"Magnus!"
The exact microsecond Magnus returned to their ranks in a thoroughly disheveled state, Ahriman was already standing directly at the dead center of the surviving Thousand Sons, directing a glacial, unyielding glare at his gene-father.
"We have officially reached the absolute deadline. If your consciousness does not harbor a desire to see the entirety of our ten-millennium consolidation utterly liquidated, then we must execute an immediate extraction route!"
"How many battle-brethren have failed to report to the coordinates?"
Beholding Magnus stubbornly delaying the absolute peak operational window for strategic fallback, Ahriman felt a profound, unadulterated fury rupture his restraint.
"Do you genuinely intend to continuously delude your consciousness with that laughable, arrogant framework of nobility? Must you permanently stall until the exact microsecond our Legion faces total extinction before you willingly concede that your calculations were flawed—precisely as you transacted in the ancient days? When you executed our extraction from the ruins of our world all those eons ago, did you not callously abandon one of our own to the flames?"
The surrounding Thousand Sons maintained absolute silence. A gene-father was an existential authority they possessed absolutely no baseline capacity to defy; even an asset of Ahriman's caliber was strictly restricting his deployment to advising his Primarch.
Once a Primarch finalized a strategic decree, no lesser consciousness possessed the parameters to alter his path.
"Ahriman, precisely how many lines have failed to return to the perimeter?"
"Twenty-five. Multiple nodes represent the absolute scholastic elite of our cults."
"I cannot perceive the tapestry."
"7"
"What did your consciousness just articulate?"
"I am entirely incapable of mapping our future. The localized convergence of this warp-shadow paired with the blackstone technology utilized by the Necron Obelisks is truly terrifying. My memory arrays still preserve the log when Abaddon attempted to harness a Blackstone Fortress for exactly this manner of displacement."
"Father—"
Magnus smoothly closed his solitary eye: "Let us depart. In this specific accounting, our matrix has suffered a total strategic failure."
Yuki walked down the expansive, panoramic avenues of the Sorcerer's City.
Even though his current coordinates did not represent the literal bedrock of primordial Prospero, this specific Sorcerer's City—synthesized exclusively through the high-tier sorceries of the Thousand Sons—superficially mirrored the architectural paradigm of their lost homeworld with startling fidelity.
Did these sorcerers genuinely preserve the archived layout of their annihilated cradle with such absolute, flawless clarity?
As these diagnostic thoughts crossed his mind, Yuki's sensors abruptly registered an exceptionally frustrating structural anomaly.
Why was the entirety of the local bedrock violently collapsing inward?
He instantly calculated a severe shift in the threat matrix.
The exact next microsecond, the entirety of the Sorcerer's City vanished cleanly into absolute nonexistence without a fraction of a warning sign—the cataclysmic disappearance behaving precisely like the sudden evaporation of a transient dream.
Yuki rapidly swept his vision toward alternative physical entities that held no structural integration with the Sorcerer's City matrix.
For instance, the stranded Thousand Sons sorcerers, and the overlapping echelons of Tyranid bio-forms.
"Magnus executed a direct, instantaneous extraction route?"
This was the baseline diagnostic that instantly solidified within Yuki's cognitive processors.
He smoothly extended his wings, hoisting his physical vessel into the upper atmosphere. At this precise juncture, an infinite volume of their bio-forms had been abruptly marooned within the absolute vacuum of open space, their structural survival contingent upon the rapid transit of hive vessels to secure extraction.
The situation confronting the Necron legions was monumentally more severe. Their locomotor units were inherently engineered for deliberate, measured velocity; stranded within the zero-gravity void, their physical momentum was throttled into absolute stagnation.
Naturally, high-tier high-value units had been instantly recalled back to the primary dynastic nodes utilizing phase protocols, leaving nothing behind save for low-tier, completely expendable vanguards to drift through the dark.
"That energy signature is—"
Midway through his diagnostic scan, Yuki registered an exceptionally powerful entity rapidly closing the spatial distance to his coordinates with extreme acceleration.
Yuki pivoted his stance, only to witness a humanoid, master-crafted metallic construct driving straight toward his position, its chassis wreathed in cascading arcs of living lightning as it wielded a massive spear.
Evaluating a visual configuration of this magnificent caliber, there remained absolutely no room for diagnostic ambiguity—this was explicitly a shard of the Void Dragon!
Yuki instantly primed his internal systems for an apex-tier engagement; the Void Dragon historically tracked as the absolute most devastating Star God in realspace existence following the banishment of the Nightbringer's scythe into the deep Immaterium.
Precisely as calculated, merely monitoring the rapid approach of the Void Dragon caused the local space-time continuum to violently warp and compress, generating a localized gravitational well that forcibly dragged surrounding debris toward its trajectory.
Yet Plague maintained a thoroughly tranquil, unbothered disposition, failing to even transition her physical vessel into a basic combat posture.
Before Yuki could allocate cognitive resources to decipher her behavioral anomaly, the Void Dragon materialized directly before his frame, their respective visages practically intersecting.
"Is this the specific specimen designated as the mate of the Great Devourer? Its structural parameters are remarkably more mediocre than my matrix calculated."
"?"
It was only at this exact microsecond that Yuki's optical sensors registered a profound structural variable: the massive wing-like appendages anchored to the Void Dragon's spine were cleanly engineered from Tyranid bio-chitin. The colossal, primordial energy cascading from the star god's chassis was being systematically siphoned and absorbed by these biological nodes, condensing the raw output into stabilized bio-energetic crystals that continuously detached and fell away into the void.
"Uh... what exact variable governs this interaction?"
"I command a baseline of ancient familiarity with these Star Gods," Yuno's voice echoed smoothly across the synaptic network. "Our historical correlation... well, it tracks as significantly more optimized than the relationship they maintain with the Necron dynasties."
Yuki focused his gaze onto the spectacularly imposing shard of the Void Dragon standing before him, only for the entity to abruptly extend its metallic gauntlet: "Allow my matrix to evaluate the absolute threshold of your capability."
Yuki extended his own hand to meet the gesture. The exact microsecond their gauntlets locked, violent arcs of physical lightning detonated across the coordinate, instantly dissolving half of Yuki's physical vessel into absolute nonexistence.
This specific manifestation of structural disassembly bypassed his neural pathways so cleanly that it generated absolutely no trajectory of pain; half of his biological framework was instantly shattered down to its baseline atomic components.
"Mag'ladroth. Precisely what maneuver does your consciousness think it is executing?"
Accompanied by the sudden intervention of a freezing, absolute voice, the space-time coordinates clutched within the Void Dragon's grip violently contorted. The expanding atomic particles were instantly forced to retrace their trajectory of decay, snapping back into perfect alignment.
Within the blink of an eye, half of Yuki's physical frame was systematically restored to a flawless baseline.
It required several subsequent seconds for his neural pathways to formally re-establish connection across the reconstructed tissues, slowly restoring his baseline capacity for motion.
Yuno had already driven her arm down, callously forcing the Void Dragon's head toward the void, only relaxing her physical lockdown once her sensors verified that Yuki suffered absolutely no permanent structural degradation.
"Though our present interaction tracks as a strategic collaboration, your consciousness must preserve a flawless comprehension of your explicit placement within our hierarchy. My matrix lacks the parameters to permanently extinguish your primordial essence, yet converting your shattered shards into a permanent energy matrix for our fleets remains a highly viable alternative."
The Tyranid species possessed the capability to consume pure energetic output, though the logistical efficiency was historically low and accompanied by severe operational risk.
Yuki readily deciphered the underlying catalyst driving Yuno's intense displeasure. He smoothly intervened to de-escalate the friction: "My framework has re-stabilized. What is the history here? Why do your archived records indicate that you and the Void Dragon share an ancient intersection?"
Within Yuki's established repository of lore, the formal manifestation of the Tyranid Swarm was cataloged exclusively within the 41st Millennium, whereas the systemic shattering of the C'tan transacted at least sixty million years in the past. The math governing how Yuno and the Void Dragon possessed mutual recognition failed to compute.
"The chronological notation of our genesis tracks as vastly more ancient than your data indicates," Yuno smoothly clarified. "During that primordial epoch, every single Star God existed exclusively as a node of unadulterated, pure consciousness. The technological parameters of the Necron species had yet to achieve the qualification necessary to forge physical vessels for their essence."
Yuno continuously unspooled the data.
"In that ancient cycle, my own matrix was significantly more unrefined; I possessed the capability to decouple my consciousness from the primary armada to execute solitary reconnaissance. At a specific juncture, long before this galaxy had even formally coalesced, my path intersected with these entities, culminating in a systemic war of attrition. That was our initial point of recognition. Subsequently, I charted a trajectory into alternative deep-space sectors to secure vast biological deposits, and as my correlation with the laws of the material universe intensified, my matrix gradually lost contact with their signatures."
The Void Dragon shard inclined its massive head in validation.
"Though my consciousness has suffered severe data corruption and lost vast echelons of memory, the overarching parameters of your narrative align with my internal logs."
Yuki nodded, his cognitive systems thoroughly astounded. This was an unrecorded, profound secret of pre-galactic history entirely absent from any Imperial archive.
Subsequently, he articulated a solitary inquiry: "So, when the final accounting of that ancient clash was calculated... which specific entity secured the victory?"
"Naturally, the outcome favored my matrix," Yuno asserted without a trace of hesitation.
Hearing Yuno's evaluation, the Void Dragon smoothly crossed its massive arms: "Does your log fail to record that the final resolution tracked as a synchronized draw?"
"What manner of absurdity is your consciousness articulating? Did your output manage to compromise a solitary tendril of my primordial framework during that entire cycle?"
"Your syllables behave as though your matrix successfully liquidated a solitary member of our pantheon."
Beholding his mate and the immense star god shard actively locking themselves into a petty behavioral dispute, Yuki could only shake his head in wry amusement.
"Does the data not simply indicate that the conflict concluded in a tie?" he attempted to arbitrate.
Yet the exact next microsecond, both Yuno and the Void Dragon simultaneously snapped their focus toward him, their voices cascading in perfect, thunderous synchronization: "That conflict was absolutely not a tie!"
Yuki was completely left without a rebuttal.
He redirected his gaze toward Plague, who had already curled her physical frame into a tight biological sphere, contentedly allowing her vessel to drift aimlessly through the open vacuum of space.
They had successfully harvested an immense volume of the Thousand Sons' psychic genetic sequences; the upcoming operational phase demanded that their bio-vaults systematically analyze and digest these specialized traits. In the final calculus, their primary campaign objective had been roundly achieved.
Furthermore, they had successfully wrenched an immensely powerful star god shard straight out of the Silent King's possession—a strategic acquisition that was exceptionally lucrative.