Adam, who was currently relishing the slaughter within the Necron battle lines, stopped in his tracks with an expression of confusion. For at this moment, within the tomb hall, a sudden mutation occurred.
Rumble—!
It was a continuous sound of tremors, like an earthquake. The heavy blackstone slabs beneath his feet shook violently, and fine dust fell from the hall's dome, fluttering through the air. The thunderous sound echoed throughout the entire space, with shockwaves seemingly coming from all directions at once.
What happened? Adam was certain that this movement was absolutely not caused by a natural earthquake. With the Necrons' level of technology, having slept underground for such vast ages, it would be a joke if a mere earthquake could have such a massive impact on a Tomb World.
The next moment, he cautiously issued an order to regroup. The elite squad that had been piercing through the Necron lines reacted in an instant, quickly closing ranks to form a circular formation, their eyes warily watching everything around them.
Sizzle—
The sound of something scorching reached their ears. Everyone immediately looked up, following the sound. What appeared in their field of vision was a wondrous sight.
At the other end of the hall, a blinding flare abruptly appeared on the pitch-black wall. The intense light from the flare instantly illuminated the originally dim space as if it were broad daylight, so bright it was almost impossible to look at directly.
Wait, this... isn't this—
Sure enough. Under everyone's gaze, the flare turned from its initial crimson to a searing incandescent white. The solid walls, constructed from Necron materials, were easily melted into liquid by the terrifying high temperature of tens of thousands of degrees Celsius, eventually collapsing completely.
A massive black building, suspended by anti-gravity, slowly emerged through the wall and revealed itself before them. Its appearance roughly resembled the pyramids of ancient Terra, but it was split evenly from the middle to both sides, revealing a hollow internal structure.
At its inner core was a transparent spherical bubble containing an unknown entity, with octopus-like Canoptek sentinels above controlling the prisoner's movements.
The entity currently restrained within the bubble was twisting and deforming every second, yet it still barely maintained a roughly humanoid shape. Countless brilliant white points of light and lines flickered continuously around it, interweaving and moving.
Seeing this thing, Adam immediately understood its identity.
A C'tan Shard!
He was suddenly filled with excitement. "Searching far and wide only to find it with ease!" Perfect!
Then let me see just how "pure" this C'tan Shard is, and whether the authority within it can support me in stepping into a new level of reality warping!
Waving his hand to signal those around him not to approach, Adam slowly stepped forward alone, walking toward the trans-dimensional prison until he stood right before it.
At this moment, Adam's small human figure appeared as insignificant as an ant before the tall, magnificent trans-dimensional prison.
However, Adam remained fearless. He simply reached out slowly, calmly drew Caladbolg which radiated a brilliant glow, and pointed the blade directly at the enemy ahead.
Heh.
The Void Dragon, locked within the trans-dimensional cage, did not care for the "jumping clown" before it at all. It expanded its perception, scanned the battlefield situation, and let out a sneer.
Have these Necrons truly slept themselves stupid over these many millions of years? They couldn't even handle such a small matter, and they didn't even have the ability to fight back, being beaten so miserably by a rising civilization.
This scene undoubtedly gave the imprisoned Void Dragon a sense of schadenfreude. However, the tomb sentinels above soon interrupted its thoughts, controlling the energy within its body to begin surging.
Fine, you detestable bone-scraps.
The Void Dragon gritted its teeth and immediately transformed its enslaved anger into the fires of hatred. A bolt of pitch-black lightning appeared abruptly out of thin air.
The extreme heat distorted the surrounding air, the light grew intense, and the extreme energy radiation acted like an invisible eraser, even causing the metal dome above to begin melting slowly, falling as drops of silver liquid like a torrential rain from the sky.
If the four Chaos Gods are deities hanging high within the Warp, then the C'tan are gods born of the material universe. The authority to dominate physical laws is a mere instinct to them, as natural as breathing.
A whip of anti-matter lightning, containing enough energy to power an entire Hive City, suddenly fell toward that "ant"!
Under this strike, the ant who dared to provoke it with a sword would surely die. Even if his body were made of adamantium rather than flesh, every one of his particles would be completely dissociated under this terrifying energy.
That is how it should have been. However—
The Void Dragon was slightly stunned. The opponent—was unharmed? No, it should be said that nothing happened at all. The whip of particles it had lashed down vanished in the air without warning, as if it had never existed.
How is that possible?
Its chaotic thoughts reconsolidated, and the Void Dragon's attention finally focused, clearly seeing the face of that mortal.
Oh, wait—
This situation is somewhat similar to some of the conditions I encountered when I previously used space warping. Back then, I couldn't figure out what was going on, but now—
Is it a newly born member of my kind?
Thinking of this, the Void Dragon spat out a string of ancient language, emitting bursts of humming that vibrated the air.
"Truly laughable, truly tragic. To have lost the body of living metal and to reside within flesh. As an eternally immortal C'tan of the material world, you now actually possess a 'soul'—that thing which exists as our food."
It wanted to continue its mockery, but the "kin" suddenly looked up at it. The disappointment in his eyes was hard to hide.
"You are so weak. It's pathetic really."
"What?" The Void Dragon was somewhat dazed.
During the betrayal of countless ages ago, under the instigation of the C'tan Deceiver, all C'tan began to devour each other, eventually allowing the Necrons to strike and turn them into prisoners.
Consequently, most C'tan shards exhibit the phenomenon of "you in me, me in you," often falling into chaos and madness, unable to think as clearly as they did in ancient times.
However, the Void Dragon believed that its current self was not yet mad to such a degree. At the very least, it could understand words. So—
'How dare you!'
Adam paid no heed to the Void Dragon's fury. He simply sighed slightly. At this moment, Adam couldn't quite tell what he was feeling. Was it more disappointment, or more relief?
From the exchange just now, he discovered that the scale of this C'tan shard was not large. Based on the "feel" of casually erasing it with his reality-warping ability just now, it was just an ordinary small C'tan shard, roughly equivalent to a Titan-class unit.
This was certainly not weak. However, compared to the "World-Forger" shards capable of driving world engines—planet-sized fortresses that could move through space—or the "Transcendent C'tan" that could power the Pharos Lighthouse to illuminate an entire sector, or the Void Dragon shard serving as the faith of the Omnissiah that even the Emperor could only seal away... this shard fell far short.
He felt it was probably on the same level as the "Burning One" shard that Trazyn blew up.
This made Adam, who had been prepared to call down an orbital strike from the strike cruiser if the shard's scale exceeded expectations, somewhat disappointed.
'Whatever, since I'm already here.'
He raised Caladbolg.
'Let's see how much of a boost killing and devouring this C'tan shard can bring me.'
Seeing the kin before it make such a threatening gesture, the Void Dragon quickly reacted. After all, if the C'tan had ever lived in harmony and unity, where would the rise of the Necrons have come from?
'This works too. If I devour this kin, perhaps it will give me a chance to break free from this damned restraint, finally allowing me to take revenge personally on those wretched slaves who once knelt before me!'
As the Void Dragon's low roar sounded, a sudden phenomenon occurred.
In the eyes of some low-level civilizations, what is space? An unshakeable reference system? An objective and neutral rigid existence? The dimensional cornerstone of matter and energy?
But for the Void Dragon, who was capable of vying for the title of the strongest C'tan, mere space was but an extension of its hands, something to be easily manipulated or even used as a weapon.
Accompanying that shriek, an invisible thing that could be barely described as a wave spread out. The space around the trans-dimensional prison was now like paper being crumpled at will by an invisible giant hand, bent and twisted arbitrarily.
All matter that came into contact with this phenomenon—whether the blackstone ground beneath the prison or the Necron Warriors who failed to flee in time—was torn, folded, compressed, or even annihilated like playthings.
However, the Void Dragon was still not satisfied.
Too weak! Such an attack cannot possibly have any effect on a great C'tan! It needed stronger power!
As the Void Dragon's anger continued to climb, the laws of physics once again responded to its call. The next moment, hundreds of tiny warped singularities appeared around the trans-dimensional prison, appearing like a sky full of glowing stars.
However, those were not stars. They were celestial bodies that should have existed only in theory.
White holes.
With the Void Dragon's roar, all the white holes suddenly jolted, and high-energy particle rays erupted in unison. These were high-energy rays with power far exceeding melta; whether it was fragile rotten wood or hard auramite, there was no difference to all matter—it would all be completely torn apart like foam boards.
However, amidst these overlapping crimson-white high-energy rays, a brilliant flow of gold suddenly surged up.
Adam remained unmoved. He simply gripped Caladbolg in his hand, and the surging color of radiant gold quickly spread, forming an inviolable divine domain. In this somewhat idealistic universe, faith truly can trample upon original common sense. A believer is sometimes enough to defy reason and ruthlessly crush those who arrogantly view them as ignorant.
Physics are for chumps!!!
Ignoring the high-energy rays still focused on him, Adam charged forward, wrapping the unknown energy—formed by the Emperor's psychic power and his reality-warping ability—around the edge of his blade. The solid ground beneath his feet instantly turned to dust under the violent impact.
A dazzling flow of light resembling angelic wings opened behind Adam, driving his entire form beyond the speed of sound like an unblockable comet, trailing a brilliant trajectory as he charged straight at the enemy before him.
BOOM!
A violent shockwave spread out. The other squad members watching from a distance each used their own methods to barely withstand this fusion-like impact without being blown away.
How is it?
Eyes filled with tension, anxiety, eagerness, fanaticism, and excitement—all turned toward the focal point of the collision. Everyone held their breath.
And a miracle appeared before their eyes.
In front of that C'tan shard, Adam, having stepped forward, held his long sword and thrust it forward with all his might. Its sharp blade pierced through the hyper-dimensional field of the trans-dimensional prison and stabbed straight into the Void Dragon's chest.
C'tan were originally high-energy energy aggregates in a free state within stars. For such twisted, non-solid monsters to obtain the ability to move at will in the material world, they required bodies made of special substances like living metal.
At this moment, at the spot pierced by Caladbolg, a blood-like liquid flowed down the blade and quietly dripped onto the ground. With its terrifying mass, it physically smashed small pits into the floor.
The Void Dragon was silent, locking eyes with Adam. Adam smiled slightly at it.
"You see, gods can bleed too, right?"
"Do not think you have won!"
In its fury, the Void Dragon raised its arm, formed entirely of condensed energy, and swung it violently with all its strength. But Adam's movement was faster; he reached out with a palm that should have been composed of flesh and blood and firmly caught the C'tan's energy hand.
Energy like a solar flare erupted, but it was extinguished and vanished midway.
"It's over now."
The two Necrons watching the battle via the visual sharing of a large number of Canoptek constructs—already stunned by what they saw—muttered simultaneously. For everyone present could clearly see one fact.
The match was decided. Adam had won!
"That's right, you have won."
The Void Dragon grew silent; it felt its power draining away at a completely unreasonable speed. Before long, it—the great god of the material world—would fall into the weakest moment of its life.
"Devour me, reclaim your power, my kin!"
"My body will live forever within you, and I will always watch you. Either complete our revenge, or fall into this eternal madness!"
"No, you are wrong."
Adam spoke calmly. Then, without waiting for the Void Dragon to react, his palm pierced straight into the C'tan shard's body and gripped hard.
The Void Dragon perceived its consciousness dissipating as countless beams of energy continuously poured out from within its body. This is impossible.
"—I am... dying?"
Just as this word—which should never have appeared in the mind of a C'tan—emerged, the Void Dragon's consciousness vanished, falling into eternal darkness.
It was dead.