Yuno experienced an unprecedented sense of frustration.
She had never expected a mere Star God shard to read the situation more clearly than herself; Mag'ladroth had somehow captured Yuki's true underlying interest with such razor-sharp precision.
In all honesty, Yuno could sense it too—Yuki absolutely had no desire to exist as a protected individual entirely shielded beneath her wing. Yet given that his personal combat parameters were firmly hard-coded at their current baseline, he lacked the leverage to independently dictate major strategic courses.
Furthermore, bound by the crushing weight of her absolute affection, he was barred from enacting any truly radical anomalies. Even the sustainable biomass cultivation blueprint he had proposed was, stripped of its framing, merely an optimization routine that the Tyranid Hive Mind would have naturally stumbled into eventually.
Isolating the remaining variables, the solitary pursuit capable of sparking genuine, high-intensity interest within Yuki was precisely what remained: deploying across disparate realspace coordinates to personally witness momentous historical turning points.
The moment this logical realization locked into place, Yuno felt an immediate, profound clarity. Throughout the preceding cycles, their primary processors had been entirely monopolized by their intense physical exercises, leaving them zero room to analytically evaluate these underlying variables—even if they both thoroughly enjoyed those physical exercises.
With these computations finalized, Yuno synchronized a direct psychic link to Yuki.
"My love, my vanguard has successfully localized Mag'ladroth. His node is currently occupying the crown world of the Orpheus Sector, where the local Krieg echelons appear to be putting up quite a spectacular display. Shall we transit to those coordinates and observe the commotion?"
Predictably, Yuki's response broadcasted absolute excitement: "Let's go! And while we're at it, let's pick up that Void Dragon fellow."
By the time the Aether and Chronos Hive Fleets synchronized their transit vectors and dropped into the high-orbit grid of the crown world, the surrounding Necron garrisons had already been systematically purged from the sector by the Void Dragon.
Leveraging the salvaged metallic alloys of those Necron casualties alongside the remaining noctilith Obelisks, it had engineered a vessel of thoroughly bizarre structural geometry, yet one projecting immense kinetic output.
The Void Dragon unspooled a grand telepathic sigh: "If the World Engine Architect had been authorized to manage this harvest, he likely would have re-engineered this planetary mass into half a World Engine by now."
Midway through its lament, Yuki and Yuno executed a high-velocity drop directly adjacent to its coordinates.
At this chronological juncture, the crown world had been utterly pulverized. Following the catastrophic kinetic exchange initiated by the Necron advance and finalized by the unchained firepower of the Void Dragon, the solitary assets remaining across the surface were inert geological fragments.
"So, this is the magnificent Orpheus crown world you scheduled for our recreational viewing? Mag'ladroth, your behavioral patterns strongly suggest your consciousness harbors a genuine desire to be systematically digested by my maw."
"I raise zero objections to that outcome."
Yuki projected an equal measure of profound disappointment. War was already pacing restlessly behind him, eager for a deployment order, while Pestilence maintained its standard, thoroughly unbothered posture of total lethargy.
The Void Dragon thrown open its metallic palms in a gesture of absolute helplessness: "The outcome was mathematically locked; my shard was restricted to this specific vector. Who told you to fail at subduing that Xun'bakyr woman?"
Petty bickering aside, the Aether and Chronos Hive Fleets initialized their warp drives and departed the system.
This particular excursion had yielded a severely low resource dividend, tracking as a complete waste of transit fuel—save for the minor detail that the Void Dragon's initially fragile proxy hull had successfully absorbed a measurable matrix upgrade. Even so, the star god grumbled continuously without pause: "In the ancient eras, thousands of those mechanical slaves would crawl across the flagstones on their knees, meticulously and reverently installing the most cutting-edge chassis upgrades across my supreme form."
"Dammit, with that exact model of customer service, it would be a violation of cosmic law if the Necrons didn't backstab you," Yuki shot back. "If my consciousness had materialized as a Necron, I would have driven a spear through your spine myself."
The Void Dragon declined to offer an analytical rating on that commentary. Seizing the pause, Yuki unspooled a highly intriguing historical inquiry.
"During the primordial era, which specific entity devised that absolute masterpiece of a strategy that successfully guided the entire Necrontyr species into total genetic extinction?"
"A strategy? What strategy? Was that outcome not the precise, unadulterated ambition the Necrontyr demanded for themselves? They were chronically plagued by the brief, volatile longevity coefficients of their biological shells, while our collective required material vessels and absolute thralls. Consequently, we finalized a mutually binding transaction: we invested them with eternal lifespan parameters and supreme physical power, and they transitioned into our eternal servants. Identify the logical anomaly across that arrangement."
Yuki's processing nodes suffered a severe shock: "Is the historical record not that the Silent King, crushed beneath the dual threats of the Secession Wars and impending biological death, appealed to your kind for salvation—only for your collective to intentionally omit the minor side-effect of absolute soul-evaporation, triggering a galactic tragedy?"
The Void Dragon unspooled a harsh, echoing telepathic laugh.
"A mathematical impossibility. The Deceiver admittedly declined to explicitly spell out the operational fine print, yet his transmissions were saturated with blatant structural hints. Furthermore, once the underlying technologies were delivered into their possession, Szarekh was far too intelligent to remain ignorant of the systemic risks."
"Even evaluating the variable from your perspective—is the absolute loss of a spiritual matrix truly a catastrophic outcome? Examine the contemporary layout of this cosmos: under the volatile, corrupting presence of the Immaterium, does existing completely devoid of a soul not register as a vastly superior evolutionary state?"
"As for why the overwhelming majority of the Necron rank-and-file degraded into mindless, mechanical puppets—did that variable not manifest because the Necron dynastic nobility systematically monopolized the finest technological resources exclusively for their own chassis? Was it not their own ruling elite who enforced a terrifyingly rapid cybernetic conversion timeline specifically to cement their own totalitarian authority?"
Yuki conducted a rigorous internal review of the data; the star god's logic possessed an undeniable structural validity.
The Void Dragon continued its scathing critique: "Our agreement operated fundamentally as a binding contractual evolution, and the defined milestone was to elevate their species tier. Do your sensors register a spiritual matrix active within our supreme essence? Do we possess souls? In that primordial era, the Silent King himself was extended an explicit path to ascend into a true Star God, yet his individual node declined the transaction."
Yuki registered profound astonishment; this specific historical variable had never breached his archived lore files.
"Your data implies that when the Silent King executed his historic betrayal against your kind, his primary drive was merely to validate his own psychological superiority?"
"That your primitive mind can flawlessly synchronize with the twisted cognitive circuits of the Silent King is genuinely an extraordinary anomaly."
The fractured, incomplete memory archives preserved within the Void Dragon still retained the crisp signatures of that ancient epoch—a terrifying age that violently reshaped the foundational topography of the material cosmos.
Two monumental, peak-tier galactic empires plummeted into absolute ruin, clearing the path for raw, unrefined species to ascend.
The Silent King commanded vast, unchecked ambitions, yet his matrix harbored severe, persistent vulnerabilities. His mechanical framework was engineered with such hyper-precise calibration that it could flawlessly simulate every single emotional resonance he had possessed in his biological past; consequently, his processors were chronically flooded with agonizing recursive loops concerning the catastrophes his commands had authored.
Those primitive, biological emotional matrices are, at times, a monumentally counter-productive design choice.
"Hold on, something doesn't compute. If the contract was entirely transparent, what variable drove your collective to violently consume the souls of the Necrontyr population during the biotransference?"
"When a delicacies of that magnitude are paraded directly before your senses, what independent entity possesses the suppression algorithms to withhold consumption?"
Yuki achieved total clarity. This ancient entity had not delivered a completely unadulterated version of the truth; during that cataclysmic era, those primordial Star Gods had explicitly harbored their own sinister agendas.
Just as he prepared to unspool a follow-up query, Yuno stepped forward to cleanly terminate the dialogue.
"Initialize your packing sub-routines. Our vanguard is preparing to transition to a fresh theater."
Yuno's visual presentation had undergone a stark, complete structural reconfiguration. She had discarded her traditional flowing dress and left her specialized parasol behind in her chambers; instead, her form was tightly clad in a remarkably dashing, razor-sharp military officer's uniform, her gauntlet resting firmly upon the hilt of a gleaming officer's saber.
"Assemble, everyone. The chronology has officially synchronized with our collective's absolute favorite tactical phase. Hive Fleet Kraken is currently locked in a high-intensity, attritional engagement against the forces of the Imperium across the Ultramar Sector. Their operational failure across that front is mathematically guaranteed, yet their termination tracks as a planned variable within our overarching master algorithm. The deployment of Hive Fleet Leviathan shall mark the definitive dawn of our unadulterated victory."
Yuno broadcasted the transmission with an immense, unbridled surge of martial pride.
"Our forces shall execute a synchronized assault along two distinct strategic vectors. One detachment is routed to initiate a mutual consumption loop with the Greenskin empire, ensuring both factions feed and multiply off one another indefinitely. Concurrently, our primary strike force will drive a straight spearhead to enforce the absolute destruction of Baal."
Yuno's psychic aura fluctuated with an incredibly volatile, hyper-intense emotional charge: "On this specific cycle, absolute victory is the solitary parameter I will accept!"
"This specific cycle?"
The Void Dragon, Yuki, and the twin avatars of War and Pestilence sat side-by-side on a row of small wooden benches, tracking her briefing.
"Precisely, Mag'ladroth. This specific cycle."
And within that precise microsecond, Yuki finally localized the core purpose validating his translocation into this universe.
From the exact chronological junction where his consciousness had first intersected Yuno's existence, the Devastation of Baal had served as the singular, defining event continuously echoed across their long-term planning.
It could be stated objectively that every single military deployment they had executed up to this current cycle served exclusively to optimize this grand act of vengeance.
To validate the unmitigated hunger of the Great Devourer, Baal must be entirely consumed!
The Aether and Chronos Hive Fleets authorized zero hesitation across their navigation nodes, instantly burning their warp drives to charge straight toward the Baal System.