"My lord, permit me to present this delicacy—pan-seared squig with fragrant mushrooms."
After receiving permission, the Necron Lord ascended the steps to serve Zahndrekh as his food taster.
He picked up a platter holding a slimy, fungus-cooked ball of meat with no visible limbs. It looked decidedly unappetizing.
In truth, it was an Ork delicacy—a limbless ball of flesh known as a squig.
Its meat was pleasantly springy, and aside from its hideous stench, it had no real shortcomings.
These Necrons regarded it as a delicacy of their own species.
After all, the Necrontyr had lost their flesh and souls sixty million years ago, becoming living-metal beings that needed neither food nor drink, sleep nor rest.
Even the most fundamental activities of life had become unnecessary.
Their species' culture and customs had been completely forgotten over the course of the War in Heaven, which lasted hundreds of thousands of years, and the Great Sleep that followed.
Entire areas of their culture had been reduced to blank spaces—including their cuisine.
No matter how diligently the Crypteks excavated the past, most of what they recovered consisted of fragmented and incomplete data.
No one cared whether the dishes served at these banquets had truly belonged to the ancient Necrontyr.
They were merely joining the Nemesor in pretending to be the Necrontyr of old, doing their best to recreate banquet scenes from broken memories.
The truth was that even Grots were far better cooks than low-ranking Necrons.
At the very least, Grots knew how to prepare a dish instead of randomly piling every available substance together, stirring it, and then burning the entire mess.
Soulless beings had great difficulty understanding such things.
"Screee!"
When the Necron Overlords and Lords plunged their forks into the food, the limbless, meatball-like squigs on their plates suddenly began shrieking.
They were still alive.
Of course, that was considered the most authentic way to serve them. It was a Grot specialty, and Ork Boyz loved swallowing squigs whole.
Every bite filled their mouths with exploding juices and a gut-wrenching stench.
The Necron Overlords and Lords were soon splattered with green fluid, while a foul odor spread throughout the hall.
It made no difference to them.
The Necrons had long since lost their senses of taste and smell, along with their sense of touch. The liquid splashing across their bodies meant nothing to them.
As the Necron nobles carved up their squigs, they quietly watched the raised platform.
They were waiting for something.
"Ah, what a magnificent delicacy! I must reward the royal chefs for providing such a rare treat for our banquet!"
Zahndrekh grew even more delighted.
His voice was muffled as he issued the order to reward them.
Then he poured down even more wine—a liquid fermented by the Grots from rotten mushrooms.
Beside the Nemesor, the Lord serving as his food taster watched him with a sinister expression.
He was searching for an opportunity.
They had long been dissatisfied with this leader and his severely damaged memory engrams.
They had endured enough of these utterly meaningless banquets and this pathetic game of make-believe.
The Necron Overlords and Lords had secretly joined forces.
They were plotting a palace coup to overthrow the unworthy Nemesor and elect a more capable leader in his place.
Once they succeeded in killing Zahndrekh, they would purge his guards and royal officials, allowing them to seize complete control of this vast confederation of dynasties.
The only problem was Imotekh the Stormlord.
Rebellion and the murder of a Nemesor were unforgivable crimes.
The Stormlord would inevitably investigate. He would execute every rebel and every last being who dared murder one of his Nemesors.
Fortunately, the problem was not insurmountable.
After killing Zahndrekh and taking control of the dynasty's armies, they planned to frame a dynasty from a neighboring sector. Then they would destroy that dynasty in the name of avenging the fallen Nemesor.
The Fahra Dynasty would make an excellent target.
That was why they had attacked it without any apparent reason. They needed to create a conflict and provoke the enemy into sending Deathmarks to probe their defenses, thereby establishing evidence that the Fahra Dynasty had attempted to assassinate Zahndrekh.
The true murderers could then shift all responsibility onto the Fahra Dynasty and launch a war of vengeance.
So long as they completely destroyed the Fahra Dynasty and avenged their Nemesor, they could bring the palace coup to a satisfactory conclusion.
Of course, the Necron Overlords and Lords had another plan.
Once everything was over, they would take the dynasty's entire army and fleet with them and pledge allegiance to Szarekh, the Silent King.
The supreme ruler of the Necrons would presumably be delighted by their arrival.
"In any event, we must seize this opportunity to kill the Nemesor who has already gone mad!"
The Necron Lord patiently continued serving Zahndrekh as his food taster.
He waited for his master to expose an opening—the perfect opportunity to strike.
At last, that opportunity came.
"Ah, where is the wine? What has happened to my wine?"
Zahndrekh appeared confused. He turned to search for his goblet, taking his attention away from the long table.
The perfect opportunity!
Farewell, my lord. Perhaps this is the last time I shall ever address you by that title.
The Necron Lord acted without hesitation, shifting sideways to block everyone else's view.
Pretending to reach for another dish, he carefully sprinkled an unidentified blackish powder into the Nemesor's soup.
The moment the powder touched the broth, it dissolved and disappeared without a trace.
That was right.
He had poisoned it.
The Necrontyr's innate physical frailty had left them incapable of resisting most lethal toxins. Ingesting such poisons meant certain death.
Poisoning had therefore become one of the most common methods employed in palace coups, while nobles frequently hired food tasters to protect themselves.
Zahndrekh was no exception.
To ensure the poisoning succeeded, the conspirators had gone to great lengths to lure away every one of his food tasters, thereby creating an opportunity to approach him and administer the poison personally.
"No matter how powerful the Nemesor may be, even he cannot withstand a single cup of poisoned wine. All his honor and authority shall soon turn to dust."
The Necron Lord was extremely pleased with his conspiracy.
In his mind, the moment Zahndrekh swallowed the poison, the toxin would take effect. No defensive field or energy shield would be able to stop it.
The strongest fortress often collapsed from within!
Of course, from the perspective of any normal person, attempting to poison a living-metal being with no digestive system was already completely insane.
Zahndrekh was not the only one with something wrong in his head. These Necron Overlords and Lords were probably no better.
The Lord's movements had been discreet, but to the Overlords who knew about the coup, his actions could not have been more obvious.
They all knew that the poison had successfully been added to the Nemesor's meal.
Now came the most crucial moment.
Data raced through the Overlords' and Lords' logic-engines. They even forgot to drink the wine in their hands as they stared fixedly at the raised platform.
A palace coup was about to erupt.
The ruler upon the platform would soon drop dead.
An unavoidable bloodletting and purge would follow.
The old master would fall, and a new Nemesor would be elevated in his place.
What an exhilarating moment!
"My lord, your snotshroom soup has arrived."
Under the watchful gaze of everyone present, the Necron Lord slowly delivered the poisoned soup to the Nemesor.
Zahndrekh stared at the soup and the other dishes before him but made no move to sample any of them.
The Necron Lord froze.
"My lord, every delicacy has now been served. Why do you not taste them?"
Zahndrekh sounded puzzled.
"You told me that all the food tasters had upset stomachs. Surely that does not mean there is something wrong with the food?"
The moment he finished speaking, the atmosphere in the banquet hall became oppressive.
Every Overlord and Lord stopped moving and looked toward the platform.
"My lord, every dish has been thoroughly examined. Its components are pure, safe, and completely harmless. There are no hidden dangers or anomalous conditions whatsoever."
The Necron Lord remained calm as he explained, "That is the duty I must fulfill as your food taster."
"Excellent."
Zahndrekh nodded, then looked toward the Overlords and Lords below the steps.
"Do not stand on ceremony, my friends. Join me in sampling this delicious soup…"
Utterly immersed in the banquet, he drained the entire bowl in one gulp. The thick broth spilled down his living-metal body and dripped onto the floor.
The Overlords and Lords participating in the coup secretly breathed sighs of relief.
Zahndrekh had fallen into their trap and consumed the poison they had painstakingly prepared.
Now they only needed to wait for it to take effect.
Seconds became minutes.
The Overlords and Lords stared at the Nemesor upon the platform. Zahndrekh remained immersed in the banquet, continuing to eat and drink as if nothing had happened.
Their confusion steadily deepened.
Had the poison failed?
No, that is impossible. Every piece of data indicates success.
I personally added the poison to his food and watched him swallow it.
What could possibly have gone wrong? Or did he uncover our plans long ago and take an antidote in advance?
The Necron Lord stared at the still-animated Nemesor, his data-logic beginning to descend into disorder.
He could not understand why this was happening. Considering how long ago Zahndrekh had consumed the poison, the toxin should already have begun taking effect.
If their conspiracy had been exposed in advance, what were they supposed to do?
Every Overlord and Lord involved in the palace coup was now processing that same question.
Their increasingly obvious combat stances dragged the atmosphere of the banquet hall into an eerie silence.
"What exactly are you trying to do?"
Even Zahndrekh's sluggish mind finally noticed the change in the room.
His voice grew increasingly stern.
"I smell conspiracy. Have you colluded with the separatists? Do you intend to raise your hands against your Nemesor?"
Zahndrekh instinctively regained his clarity. An aura of authority and murderous intent radiated from him—the natural response of a Necrontyr noble confronted with danger.
His emerald gaze swept across the banquet hall, taking in every last detail.
Zahndrekh now knew precisely which Overlords and Lords were responsible for plotting this palace coup.
The Nemesor was not particularly surprised that someone had attempted to assassinate him.
It had happened far too many times before.
The first attempt had taken place during the War in Heaven.
Zahndrekh had only recently become an Overlord when, during a planetary landing operation against the Orks, another noble had bombarded his position.
High-intensity energy beams had destroyed the entire planet.
Yet Zahndrekh had survived.
He always survived, while the corpses of his enemies could fill an entire star system.
Today would be no different.
Zahndrekh's tomb residence was filled with traps. His personal guards consisted of three entire legions of Lychguard, and he had even employed forty food tasters to protect himself from anticipated poisoning attempts.
Even this banquet hall was packed with hidden mechanisms and lethal traps.
An elite force of Lychguard waited beyond the hall. A single command protocol would send them charging inside to annihilate every traitor present!
Hummm!
Several terrifying energy beams erupted across the hall, followed by the thunderous crash of a heavy living-metal body hitting the floor.
It was the poisoner.
A sudden blast of superheated gas had destroyed the Necron Lord beside Zahndrekh.
The area around the Nemesor had always been equipped with lethal weapons.
A moment later, the defensive systems surrounding the raised platform activated. Energy fields rose to intercept the gauss beams fired by the Overlords and Lords.
"Activate defense protocols!"
Emerald light flashed in Zahndrekh's eyes.
After activating his emergency defenses, he did not relax for even an instant. Instead, he began issuing a new series of command protocols.
The protocol would fully activate every defensive system in the banquet hall while summoning the royal guards to exterminate the traitors.
But in the next instant, electrical arcs erupted across his chest.
Black corrosion scars were spreading over his body.
His data-logic, Canoptek repair systems, and phase-pulse systems all suffered severe disruption.
"This is…a new Ferric Blight neurotoxin?"
Zahndrekh looked down at his chest in disbelief.
He had been poisoned!
The traitors had mixed the toxin into his food, allowing it to corrode him the instant it came into contact with his body.
The contagion had bypassed his defensive systems and directly attacked his data core. It had also disrupted his phase-pulse systems, leaving him unable to transmit any commands!
Zahndrekh knew of the Ferric Blight.
It was a specialized Warp-borne contagion combining corrupted matter, rusting agents, and nanoscopic corrosive factors. It could inflict devastating corrosion upon living-metal bodies.
Under normal circumstances, such a contagion could never breach the defensive systems of a high-ranking Necron.
Clearly, however, the traitors' Crypteks had further modified the Ferric Blight, granting it even more terrifying destructive power.
The new Ferric Blight neurotoxin could not kill Zahndrekh by itself.
But he was now facing a coordinated assault by more than a dozen Overlords and Lords.
Being unable to transmit command protocols or activate additional defenses, even for a short time, could prove fatal!
"I should have regained my senses sooner instead of losing myself in memories of the past."
Zahndrekh felt a pang of regret.
He had grown careless and complacent.
Had even one of his food tasters been present, the neurotoxin could never have corroded his body, and he would not have fallen into such a dangerous position.
Zahndrekh quickly brought his thoughts under control.
The only question that mattered now was how to survive and make the rebels pay the price.
High-ranking Necrons were extremely difficult to kill. Yet if his living-metal body was destroyed and the Ferric Blight followed him into his reconstruction protocols, there was a strong possibility that even his consciousness would be completely consumed.
"The neurotoxin has taken effect. Activate the alliance protocols and destroy this madman together!"
The rebellious nobles clashed with the Overlords and Lords who remained loyal to Zahndrekh.
Lethal hyperphase blades and gauss beams crisscrossed the banquet hall, unleashing terrifying destruction that reduced even atoms to nothing.
Several of the rebels were already charging toward the raised platform.
"You have fallen so far that you would use the filth of Chaos and poison to defile the honor of the Necrontyr!"
Zahndrekh was furious.
He swung his Staff of Light and struck down the charging Necron Overlord.
(End of Chapter)
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