Violent tremors erupted.
The reinforced plasteel and bedrock were instantly torn asunder by a colossal force, bringing countless Necron legions long entombed within the stasis crypts back into the searing light of day.
Squadrons of Doomsday Arks and Ghost Arks ascended into the sky; this time, the Necrons were waging war in grim earnest.
Massive Obelisks levitated into the air—the anti-air war engines of the Necrons, specifically deployed to cleanse the skies.
Slumbering Seraptek Heavy Constructs were awakened. These terrifying war engines, fully capable of matching Ork Stompas and Imperial Knights in head-on combat, marched into the fray without a shred of hesitation.
The sudden, explosive counter-offensive of the Necrons instantly suppressed the hordes of Orks and Daemons. Such was the true, terrifying depth of the Necron Dynasties.
"This brutal?"
Yang Tao muttered to himself, watching the Necron warships continuously breaching the atmosphere and ascending into the cold void of space.
At that moment, a Cryptek—recently re-engineered by the Allspark—floated to his side and said, "No, all of this is merely to transmit a beacon to the Phaeron of the Szekar Dynasty..."
"Soon, the grand armada of the Dynasty will descend. They will purge all biological filth from this sector and safely escort you to the Core World of our Empire."
Yang Tao's eyelids twitched violently. "Honestly, I could have made my own way there."
"No. You do not yet comprehend your own significance to us, the Cursed Ones..."
In truth, the Cryptek withheld a deeper concern: they utterly failed to comprehend Yang Tao. No matter how many quantum scans it ran on him, the data invariably indicated that Yang Tao was nothing more than an exceptionally mundane, fragile carbon-based organism.
Yet, if a frail carbon-based lifeform could slaughter the elite vanguard forces of the Necrons as easily as reaping wheat... what did that make them?
Right then, a massive Necron fleet dropped out of realspace. The moment they emerged, they assumed an absolute, crushing formation, launching an indiscriminate assault on all vessels in orbit.
Whether they were Ork Kroosers or Warp-spawned Daemon ships, they appeared utterly pathetic and powerless before the main battle fleet of the Necron Dynasty.
A plethora of Tomb Obelisks were deployed directly onto the planetary surface.
The Tomb Obelisk was a terrifying heavy unit, a critical piece of the vast, ancient arsenal wielded by the Necrons—unfathomably durable, capable of battlefield repair, unleashing devastating firepower, and manifesting Eternity Gates to teleport lines of Necron Warriors.
"Please, follow me."
A shimmering emerald Dolmen Gate manifested before Yang Tao. The Cryptek gestured with a chillingly polite hospitality, inviting him through.
Yang Tao harbored no fear of a trap; he stepped directly through the portal behind the metallic entity.
As he crossed the threshold, he found himself standing within a vast, hollow chamber of a Necron tomb ship.
However, a scene so surreal unfolded before him that it defied all belief. Standing row upon row inside the Necron vessel's bay were "humans" clutching glowing green Gauss weapons.
They were clad in the standard-issue flak armor of the Astra Militarum, some even bearing the specific crests of standard Regiments. Worse yet, standing amidst these mechanical monsters were fucking Commissars!!
The sheer, uncanny horror of the sight made Yang Tao's scalp crawl.
He even spotted numerous figures draped in crimson robes—Tech-Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus!!!
Before the Cryptek that followed him through could react, it was instantly subdued by several other Crypteks utilizing specialized suppression matrices.
"Praise the Omnissiah!!"
Just as Yang Tao was contemplating whether he needed to massacre his way out, a Tech-Priest strode up to him, vocalizing binary-laced prayers to the Machine God.
"You shall be safely escorted to the Tomb World of Nokanel. Please, put your mind at ease."
At ease?
It was no longer a matter of being anxious; he felt like his cognitive faculties were about to short-circuit.
Staring at the Tech-Priest before him, he said, "Wait, let me process this... You are a Tech-Priest of the Imperium?"
"Affirmative. I am Tech-Priest Aleph, of the Adeptus Mechanicus."
"..."
Yang Tao felt either he had lost his mind, or the Tech-Priest had completely corrupted his cogitators. He pointed a finger at the Necron Warriors, who were currently wearing grotesque human skin-masks while hefting their Gauss blasters. "And they are Necrons?"
"Negative. They are human..."
Perhaps even the Tech-Priest realized how logically indefensible that statement sounded, for he immediately supplemented: "At least... they cognitantly self-identify as humans..."
Yang Tao: "..."
Emperor's teeth, I've boarded a ship of absolute lunatics.
The Tech-Priest continued unperturbed, "You shall be taken to the Nokanel Dynasty to grant an audience with Planetary Governor Phaeron Smaichel..."
"Stop... say no more. Just let me breathe for a second..."
Yang Tao felt as though his brain was being dragged through the mud by a violent Ork Nob. He used to think that disguised as an Ork while being human was peak madness.
The Necrons here were on a whole different tier of insanity.
Gazing sincerely at the Tech-Priest, he asked, "Are you absolutely certain your logic circuits haven't suffered catastrophic failure?"
The response, however, only plunged him deeper into bewilderment.
"Uncertain. I lack the baseline data to determine if my current cognitive state qualifies as madness... Please, rest. Via Webway/Warp transit, we shall arrive at our destination shortly."
Yang Tao nodded numbly. Finding a vacant corner within the warship, he materialized a table and chairs.
Staring at the surrounding metallic horrors draped in 'human skin,' countless theories raced through his mind.
Planetary Governor... Phaeron? Can those two titles even exist in the same sentence without causing a localized reality collapse?
Drawing the Transmutation Tablet from his inventory, he began converting materials at a frantic pace. He desperately needed to divert his focus before he genuinely went insane.
Magenta Matter, Pink Matter, Violet Matter... Wait, could it be that the Omnissiah actually manifested a miracle and enlightened these soulless Xenos into the Cult Mechanicus?
As Yang Tao's mind wandered into absurd territories, he tallied the various matter clusters required for the ProjectE upgrades. To his dismay, it required the fabrication of twelve distinct tiers of matter. The most exorbitant among them, the Evanescent Matter, demanded a staggering 261,213,855,744 EMC per unit.
Ugh... my head hurts...
Between this completely heretical Necron ship and the absurd math of the ProjectE upgrade modules, a massive migraine was brewing.
However, his eyes caught sight of the Final star, and he couldn't help but salivate at its glorious stats.
The Final star required 649,593,575,903,340,256 EMC—a number as long as an Imperial Identification Code, yielding damage only a single digit lower than the True Last Sword.
It possessed the reality-breaking trait to duplicate any item, regardless of whether the target possessed an EMC value or not.
That single trait more than justified its astronomical cost.
Yet, reality was thoroughly disappointing.
By the time he synthesized the Yellow-Green Matter, his entire reserve of EMC was completely drained.
Sigh~ I'm still miles away from Evanescent Matter...
If the Power Bonsai Pots generated raw EMC instead of Forge Energy (FE), then with the compounding buffs of the Acceleration Wand and the Watch of Flowing Time, this meager amount of EMC wouldn't even be worth mentioning.
Regrettably, it generated energy values.
He glanced at the stats of the Ultimate Power Bonsai Pot:
48,000,000,000,000 FE/s
If he dumped enough of these things into the Immaterium, even the Warp itself might buckle under the sheer energy output.
If Holy Terra were composed entirely of dirt blocks valued at 1 Energy each, a single Ultimate Power Bonsai Pot could literally devour nearly 48 Terras in a single second.
With a heavy sigh, he temporarily put away the Transmutation Tablet. His gaze drifted back toward the Tech-Priest, who was currently performing a diagnostic dissection on the captured Cryptek alongside the other altered Necrons.
In that moment, an insatiable curiosity clawed at Yang Tao's mind like a swarm of Ripper Swarms. He desperately wanted to know: what in the name of the Emperor had gone wrong with these Necrons?