Crack!
Cold sweat poured down Magnus's face.
As the orchestrator of the ritual, he naturally understood precisely what had just transacted.
Why had it been broken from the inside? Even if the opposition possessed an apex authority in the form of the Great Devourer, weren't the two dark deities—Tzeentch and Slaanesh—supposed to be anchoring the perimeter?
Why? Was even Slaanesh incapable of containing the so-called Great Devourer?
"Do not lose your focus, sorcerer."
The orb of light cradled within the Silent King's grasp violently warped the surrounding geometry of space. This functional capability mirrored the attributes of psychic sorcery, yet it was driven by pure, unadulterated technology. Technology?
How could it possibly scale to such an absolute tier?
Magnus was thoroughly astonished. He had harbored prior reports regarding the terrifying baseline of Necron technology, but he had never anticipated it could achieve this level of sophistication.
"You have absolutely no conception of what you have done, you mechanical carcass! You simply have no functional understanding of what you have unleashed!"
The Silent King remained exceptionally遊刃有餘. From his perspective, these organic entities were merely utilizing laughable parlor tricks to put on a performance for his benefit.
He smoothly redirected his gaze toward the silhouette that bore a striking resemblance to the woman from before. "Where exactly is your master, and where is that man? Where have they gone?"
War declined to offer an immediate response. Her physical frame trembled slightly for a few seconds, before the expression gracing her features became remarkably vivid.
"They will be arriving imminently. You needn't worry yourself over it."
Hearing those syllables, Magnus felt his heart sink halfway into his chest. If that was the case, did it mean the Crusade fleet he had painstakingly marooned was about to be unleashed?
What manner of joke was this?
Why was it that every single time he attempted to orchestrate a grand design, it invariably concluded in absolute failure?
Magnus felt his psychological defenses thoroughly fracturing. Fulgrim seized his brother's armored arm, projecting a firm warning: "Do not falter at this juncture, my brother. Harbor no worry. We will march toward the true future."
Fulgrim's words, however, carried remarkably little structural conviction.
The Silent King had yet to decipher the precise context of their dialogue, when War suddenly executed a rapid, frantic retreat.
"Fall back! Our strategic objective has been fully realized!"
Receiving the update, Eleven immediately tracked War's trajectory to execute an evacuation, leaving the Space Wolves standing on the grid in absolute bewilderment.
"What exactly are they doing?"
Bjorn found himself entirely incapable of comprehending the tactical logic of these hive fleets. Did they truly expend this massive baseline of operational effort to storm this theater simply to see what a Primarch looked like up close?
The Space Wolves consolidated their perimeter around Bjorn, relying heavily on the Dreadnought's devastating firepower to weather the relentless, overlapping assaults of the surrounding adversaries.
"Old man! Is that crimson Ogryn over there the exact same specimen that Russ broke during the old days?!"
"Indeed it is! Our father literally snapped his spine over his knee!"
"Hahahahaha!"
Following the booming laughter, Bjorn finalized his tactical calculation. "Execute a fighting withdrawal. Relying strictly on our current assets to wage a synchronized war against these two adversaries is a functional impossibility."
Bjorn held supreme command over the immediate theater; no one possessed the authority to veto his directive. The surrounding baseline human commanders readily accepted the order; they had been yearning to execute an extraction route for an age.
With the departure of the Space Wolves from the field, only the Necron legions and the forces of Chaos remained, locked in a frenzied war of attrition.
"What exactly are you attempting to engineer, you mechanical creation?!"
"Harbor no impatience. Those craven elements have literally fled the field out of sheer terror. Had you fragile biological organisms managed to consolidate your forces in absolute unity, you might have elicited a trace of admiration from me. But as it stands, your solitary destiny is to be thoroughly crushed beneath the unyielding fury of the Silent King."
Orikan articulated the decree, while the towering silhouette anchoring the phantom throne behind his frame offered a slow, deliberate nod.
"Dammit, there is simply no path to logical dialogue with these simpletons. Fulgrim, you—"
Magnus calculated that with two Primarchs anchoring the field, so long as their coordination remained flawless and Fulgrim pulled his full legion from reserve, they could comfortably match even a synchronized alliance between the Necrons and the Tyranids.
Yet the moment he turned his gaze, Fulgrim had already sliced open a dimensional rift leading straight back into the Immaterium.
"Farewell, my brother. I would strongly advise that you execute your own extraction route imminently. The local warp output is rapidly deteriorating; an asset like yourself, who relies so heavily on psychic sorcery, had best run along without delay."
With those parting words, Fulgrim vanished cleanly from the material universe.
The remaining Sorcerers of the Thousand Sons consolidated their formation around Magnus, unleashing a desperate crescendo of psychic powers against the infinite, advancing legions of the Necrons.
"Enjoy the duration. The Silent King will ensure you savor this window of time quite slowly."
Leaving those words behind, Orikan and the phantom silhouette behind his frame slowly dissolved into nothingness.
Magnus was forced to rely on the defensive arrays of his makeshift Sorcerer's City to continuously buffer the relentless onslaught of the Necron legions. He had to engineer a methodology to evacuate his gene-sons from the theater at all costs.
Meanwhile, Adam, Yuno, and Plague successfully crossed the threshold, returning to the material universe.
"Unified One? You have returned?"
"Superb work, War. It appears your sector was remarkably lively as well."
Through the shared consciousness of the synapse network, Adam quickly digested the data regarding what had transpired during their absence, prompting him to let out an amused sigh. "To think we missed out on the immediate peak of the entertainment. There's nothing left but scraps now."
The primary armaments of Hive Fleet Aether and Hive Fleet Chronos began to pivot, their operational objective completely transparent—they were preparing to collect Magnus's debt in blood!
Furthermore, Szarekh was occupying that exact coordinate. Judging from War's recorded memories, the Silent King remained entirely oblivious to the true nature of what had just transacted. That fellow still harbored the assumption that he held absolute dominion over every variable on the board.
"Oh? And who might this be—"
War registered the presence of Plague. Just as Yuno had estimated, the moment she re-entered realspace, Plague seamlessly interfaced with the grand fleets, including the primary synapse arrays of the main Swarm.
The colossal volume of the collective consciousness comfortably diluted and absorbed her localized psychological strain. Though tear tracks still stained her features, she had successfully restored an absolute baseline of calm.
"She operates on the exact same structural paradigm as yourself. Her designation is Plague, and she serves as the manifestation of biological vitality—well, functionally speaking, she is exceptionally proficient in the deployment of viral toxins and bio-agents."
Yuno finalized her administrative decree. "The absolute volume of our fleets will continue to multiply across the subsequent epochs. Consequently, she will operate as a primary commander within our hierarchy."
War naturally harbored no objections; from any logical or functional standpoint, it was impossible for her to disagree.
"In that case... let's go cause some trouble for Szarekh."
Cough! Cough!
Hopper felt as though her lungs were being consumed by open flames, a profoundly wretched sensation that she found incredibly troublesome. The burning torment consuming her physical vessel persisted, the agonizing pain continuously amplifying.
"What is the meaning of this condition?"
She genuinely felt as though she were standing on the precipice of absolute termination.
Only after several hours of agonizing stabilization did she finally manage to rise to her feet under the intense scrutiny of the gathered crowd.
"I... I have yet to fulfill my sacred charge. I absolutely refuse to succumb to death."
At this precise microsecond, her status as a Living Saint was beyond the shadow of a doubt; no soul present could question her divinity. And now that she had successfully conquered death itself, the Crusade forces anchoring her vanguard would naturally never harbor fear for the grave again!
"Long live the Emperor! Long live Saint Hopper!"
The Emperor's Champion and several veteran Astartes stood below her position, lowering their heads in solemn reverence as they witnessed the literal birth of a legend.
"Issue your commands, My Lady!"
"We shall hunt down the forces of Chaos who dared to orchestrate this betrayal! We shall see every enemy burned to absolute ash!"
Only when her pulse finally leveled out did Hopper notice a permanent structural transformation had overtaken her physical vessel.
Her hair had turned completely snow-white.