Arrival in the Stygian System

The combined fleet of the Dark Angels and Blood Angels emerged from the raging tides of the warp. The moment it reached the frigid void of the Stygian System, its sensors were flooded with violent energy readings.

Within the system, there was none of the prewar darkness and deathly silence they had expected. Instead, it was filled with ominous, rhythmic energy pulses, as though some slumbering behemoth was awakening, its heartbeat shaking the framework of reality.

At the center of the system, the binary stars bound by some invisible force and locked in orbit around each other were unleashing abnormally active flares and energy radiation. Even their light seemed harsher and more unstable than what the star charts had recorded.

"Large-scale non-Imperial energy signatures detected!" the sensor officer announced on the bridge of the Indomitable Truth, urgency in his voice. "Origin... Stygian IV, as well as several asteroid belts and void structures throughout the system! Energy pattern matches... Necrons!"

At almost the same moment, Imperial scout ships and monitoring stations scattered across the system sent back identical warnings.

The Mephrit Dynasty, this long-slumbering xenos empire, was awakening.

And its awakening was accompanied by clear signs of internal strife—sporadic yet violent energy eruptions flashed across different parts of the system, proof of conflicts within Tomb Worlds or crazed Overlords triggering self-destruction.

On Stygian IV, within the heart of a magnificent tomb city buried deep beneath the crust, the newly appointed Dynasty Overlord—Balasar—stood before an enormous Stellar Projection.

His Living Metal body bore a dark golden hue, as though it had been forged from the dying embers of stars. The patterns embedded across it resembled veins of frozen lava. On his skull-like face, ghostly green optical sensors, deep and cold as abyssal pools, scrutinized the star map displaying the Dynasty's current