The Yaoguang was a light landship.
Its firepower was insufficient to go toe-to-toe with a regular army, its armor was paper-thin, and its only two saving graces were its swift speed and high-power radar array.
Its ecological niche within the Dusk fleet was essentially that of an errand boy.
Originally, the order given to the Yaoguang was to tail the subterranean megastructures from behind, maintaining a safe distance of twenty kilometers.
However...
Roughly five minutes ago, the two subterranean megastructures that had been plowing ahead silently suddenly came to a halt.
Not only did they stop, but the energy readings at their location began surging at an abnormal rate.
Thermal signatures, kinetic impact signatures, and an unidentifiable high-frequency energy fluctuation churned the radar data into a complete mess.
The ship's captain, a cautious middle-aged man, stared at the two massive red spots on the radar, his eyelids twitching incessantly.
"Are they fighting?"
The captain scratched his head, completely bewildered.
There wasn't a single soul within tens of kilometers around—who were they fighting?
An internal conflict?
Not daring to act on his own authority, he immediately connected to the flagship's communication channel.
Inside the bridge of the Dusk.
The lights were dimmed low.
Aethel was curled into a ball in the command chair, wrapped in a gray wool blanket.
She hadn't closed her eyes for sixteen consecutive hours.
Having just fought a battle against the Læss, whilst also worrying about vehicle maintenance and the placement of the wounded, her nerves were stretched to the absolute limit.
She had barely closed her eyes, intending to catch a quick nap, when...
Beep— Beep—
The incoming call chime sounded exceptionally grating in the quiet bridge.
"Speak," Aethel pressed the call button.
"Reporting to the Captain, the targets have stopped moving. High-intensity combat has erupted ahead; requesting instructions."
"Have your convoy move up to take a look."
"Remember—just observe, don't engage, and maintain complete radio silence."
A few minutes later.
A small team consisting of three reconnaissance off-road vehicles crept silently to the edge of the battlefield.
Because it was nighttime, the wasteland was pitch-black.
The scouts switched on their night-vision optics.
The captured feed was transmitted in real time back to the Yaoguang, and then bridged over to the main screen on the Dusk.
The video feed was extremely blurry, filled with green noise and jittery lines.
The center was a chaotic mess of pixels; it was impossible to tell who was fighting whom.
A mass of unrecognizable shape was moving at extreme speed.
The nature of that entity remained unclear—its movements were too fast for the camera to track. One could only see clouds of blood mist exploding one after another, as countless severed limbs and shattered torsos flew wildly through the air.
However...
At the edge of the battlefield, six objects were far too eye-catching.
Beams of eerie green light erupted at an extremely high frequency.
Zzz— Zzz—
Whether it was bone armor or muscle tissue, the instant it touched the green light, it disintegrated directly into basic atomic dust, drifting away with the wind.
Watching the screen, the captain of the Yaoguang scratched his head: "What weapon is that? Some new type of laser?"
He had never seen it before.
The country bumpkins on the wasteland possessed limited knowledge; accustomed to the roar of kinetic munitions and the flare of melta-burns, they had no concept whatsoever of this technology.
But Aethel had seen it.
The instant those six beams of eerie green light appeared on the screen, Aethel sprang out of her chair, her face instantly drained of all color.
Not even a injection of combat stimms could compare to the invigorating shock of the scene before her eyes.
Aethel recognized that thing!
Back when she was a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, striking it rich through "illegal archaeology" alongside the older generation of Rogue Traders at the edges of the sector, she had witnessed this exact light inside a tomb world.
It was her nightmare.
Her previous captain—who was also her mentor—had been swept by this green light, disintegrating into ash right before her eyes bit by bit, without even chancing a scream.
Gauss beams.
The signature weaponry of the Necrons—once the coldest overlords of the galaxy.
Now...
Ten years had passed, and Gauss beams had actually appeared on Zais!
In truth, the moment she saw the combat coordinates, Aethel knew.
The ones engaging the Læss could only be that mysterious external faction occupying Horisenburg.
It required no second thought. The broad-spectrum radar map transmitted back by the Yaoguang clearly showed that the nearest large landship, the Bleeding Duke, was currently immobilized three hundred kilometers away.
Its position was also further east, completely outside the giant centipedes' path.
One had to realize that even for top-tier landships, the effective operational radius was a hundred kilometers at most—this was more than double that distance!
Who would be foolish enough to cross several hundred kilometers for an ultra-long-range interception without reason?
Apart from that external faction whose home sat directly at the end of this path and was forced to go all-out, who else could it be?
At the time, Aethel had even thought these outsiders were truly seeking death, actually daring to engage the elite forces of the Læss out in the open wilderness.
Fine, go ahead and fight! You can't win anyway!
Once those outsiders were blown to bits by the Læss, she could pick through the ruins of Horisenburg for scavenged loot.
Much like Aethel, the wasteland warlords' perceptions of this external faction over the past few months had undergone constant shifts.
Initially, Horisenburg was universally recognized as a xenos forbidden zone; for hundreds of years, whoever went there died.
Then, suddenly one day, the lights turned on, and people moved in.
Everyone's immediate reaction was that a group of even deadlier xenos had settled in.
Or perhaps humans who had struck some filthy bargain with the xenos?
At any rate, not normal people!
Later, Sisyphron emerged.
Flying a yellow-and-blue flag, he sold antibiotics and bought condensate.
Everyone realized that while these people were mysterious, they were at least human—they spoke Low Gothic, favored barter trade, and were quite adept at business.
Thus, people began to think this might be a reclusive family inheriting some form of ancient tech, or perhaps a disgraced Rogue Trader crew.
Until now.
Aethel stared at the Gauss disintegrator cannons wildly harvesting the lives of the Læss.
Necron weapons—and Necron weapons currently being wielded by humans.
A human faction able to make a home within a xenos forbidden zone and produce all kinds of strange, high-tech goods was already bizarre enough in itself.
Yet now, they had unveiled standard-issue Necron wargear!
What did this signify?
It could signify only one thing!
These people were a crew of outrageously bold tomb raiders!
They must have dug open a not-yet-fully-awakened Necron tomb world in some obscure star system!
They had plundered that tomb, stealing the weapons, equipment, and technical data inside!
Then, to escape the Necrons' pursuit, they fled all the way across the stars, eventually fleeing in desperate panic to this remote wasteland planet of Zais!
The reason they chose Horisenburg was that xenos were already entrenched there, making it a natural haven!
They built high walls, mounted heavy artillery, and made such a massive racket—
It wasn't to guard against these local dirt warlords of Zais at all!
They were guarding against those Necrons who could cross the sea of stars at any moment, coming to reclaim their stolen relics even if they had to chase them to the ends of the universe!
It all aligned.
Everything made sense now.
No wonder they had so much black tech—it was dug out of a tomb.
No wonder their actions were so bizarre yet domineering—because they were desperate outlaws on the run.
Aethel suddenly felt her hands and feet turn icy cold.
Fantastic.
I am gradually understanding everything.
This planet, Zais, was originally a mud pit where everyone pecked at one another. Though life was bitter, people could at least survive.
Now, look at what happened—a bunch of plague gods who had poked a hornet's nest had arrived.
They had even pulled out Gauss disintegrator cannons!
This meant that the Necron pursuers might already be on their way.
Aethel's body began to tremble.
"Heh—"
A short, sharp laugh squeezed out of her throat.
The adjutant standing beside her flinched, looking at her with extreme caution.
"Cap... Captain? Are you alright?"
The adjutant was also a young girl who was usually most afraid of Aethel's unpredictable moods.
Aethel ignored her as her laughter grew louder and louder.
"Hehehe... HAHAHAHA!"
She laughed until her back bent over, tears streaming down her face.
She laughed wildly there, her voice piercing and unhinged, echoing through the dead-silent bridge.
"I knew it... I knew it wasn't that simple!"
"What external faction... what trade representative..."
"They're all lunatics, every single one of them is a goddamn lunatic!"
Aethel pounded on the console while laughing, creating a loud thumping noise.
"They're going to bring the Grim Reaper here!"
"Sooner or later, they're going to bring those immortal monsters right to our doorstep!"
Frightened out of her wits, the adjutant shrank into the corner, trembling as she asked in a tearful voice: "Captain... please don't scare me... what on earth is happening?"
"Hahaha! We're finished!"
"We're all fucking finished!"