The Deceiver bypassed the Necrontyr defenses and threaded his way through the endless swarm. He had his own way of keeping these bugs from turning their ravenous appetites on him: the True Word "Death" in his pocket would deceive the swarm's keen senses of smell.
Amalaga only needed to hold the True Words "Life" and "Attachment" while diligently producing greater numbers of Degraded Ones in the laboratory.
The Deceiver took a few bites of rations, souls shattering between his teeth and becoming part of the power within his C'tan body.
Just as the Deceiver's rations were about to run out, the ring belt piled from the remains of C'tan and Old Ones appeared before him. Taking a deep breath, the Deceiver was glad that his computational abilities had not declined.
The Tyranids bred across these ring belts like maggots feeding on carrion. Nourished by the power within the C'tan corpses, they reproduced at an almost inexhaustible rate. At the same time, they were nourished by the psychically adept Old Ones, forming their distinctive Warp shadow.
The Warp was known for its chaotic disorder, but in the eyes of a higher life-form like the Deceiver, it possessed another kind of structural beauty.
The center of the Warp was occupied by the four most active Chaos Gods. Beyond their domains lay the Formless Wastes, composed of the remnants of extinct civilizations. This region, devoid of souls and life, could not stir the interest of the Chaos Gods. Only Tzeentch had some designs on the far end of the Formless Wastes.
At the end of the Formless Wastes lay the vast shadow formed by the Tyranids. Hungry and never satisfied, they swallowed even the Formless Wastes without hesitation.
Fortunately, the swarm's Warp shadow was closely bound to their flesh and blood. So long