The Emperor’s Angel of Death

"Stop hiding, you dishonorable thief! Come out and meet your death, I'll allow you to defile my blade!"

Harkdek strode towards the thief's hiding place, using the blazing flames of his Inferno Gauntlet to finish off a Flayer along the way, and cleaving another in two with his warscythe. His Lychguard advanced behind him, like a wall of blades, cutting down the staggering Flayers left in his wake, or smashing aside the lunatics trying to attack from the sides and rear, knocking them to the ground before hacking at them with their phase swords.

Just as he was about to step into the building, a Flayer jumped down directly from above, its claws reaching for his venerable head.

Enraged, Harkdek slammed it to the ground with his weapon, and a flurry of fierce strikes rained down on the Flayer's body. The Flayer thrashed its limbs wildly like a slaughtered animal, but its struggles only fueled the Crowned General's fury. He pierced one side of the Flayer's chest, and scorching hot magnetic fluid gushed out from the opening. Immediately afterward, he smashed the bottom of his warscythe's haft into the misshapen, snarling face, blow after blow, until the entire head was shattered.

As he entered the ravaged metal structure, the Lychguard stood guard outside, and soon the sharp sounds of battle and the ear-splitting, deathly howls of the nightmares they were blocking echoed.

Boom—

Remember the original website domain 𝚝𝚠𝚔𝚊𝚗.𝕔𝕠𝕞

Having taken only two steps inside, a wave of energy rushed towards him. Harkdek, already anticipating this, coldly activated his phase shifter—an advanced piece of equipment that, when used, made the nobles' metal bodies become hazy and blurred, as if not truly existing, only partially intersecting with real space-time.

In this state, any attack would pass through his body, and even the most powerful weapons could not harm him.

He knew the thief was an alchemist, and these artificers were skilled in studying the transformation of matter, with energy blasts being their primary means of self-defense.

As expected, the powerful energy merely passed through his body, creating ripples in physical space, causing the entire structure to shake. In the instant of the phase shift, the Crowned General darted forward, slamming his warscythe fiercely into the shadows.

Accompanied by a burst of fire, the pre-emptive strike of the Canoptek Spider's blade was directly cut off, followed by another blow to the head, nearly severing it, forcing it to collapse.

"Hand it over!"

The Crowned General stepped on the Canoptek Spider's head, his weapon pointing at the thief standing behind it, whose scepter was flickering, a sign that its energy was about to be depleted.

Clearly, modifying that crude, low-grade bio-mechanical construct had wasted too much of Lana's energy. In this place swarming with enemies, replenishment was difficult. Previously, she had relied on killing the Necron Warriors to obtain energy, but that was merely a stopgap measure.

Each of her battles, each of her plans, was depleting her dwindling energy reserves—the Dynasty's Phaeron had cut off her energy access the moment the treasure was stolen.

"This was originally ours! Master Kehk of the Higher Technocracy helped the Menhirk Dynasty destroy the Flayers!"

"Hand it over."

Harkdek slowly increased the pressure with his foot, as if about to step down, and the Canoptek Spider's head made a crisp cracking sound.

But suddenly, he stopped, his voice becoming somewhat ethereal.

"Oh? Then tell me, why do you say this is yours? What does it have to do with you remnants? What do the Dynasty's treasures have to do with the Flayers?"

Lana immediately replied:

"This is—"

But she stopped immediately, and the expressionless golden funerary mask carefully scrutinized the Crowned General, then sneered.

"Just another ambitious one. This is not something you can covet."

"Heh."

Harkdek's metal face became even more somber in the shadows.

"Do you know what will happen if you are caught? The Phaeron will extract your consciousness from your body and stuff it into a scarab, leaving you to scream forever in the darkest corners of the tomb, or hand you over to the Flayer Courts, turning you into their toy, and they will try all sorts of interesting modifications on you."

Slowly, he stepped onto the upper body of the Canoptek Spider, while Lana retreated slowly.

"Give it to me."

The Crowned General reached out his hand, his face becoming darker in the shadows, but his eyes becoming brighter, because the flames of burning ambition were raging in his eye sockets.

"I can let you go, or you can help me, tell me what exactly that treasure is, how to control those Flayers, and I will give you everything you want, identity, status, honor."

"It's not what you think, this is not a treasure, it's a curse, a curse that shouldn't be in anyone's hands."

"We are all cursed, but that doesn't matter."

Harkdek pressed closer, and after taking a few steps back, Lana found that she had nowhere to retreat.

"If you insist, then I can only find it on your corpse."

Saying that, the Crowned General slowly raised his phase scythe.

"Just asking, is it not considered a very ungentlemanly behavior in your Necron culture to violate a woman's will?"

A mocking voice, using a somewhat strange Necron language, sounded from the shadows, and both Necrons turned their heads in surprise.

With a click, a cluster of flames lit up the darkness, illuminating a calm face and a suit of azure armor. The person lit the cigar at his mouth with a lighter, took a deep breath, and with a casual flick of his fingers, the lighter returned to his arm armor on its own.

Slowly exhaling a thick cloud of white smoke, he placed the expensive cigar on a broken shelf, and stepped out of the shadows step by step, his cloak emitting points of psychic starlight as he moved.

"Let me introduce myself, my name is Occam, an Alpha. Maybe you don't know what an Alpha is, but it doesn't matter, because I am entrusted by the Phoenix King of the Aeldari Empire's Eternal Court to find something and someone."

Occam was speaking, but the voice came from the spiritbone translator hanging around his neck.

"Aeldari? The Eternal Court?"

Harkdek's tone changed when he heard these words. He could disregard low-level creatures, but these ancient enemies were different.

He turned around, his warscythe pointing at Occam.

"This is the territory of the Ryza Dynasty, and we will not allow you ancient servants of the Old Ones to invade! Whoever violates the territory of Ryza, I will strike and destroy them!"

"Heh."

Occam smiled and pointed to the door not far away.

"Are you trying to summon the guards outside?"

Harkdek remained silent, because he already knew the result. The Lychguard outside had been completely wiped out, and the Destroyer Lord had not responded either, presumably also eliminated.

"Then I'll give you some more time, I wonder if it's enough?"