Ever since the Imperial tithe ship departed in haste, Zabok had received no further word from Holy Terra. Worse still, Fanes had lost contact with the wider Imperium entirely.
"Could it be because of the scar in the void?" Zabok raised his head. Through the transparent dome overhead, he could see immense gashes hanging in the surrounding starfield—some so vast they had twisted into spiraling vortices.
Not long after the tithe ship left, the once-calm sky split open. Even the stars seemed to lose their light.
That chaos had killed many. It also severed all interstellar communications, isolating the system from the outside. After that, there were more and more xenos and heretics on Fanes.
Worst of all were the cultists who surfaced without warning, and the daemons that slipped in from the Warp. They had slaughtered countless Imperial citizens.
"Our enemies are too many," Zabok said. "They gnaw at Fanes' soil. They profane the Imperium's holy territory."
At the thought, a flash of anger passed through his eyes—an eerie, viridian glare. He hated the damned xenos and heretics.
They had brought the Emperor's people far too much suffering.
But his emotions quickly flattened again.
"What we face now is only a temporary setback. The Imperium will wipe out all enemies in time. Humanity is the finest species in the galaxy!"
This living-metal governor had always believed mankind would claw its way out of any abyss and rule the stars once more.
And so, neither he nor the people of Fanes had ever surrendered hope. They believed Holy Terra would reach them again—call them back into the Imperium's embrace.
Even in such turbulent times, Fanes had not ceased fulfilling its obligation. While ensuring the people survived, they still gathered shipment after shipment of the Eleventh Tithe and stored it in vast warehouses.
They were proud of that sacred duty.
"Now Imperial vessels have appeared around Fanes again," Zabok mused, a smile creasing the planes of his metal face. "Things must be improving. Perhaps the tithe ship will come for us soon…"
Not long ago, Fanes had finally managed to transmit a message.
He had pleaded for Imperial aid with sincere devotion—and he had confirmed the signal had been received.
Now all that remained was to wait for the Imperium to act.
Once contact was restored, he could finally deliver the years of backlog in tithe shipments—and receive the armed support of an Imperial fleet.
Then, in one decisive stroke, they could purge the system of the mad Flayed Ones, along with every other xenos and heretic threat.
And when that day came, the people of Fanes would finally live better lives.
In recent days, there had been more smiles among court officials and common citizens alike. At the thought of completing their sacred duty, they felt genuine pride—an honor that warmed them from the inside.
And if they could win recognition from Holy Terra itself… all the better.
"Perhaps I should compile the numbers again," Zabok muttered. "Then the handover to the tithe ship will be flawless."
He bent over the documents, grinding through the calculations. At a moment like this, he could not afford even a single mistake.
Fanes had paid dearly to uphold its obligation. To scrape together the required tithe, supplies in many sectors had been cut back.
Life had not been easy.
Time passed.
At last, the palace cook—an older, heavyset woman—approached with the governor's midday meal, waiting patiently at the side.
After a while, she could no longer hold her tongue.
"My lord, I beg you to rest. It is time for your lunch."
She looked at him with real concern. The governor often forgot to eat because of his work.
How could that possibly be acceptable?
In recent weeks, the governor had stopped holding banquets entirely. Even his daily expenses had been pared down.
His meals had become simpler as well.
Even a palace cook could feel the shift in the air.
"Forgive me. I kept you waiting," Zabok said, lifting his head slowly. "There are too many figures. My mind's gone dull. I almost wish I could be like those mystical Tech-priests—fit myself with a cogitator brain, then bolt on a fan to cool it down."
He rapped his metal skull with a clang, delivering the line with earnest seriousness—as if it were not a joke at all.
In truth, humor was not his strength. He only wanted to lighten the mood.
"My lord, you're very funny!" The cook covered her mouth and giggled, her soft flesh wobbling with the laughter.
She really did love to laugh. Everything amused her. That was one reason Zabok had chosen her as his personal cook.
Zabok rose from behind his desk with careful, almost exaggerated caution, afraid of knocking over the towering stacks of parchment files.
If they fell, he would have to crawl on the floor gathering them in a most undignified heap.
The vacant-servitor units in the office certainly could not be trusted to pick up scattered papers.
He moved to the dining table. The cook stepped up on her toes to set the meal down before him.
The moment he saw it, displeasure flickered across his face.
"This is grox steak," he said. "Why isn't it processed starch-meat?"
This was far too extravagant.
The cook's hands tightened around the tray edge, anxious. "My lord… today is Sunday. You should have a better lunch…"
Half a year ago, this living-metal governor had announced increased taxation across the Fanes system to fulfill the sacred tithe obligations.
The decision had lowered living standards. For many households, the bread on their tables would be cut in half—some would not even be able to afford processed starch-meat anymore.
He had been deeply pained by that. And he had declared that no matter how hard things became, they must never let the Imperium's people on Fanes suffer more.
"Fanes will endure these bitter years," Zabok had promised. "No matter what, I will stand with you…"
He vowed to restore the economy and production as quickly as possible.
And until that day, he would eat the same food as his citizens—to prove his resolve.
Until it was done.
That gesture strengthened the people's confidence. They chose to share hardship together, believing recovery would come.
Yet just as the horizon seemed to brighten, the renewed predations of xenos and heretics pushed the situation back toward the brink.
Beneath Zabok's cold, blue-lit gaze, the cook lowered her head.
"My lord, I have made an error. I am willing to accept punishment. I will replace your meal at once."
Zabok shook his head and raised a hand lightly, stopping her.
"No. That would only waste more. Your error has been recorded. If it happens again, I will have no choice but to dismiss you from the palace."
Hearing that, the cook felt even more shame—but she swallowed it down so as not to disturb him while he ate.
At the table, Zabok took up his knife and fork and began the ritual of consuming the grox steak.
Of course, he had no human digestive system. Eating was nothing more than ceremony now.
But the instant his utensils touched the meat, something in his gaze changed.
He had gone far too long without experiencing anything that was not manufactured flesh. Even though he could taste nothing at all—
Still.
He looked up at the heavyset cook beside him. In the viridian glow of his eyes was a deep, hidden longing. That abundant, living flesh… it was beautiful.
This living-metal governor craved real flesh.
"Come here," Zabok said.
He lifted a sharp living-metal claw and beckoned softly.
He was having trouble restraining himself.
"O-oh… yes!" The cook didn't understand what was happening. She hurriedly wiped her tears and stepped before him.
In front of him, she looked like a dwarf.
"By the Emperor," Zabok murmured, studying her body, unable to resist brushing her with that metal claw—almost as if he were trying to remember a sensation. "When will I become normal again?"
"My lord, your illness will be cured," the cook said quickly, hiding the sorrow in her heart as she tried to comfort him. "I've been praying to the God-Emperor every day!"
She knew the governor and the nobles had been struck by a strange malady—body and soul entwined with living metal.
They could not live like ordinary humans. They could not taste food.
It was pitiable.
The governor had given too much for Fanes. He deserved the Emperor's protection.
In that moment, Zabok slipped into an ancient memory.
A very, very long time ago—
Back then, he had still been human. People addressed him as a king, and he ruled many worlds. His palace stood upon a mountain that was said to be eternal.
From that height, he gazed down over the capital. In the dying light of a red sun, the city glittered—pyramidal structures rising in splendid, impossible majesty.
But the entire city, and the whole star system, had been afflicted by a monstrous sickness. Malignant tumors bloomed across people's bodies. Their flesh decayed at terrifying speed, and they clung to life by the thinnest thread.
To survive, Zabok had been forced to use a final method. At the summit of the Eternal Mountain, he built a colossal biotransference furnace.
It could convert carbon-based flesh into living metal—preserving consciousness.
Zabok was the first to enter the hall of transformation. He walked along a path paved with gemstones and stepped onto the altar.
The feeling was… wrong. When the high-energy rays descended, his flesh scattered like sand.
Bit by bit, sensation vanished.
His flesh melted away, and his mind sank into living metal.
After that, the system grew even more dangerous. Zabok built a vast underground realm and led his subjects into slumber.
He hoped they could wait there until rescue arrived—and civilization was restored.
Yet when he and the nobles awoke from that subterranean world, many had gone mad.
Zabok still remembered the sight.
He opened his eyes upon a towering throne. Before him lay nothing but black stone—and his subjects in disorder, clamoring and chaotic.
There was also a group of Tech-priests, lost and uncertain, as if they did not know where they belonged.
In the darkness, he could make out the viridian glow pulsing within living-metal bodies, and the cold electronic lights on the Tech-priests' forms.
What he had not expected was this:
The long sleep had inflicted irreversible damage on many minds.
Many became incoherent—deranged, babbling.
Some shouted about raising armies to face the terrible Old Ones, to destroy the Orks and the Aeldari.
Others begged the great star gods, pleading that the C'tan would spare the Necrontyr—swearing they would accept slavery.
And some howled with fanatic certainty:
"The Old Ones and the star gods are long dead! This is the age of the Necrontyr—we will rule the galaxy again!"
"Flesh! I crave more flesh!"
"There are so many lesser apes on the surface! We should awaken every army and wipe them all out!"
Amid the noise, Zabok gathered the data stored in what remained of the surface facilities. The dulled gears of his mind finally began to turn again.
From his throne, he looked at the mad ones and felt only sorrow.
"You have forgotten that you were human," he said. "You take yourselves for hateful xenos. How tragic…"
After that came fierce argument.
Some of the crazed refused to acknowledge what they once were. They even accused Zabok—this king they had once revered—of being the mad one.
Some began attacking the humans on the surface, flaying their skins and gnawing their flesh.
The dynasty of old fractured as it never had before.
In the end, Zabok exiled all subjects who refused to recognize their human identity.
Those ones left the system, shouting that they would seek the so-called Silent King.
The others—the ones who became known as Flayed Ones—fled into the dark. Even now, they still attacked humans and other flesh-born life wherever they could.
As for Zabok, he slowly came to understand what had become of his former capital. He began managing the new human migrants who had settled the planet.
Over the passing years, humans from other regions had recolonized the system.
He learned of the Imperium and the Emperor, and hope returned to him.
Humanity had survived that ancient catastrophe. It had built an Imperium. Then, ten thousand years ago, it had suffered another great upheaval—and once again mankind was in peril.
But the Imperium had not collapsed into dust.
And it had not needed to resort to biotransference and slumber as he had.
After that, Zabok came to rule the Fanes system—brought to the edge of ruin by the Flayed Ones.
At first, some humans hated him. Some even called him xenos.
Zabok did not despair, nor did he rage. He understood how terrifying his appearance was.
He showed the people patience. He devoted himself to restoring order and ending the system-wide famine.
After two generations of effort, the crisis was finally resolved. His rule won acceptance—then respect—then genuine reverence.
All the way to the present.
When Zabok finished lunch, he had the cook clear the dishes away. He even rewarded her, an apology for his earlier rudeness.
He might be frugal, but he never tried to bind court officials and nobles with austere restraint. Instead, he encouraged those with wealth to spend more—
Rather than hoarding riches in warehouses until they rotted.
That was how the system's economy could recover properly.
Zabok did not relax for long. He returned to his desk and plunged back into the parchment sea.
It was exhausting.
But it was necessary.
Later, he summoned the court officials responsible for ceremony, discussing how best to welcome the arrival of an Imperial fleet.
Fanes needed to greet the Imperium's forces—make them feel the world's warmth and loyalty.
"Master of ceremonies," Zabok said, finalizing the welcome plan with a light tone, "make sure the Imperium sees the radiant, devout smiles of Fanes."
He was looking forward to the Imperium's arrival.
So was every citizen of Fanes.
After generations of yearning, salvation seemed finally at hand.
They would return to the Imperium.
What could be more beautiful than that?
"Once Fanes is stable again," Zabok thought, "perhaps I can petition the Imperium for a pilgrimage to Holy Terra…"
The idea struck him, and his smile deepened.
It had always been his dream to make that journey.
If fortune truly favored him, perhaps he would even be invited into the Imperial Palace to behold the Emperor's sacred relics.
Perhaps he could even glimpse, from afar, the holy hall of the Golden Throne.
"That would make this life worthwhile," he whispered, lost in the vision—
And in his distraction, he knocked over the already-precarious stack of parchment on his desk.
"Oh no—Emperor preserve me!"
He stared at the papers scattered across the floor. It looked as if his metal face had gained several more wrinkles.
The viridian light in his eyes dimmed as he dropped down, grunting and huffing while he picked them up one by one.
Still, the thought of the Imperium's impending arrival washed away the bitterness of his exhausting duties. His mood lifted quickly again.
The news spread from the palace with astonishing speed, rippling across Fanes and its surrounding moons.
People were delighted—more optimistic than ever before.
They believed that once the Imperium arrived, life would improve. They believed they would finally be safe.
And within that atmosphere of hope—
Destruction from the Imperium itself had already begun to close in, a tragedy no one could foresee.
The Ecclesiarchy of this turbulent region had already decided: this heretical world must be destroyed. A lethal relic-weapon had been smuggled into the hive city by infiltrators and was already in place.
It was an irreversible strike of annihilation.
At the same time, Immortals found the wreckage of a peculiar, cloaked drop pod in the ruins beyond the hive districts.
Its mysterious passenger was long gone.
That discovery heightened the hive defenders' alertness. A current of shadow began to surge—unseen, unheard—while the people remained utterly unaware.
On the streets of the primary hive—
"By the Golden Sun…"
A bald, somewhat aged believer appeared in the open, a faint cross carved into his forehead.
He was a senior preaching saint of the Savior—Fran.
And with the preaching saint's arrival, the Savior's gaze followed close behind. A new doctrine would soon spread across this world.
But almost at once, Fran collided head-on with a patrol of Necron Immortals.
(End of Chapter)
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