---o---
Looking at the slumbering Necrons before him, Zhou Ye's mind was spinning at full speed.
His first instinct had been to simply strip these skeletons clean — but he ran into a problem almost immediately.
The Necron bodies themselves appeared to be made of a special kind of living metal. He could recharge and refine them, but the amount of Imaginary energy it would consume was.....enormous. A bit too much. Not worth it.
"Hey....."
But just as Zhou Ye was running calculations at speed, his comm system crackled to life.
"Omega priest, where are you? We may need your automaton cohort to assist."
His three Kastelan Robots were not to be underestimated — three of them hit harder than a full Terminator squad, especially with his custom modifications. The upgraded versions were something else entirely.
"I'm in a Necron tomb. It's rather interesting in here."
"You're picking locks at a time like this?"
"This is called archaeology. The holy Omnissiah encourages his faithful to seek out ancient relics."
"...."
Even Chris found himself momentarily speechless. He had no objection in principle to a Mechanicus Magos raiding a Necron tomb — but right now was not the time, and the automaton cohort was one of their most critical assets.
"Have the maniacs not finished tearing each other apart yet? Am I not stirring hard enough?"
Zhou Ye asked this with mild curiosity. He had been doing some genuine stirring. He'd churned things up this thoroughly — skulls should be flying by now. What was there to panic about?
"There's a complication. The cultists — they seem to be coming under the influence of something they consider unholy. They're becoming more frenzied by the minute. Even the Iron Warriors and the Dark Mechanicum are being overwhelmed. The Genestealers are taking heavy casualties. Even the purebloods are dying in large numbers. Their roots here aren't deep, and now things have gotten a bit difficult."
"Ah?"
Zhou Ye paused at that.
Could it be that Old K had started putting in some effort? But that shouldn't be right — a skirmish at this scale shouldn't be interesting enough to catch his attention.
He had a nagging feeling he'd overlooked something. Ah well, it was all Tzeentch's fault anyway. You could blame Tzeentch for anything in the Warhammer universe and you'd never be wrong.
"Bit of a problem. I'll try to get there. Is the situation very bad?"
"Yes. If this drags on, there's a possibility a Greater Daemon manifests."
"Good grief. What is Old K doing?"
Zhou Ye found this genuinely puzzling. Theoretically, that shouldn't be happening right now. The Great Rift hadn't formed yet — getting a daemon into realspace was not supposed to be this straightforward.
The Imperium had been standing for ten thousand years unchanged, and despite its legendarily glacial response times, it had genuinely maintained peace — or something close to it — for most of that period. Neither xenos nor Chaos had managed to actually threaten it at its foundations. It took the War at Lion's Gate to shake them even slightly awake.
He shook his head and filed the thought away.
"Are you certain you need reinforcements?"
"Yes. The more the better."
The Inquisitor confirmed with a nod. Something felt off to him, though he couldn't put a finger on what exactly. But he did genuinely need reinforcements — because the battlefield had shifted again.
The Khorne cultists were raging as though they'd been given a direct injection of combat stimms. Several of them had already begun mutating. Left unchecked, some might ascend to full Daemon Princes. The whole situation had descended further into chaos — a four-way brawl between the Thousand Sons, the Genestealers, the Khorne cultists, the Iron Warriors, and the Dark Mechanicum all at once.
Chris knew. Khorne himself had a hand in this. That was not a good development — who knew what would happen if it kept escalating.
As for Khorne....
He was searching. Searching for the one who had called to him. Through the killing, through the blessings he was pouring down, he wanted that warrior to reveal themselves.
And to kill Tzeentch while he was at it. See whether that scheming wretch had actually murdered the warrior he wanted. If it turned out to be true — there would have to be a proper war over it.
Though for Khorne, proper war was simply Tuesday.
"Where are you getting reinforcements from? My support request should still be en route."
The Inquisitor asked this with some curiosity — but unfortunately, Zhou Ye had already ended the call.
"Looks like the Necron tomb has something worthwhile in it. Well, I can only count on him then."
The Inquisitor was stuck. If he could, he would have dearly liked to consult a Prognosticator. But unfortunately his Prognosticator had been caught in the same Warp storm that had separated him from his Black Ship, and was unreachable. So the only option left was to place his faith in this priest who kept delivering impossible surprises.
---o---
"The consciousness core of this Necron Overlord — or possibly Phaeron — appears to be damaged. Excellent. Time to show this universe a small demonstration of my brilliant genius."
Zhou Ye gave the sarcophagus in front of him a careful examination and found quite a lot to work with.
The first problem was that this Necron Overlord had slept so long that the body itself had developed issues. Zhou Ye genuinely suspected this one might never wake up under its own power — the engrammic core had sustained serious damage.
And it wasn't just the Overlord. Running the network connections outward, the other Necrons here with any remaining consciousness were in much the same condition.
For Zhou Ye, this was actually good news.
He began applying his Authority to repair the Necron Overlord's engrammic core.
And while repairing it, he slipped a few additions in.
Things like: the God-Emperor. Loyalty. Glory to the Imperium of Man. I am a devoted servant of the God-Emperor. Defender of Aestia. Honor. And various other assorted entries along those lines.
Programming complete, he then used the Erosion Authority to broadcast all of it outward, using the Overlord as a hub, propagating the new data into the engrammic cores of every unit in the network.
As a very convenient bonus, he finished patching up all of their cores at the same time.
"Perfect timing — I've been struggling to absorb this Sacred Unguent myself. Might as well put it to use here."
Of course, that wasn't the end of it. Zhou Ye produced the Sacred Unguent he had previously lifted from the Ecclesiarchy.
Corruption was a gradual process — it didn't happen instantly. So when the Ecclesiarchy had first noticed something uncomfortable about it, they had simply put it in storage somewhere and forgotten about it. After all this time, they'd almost certainly forgotten it existed entirely.
And now it had landed in Zhou Ye's hands. A near-pure product of raw faith — which made it genuinely a bit awkward to absorb directly. So he opted to put it to use instead.
He flooded the entire sarcophagus chamber with Sacred Unguent, then used the Authority of the Herrscher of Finality to accelerate time, letting everything steep until it had fully soaked in.
"Activate!!!"
Then came the final step.
The slumbering Necron Overlord's eyes snapped open.
A great skeletal figure blazing bright enough to blind Zhou Ye rose up before him.
"FOR THE GOD-EMPEROR! FOR HUMANITY! FOR THE SECOND EMPIRE!!!"