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Chapter 120: Face to Face
"Invaders! A bunch of damned pests," the Necron Overlord spoke in perfect human speech, his voice carrying the authority of ancient nobility.
The Emperor casually swung his sword, destroying all the Necron soldiers charging at him in a single sweep. He responded with cold indifference, "Old remnants that should have been buried long ago. Return to your graves. This era no longer belongs to you."
"When we ruled the galaxy, your species didn't even exist," the Necron Overlord raised his phase sword, taking a battle stance. The weapon hummed with deadly energy as he continued, "We will rule the galaxy again, and you will be completely forgotten."
Raven, perched on the Emperor's shoulder, tilted his corvid head with mock thoughtfulness. "There's something that needs to be corrected here. You didn't rule the galaxy - the C'tan ruled the galaxy." His tone carried the casual cruelty of stating obvious facts. "You were just a bunch of pathetic creatures who got beaten so badly by the Old Ones that you cried and begged for mercy."
The Necron Overlord's body stiffened, then began trembling with rage. Steam vented from his cooling systems as ancient pride warred with uncomfortable truth.
"The C'tan only helped us," he protested, his voice rising in pitch. "The victory was ours! We defeated the Old Ones and won the galaxy through our own strength!"
The Emperor said nothing, recognizing that in verbal combat, Raven possessed skills that surpassed even his own tactical brilliance. Better to let his companion work.
"Weren't you just slaves of the C'tan?" Raven added with devastating casualness. "You betrayed your star gods, and then you were so terrified of the Eldar that you ran away to hide in your tombs for millions of years."
For the first time in eons, the Necron Overlord felt words cut like blades, stabbing deep into his consciousness. His cooling systems worked overtime as emotional logic modules overloaded.
"You're talking nonsense!" he roared. "We were not afraid of those Old Ones' servants!"
"Oh really?" Raven's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Now that the Eldar have declined into a shadow of their former selves, you finally dare to wake up! Before, when they were at their peak, you didn't even have the courage to fight back."
The corvid spread his wings mockingly. "At least humans won their battles on their own merit, while you're just a bunch of cowards. Without the help of the C'tan, you were nothing but another pathetic short-lived species."
Every word from Raven struck like a perfectly aimed weapon. The Necron Overlord's defenses cracked visibly as his emotional regulators failed. Steam gurgled from cooling vents, and his head began overheating from the logical paradoxes overwhelming his ancient mind.
"You damned pests, all go to hell!" the Overlord finally exploded, abandoning any pretense of noble dignity. "When I crush your frail flesh and blood bodies, you will learn how terrifying we truly are!"
"Being eloquent is useless," he snarled, raising his phase sword. "This world is about strength!"
The enraged Necron Overlord charged forward wildly, his personal guard following in formation behind him. But the Emperor's expression remained utterly calm as he stretched out his hand and clenched it into a fist. Terrifying psychic energy erupted from the ground beneath the charging guards, sending them flying through the air or simply tearing them apart where they stood.
A giant hand of flame materialized above the Necron Overlord's head, gripping him with crushing force. He would have been destroyed instantly if not for his desperate use of spatial warp technology to escape. When he reappeared several meters away, all of his personal guards lay scattered as smoking debris.
"This world is about strength," Raven repeated in a perfectly mocking tone, ruffling his feathers. "Oh no, I'm so terrified! Should I run away now?"
The Necron Overlord, who had indeed been planning to retreat and regroup, instantly became enraged again. He warped back into combat range, his phase sword slashing toward Raven with desperate fury. The Emperor's blade intercepted the strike effortlessly while his other hand released devastating psychic energy that sent the Overlord flying backward.
When the ancient warrior tried to stand, another giant psychic hand appeared and slammed down with bone-crushing force. The Overlord was driven into the metal floor, his living metal body twisting under the terrible pressure. Coolant and lubricant leaked from stress fractures across his frame.
Raven circled lazily above the fallen warrior's head, his voice carrying amused contempt. "A little punk is just a little punk, still trying to talk tough after all these years." Then, with perfect timing, he repeated the Overlord's own words: "This world is about strength."
The Necron Overlord struggled to raise his head, cold green pupils burning with pure hatred. He reached out with one trembling hand, trying desperately to grab the taunting corvid. The Emperor walked over calmly, raised his boot, and stomped down hard. The Overlord's head crushed like an egg, surging annihilation power transforming into flames that consumed the body entirely.
The fire erased the opponent's existence from the conceptual level itself. Even with resurrection protocols, the Necron would never return.
"Coffee, you brew the water, I add milk and sugar," Raven hummed cheerfully, landing on the Emperor's shoulder and wiggling his backside with utter smugness. "You wash the clothes, I iron them. I help you earn money, you help me clear inventory. We are the best partners!"
The Emperor ignored his companion's celebration, instead looking toward the Cathedral of July. Necron elites poured constantly from that direction - clearly the Magadha Dynasty had deployed every available warrior to prevent humans from reaching the imprisoned C'tan shard.
Flames ignited in the Emperor's eyes as he raised the Sword of Flame and brought it down in a devastating arc. A terrifying fire dragon swept outward, melting or shattering every Necron soldier in its path.
"Advance," he ordered coldly, taking the first step forward. The Custodians roared their battle cry and followed their lord into the heart of enemy territory.
Tyrrakhis descended on her anti-gravity throne, gripping her sceptre as she issued desperate orders to her personal guard and generals. "By any means necessary, stop them!"
But the combat power of the Emperor and his group was beyond anything the Necrons had prepared for. Even using every tactic and weapon at their disposal, they could barely slow the human advance.
"Lords of the Canoptek, commit everything!" Mephrit, the Phaeron's personal guard, urged his subordinates forward. Batch after batch of Necron elites rushed into battle, only to be utterly destroyed and reduced to scattered debris.
Finally, Mephrit himself stepped forward to face Valdor directly. There were similarities between the two warriors - both were the guards of rulers, their entire existence dedicated to protecting their lords. But there were also crucial differences, the most important being that Valdor was simply stronger.
Too Much stronger.
Mephrit attacked first, wielding dual-phase short swords with centuries of combat experience behind each strike. Valdor responded with his spear, movements flowing like water as he deflected and countered.
The Necron's living metal body gave him incredible durability, but it wasn't enough to match the Captain-General's skill and power.
Mephrit performed a spatial jump, appearing in mid-air with both blades striking down toward Valdor's head. Valdor raised his spear to block, then twisted the weapon to deflect his opponent's force before delivering a devastating roundhouse kick to the Necron's torso.
Mephrit flew backwards, a terrible dent appearing in his living metal frame. As he struggled to rise, ripples of disturbed space appeared behind him. He retreated into the warp distortion, preparing another spatial jump attack.
But the Gene Engine within Valdor's body had already calculated the spatial warp patterns. He predicted exactly where Mephrit would emerge and positioned his arc-covered spear accordingly.
When the Necron jumped out of the warp, he walked directly into the waiting blade. The spear tip, enhanced with tearing fields and the Emperor's own power, pierced through the metallic body instantly. With a violent twist, the Phaerakh's personal guard was reduced to fragments.
Valdor didn't pause to savour his victory, immediately turning to engage other enemies as the battle raged around them.
The Emperor passed through the clashing Custodians and Necron defenders, guided by Raven through the magnificent archway into the Cathedral of July itself. The interior was eerily quiet, the air temperature so low it seemed like walking into a tomb. Black metal and smooth rock surfaces shimmered with flickering circuits that pulsed like a slow heartbeat.
Winding stairs led downward into a vast central hall that was large enough to accommodate an entire city. Its complex and precise architectural angles formed a perfect geometric sphere, every surface calculated to focus energy toward the centre.
There, suspended in the exact middle of the spherical chamber, floated a smooth metallic cube. Countless streams of light connected it to the ground, where complex energy patterns had been carved deep into the floor.
"Release me, and you shall have everything," an ethereal voice whispered through the air, sweet as honey and twice as tempting. "Release me, and you shall have everything."
The voice sought to seduce anyone who approached, to make them slaves to its promises of power and glory. However, the Emperor and Raven had long since gained an understanding of how such manipulations worked. These crude mental attacks could not penetrate their defences.
As the Emperor approached the floating prison, the cube's surface began revealing Necron hieroglyphs formed by surging energy. They appeared and vanished in rapid succession, replaced by more writing that told the story of what lay trapped within.
Raven read the flowing text, his authority allowing him to understand the meaning, despite never having learned the Necron language. The words described ancient history - the deeds of the Necrontyr during the War in Heaven, and the terrifying nature of the being imprisoned in this dimensional cage.
The Emperor placed his hand on the surface of the cube. Countless invisible threads extended toward his body, seeking to pull him into whatever realm lay beyond.
He could have easily destroyed these psychic tendrils, but instead allowed them to draw him into the mysterious dark space that served as the C'tan's actual prison.
Within that realm, numbers danced through the air in impossible patterns. They combined in ways that defied mortal understanding, dissolved into chaos, then reformed into new configurations. Strange runic codes undulated with rhythms that spoke to the fundamental forces of reality itself.
A corner of the dark space revealed complex gear structures that seemed to represent the universe's mechanical truth. At the centre of it all floated a dilapidated throne, and upon that throne sat a creature with no fixed form - a being composed entirely of living darkness.
Its only distinguishing features were three crescent-shaped eyes that burned with ancient fury, and a faded golden crown that spoke of power beyond mortal comprehension.
"Yggra'nya," the Emperor said, studying the creature with the same calm he might show when examining any other specimen.
"Mortal creature," the World Shaper replied without speaking, his will flowing directly into the Emperor's consciousness, "you know my name?"
[End of Chapter]