Shard of the Star Gods

There were indeed very few items excavated from the xenos ruins. Only seven objects lay before Chen Xi beneath the Stasis Field.

Three of them were clearly Necron body parts: a head, an arm, and half a rack of ribs... Ah, no, I meant ribs.

Judging by their degree of weathering, they had likely decayed from the passage of too much time.

What surprised Chen Xi, however, was that he found marks on that half-rack of ribs resembling cuts from a sharp blade, proving that this component had been hacked or sliced by something.

Moreover, judging by the marks, it must have happened recently, because the cut surfaces still looked fresh—at least fresher than the other breaks.

Chen Xi could not help asking curiously, "Were these marks made by you, Magos Ovilia?"

"No. It was already like this when it was found. I do not know what caused it either." Magos Ovilia had clearly studied the remains as well and provided an explanation. "This was its condition upon discovery. I modeled and simulated the marks, and deduced that they were caused by a claw-like weapon, roughly like this."

As Ovilia spoke, one of the mechanical arms behind her swung around and projected the shape of a curved bladed claw about a foot long before Chen Xi.

Seeing the form Ovilia had projected, Chen Xi felt his brain ache.

"*￥@%@! Flayer Curse!" Chen Xi spat out an extremely foul curse. He had already figured out what it was.

Ovilia naturally heard Chen Xi's outburst. She automatically ignored the profanity and asked him directly, "Flayer Curse? What is that? A psychic spell?"

In the Warhammer universe, curses, witchcraft, and all manner of supernatural phenomena existed, and they were most likely deeply connected to psychic power.

Usually, when Psykers arose among intelligent species on primitive planets, those people lacked systematic research and relevant knowledge, so they regarded their innate abilities as witchcraft or other strange nonsense.

If any among them possessed exceptional talent and heard too much nonsense from the Warp, they might even awaken as Chaos worshippers and regard psychic power as a blessing from the gods.

Naturally, some people developed cursed applications of psychic power. But the Flayer Curse was not such a thing. It was something far more terrifying.

"No, this is not psychic power. It is something much more terrifying than psychic power." Chen Xi picked up the rack of ribs, examined the marks carefully, then asked Ovilia, "Can you determine when these marks were made?"

"Over eighty years ago, before Rostov II passed from the Rogue Trader's control to the Departmento Munitorum." Ovilia gave an answer that made Chen Xi feel distinctly uneasy.

"Looks like I know why the Rogue Trader sold this planet." Chen Xi set down the rack of ribs and rubbed his head, wondering whether he ought to call for reinforcements after all. There was no shame in not being able to beat a rack of ribs.

But Ovilia clearly did not understand what Chen Xi meant, so she asked him directly, "Please explain. I do not understand what you mean."

"Oh, my mistake! I forgot that you do not know about the Necrons." Chen Xi apologized before explaining, "Sixty million years ago, the Necrons were enslaved by beings known as the C'tan. Their transformation from an entirely biological species into machines was the C'tan's doing.

Later, the Necrons broke free from the C'tan's enslavement and literally tore those things to pieces. But the C'tan were not beings that could be killed so easily, so the Necrons could only divide them into countless fragments and imprison them.

However, Necron technology was far too powerful, and they had once killed one of the C'tan.

When that C'tan died, it cast a curse upon the Necrons. That curse was the Flayer Curse. It warped the Necrons' mechanical bodies and minds, giving them an overwhelming craving for blood.

These warped, mutated mechanical undead tore apart their victims' bodies and draped themselves in their skin, allowing blood to flow over their metal bodies. Only when they swallowed their victims' flesh and blood could the craving within them be briefly soothed.

This curse was so peculiar that it could even corrupt Necrons out of thin air and spread between mechanical bodies beneath a Stasis Field."

"A curse capable of infecting mechanical bodies? That sounds utterly unbelievable." Ovilia revealed an interested expression—or rather, it was extraordinarily enticing information to any priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Ovilia felt as though her thought circuits were overheating, as if countless papers and academic achievements were beckoning to her.

Yet Chen Xi interrupted her reverie and said bluntly, "While this is extremely appealing from a research perspective, I must remind you that the C'tan are exceedingly dangerous.

They are called gods not because of religious worship, but because they are the manifestation of physical laws within the material universe.

Warping reality, altering physical constants, even overturning everything you understand—these were all things the C'tan could do.

Moreover, they possessed nearly limitless energy. Shards of the Star Gods were used by the Necrons to power entire Necron tombs, and when necessary, those Necrons would release the imprisoned Shards of the Star Gods to destroy an entire battlefield or even tear apart an entire planet."

At this point, Chen Xi glanced at Ovilia and warned her, "This is also why I forbade you, Magos Ovilia, from continuing the exploration. Because no one can guarantee that a Shard of the Star Gods is not sleeping beneath our feet."

"If we find a Shard of the Star Gods, can you give it to me for research?" Ovilia seemed not to have taken in what Chen Xi had said at all. Instead, she stared at him with blazing eyes, as though she wished Chen Xi would produce a Shard of the Star Gods for her to study right now.

"Then you will have to convince the Emperor first, and we still need to win before we talk about that." Chen Xi made a helpless expression, though he did not tell Ovilia that a Shard of the Star Gods was sealed beneath the headquarters of the Martian Adeptus Mechanicus.

In fact, in the ancient official Games Workshop lore, that fucking thing was a complete C'tan! The Void Dragon, the C'tan that held dominion over technology, the source of Necron technological might, and the true form of the Omnissiah worshipped by the Adeptus Mechanicus.

When the Martian Adeptus Mechanicus had first risen, a group of its followers had been influenced by the Void Dragon and worshipped it as a god. That was also one of the reasons the Adeptus Mechanicus had such a bizarre style.