Following the repulsion of the Necron flotilla, the remaining vessels of the machine fleet came to a temporary halt, anchoring themselves in the silent void.
Axion's primary cogitation cores spun at maximum output, calculating the operational logic behind the Necrons' sudden, targeted ambush. The data pointed to a highly probable catalyst: the Regression-class temporal rewinding apparatuses. It was mathematically evident that these ancient xenos possessed specialized sensory arrays capable of isolating the exact signature of a temporal-reversal vessel within a dense formation and executing a pinpoint orbital strike against it.
Yet a discordant anomaly remained within Axion's logic gates. During the initial temporal rewinding of the machine fleet and the Heart of the Forge, the Necrons had initiated no such ambush. This systemic variance led Axion to deduce that Necron intervention was strictly contingent upon the scale and mass-displacement of the chronometric anomaly.
Furthermore, Axion confirmed a critical law of chronomancy: the effects of the temporal controllers could not be stacked or recursively applied. The mid-sized Regression-class vessel's attempt to force a secondary rewinding matrix upon the destroyed capital ship had triggered an irreparable systemic failure, resulting in the instantaneous, molecular dissolution of its own framework.
This catastrophic expenditure of assets provided Axion with a newly calibrated understanding of temporal mechanics. More critically, it offered invaluable reconnaissance regarding the ancient xenos known as the Necrons.
Throughout the extensive databanks available to him, no historical logs had ever indicated that these metallic xenos possessed such mastery over chronometric science. In his strategic matrices, the threat index of these ancient xenos was immediately elevated by a significant margin. When his forces had previously engaged the fleets of the Sautekh Dynasty, Axion believed he had mapped the upper parameters of the Necron war machine. The harrowing reality of this encounter proved his previous calculations grievously incomplete.
Simultaneously, Cassius and the dynastic masters aboard his flagship harbored an equal measure of cold astonishment.
During the eras when humanity weaponized chronometric technology on a systemic scale, the vast majority of the Necron dynasties lay entombed in the deep stasis of the Great Sleep. By the dawn of the Necron awakening, the human Federation had long since dissolved into myth, accompanied into oblivion by their primary historical adversaries, the ancient Aeldari Empire. The Aeldari, driven by bitter, millennial pride, had never seen fit to enlighten their ancient rivals regarding the heights of human technological heresy.
To the shattered remnants of the Aeldari, the Necrons, who desired nothing less than the absolute eradication of all organic life, remained the far more pressing catastrophe. Even though the Old Ones were extinct and the C'tan had been shattered and enslaved by the Necrons themselves, the ancient animosity between the children of Isha and the dynastic legions had never ebbed.
As for the Imperium of Man, Axion could only marvel at how this fragile, decaying realm had managed to endure and expand while surrounded by such apex predators. The entire historical canvas of the galaxy had become hopelessly obscured by the dust of millennia.
…
Following rudimentary void-repairs across his remaining hulls, Axion deactivated the chronometric arrays of his final light Regression-class vessel, abandoning any plans to rewind the lost warships. The sequence of cascading anomalies demanded rigorous diagnostic processing. The available archives on temporal science were dangerously sparse, and the systemic backlash and baseline instability appeared excessively high, forcing the machine intelligence to proceed with absolute calculation.
The warships unmade by the Necron salvo had been thoroughly disassembled into atomic dust, leaving no structural salvage within the vacuum of the warzone.
Meanwhile, the Ork incursions across the sector remained unabated. Across the entirety of the Eastern Front, Axion had managed to rewind less than an eighth of the threatened sub-sectors. Deprived of his most mathematically efficient tactical methodology, Axion was forced to redeploy his fleet back toward the active Imperial defensive lines, resigning his forces to the attrition of conventional warfare.
As the machine fleet slipped into the Mandeville points and translated into the sub-warp transit channels, Cassius and his dynastic fleet abandoned any intent of pursuit.
So long as the denizens of the Warp remained contained, the Necrons possessed no desire to cross the threshold of the Empyrean and invite the attention of the Chaos Gods. Furthermore, the Necrons' complex navigational matrices were prone to catastrophic failure within the shifting tides of the Immaterium, risking severe corruption to their engrammatic matrices. No Lord of the Noskellan Dynasty wished to join the ranks of the flayed or the mindless.
Instead, the Necrons immediately turned their focus toward the local Imperial navy battlegroup that had helplessly witnessed the engagement.
For the Imperium, whose void engagements typically dragged on for solar hours or standard weeks, this terrifying ambush, which had ignited and concluded within a matter of minutes, was a conflict they lacked the baseline capability to even influence. Worse still, the sheer velocity of the Necron assault had inflicted "severe material casualties" upon a machine fleet the Imperium had previously deemed functionally invincible.
The moment the Iron Men departed the coordinate, the isolated Imperial warships were subjected to the full, unmitigated fury of the Necron fleet.
Operating under absolute time-acceleration, the hyper-velocity Necron vessels systematically dismantled several Imperial cruisers in a series of blinding emerald flashes, forcing the surviving Imperial naval commander to issue an immediate, desperate order for a systemic retreat.
With the vacuum thoroughly purged of all non-Necron entities, Cassius brought his fleet to a halt above the scarred space-time continuum.
Ancient, baroque instruments of techno-sorcery were brought online by the Cryptek cabals. The surrounding vacuum, heavily distorted by the cascading temporal eddies, began to rapidly stabilize. The galaxy already groaned under the weight of one catastrophic cosmic scar, the Great Rift, and the Noskellan Dynasty had no intention of permitting a secondary anomaly to manifest on their doorstep.
Compared to the corrupting, reality-warping malignancy of Chaos, structural damage to the temporal fabric fell within the parameters of orthodox science, a problem that could be logically corrected through the application of supreme technology.
The specialized Necron arrays began emitting a series of harmonic, monochromatic energy ripples. This precise chronomantic frequency gradually recalibrated the disordered time-streams, anchoring the local continuum back to universal baselines.
As the structural restoration progressed, the Cryptek adepts logged that while the temporal displacement wrought by the Iron Men appeared visually staggering, its structural disruption did not exceed the calculations of certain dynastic Overlords during their private laboratory trials. The singular, glaring difference lay in the application: the Iron Men wielded the supreme laws of time with the crude, unrefined violence of savages swinging clubs.
…
Having sustained unexpected, catastrophic casualties, the Imperial battlegroup immediately transmitted a flash-crypt to the Departmento Munitorum detailing the Necron intervention. The heavily strained scribes and logicians of the Munitorum felt their processing nodes reach the absolute brink of systemic failure under the sheer weight of these anomalous reports.
Upon receiving intelligence regarding the localized time-fissures manifesting across the worlds where the Orks had vanished, Primarch Lion El'Jonson immediately mobilized a massive detachment of the Unforgiven to those specific coordinates.
With the trans-spatial fractures firmly secured under the absolute custody of his sons, the Dark Angels commenced a highly classified investigation into the phenomena. Concurrently, stern directives were issued across all echelons: any loose talk regarding the historical visions glimpsed within the depth of the fissures was strictly prohibited under penalty of absolute termination.
Several mortal regiments of the Astra Militarum, having unfortunately logged and reported specific, highly sensitive anomalies regarding the Imperium's forgotten history, vanished entirely from the active theaters of war the moment the First Legion arrived.
Shortly thereafter, the Holy Inquisition published an official, sector-wide edict, classifying the appearance of the fissures as a coordinated psychic machination of the Ruinous Powers, and branding any historical imagery witnessed within them as daemonic fabrications designed to ensnare the weak-willed.
Yet, the Lord of the First faced this crisis with a heavy, troubled mind. In his personal investigations of the temporal rifts, he had detected absolutely no trace of the Warp's foul residue. In truth, these fractures were continuously bleeding fragments of contradictory historical chronologies into realspace, many of which contained highly classified, deeply damning truths regarding the ancient past.
Consequently, the Inquisition, the Grey Chapters, and the Dark Angels were forced to siphon critical manpower from the frontlines simply to maintain an absolute cordon around the temporal anomalies.
However, as the Necron Crypteks continued their systematic repairs from the void, the terrestrial distortions tied to the machine fleet's rewinding protocols began to dissipate.
The interconnected spatial fractures, which had previously threatened to tear the local reality asunder, gradually receded into a series of microscopic hairline fractures before vanishing entirely from the atmosphere.
The mortal infrastructure of the Imperium was left in a state of absolute, uncomprehending bewilderment. Yet, this rapid stabilization did not escape the attention of the Adeptus Mechanicus; numerous Tech-Priests and Magi of the Machine God immediately flooded the affected sub-sectors, desperately deploying logis-engines to capture and catalog the dying echoes of these impossible secrets.
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