Since awakening from his slumber, Imotekh had already made up his mind: he would become the Supreme Overlord who unified the Necrons once more.
He even disdained the so-called Triarch Council. It might fool the lesser Necrons, but the truly powerful dynasty overlords all understood that the Triarch Council was merely a tool through which Szarekh wielded dictatorship in the council's name.
What use were the other two overlords of the Triarch Council besides acting as Szarekh's mouthpieces?
Imotekh despised such hypocrisy. He had always scorned it.
If one wanted a dictatorship, one should rule openly. If one wanted tyranny, one should practice it brazenly.
Szarekh had sold the Necrontyr to the C'tan, ending the age of Necrontyr flesh. In Imotekh's eyes, that was a monstrous crime against the entire race.
Yet from another perspective, Szarekh had given the Necrons eternal metal bodies and laid a solid foundation for their conquest of the galaxy. That was the only right thing he had ever done.
Yes, Imotekh had long since changed how he saw himself. He proudly regarded himself as a Necron, while the Necrontyr were merely the medium and a stage through which the Necrons had been born.
To ease his own guilt, Szarekh had destroyed the command protocols and returned to every Necron the freedom to think independently.
But in Imotekh's view, that was yet another act of almost weak-minded foolishness. If he controlled the command protocols, he would never destroy them for such an absurd reason.
The ambitious overlord of the Sautekh Dynasty had long determined that a civil war to purge the old order and establish a new one was inevitable.
And to win that war, he needed every possible advantage. A powerful C'tan shard was undoubtedly a heavyweight on the strategic scales.
"Trade with the humans,"