"Can you confirm the source of that unusual energy fluctuation? I need an absolutely certain answer."
"If it really is the fluctuation of a C'tan, then the forces we have deployed will be nowhere near enough to handle the situation."
"A C'tan shard outside containment and surveillance poses a far greater threat than a mere Beast-level Ork."
"I need to report this to the Phaeron, dispatch more containment forces, and lock up that damned C'tan shard."
While the surface of the Ork battle planet was consumed by fierce fighting, Crowned General Claudius, watching the battle remotely from the World Engine, was deeply troubled by the frenzied shrieking of the C'tan detector beside him.
As a Crowned General of the Nihilakh Dynasty, Claudius had always looked down upon other races from a lofty position.
The Aeldari were merely lingering remnants awaiting death; the ancient Orks had degenerated into barbaric Greenskin Orks; humanity had fallen during the Age of Strife, and just as it showed signs of rising again, the Horus Heresy had dragged it back into the abyss.
Yet Claudius understood one fact: Necron pride was nothing but a joke to the C'tan.
Even though they had once ascended to become masters of the galaxy, the Necrons could never erase the mark of being slaves to the C'tan.
As long as they still used living metal bodies, they had not severed themselves from that shameful past.
The coldness of living metal constantly reminded him that they had once been flesh-and-blood Necrontyr, not Necrons.
They had turned to the C'tan to survive, becoming their slaves, and their living metal bodies were, in a sense, slave collars.
The vengeful slaves had carried wrath enough to burn everything away and shattered most of the C'tan into fragments.
They had used every means possible to