Let's See You Repair Another Me

Whether in the ancient age of cold weapons, the modern era of firearms, or the age of interstellar warfare, the tactic of decapitation—directly destroying the enemy's battlefield command center—has never gone out of style.

No matter the era, the destruction of a command hub delivers a devastating blow to any enemy force engaged in combat, regardless of how robust their redundant protection mechanisms might be.

Many mid- and low-ranking officers, who suddenly assume the role of commanding large armies using methods suited for small units, are utterly incapable of handling it. Even surviving high-ranking officers can't instantly contact all units; the destruction of the command hub often means the collapse of the legion's communication nodes.

But the Necrons don't have this problem, or rather, it affects them minimally, because they are merely machines that mechanically execute the tasks set by their superiors. Decapitating the Necron command hierarchy often requires delving deep into the interior of a tomb world.

Many races across the galaxy have no way to interfere with the communication systems of this slumbering race.

The Scythe-class Harvest Ship that had breached the Styx's core defensive perimeter tore open a battlecruiser's void shield and hull with its stellar pulsar, instantly creating a massive gap in the Styx's defenses...

Fill the gap? Too late. Sandman had no intention of maneuvering other ships to cover it. The Styx's void shield emitted a bright, pale blue glow, signaling it was operating at full power!

"Assessing threat level. Assessment grade: High..." Styx quickly evaluated the threat the Necron cruiser posed to the flagship based on battlefield data.

The stellar fragments loaded into the green stellar pulsar slammed heavily into the Styx's void shield, causing a ripple of blue before being successfully shunted into the Warp.

"Void shield strength at 70%..." Sandman kept a constant eye on the shield's integrity, calculating that the Necron Scythe-class Harvest Ship would need only four to five volleys to overload the void shield of Styx, a battleship over twenty kilometers long. And this was just a Necron light cruiser; if it were a Cairn-class Tomb Ship, three volleys at most would suffice.

Of course, no one would be foolish enough to leave their flagship stationary as a target.

The Raven Guard fleet suddenly went berserk. The crisis facing their flagship drove all Raven Guard Astartes into a frenzy. Beams and shells flew wildly as a few more green lights flickered out on the auspex.

"Shield strength at 60%..." Styx reported the void shield's status again.

......

Aboard the Necron Scythe-class Harvest Ship, the Necron warriors worked in silence.

As low-order intelligences, the autonomous units on this ship had not awakened. Why would the high-ranking nobles break their slumber for a mere insignificant xenos fleet?

Forced awakening would cause incalculable damage to these nobles' higher-order consciousness. Their long slumber had made these Necron nobles increasingly intolerant of any harm to their minds.

The enemy flagship had entered the Necron ships' range. The pre-programmed Necrons only needed to act according to set rules. Their database contained responses to countless situations. For these survivors of the War in Heaven, no enemy was unbeatable.

Even the vast disparity in size and numbers between the two sides wasn't an issue. Now they needed to scan the enemy flagship's data again to determine when they could destroy these foes who dared disturb the Necrons' slumber.

@^$%*\u0026%$... A wave of information, both familiar and terrifying to countless Necrons, swept across the entire battlefield from the massive vessel.

It was the fear etched indelibly into their programming, the supreme being embedded in the deepest execution logic chain of their race, the most dangerous entity they had shattered and imprisoned deep within the tomb world.

Now, this shockwave announced his arrival to every Necron unit on the battlefield.

An Alpha-level alert instantly erupted from the Scythe-class ship. This information, laden with boundless terror, was transmitted via quantum entanglement directly to the main control core of the tomb world on Tyr. The sudden appearance of that supreme being, the accompanying shockwave, combined with over sixty million years of wear on the tomb world—

The consciousness of the tomb world experienced an extremely brief gap...

"Alert... Error... Purge... Lag... Stutter... Lag... Alert... Emergency Awakening... Phaeron..."

The disconnection of the tomb world's main consciousness, coupled with the influence of the Void Dragon's information shockwave, caused a stutter in all Necron units, both in space and on the ground. This stutter meant that no awakened unit could enter the reanimation protocol, dealing another heavy blow to the tomb world.

"Death Ray, full power, fire!" The Styx, already prepared, unleashed its main weapon the moment the Scythe-class Harvest Ship stuttered.

The black beam of death swept across, slicing the Scythe cleanly in half. Four dazzling white beams simultaneously pierced the dismembered Necron vessel.

"No matter how tough living metal is, after being smashed like this, let's see you repair that!" Sandman laughed, watching the Styx's attack with its massively overkill damage.

The Death Ray and the two twin-linked super-heavy lance batteries on the spine had all their firepower focused on that poor Necron Harvest Ship. Dealing with a cruiser-class Necron vessel didn't require overloading the Styx's main weapons.

He wasn't a masochist who enjoyed standing still and taking hits from the Necrons. He was waiting for an opportunity. What were the Necrons waiting for? Death. Even though they were already dead beyond dead.

It wasn't just this Scythe-class ship; other Necrons on the battlefield also turned into balls of fire simultaneously. A stuttering ship in this era was no different from a sitting duck.

The massive hedgehogs in space, spitting fire snakes, all ceased firing at the same moment.

"Fleet, assemble..." Sandman issued the order. Through the Void Dragon's power earlier, he had learned that this fleet comprised all the warships of this Necron dynasty.

Now he was going to Tyr to thoroughly tour the homeworld of this race, hailed as the pinnacle of physical universe technology.

Tyr.

The Necron Doom Scythe fighters, locked in combat with the Imperial Navy's Swordtail interceptors in the sky, plummeted the moment they stuttered. The Raven Guard pilots of the Swordtails seized this rare opportunity, blowing the troublesome craft to pieces with a few missiles.

On the ground, the Necrons resisting the Imperial forces' advance also collectively went offline. The clumsy Necron warriors fell to the ground, never to rise again.

In the deepest part of the Mists of Twilight world on Tyr, the Necron king opened his emotionless mechanical eyes.

This was the first time this Necron overlord had received information about that terrifying entity.

"Antigone, why has the Void Dragon appeared within the domains of the Agdagas Dynasty!" The king's flat voice echoed through the empty tomb, questioning the Cryptek prostrate before him.

"My king... we do not know..." Antigone's mechanical body trembled slightly as he reported to his king. As the current tomb's Cryptek, he was undoubtedly derelict in his duty.

"Awaken all forces. Prepare." The king did not blame him. Punishing subordinates at this point was meaningless. This time, everyone in the dynasty would die.

As a Necron overlord who had personally witnessed that dread entity, Nikolaos had once seen that terrifying figure on the periphery of the main battlefield. The two most powerful Necron kings, leading their legions, had only shattered the Void Dragon after paying a grievous price.

Even after that heavy cost, a very large fragment had vanished on the battlefield. No matter how the Necron race searched afterward, they couldn't find and imprison it. Even if it was just a fleeing fragment, Nikolaos knew his dynasty was absolutely no match for it. Now, that once-lost master had returned.

Returned with his boundless fury!

Nikolaos's frame was far larger than the Cryptek's. His smooth metal surface bore no flaws. Various mysterious Necron symbols and patterns flowed across his body, making this noble king even more imposing.

Unfortunately, everything was about to end. Nikolaos knew well that the long ages of slumber and this abrupt interruption of his hibernation had left him without hope.

Most importantly, the Void Dragon's information shockwave was dismantling his consciousness from the foundational logic. Whether Necron noble or the lowest Necron slave, the final outcome was the same; the nobles could merely hold out a little longer.

"Cryptek, send me the intruders' intelligence!" Nikolaos commanded.

The Overlord quickly sent the Imperium of Man's data to his king.

Monkeys clad in black Power Armor, crude yet powerful solid-projectile weapons—the Necron king watched these human soldiers continuously execute the struggling Necron units on the ground, his face utterly expressionless.

"Rally the remaining troops. I want to see for myself," Nicholas spoke.

Necrons never feared death; they were the pinnacle race that had endured countless brutal wars. The pride of their species, the pride of their king, would not allow him and his subjects to die silently like rats in a gutter.

The battlefield was their grave!

Death was their grave!

Antigone's mechanical circuits shuddered. His duty was to protect the Tomb World, to protect his king, yet now the king intended to set foot on that perilous battlefield to face the newly found vassals of the Void Dragon.

This was a grave dereliction of duty, a disgrace!!!

"My king, allow me to take the heads of these base flesh-beings!" Antigone knelt low, his slender metal head nearly touching the ground.

"Then come with me," Nicholas said.

Tyr ground.

The Raven Guard forces had successfully reclaimed all defensive lines in the main mining zone and were advancing toward the fully overrun Sectors 08 and 09.

Green beams flickered across the sky and ground, and Necron fighters locked in combat with the Imperium of Man occasionally plummeted from the heavens, falling silent.

But at the entrance to the Necron Tomb World, the Imperial advance met unprecedented resistance. A dense concentration of elite Necron units had gathered in that area, stalling the Imperial forces.

"Flawed gene-forged creations, have your master speak with me!" A scarab burrowed out of the earth, and with a shimmer of green light, the projection of Overlord Antigone appeared before the Raven Guard's front lines.

His answer came in the roar of bolter fire. Using a Heavy Bolter against Necron Scarabs was like swatting a mosquito with a cannon, but the Astartes opened fire without hesitation.

Hatred for the xenos was etched deep into their very genes.

"You wretched things! What right do you have to the favor of those great beings? Let Him come out!" Antigone roared, reappearing before the front-line troops.

"Enough noise! Level this place!" Nekser ordered orbital bombardment on his command channel. He had hesitated before, fearing harm to the Imperial troops still fighting in the tunnels or the civilians of Tyr, but here he had no such qualms.

After all, this was the entrance to the Necron Tomb World—no other life could exist here.

"Boom..." Scorching Lance beams flashed down from the sky, then slowly crawled forward across the ground toward the Necron positions.

At the same time, Necron anti-air weapons retaliated against the warships in orbit. Though they had lost their fleet, the Tomb World had deployed some anti-ship defenses.

The fierce anti-ship fire forced the Raven Guard in orbit to pull back out of range.

"Boom..." A black death beam detonated a Necron defense platform. Ordinary Imperial ships couldn't withstand Necron warship weapons with their Void Shields, but the Styx's Void Shields had no fear of such sporadic attacks.

"Kill!" Seizing the opportunity, Nekser led the Imperial forces in an assault. Dense Artillery Fire once again thundered across the battlefield, which had barely fallen silent.

A surge of powerful psychic energy rippled as Sandman and his guard teleported directly onto the battlefield.

An aura of dread radiated from Sandman. The lowly Necron slave-units, whose hands had been perfectly steady, began to tremble, while the self-aware Necron units halted all actions in unison.

The battlefield, locked in fierce combat moments ago, fell deathly silent once more. Only the crackling of burning vehicle wrecks reminded all that the brutal fight was still ongoing.