The bridge of the Spear of Judgement was a storm of panic. Kasran and his men were frozen, their faces ashen. They were ten Guardsmen in a stolen ship, facing down the single greatest concentration of naval power in the galaxy.
The Monarch remained on his command throne, unmoved. His five knights stood silent and still amidst the chaos, pillars of shadow in the screaming red light. He watched the fleet before him, a magnificent, terrifying tapestry of human might. Impressive. And irrelevant.
A transmission, powerful and clear, sliced through the alarms. The voice was deep, resonant, and dripping with ten millennia of unquestioned authority. "Unidentified vessel, you have committed the gravest heresy... I am Lord High Admiral Valerius Spire... You have sixty Terran seconds to comply before your existence is purged... The Emperor's Judgement is upon you."
The broadcast ended, replaced by the rhythmic ping of a chronometer counting down their final moments.
The Monarch raised a hand.
Instantly, every alarm fell silent. The strobing red lights vanished, and the calm, steady violet of his own authority returned. The sudden peace was more jarring than the chaos.
The chronometer on the vox-unit reached zero.
On the bridge of the Imperial flagship, the Divine Right, Lord High Admiral Spire gave a curt nod. "Purge them," he commanded.
Across the void, a sun's worth of energy began to build.
The Monarch extended his will beyond the hull of his ship. His consciousness flowed across the vacuum, a tide of pure authority washing over the entire Solar Fleet. He did not target the ships. He targeted their function.
[Command: Ruler's Authority]
On the bridge of the Divine Right, the master-at-arms slammed his fist on the firing rune. The rune simply went dark.
"Weapons are unresponsive!" a tech-priest shrieked. Reports flooded the bridge, a chorus of confusion and disbelief. Every weapon system in the fleet had simultaneously and silently failed. The greatest fleet in the Imperium had been rendered impotent.
Lord High Admiral Spire stared at his dead command console, the blood draining from his face. This was not jamming. This was something impossible.
Then, the new voice arrived.
It bloomed, fully formed, inside the mind of every ship captain, every admiral, and every tech-priest in the Solar Fleet. It was a voice of absolute, cold serenity that carried more weight than a battleship's salvo.
"Your fleet is a monument to a fading power. Your weapons are trinkets. Your threats are the meaningless boasts of a fearful child. I have not crossed this galaxy to be delayed by your navy."
The psychic voice paused, letting the sheer audacity of the statement sink into ten thousand recoiling minds.
"I am Sung Jin-Woo, the Shadow Monarch. I have come to this world to have an audience with your Emperor. Inform the High Lords of Terra that I have arrived. I will await their formal reception. Any further attempt at hostility will be perceived as a failure to comprehend your own position. Do not provoke me again."
The voice vanished.
Silence reigned in the void. Lord High Admiral Spire, his hands trembling slightly, activated the priority vox-link to the Senatorum Imperialis, deep within the walls of the Eternity Gate on Terra.
"Lord Commander," he began, his voice strained, "We have a situation. An entity of… unknown classification has arrived. It has neutralized the fleet. It… it is asking to speak with the High Lords. It calls itself… a Monarch."
Back on the bridge of the Spear of Judgement, the silence was one of pure awe. Kasran and his men stared out at the now-silent Imperial fleet. They had prepared for oblivion. And then… nothing.
Kasran slowly turned his gaze to the throne. He was not looking at a heretic, a daemon, or a xenos. He was looking at a god of a different pantheon, who had just calmly and quietly stared down an entire religion of war and made it blink.
The first move had been made. Now, the masters of Terra had to decide how to play.