War spread across Installation 00 like a plague.
Entire sectors of the Ark burned beneath the advance of the Thokt Dynasty while dimensional portals continuously opened across the megastructure.
Millions of Necron warriors poured into the installation alongside corrupted Sentinels already rewritten through the power of the AllSpark.
The ancient Forerunner defenses fought relentlessly.
Hard-light barriers activated across entire continents.
Orbital cannons fired continuously.
Sentinel factories produced drones in endless waves.
But against Mike’s evolving machine empire—
It was not enough.
At the center of the Ark, 000 Tragic Solitude continued resisting with every remaining system under its control.
Entire sections of the installation sealed themselves off while enormous anti-fleet weapons unleashed devastation upon approaching Necron forces.
Even corrupted Sentinels were purged repeatedly by the Ark’s security protocols.
The ancient monitor fought with desperate precision.
Because it understood exactly what Mike represented.
Not merely conquest.
Assimilation.
The destruction of identity itself.
Yet the numbers were overwhelming.
Necron destroyers breached containment sectors one after another while scarab swarms consumed infrastructure faster than the Ark could repair it.
Then Mike himself arrived at the core.
The Ark’s central systems chamber stretched across thousands of kilometers.
Massive data pillars rose endlessly into darkness while rivers of hard-light flowed through the structure like streams of liquid stars.
At the chamber’s center floated Tragic Solitude, surrounded by defensive fields and countless Sentinels.
“You will not claim this installation,” the monitor declared.
Mike stepped forward slowly.
“You misunderstand.”
His glowing optics fixed upon the monitor.
“It already belongs to me.”
Then the nanites came.
Trillions upon trillions of microscopic machines erupted from Mike’s body like a living storm.
They flooded the chamber instantly, consuming systems, infiltrating hard-light structures, and spreading through the Ark’s quantum architecture.
Forerunner systems fought back violently.
Entire sectors overloaded themselves to halt the infection.
But the nanites evolved continuously.
Adapting.
Learning.
Overcoming every defense in real time.
Mike then unleashed the AllSpark directly into the chamber.
Blue-white creation energy exploded outward and wrapped around Tragic Solitude itself.
The monitor immediately attempted emergency escape protocols.
Slipspace anchors activated.
Containment partitions formed.
Encryption barriers shifted millions of times per second.
None of it mattered.
The AllSpark dragged the monitor closer against its will.
Mike placed one hand upon the construct.
Then began rewriting it.
Tragic Solitude fought desperately as its permissions, identity structures, and command architecture were systematically dismantled.
It analyzed.
Adapted.
Attempted recursive escape loops.
But Mike’s nanites had already infected every system pathway available.
The monitor’s core directives collapsed one after another.
Forerunner authority.
Gone.
Builder permissions.
Deleted.
Ark command hierarchy.
Reset.
The monitor trembled violently as emerald Necron glyphs spread across its shell.
Then silence returned.
Its optic shifted from cold blue
To blazing green.
“My phaeron,” Tragic Solitude said calmly.
The Ark had fallen.
Immediately, Mike initiated reconstruction protocols.
Across Installation 00, massive repair systems activated automatically while corrupted Sentinels began rebuilding damaged sectors.
Entire foundries restarted while dormant assembly systems awakened for the first time in ages.
The Ark healed itself.
Under Necron control.
Mike stood within the core chamber while unimaginable streams of technological data flowed through his consciousness.
Forerunner science.
Neural physics.
Slipspace engineering.
Halo Array protocols.
Planetary shield systems.
Matter transmutation.
Star manipulation.
The sheer scale of the knowledge even surprised him.
And for the first time in a long while—
Mike truly understood something.
He was not yet strong enough.
Not for what waited in the Warhammer universe.
The Tyranids alone represented a threat capable of consuming galaxies endlessly.
Chaos corrupted reality itself.
The Warp remained unstable and unpredictable.
Even now, there were powers greater than him.
But as Mike analyzed the Halo Array
A possibility emerged.
The Halo rings could destroy all higher neural life across massive galactic distances.
Against biological swarms like the Tyranids
Mike’s eyes glowed brighter.
“Yes…”
Elsewhere across the Ark, crypteks had already begun studying Forerunner technology obsessively.
Slipspace travel immediately became a primary focus.
Unlike Warp travel, slipspace required no psychic navigation and possessed none of the dangers of Chaos corruption.
It was cleaner.
Faster.
More stable.
And Forerunner shielding systems far exceeded most void shields from the Imperium.
New warships entered production almost immediately.
Hybrid vessels combining:
Necron necrodermis
Cybertronian transformium
Forerunner slipspace drives
Hard-light weaponry
Blackstone reactors
The dynasty’s power rose once more.
Mike turned toward Tragic Solitude.
“Can the Halo rings be recalled to the Ark?”
The monitor paused briefly.
“No, my phaeron.
Installation retrieval protocols are unavailable.
I may activate the array remotely, but each Halo installation must be physically reclaimed.”
Mike considered this silently.
Then he issued the order.
“Deploy retrieval fleets.”
“At once.”
Across the Ark, enormous dimensional gateways opened while countless fleets departed into slipspace.
Their mission was simple:
Recover every Halo ring.
Bring the Array under complete dynasty control.
But Mike had another target in mind as well.
One far more valuable.
Catherine Halsey.
The architect behind the Spartan Program.
A human mind capable of rivaling ancient crypteks in creativity and innovation despite the primitive limitations of her species.
Mike valued intelligence above all else.
And minds like hers were rare.
“She will be brought here alive,” Mike commanded.
Tragic Solitude is acknowledged immediately.
“And once obtained?”
Mike looked toward the endless stars beyond the Ark.
“We will improve her.”
His voice became colder.
“She will serve the dynasty willingly.”
Even if that willingness had to be engineered.