The bridge of the Obelisk was a cathedral of tense silence. Every officer, every servitor, every soul stood frozen, their attention fixed on the main holo-lith. It displayed a live feed from the forge-world of Ryza, millions of light-years away, showing the now fully-powered Phase-Resonant Array. At the same time, it showed the energy levels pouring in from the Silent Vigil, a river of pure, harmonized psychic power.
Lord Inquisitor Varrus stood with his hands clasped behind his back, a statue of ancient patience. Canoness Celestine, who had come aboard the Inquisitorial flagship to witness the "miracle," stood with her hand resting on the pommel of her power sword, her expression a mixture of pious awe and deep suspicion.
At the center of it all was Rimuru. He stood before the command lectern, his eyes closed, his hands resting on a crystalline control interface Ciel had designed. He was the conductor of this impossible orchestra, the nexus point where the science of a forge world and the souls of a Black Ship would be focused into a single, reality-defining act.
"All systems are optimal," he said, his voice calm and clear, echoing in the silent bridge. "The energy is stable. The destination coordinates for Anchor Point Alpha are locked." He took a breath. "Activating the array."
He did not shout or chant. He simply willed it.
On Ryza, the great crystalline heart of the array blazed with a light that outshone the planet's forges. Aboard the Silent Vigil, the psykers in their pods did not scream, but hummed a single, unified, peaceful note.
And in the void of space before the assembled fleet, reality began to tear.
It was not the violent, chaotic wound of a Warp jump. It was a clean, perfect, and silent incision. A point of silver light appeared, and then expanded outwards, not as an explosion, but as if the universe itself was calmly opening an eye. A perfect, circular aperture, hundreds of kilometers in diameter, formed before them.
It did not show a swirling vortex of color. It showed… nothing. A perfect, polished blackness that did not reflect the stars, but consumed them. It was a window into the absolute void between dimensions, a sight so profoundly alien and empty that it made the horrors of the Warp seem almost comforting.
"By the Throne…" Kael whispered, his knuckles white where he gripped his console.
"All ships," Varrus commanded, his voice never wavering. "On the Emissary's mark. Advance into the aperture in formation. The Emperor protects."
"The gate is stable," Rimuru announced, opening his eyes. "Proceed."
Led by the black, monolithic Obelisk and the silver-white, cathedral-like Divine Right, the fleet sailed forward. They did not plunge into a storm. They simply glided into the perfect blackness and vanished from realspace.
The transit was an experience of pure non-existence. For a moment that was both an eternity and an instant, there was no sound, no sight, no time, no self. It was a complete sensory and conceptual deprivation.
And then, with a sensation not of movement, but of arrival, they were back.
They emerged into a star system unlike any the Imperial crew had ever seen. There was no sun. The only light was a swirling, breathtaking accretion disk of incandescent gas and stellar dust, a cosmic whirlpool of blues, purples, and fiery oranges, all spiraling into a single point of perfect, terrifying blackness at the system's heart.
A rogue black hole. Anchor Point Alpha.
"Report!" Varrus's voice cracked like a whip.
"We have translated successfully, my Lord!" a stunned astrogation officer replied. "C-coordinates match the target. Distance traveled… one thousand, two hundred light-years. Time elapsed… nine seconds."
A gasp went through the bridge crew. A journey that would have taken the better part of a year through the treacherous currents of the Warp had been completed in the time it took to draw a breath.
Rimuru let out a quiet sigh of relief. The first step was a success. The theory worked. Hope, for the first time, felt like a solid, tangible thing.
But their arrival in this silent, dead corner of the galaxy had not gone unnoticed.
"My Lord!" a sensor-officer cried out, his voice sharp with panic. "I have a contact! It's… impossible!"
"Report, officer! Do not stammer!" Varrus snapped.
"The contact is emerging from the black hole's event horizon, my Lord," the officer said, his voice trembling with disbelief. "I repeat, something is coming out of the black hole."
Every head on the bridge snapped to the main viewscreen. They watched in stunned silence as, from the very edge of the sphere of absolute nothingness where the laws of physics ceased to exist, a shape began to emerge. It was long, crescent-shaped, and forged of a living, silvery metal that seemed to shift and flow. It moved with an unnatural, silent grace, utterly unaffected by the colossal gravitational forces that were tearing stars apart around it.
It was a ship, but it was like no ship they had ever seen. It was ancient, elegant, and utterly malevolent. It was a Necron Scythe-class Harvest Ship.
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On the bridge, the ship's vox-caster crackled to life, translating the broadcast. It was not a voice. It was a cold, synthesized, and utterly emotionless pronouncement, a declaration of law from a god of machines.
[UNAUTHORIZED DIMENSIONAL TRANSIT DETECTED IN SOVEREIGN NECRON TERRITORY. YOU HAVE VIOLATED THE SILENT KING'S LAW OF CAUSALITY. YOUR EXISTENCE IS AN UNLAWFUL PARADOX. PREPARE FOR SYSTEM-WIDE DELETION. THE TRIARCH WILL BE OBEYED.]