The galaxy drowned in war.
The birth of the Necrons had shattered the balance of power that had endured for millions of years.
No longer bound by disease, exhaustion, fear, or mortality, the undying legions marched across the stars beside the newly empowered C’tan like an unstoppable tide of annihilation.
And the galaxy burned in their wake.
Vast Tomb Ships emerged from dimensional corridors in numbers beyond counting.
Black pyramidal fleets eclipsed entire worlds while cold green light spread across planetary surfaces moments before extinction followed.
The Old Ones fought desperately.
Ancient and wise beyond mortal understanding, they wielded the power of the Warp with unmatched mastery.
Entire regions of space twisted beneath their psychic abilities while living weapons and genetically crafted warrior races flooded countless battlefronts.
But now they faced gods.
The C’tan had become beings of terrifying power after devouring the souls of the Necrontyr species.
Empowered beyond imagination, they bent the physical universe itself according to their will.
Stars collapsed.
Worlds shattered.
Entire systems vanished into singularities conjured by the wrath of star gods.
Where the Old Ones manipulated the immaterium, the C’tan dominated reality itself.
The war became a slaughter.
Mike stood silently upon the command platform of his flagship while an entire star system died before him.
Far beyond the viewing chamber, a massive sphere of burning stellar energy twisted unnaturally as one of the C’tan fed directly upon the system’s sun.
The star god’s true form stretched across impossible distances while gravitational distortions tore planets apart beneath its presence.
Around the dying system, thousands of Necron warships advanced methodically.
Cold.
Silent.
Unstoppable.
A cryptek standing nearby spoke without emotion.
“The Old Ones continue retreating toward the galactic core.”
Mike remained motionless.
“Expected.”
His mechanical voice echoed deeper now than it once had as a human.
Cold and perfectly controlled.
He no longer breathed.
No heartbeat interrupted his thoughts.
No exhaustion clouded his calculations.
And yet the emptiness inside him remained.
Sometimes he almost forgot it existed.
Other times, it consumed every silent moment.
Mike ignored it.
Emotion no longer held the same weight it once had.
Perhaps that was another consequence of biotransference.
Or perhaps he was adapting.
He watched another planet collapse beneath tidal distortions generated by the nearby C’tan.
The destruction no longer disturbed him as it once might have.
That realization unsettled him more than the war itself.
“The fleet awaits your command, my phaeron,” the cryptek stated.
Mike finally turned away from the dying system.
“Deploy the harvest constructs.
Strip all remaining infrastructure and recover technological assets before system collapse.”
“At once.”
The cryptek bowed before departing.
Mike continued to stand alone in the vast chamber, while green starlight reflected across the black necrodermis covering his body.
Unlike many dynasties, the Thokt Dynasty did not focus entirely upon conquest.
War mattered.
Victory mattered.
But Mike saw beyond the immediate conflict.
The C’tan were too powerful.
Too hungry.
Too dangerous.
Even now, while the Necron empire celebrated its immortality and expanding dominion, Mike prepared for the inevitable future.
Because eventually the star gods would become a threat greater than the Old Ones themselves.
And when that day arrived, he intended to survive it.
Across Thokt-controlled space, entire worlds transformed into colossal production complexes.
Planetary surfaces disappeared beneath endless machine-forges, quantum foundries, and dimensional laboratories.
Millions of Canoptek constructs moved in perfect synchronization while vast shipyards assembled fleets capable of extinguishing civilizations.
Weapons beyond comprehension emerged from the forge worlds daily.
Living metal warforms.
Stellar annihilation cannons.
Phase destabilizers.
Dimensional severance arrays.
And hidden beneath it all.
Mike’s true work continued.
Nanites.
The technology from his previous life had survived biotransference, along with fragments of his original consciousness.
At first, the microscopic machines had remained dormant within his necrodermis, slowly adapting to the impossible sciences surrounding them.
Now they evolve constantly.
Mike had integrated the nanites directly into the living metal structure of the Thokt Dynasty itself.
Every soldier.
Every construct.
Every ship.
Nanites spread silently throughout the dynasty like an invisible second nervous system.
The changes began subtly.
Improved regeneration.
Faster self-repair.
Adaptive combat processing.
Enhanced energy efficiency.
But over time, the nanites evolved beyond their original design.
They learned.
Adapted.
Improved independently.
Even Necron science struggled to predict their development now fully.
Mike stood within one of the hidden laboratories deep beneath the Thokt crownworld while streams of silver nanites floated around him like metallic mist.
Crypteks worked silently around massive containment structures holding fragments of captured stellar energy harvested from battlefields touched by the C’tan themselves.
A senior cryptek approached carefully.
“My phaeron,” he said, “the stabilization matrix has succeeded.”
Mike looked toward the center chamber.
There, suspended within layers of dimensional shielding, floated a fragment of shattered necrodermis once belonging to an avatar of a lesser C’tan manifestation destroyed during battle.
Even separated from its source, the fragment radiated terrifying power.
Reality warped faintly around it.
Mike stepped closer.
“Begin integration trials.”
The cryptek hesitated.
“My phaeron… exposure to C’tan energies remains highly unstable.”
Mike’s glowing eyes settled upon him.
“That is why we test.”
The cryptek bowed immediately.
“As you command.”
Mechanical arms descended toward the fragment while billions of nanites surged forward from containment chambers below.
The moment contact occurred, the laboratory trembled violently.
Green lightning erupted through the chamber as the fragment reacted aggressively, attempting to consume and overwrite the nanites instantly.
But the nanites adapted.
Evolved.
Changed.
Mike watched carefully as silver swarms reorganized themselves repeatedly against the fragment’s energy signature, slowly learning how to contain and redirect portions of its power.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
A faint smile crossed his metallic features.
The nanites could potentially interact directly with C’tan energy.
Not merely resist it.
Control it.
That possibility changed everything.
“Continue the trials,” Mike ordered calmly.
The crypteks exchanged uneasy glances.
“My phaeron… if the Silent King discovers these experiments.”
“He will not.”
Silence followed immediately.
Mike turned away from the chamber while calculations flowed endlessly through his enhanced consciousness.
The command protocols embedded within all Necrons still existed.
He could feel them constantly within the depths of his mind like invisible chains wrapped around his thoughts.
The Silent King controlled the entire species through those protocols.
And above even the Silent King stood the C’tan.
Gods ruling over enslaved people who did not yet understand their own enslavement.
Mike refused to accept that future.
He would obey for now.
Build.
Learn.
Prepare.
Then, when the time came
He would break the chains binding him.
Across the galaxy, the war continued worsening.
The Old Ones retreated system by system beneath relentless Necron assaults while the C’tan unleashed devastation beyond imagination.
One star god extinguished entire suns with a gesture.
Another consumed planetary populations directly, feeding upon electromagnetic life energies until nothing remained but empty husks.
Whole sectors vanished into black holes summoned by impossible manipulations of physical law.
The galaxy itself seemed to scream beneath the scale of destruction.
And through it all, only one emotion truly remained within the Necrons.
Hatred.
Ancient hatred carried over from their days as the dying Necrontyr.
Hatred toward the Old Ones.
Hatred toward living species.
Hatred toward the weakness of flesh itself.
Mike felt it too.
Though unlike the others, his hatred had direction.
The Old Ones were enemies.
The C’tan were future threats.
And the Silent King
The Silent King was temporary.
Standing alone within his laboratory, Mike extended his hand as billions of silver nanites flowed across his necrodermis fingers in endless motion.
The living metal beneath them shifted and evolved continuously.
Improving.
Adapting.
Ascending.
The Thokt Dynasty would become more than merely another Necron dynasty.
It would become something entirely new.
Something even gods would fear.