"Warning. Error. Warp energy guidance array projection failed."
"Retrying."
"Data analysis complete. Target location is obscured by an anomalous suppression field."
"Output drawing at 150%."
"Failed."
"Deploying supplementary guidance arrays."
"Quantum construction complete."
"Total power multiplied by eleven and a half. Secondary enhancement complete. Output raised to 221%."
"Guidance vector established. Warp teleportation initiated."
A cascade of monotone synthesized warnings reverberated through the iron frame of the Void Sword.
Down upon the surface of the blighted world, a colossal, blinding pillar of emerald-light suddenly punched through the choking atmosphere, spearheading straight into the void. Violent arcs of discharging energy swept across half the planet's orbital plane.
The Aeldari warships caught in the upper atmosphere, locked in a desperate duel with the Necron pylons below, were caught utterly defenseless by the erupting backwash. Half their flotilla was instantaneously detonated, turning into expanding spheres of fire in the dark.
On the ash-choked battlefield below, the monolithic blackstone complex anchored at the rear of the Necron line began to shear and buckle. Emerald light flickered frantically across its geometric precipices before snapping out entirely. The resulting kinetic shockwave rippled outward, violently overturning several Doomsday Arks that had been methodically reaping the Aeldari ranks.
Upon a vast, cracked plaza closer to the collapsing blackstone structure, a crowned Necron Lord slowly turned his head. His ancient oculars burned with a volatile mixture of cold fury and calculation as he looked back at his overloaded monolith.
The moment the explosion tore through the rear lines, two Lychguard slammed their dispersion shields together behind their master, absorbing the worst of the concussive force.
"Command the Crypteks to immediately restore the blackstone pylons!" the Lord hissed, his voice a grating metallic rasp. "Furthermore, command them to unleash the Monoliths and Obelisks. We require reinforcements. Though I must grant these Warp-born parasites credit for inadvertently breaking my stasis, they shall bleed for their insolence!"
"My Lord, our remaining Crypteks are severely depleted," a Lychguard answered, shifting his heavy shield as he appraised the unfolding carnage. "They cannot oversee multiple protocols concurrently. Many of our kin have suffered severe data-corruption during the long sleep. They do not respond to command-phrases. They have devolved into little more than... mindless, bloodthirsty butchers."
The crowned Lord struck his staff, fashioned in the likeness of a solar spear, heavily against the stone tiles. Beneath his heel lay the etched glyph of a forgotten dynasty, carved in sharp, geometric lines.
"How long did we slumber within that pocket-dimension? I cannot even recall the true name of our dynasty. A thousand titles echo through my engrams, yet none match our standard."
The two Lychguard exchanged a silent, grim look, their blank visages turning away.
The bio-transference of the Necrontyr had been a curse from its inception, and the endless aeons of stasis had only magnified the decay of their minds. Countless lesser dynasties had simply rotted away in their tombs, never to rise. And though this vanguard had been awakened, their memories were a fragmented maze of glitching data, while many of their lesser constructs had succumbed to pure, red madness.
"No matter. It is irrelevant," the Lord spat. "Have the Crypteks awaken the Canoptek constructs. All life must be brought to its conclusion. All things must submit to the harvest."
Zzt-fazz!
A violent sphere of displaced light imploded nearby. Two Heavy Lokhust Destroyers were instantaneously swallowed by the localized tear, vanishing from existence. The lingering stench of ozone and the warping weight of the Immaterium made the Necron Lord's systems flare with disgust.
"Vermin!" he snarled, the bionic modulation of his voice crackling with ancient malice.
Across the blood-soaked valley, a sudden spark of renewed hope flared within the beleaguered Aeldari ranks.
"Lady Yvraine! The Necrons' anti-psychic null-field has collapsed! The Warp Hunters are operational once more!"
The melodic accents of the ancient Aeldari tongue cut through the roar of gauss fire. Yvraine, her armor blackened by ash as she vaulted over a pile of wraithbone debris, ducked beneath a stray particle beam and shouted back, "Assess the webway portal arrays! We must secure an exit for immediate extraction!"
"Protect the Warp Hunters at all costs!"
"By your command!"
Yet, before the xenos could reposition, a massive surge of displacement energy engulfed the entire valley.
Monstrous arcs of pale light fractured the air, and within the shimmering veil, hundreds of sleek, silver-white silhouettes coalesced. Their polished, unblemished alloy stood in stark, blinding contrast against the corroded, deathly grey-black living metal of the Necrons.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The sounds of heavy impact shook the valley as a vanguard of Armored Wardens, blades humming with particle-vibrations, crashed headlong into the rampaging Skorpekh Destroyers. Colossal hyperphase blades clashed against energy shields, the raw weight of the automatons driving the Necrons back.
With ruthless precision, the auxiliary appendages of the Wardens thrust forward, their long blades severing the Necron torsos cleanly from their heavy tripod sleds. The crawling, bisected remnants were ground to scrap beneath the six-legged chassis of the machines.
The ranged variants of the Armored Wardens used their versatile, insectoid limbs to scale the hulls of burning Aeldari tanks, securing high ground. From their shoulders, twin-mounted Magaron-pattern atomic pulse cannons whined to life before unleashing a devastating barrage.
The searing sub-atomic beams struck with terrifying precision, detonating two Doomsday Arks and vaporizing over a dozen Heavy Lokhust Destroyers in quick succession.
These ancient relic-weapons, treated as ultimate arbiters of destruction by the Dark Angels of the modern Imperium, had been standard-issue ordnance in the golden age of mankind. Only the most adaptable, universal designs had survived long enough to be hoarded as holy relics by the Adeptus Mechanicus; to these machines, they were merely efficient tools.
The mechanical host embedded itself seamlessly into the front lines, turning the two-way slaughter into a three-sided meat grinder.
The sudden arrival of this third faction caused the Aeldari to hesitate for a fraction of a heartbeat. However, the warriors of the Ynnari were the first to recognize these silver constructs as the promised reinforcements. They immediately gestured to their Craftworld kin, screaming over to hold their fire.
Several of these Ynnari veterans had survived the brutal campaigns within the Pariah Nexus; they knew the terrifying silhouette of an Erratana-class Armored Warden all too well.
Yvraine had told them she had invoked an ancient pact to summon the aid of the Men of Iron, begging them to hold the line. They had trusted her words, even as their lines fractured and despair took hold. In the darkest moments of the battle, when no help arrived, even Yvraine had begun to fear that the Harlequins had played some cruel, fatal jest upon her.
But now, she could finally breathe.
In terms of baseline line-infantry, the Sentry-Troopers was vastly superior to the mindless Necron Warriors. Though both forces boasted numbers that approached infinity, the disparity lay in their execution.
While the iron legion's standard weapons lacked the molecularly disruptive traits of gauss flayers, their programming possessed an adaptive tactical awareness that the reanimated husks of the Necrons completely lacked.
Moving with an agility that rivaled the Eldar Aspect Warriors, protected by dense alloy hulls and localized kinetic deflector fields, the automated infantry were terrifyingly resilient. A single Sentry-Trooper could absorb up to three direct strikes from a gauss flayer before its chassis suffered catastrophic failure.
And while their neutron-beam weaponry was less effective against non-biological targets, successive, hyper-precise shots were more than capable of melting through the Necrons' living metal carapaces.
Once the lines crossed and the fighting turned into a bloody melee, the tumbling, parrying, and calculating Sentry-Troopers hacked through the rigid, marching ranks of the Necrons, whose programming left them capable of little more than heavy steps and clumsy thrusts of their phase-bayonets.