The Emperor’s Angel of Death

Without offering any explanation for his actions, Sork Zhayang put down the remains and said slowly:

“We previously thought that the alien tomb was under the Coke Oven City, but now it seems that this is not the case, or rather, the scale of this alien tomb is much larger than we imagined. However, I suddenly realized a problem: this war has lasted for nearly half a year. If the Genestealers were forced to launch a riot due to an attack by the Necrons, then it means that the Necron tomb woke up half a year ago. But they have not shown up before, and now they suddenly appear.”

Sork Zhayang initially wanted to say that it must be related to their arrival, but then he caught a detail in the many pieces of information that was easily overlooked.

“Sage Aijia Ke, there are nine forward outposts that encountered Necrons, but they are basically just scattered Flayed Ones, right?”

“Yes.”

“That is to say, the only one that suffered a large-scale attack was Sub-Command K2... Why is that? Is the location of that place important?”

The Ruling Sage then brought up a map of the war zone above the table, marking the locations of all outposts and sub-commands.

“As you can see, Sub-Command K2 is located in the south-western part of the Slag Mountains... If we talk about importance, it is the sub-command closest to Coke Oven City, so it is responsible for blocking enemy supplies and reinforcements. Therefore, we deployed more than two thousand Guardsmen there.”

“Closest to Coke Oven City...”

Sork Zhayang crossed his arms and stared for a while, then turned to look at Suleina.

“Ninth Company Commander, did you find anything unusual at K2?”

“Unusual... When we went there, the outpost was empty, and there were no aliens. If I had to say something unusual, the enemy launched the attack from the outside, and we encountered a large number of Scarab Beetles in the command center. This is a bit unreasonable. If the enemy had occupied the place, they should have ambushed us inside the outpost, instead of attacking from outside the walls.”

“You are right.”

Sork Zhayang retracted his gaze, looking at the constantly rotating war zone map, and after a long time, said in a low voice with a hint of doubt:

“Is it possible that they didn't come to attack you? Or rather, were they attacking K2 to find something? You said that you encountered Scarab Beetles in the command center, why would they huddle in that place?”

“We previously suspected that there was an underground passage there.”

“If that's the case, they wouldn't need to attack from outside the walls.”

“Hmm, yes, I also considered this, but the battle was very intense at the time, and there was no time to think about it in detail.”

“The only things you encountered in the command center were Scarab Beetles?”

“Yes... We were attacked by Wraith immediately after coming out.”

Sork Zhayang clapped his hands lightly.

“It can be confirmed that there must be something else hidden in the command center. The sudden appearance of the Necrons in the Slag Mountains is likely related to that thing.”

At this time, the Ruling Sage spoke.

“Sir, we cleared the K2 outpost not long ago and did not find anything special.”

“That means it's something that can run.”

“This...”

Sork Zhayang stopped paying attention to the Ruling Sage and fell into his own thoughts.

If the Necrons are really looking for something, or chasing something, what could it be?

A Genestealer Patriarch?

Or a Mechanicus priest who stole their important items?

And why would this thing hide in a human outpost?

Another point worth considering is that only Flayed Ones or war machines appear on the battlefield. The Necrons' true “individuals” have not appeared. Why is this? Wouldn't it be more convenient for sentient units to pursue? Why use these mindless things to carry out complex pursuit missions?

→

Suddenly, Sork Zhayang lowered his gaze, looked at the slightly deformed skull of the Flayed One, and suddenly thought of something. He reached out and grabbed the skull amidst the doubts of the others.

When a hidden symbol appeared in Sork Zhayang's pupils, the power of the Grey Matter allowed him to feel the malice hidden within the skull.

Llandu'gor

Syllables composed of ten thousand echoes and maddeningly shrill metallic friction sounds echoed in Sork Zhayang's mind. He tried to steady his mind, wanting to extract useful information for himself.

However, accompanied by the gaze of a pair of mad eyes, everything disappeared. All he could see was the metallic skull.

Sork Zhayang finally understood why the Necrons would let the unstable Flayed Ones undertake the tracking mission, because they knew he was coming, knew that he could extract memories from normal Necron individuals. They didn't want to expose themselves, but it was precisely this abnormal behavior that exposed their intentions.

Sork Zhayang sneered and threw the skull back on the table. Since the other party knew his abilities so well, it meant that they were involved with the old thing, the Silent King.

“Very good.”

The other party was so guilty, which meant that they really didn't want him to discover the key to the matter.

Thinking of this, Sork Zhayang further expanded his thoughts. If the things here were related to the Silent King, once he made a discovery, the other party might overturn the table and confront him. Then he would not only face this group on the planet, but also Necron fleets from other star systems or sectors might come to kill him.

As soon as he thought of the Necron fleet, he immediately recalled the indestructible power of the World Engine. Sork Zhayang narrowed his eyes. Although he had brought all the fleets of the White Templars and part of the Uranhuda fleet, it might be a bit difficult to fight against a weapon of mass destruction like the World Engine, even with the entire Forge World.

Choosing to fall out with that old thing here seemed a bit unwise, but then again, this area was on the edge of the Storm Zone. In theory, there shouldn't be many Necron tomb worlds here. Historically, there had been no combat reports about Necrons in the adjacent Orpheus Sector.

Probably, the Silent King's power here was relatively weak, right?

In fact, after the last World Engine battle, Sork Zhayang wasn't so afraid of this thing, because he knew that this giant fortress had a fatal weakness, that it was entirely driven by a bound shard of a Star God. He could also single-handedly break through the World Engine and devour the Star God shard inside. In that case, the so-called World Engine would just be a dead fish.

It was just that he needed some time in this process, and the losses of the other forces responsible for blocking might be very large. The Forge World Ekvorria might also be destroyed. Sork Zhayang felt that these mechanical mongrels were not worthy of him paying such a high price.

For the sake of stability, perhaps he could first not delve into the secrets of those Necrons, and secretly transfer some of the Eldar's power as a trump card—at least the Nightshade Interceptors could definitely fight against the World Engine, Sork Zhayang had no doubt about this. After everything was properly deployed, he would dig up the alien tomb in this world and completely dig out their secrets. If it was really related to the Silent King, then he would slap this old thing in the face hard to see if he would show up.

Even if he really wanted to overturn the table, he had ways to deal with it.

After making up his mind, Sork Zhayang said loudly:

“The activities of the aliens do not affect our grand strategy. The enemy in Trevnick City has been annihilated, so the focus of our attack will shift to Coke Oven City. We will oppress the enemy from two directions, but make some modifications to the details. The situation in the Slag Mountains has been basically controlled. The enemy is completely compressed in the bottom tunnels. There is no need for us to play whack-a-mole. The No. 3 Sacred Furnace Mining Area on the west side of Coke Oven City will be the new attack point. Trevnick's troops are already being transferred and allocated. Once the various troops are in place, we will advance from the east and west simultaneously and launch an attack on Coke Oven City!”