"They failed."
Within the pocket dimension, the awakened Necron Overlord watched as the Necron warriors on the battlefield were slaughtered by the humans clad in power armor.
Its head hurt. The sudden awakening had thrown its thought circuits into disarray, and the passage of endless time had already eroded its sanity and capacity for thought.
Yet as the supreme ruler of this tomb world, the Necron Overlord still sat upon its throne.
A Cryptek stood loyally at its side. It was an engineer and scientist among the Necrons, responsible for maintaining the tomb world's normal operations and occasionally conducting Necron research.
The one-eyed Cryptek waited for the Overlord's command, but the ruler awakened from slumber was clearly not fully awake.
Like an old human man, it leaned against its throne and tapped its living-metal skull with its palm.
The crisp knocking echoed through the vast chamber.
"These useless warriors... send, send... what were they called again?"
The Overlord tried to recall a more advanced guard force, but its memory modules could not return their names.
"Deathmarks?" the Cryptek asked.
"Yes, yes, those ones. Send them to cut off the heads of those damned flesh primates," the Overlord ordered as though it had suddenly remembered.
"Those lowly humans are not worth dispatching the noble Deathmarks for. Choose something else."
The Overlord froze, vaguely sensing that something was wrong.
It was clearly the Overlord. How dared a mere Cryptek overstep its station?
Did this dynasty answer to it, or to you?
In the open space nearby, the Cryptek held a staff flickering with green energy. The ghostly green light in its single eye was far clearer and brighter than the Overlord's.
What the muddleheaded Overlord failed to see was that the Cryptek it trusted held little respect in its eye. Instead, there