The long isolation beyond the galaxy finally came to an end.
For four centuries, the Thokt Dynasty had remained hidden within the darkness beyond the Milky Way while its technologies evolved beyond anything the ancient Necrons had once imagined.
But Mike had never forgotten his original universe.
Nor the dangers waiting within it.
And so
The dynasty returned to Warhammer 40,000.
Reality fractured silently above the galactic edge as colossal fleets emerged from dimensional corridors one after another.
Cybertron appeared first.
The transformed planetary battleship dwarfed nearby celestial bodies while green glyphs burned across its armored shell like the markings of an ancient machine god.
Behind it came thousands of hybrid warships forged from:
Necron necrodermis
Forerunner hard-light systems
Cybertronian transformium
Dark Age technology
Slipspace engines
The galaxy before them had changed greatly.
The glorious era of humanity’s Dark Age of Technology had vanished into history.
Its vast interstellar civilization shattered.
Its wonders lost.
Its knowledge fragmented.
Mike observed countless data streams flowing before him as the dynasty scanned the state of the galaxy.
The Age of Strife had begun.
Warp storms consumed enormous regions of space while isolated human worlds descended into barbarism, mutation, and endless war.
Humanity had survived the rebellion of the Men of Iron.
But only barely.
And in victory
They had crippled themselves.
The technologies Mike had once admired during his observations of the Dark Age were now mostly gone.
Destroyed.
Forgotten.
Buried beneath fear and superstition.
Humanity had survived.
Yet regressed.
Mike watched silently from his command chamber.
“A predictable outcome,” Catherine Halsey stated calmly beside him.
“Fear always follows catastrophe.”
Mike nodded slightly.
“They destroyed their own future to preserve their present.”
The irony amused him faintly.
Humanity had feared artificial intelligence so deeply that they willingly abandoned scientific progress itself.
And now
Mars had fallen into fanaticism.
Tech-priests wandered the red planet chanting prayers over failing machines they barely understood while ancient factories continued operating through rote ritual rather than true comprehension.
To Mike, the sight was deeply offensive.
Machines should be mastered.
Not worshipped.
Yet hidden beneath the surface of Mars rested something far more important than the Mechanicum itself.
A god.
Mag’ladroth.
The Void Dragon.
One of the last remaining fully intact C’tan.
And perhaps the most dangerous of them all.
Unlike the shattered fragments bound by the Necrons during the War in Heaven, the Void Dragon remained largely whole imprisoned beneath Mars itself by another being of terrifying power.
The Emperor of Mankind.
Mike intended to remove that variable entirely.
The dynasty arrived silently within the Sol System.
No alarms triggered.
No human sensors detected the intrusion.
Slipspace technologies combined with Necron stealth systems allowed the fleets to bypass primitive human detection completely.
Mike descended alone toward Mars.
The surface storms howled beneath him while immense forge-cities glowed faintly across the planet’s surface.
Deep below
He felt it.
The sleeping presence of the Void Dragon.
Ancient.
Vast.
Hungry.
Mike entered the underground labyrinths beneath Mars without resistance.
Ancient tunnels stretched endlessly through the crust while forgotten Necron glyphs remained hidden beneath layers of human construction.
The Emperor had imprisoned the C’tan well.
But not well enough.
Mike eventually reached the deepest chamber.
There, sealed beneath impossible wards and ancient machinery, rested the dormant form of the Void Dragon shard.
Even weakened and restrained, its presence distorted reality around it.
Green lightning crawled across the chamber walls while raw power leaked endlessly from the imprisoned star god.
Mike studied it carefully.
“So this is where he left you.”
The C’tan stirred faintly.
It recognized him.
Recognized Necron technology.
Recognized betrayal.
Mike extended one hand calmly.
Then activated a portable dimensional vault.
Reality folded inward instantly.
The chamber distorted violently as vast containment systems emerged from compressed space itself.
Blackstone pylons activated simultaneously while C’tan suppression fields wrapped around the Void Dragon. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
The imprisoned entity reacted immediately.
The planet trembled.
Mars itself groaned beneath the pressure.
But before the Void Dragon could fully awaken—
The dimensional vault closed around it completely.
Silence followed.
The Void Dragon had vanished.
Taken.
Then Mike felt it.
Pressure.
Immense and ancient.
A psychic presence so powerful it seemed to observe reality itself directly.
Mike slowly turned his head upward toward the surface of Mars.
Toward Terra.
Toward Him.
The Emperor of Mankind was watching.
Even across the void between planets, Mike could feel the sheer scale of the being’s consciousness pressing against reality.
Golden.
Cold.
Unyielding.
For several moments, neither moved.
Two ancient powers observing one another silently across space.
The Emperor undoubtedly understood what had just occurred.
Understood exactly what Mike had taken.
And likely understood far more about Mike himself than should have been possible.
Yet no attack came.
No Custodians descended.
No psychic assault manifested.
Only observation.
Mike’s burning green optics narrowed slightly.
Interesting.
The Emperor considered this a favor.
Removing the Void Dragon from Mars eliminated a future threat to humanity’s development.
And perhaps
The Emperor understood that direct conflict at this moment would benefit neither of them.
Mike gave no acknowledgment.
No greeting.
No challenge.
He simply turned away.
Then vanished into dimensional space.
Leaving Mars behind.
Leaving humanity behind.
And taking a god with him.