, not only did they fail to shatter the pure energy shield, they instead smashed themselves against it one after another, flattening into paste!
Slightly better than the cannon fodder was the fact that the Necron Warriors did not melt on the spot into reserve energy for the shield. They could at least barely maintain their mechanical undead form and continue attacking the shield in place.
However, these attacks produced virtually no real effect. At most, they were simply a manifestation of the tenacity with which these low-tier Necron lifeforms carried out their orders.
Because there were simply too many of them.
The moment one Necron Warrior splattered like a pancake against the dome, before it could even reshape its limbs and weapons, another slammed down onto its back with a wet smack.
Layer upon layer, piling endlessly—very soon, those at the bottom no longer even had the space needed to launch an attack.
Even so, the Necron Warriors did not give up. Even when they could only wriggle the living metal particles within their bodies, they did so without hesitation, using that writhing motion to continuously strike the dome shield.
The damage was negligible—but it was thoroughly disgusting.
Against such tough, fanatically persistent enemies, Roya had only one will:
Refine them.
After tempering themselves on the vast waves of cannon fodder earlier, Roya and the Protoss had already become highly proficient at refining living metal.
Now, faced with these stacked layers of higher-grade material, Roya simply drove the Protoss like beasts of burden, going all out in the refining process.
Seated upon his throne, the Seventh Overlord's eye sockets flickered with Necron particle fluctuations that had nearly come to a halt.
And the more so it was, the more it revealed the suppressed unease within him.
Just as his own consciousness was directly linked to the Silent King, the consciousness of all his combat forces was directly linked to him.
Thus, every minute change on the battlefield, every loss of troops, lay completely within his awareness.
Of course, the cannon fodder did not fall within this scope…
Within the Seventh Overlord's mental link, one Necron Warrior after another slowly melted away atop the dome shield below, vanishing—becoming part of the enemy, continuing to devour the next Necron Warrior.
Meanwhile, the endless waves of Necron Warriors he kept airdropping could never truly mount an effective assault on the dome shield.
Below was nothing but flattened allied troops, piled a hundred meters thick!
They couldn't even stand properly—how were they supposed to fight downward…?
What drove the Seventh Overlord and his warriors further into despair was that the order in which this mass of allied bodies was refined was not simply from closest to the shield outward.
Instead, at random moments, a hole would suddenly dissolve open beneath a warrior's feet.
With nowhere to escape, that warrior would fall into the engulfing pool of liquefied comrades, quickly dissolving and being refined as well.
The density of allies around them left no room to dodge, and the pits beneath their feet appeared without any pattern—utterly impossible to guard against.
By this point in the battle, the Seventh Overlord bitterly realized that the Necron Warrior army he had once taken pride in—enough to outshine the other seven overlords—had suffered unprecedented losses.
From ranked first, it had plummeted straight to the very bottom.
"This can't go on. We must open a passage as soon as possible!"
Nearly crushing the armrest of his throne in his grip, the Seventh Overlord finally resolved to deploy his most elite trump card.
The Necron Praetorian Guard.
This force was composed entirely of veteran Necron Warriors who had endured the most battles. Their vast combat experience filled their data cores, enabling them to respond to all manner of complex battlefield conditions.
Their bodies were custom-built by the overlords at tremendous cost, using improved warship-grade living metal.
The cost of a single Praetorian's body was equivalent to that of ten thousand ordinary Necron Warriors.
Beyond their starship-hull-level durability and immense combat experience, what made this force truly formidable was that they possessed a degree of autonomous consciousness.
Though not comparable to the fully independent will of the overlords, it was sufficient to introduce unpredictable variations into their combat methods.
And it was precisely these variations that formed the foundation of their invincibility.
In short, the Praetorian Guard under every overlord had never known defeat.
Even in their most brutal battles, the ones who ultimately endured to the end and annihilated the enemy were always the Praetorian Guard.
Although the dome shield below had miraculously withstood the energy bombardment of planet-killer cannons and, even more unbelievably, endured the physical impacts of the Necron army's meteor-like descent—
The Seventh Overlord still had reason to believe that his Praetorian Guard would surely break through its defenses.
So what if the opponent was a chosen of some unknown deity?
The Fearless had fought in god-slaying wars before!
The once-arrogant Star Gods who sought to enslave the entire Necron dynasty—were they not drowned and destroyed by the Necron legions?!
The ancient Old Ones, who once ruled the entire galaxy—had they not also been beaten into extinction by the Necrons?!
The Star Gods now existed only as fragments, embedded in every pyramid tomb ship as warp-navigation devices.
The Old Ones remained only in legend!
Gods?
The Silent King is the galaxy's only true god!
The Praetorian Guard… is divine punishment!
"Face divine judgment, vermin!"
The Seventh Overlord rose to his full height and strode to the observation window, gazing down at the golden-flecked dome shield below.
A full ten thousand Praetorian Guards had already been deployed!
Like ten thousand nuclear bombs hurled onto the same battlefield at once, the hundred-meter-thick sea of liquid living metal across the sky was blasted apart in an instant.
One stone may stir a thousand ripples—but what fell this time was far more than a single stone.
In the blink of an eye, the Praetorian Guard had already reached the dome shield.
Weapons of every kind in their hands struck down with ferocious force!
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