Chapter 228: The Silent King's Pride
"Such numbers," Horus observed. "I have felt that way only when facing the Ork hordes."
He paused, his enhanced perception cataloging the void before them, a roiling sea of chitin and hunger that transcended mere quantity.
"Yet even the greenskins never achieved such... scale."
Torgaddon leaned forward, his expression grim. "My Lord, in a void engagement such as this, how many vessels does the Swarm command? What is the true scale of this incursion?"
"If permitted to breach the galactic frontier freely, the entire galaxy would overflow with them," Hastur replied with grim humor. "Perhaps twice over."
Abaddon's jaw tightened as he studied the tactical displays. "Our battleships outmatch these creatures by every measure of firepower. Yet their numbers are absolute. They render our technological superiority... irrelevant."
"We are drowning in an ocean of insects," Torgaddon said quietly, his gaze fixed on Horus. "When the time comes, my Lord, I ask only that you return my body to Kosonia. Perhaps my countrymen will drop a few tears at the sight of their fallen son."
Horus smiled, a thing of amusement that transformed his features entirely. "If I did not know your humorous nature intimately, old friend, I might believe you truly doubted me. You would wound my pride deeply."
He turned to survey the assembled officers of the Shadow Wolves, his expression becoming measured once more. "What insights do you offer? How do you interpret our present circumstances?"
"With respect, my Lord, I concur entirely with Torgaddon," Abaddon said. The note of black humor in his voice was unmistakable. "We are finished. We should ensure sufficient currency remains to place upon our eyes, silver coins to guide us to whatever realm awaits."
A murmur of suppressed laughter rippled through the command staff. The Kosonian custom, where the living placed coins upon the eyes of the honored dead, had apparently spread among those who spent too long in Torgaddon's company.
"You have been corrupted by too much of his influence," Horus observed, though amusement flickered in his eyes.
He turned back to the viewport, his gaze piercing the infinite darkness. "Know this: I have never surrendered a single engagement to fate or circumstance. This one shall be no exception."
His voice dropped, becoming sharp as a blade. "Communications Officer, transmit to Terra. Relay our fleet position in rune-sequence. Request coverage by Heaven's Punishment. It is time to demonstrate to you all what my brother has truly wrought."
The high-ranking officers exchanged uncertain glances. The name meant little to them, a Primarch's weapon, perhaps, but details were scarce.
The confusion dissolved into awe.
Reality itself seemed to fracture. Vast geometrical gates of pure light tore open in the void, and through them emerged structures that transcended conventional comprehension. Impossible edifices of cold steel dwarfed entire star systems, their frameworks binding multiple suns within crystalline fields of force. Power flowed through them in visible waves, drawn from the very hearts of stars and compressed into weaponized radiance.
Massive emitters crowned with spires began to glow, accumulating energies that made the void itself shudder. The aura they radiated was one of pure, clinical annihilation.
Then came the strike.
Light beams of apocalyptic proportion lanced out across tens of thousands of light-years, precision-targeted across the entire breadth of the Swarm's deployment. Where the radiant lances touched, reality seemed to reject the very concept of the Tyranid presence.
The endless chittering masses ignited like dry parchment cast into an inferno.
They burned. They scattered. They ceased.
The void fell silent, save for the fading whispers of vaporized biomass dissipating into the cosmic dark.
"That," Horus said calmly, "is Perturabo's masterpiece. The Iron Blood itself—a stellar extraction array capable of drawing upon the luminescence of suns themselves. Its teleportation matrices allow instantaneous saturation strikes upon any confirmed coordinate throughout the known universe."
His officers remained transfixed, watching the last embers of the Swarm fade into oblivion.
"The Great Devourer's spawning may be infinite," Horus continued, his tone taking on the cadence of ancient truth. "Yet behind our Legion stands an Empire whose war-potential knows no cessation. From first engagement to final compliance, we never stand isolated. We never stand alone."
The members of the Four Kings Council, Loken, and the assembled command staff could only stare, witnessing the raw power of the Imperium made manifest.
The stars themselves had visibly contracted, their radiance dimmed. The energetic expenditure in that single strike was almost incomprehensible.
"Reform the fleet," Horus commanded, his voice cutting through the lingering shock. "The Swarm yet remains undefeated. We shall ensure this xenos abomination is expunged entirely from reality."
Static crackled through the vox-channels.
"Unknown signal source interference detected," the Communications Officer reported. "Adding to comparative database."
She paused. Confusion crossed her features.
"Commander—Space Necron communication detected. They are requesting a priority channel."
Abaddon's eyes narrowed. "The metal skeletons? I thought we'd scoured them from the galaxy."
"How are there any outside our borders?" Little Horus asked.
"Could they have released the Swarm intentionally?" Torgaddon's hand moved toward his weapons instinctively. "If so, they warrant total annihilation."
Horus held up a hand for silence, his expression unreadable. "Establish the connection. I would hear what these xenos have to offer."
The projection equipment hummed to life. Light coalesced in the chamber, resolving into the image of a figure wreathed in the pale glow of living metal and ancient malice.
A throne. Ornate. Monumental. Upon it sat a being of impossible age, the Silent King himself. Triarch Praetorians flanked the throne, their phase weapons crackling with lethal luminescence.
One of the guards stepped forward, its metallic form resonating with what might charitably be called pride.
"The ruler upon this throne is lord of the Triarch. He is Szarekh, the Silent King, conqueror of the C'tan themselves, master of the Scepter of Eternal Glory. Before you stands the sovereign of the Necron dynasties."
The guard's voice was edged with something almost like contempt. "You shall kneel immediately. This is not a request but a requirement of respect. My lord is the rightful sovereign of this galaxy, a truth before which all lesser races must bow and worship."
The bridge of the Vengeful Spirit descended into taut silence.
Anger radiated from the assembled officers of the Shadow Wolves, a palpable thing, cold and sharp as a blade's edge.
The arrogance. The sheer, unforgivable arrogance of these skeletal things.
Such insolence would not be tolerated.
"Kneel?" Horus's response came in a soft whisper, yet every officer recognized the warning signs.
Loken, who had served the Primarch long enough to read the subtle shifts in his bearing, felt something ancient and terrible beginning to stir. The fires of Kosonia's wrath were gathering somewhere deep within that transhuman frame. The composed exterior was merely the pressure building before a volcano erupts.
"My lord is a supreme being," the Praetorian continued, seemingly oblivious to the danger it courted. "He has traversed the galactic frontier and ventured into spaces beyond mortal comprehension, seeking truth in the far reaches of existence."
"Eons ago, my lord observed the Great Devourer, creatures that originate from alien galaxies, perhaps even from beyond this universe itself. He has repeatedly misdirected them, guiding them toward other-dimensional boundaries, postponing their inevitable arrival within our galaxy."
"What you witness today represents but a fragment of their true terror. Only when you confront the full majesty of the Great Devourer will you comprehend true fear."
The guard's metal form resonated with what passed for satisfaction. "Your courage has earned my lord's recognition. He offers you this: surrender your loyalty and receive his mercy in exchange."
"Serve my lord faithfully, and you shall achieve unprecedented glory. Once my lord reclaims the galaxy, your species shall be permitted to endure as vassals beneath his eternal rule. Such generosity is beyond measure."
Horus straightened. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of finality.
"You are shadows. Echoes of a dead age that should have remained forgotten in its tomb."
He took a step forward, his presence expanding to fill the chamber. "This epoch belongs to Mankind, to the Imperium of Terra. Not to you."
"Humanity will never kneel. We are ascendant. You, by contrast, are finished. Your race persists only through mockery, soulless constructs who cannot reproduce, cannot adapt, cannot truly live. Your extinction is inevitable. Only the manner and timing remain uncertain."
The guard's optical sensors flared. Even through that featureless metal visage, the officers felt the force of the Silent King's rage.
If Corvus had been present, he would have understood precisely why Horus's words had struck so deeply. He alone among the Primarchs possessed the knowledge to explain the wound that had just been reopened.
The Silent King's true name was Szarekh, sovereign of the Szarekhan Dynasty and heir to the Triarch's bloodline. He carried the weight of impossible choices, choices that had condemned his entire species.
When Szarekh had ascended to leadership of the Necrontyr Empire, he found his race in freefall. The War in Heaven had stripped them of dominion, leaving only fragmented territories and internal divisions. Collapse seemed inevitable.
In that darkest hour, contact came.
The C'tan, the Star Gods, appeared before the desperate Necrontyr, and Szarekh made his fateful choice. The Deceiver offered a path to salvation: abandon the dying flesh, transcend the limitations of mortality, and grant eternal life through metamorphosis into living metal.
Szarekh ignored Orikan the Diviner's warnings. He ignored every voice urging caution.
He accepted the lie.
And when the transformation took hold, when Szarekh felt his consciousness pouring into the metallic prison, he understood the truth at last.
The C'tan cared nothing for Necrontyr suffering. They had orchestrated the entire tragedy.
They had lured a whole species into willing enslavement, transferring their very essence into artificial vessels so the C'tan could consume the abandoned souls and consciousness like a feast. The Necrontyr would become eternal slaves, puppets for divine hunger.
Szarekh had condemned his entire race to oblivion, to transformation into soulless machines, bereft of everything that made them who they were.
But Szarekh possessed one thing his masters did not anticipate: defiance that transcended even this ultimate betrayal.
When the War in Heaven devolved into chaos, when the C'tan's attention fragmented through internal conflict, Szarekh rose in rebellion. His Necrons struck. They fought with the fury of the damned, and against all probability, they prevailed. Their so-called masters fell. The C'tan shattered into countless fragments, scattered across the cosmos.
Yet even victory tasted of ash.
The Old Ones had already seeded the galaxy with new inheritors: the Aeldari and other races. The Necrons, exhausted from billions of years of warfare, could not match these young yet vital civilizations.
The dynasty that had once claimed the stars could not reclaim them.
Szarekh made a choice born of bitter pragmatism. He ordered his people into their Tomb Worlds, commanding them to enter stasis. Sixty million years of sleep.
By then, he reasoned, these new races might succumb to their own internal weaknesses. Time and entropy would be his allies.
But Szarekh himself did not sleep.
After destroying the master protocols that granted him dominion over the entire Necron consciousness, he led the legions of his dynasty beyond the galactic frontier.
A self-imposed exile. An act of atonement.
Szarekh believed, had always believed, that the catastrophe was his fault alone. His judgment. His choice. His failure. The guilt had defined him across billions of years.
And now this young upstart, this creature whose entire species was barely more than an evolutionary moment, had struck directly at that wound, reopening it completely.
"You have gravely insulted my lord," the Praetorian responded, its voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "There will be consequences beyond your comprehension."
"Will there?" Horus smiled, and it was a terrible thing to witness. "Let us determine that soon enough."
"Your insolence will be paid for in blood and ruin," the guard continued, its fury barely contained.
"When the Necrontyr swept this galaxy, your kind did not yet possess awareness. You hid in the branches of trees, barely evolved beyond animals."
"Do you truly believe your fledgling species possesses the authority to challenge an ancient empire? You and your young race shall pay an astronomical price for this arrogance. That price will be written in the extinction of your kind."
The Praetorian began to elaborate further, but Horus cut him short with brutal efficiency. "We shall see who pays the reckoning soon. Let weapons speak what words cannot."
Horus turned to his Communications Officer without waiting for a response. "Reverse-lock their position coordinates. While Heaven's Punishment continues its work against the Swarm, ensure this doomed species receives equal attention. Leave nothing of them for the void to harbor."
"Arrogance," the Silent King's Praetorian said, a single word that somehow contained all the weight of ages and all the promise of vengeance. The communication terminated.
Two powers had collided and found no common ground.
If they met again, it would be with weaponry and death.
The bridge of the Vengeful Spirit fell silent, but it was a silence pregnant with satisfaction rather than fear.
"We should never appease xenos," Abaddon declared, his voice ringing through the chamber. "Our only response must be their total annihilation."
"Arrogant creatures deserve a thorough lesson," Torgaddon agreed firmly, his hand never straying far from his weapons. "And if their pride demands they learn it at gunpoint, so be it."
The officers of the Shadow Wolves nodded in unison. In that moment, there existed only one certainty: the coming war would be absolute.
[End of Chapter]
____________
Check out the Patreon for advanced chapters right now:
👉 patreon.com/Mr UmU
https://www.patreon.com/Mr_UmU