The wars of the C’tan consumed the galaxy for ages beyond counting.
Their endless struggle for dominance shattered the fragile balance left behind after the collapse of the Old Ones.
Entire systems vanished into singularities birthed by enraged star gods while planets were reduced to drifting ash amidst stellar firestorms.
Nothing endured.
Cities spanning continents were built through the labor of millions of Necron constructs only to be annihilated moments later when rival C’tan clashed above them.
Suns dimmed and died beneath their hunger while black holes wandered freely through sectors once filled with life.
The galaxy itself became scar tissue.
And still the slaughter continued.
As the “red harvests” of souls and stellar energies grew increasingly scarce, the C’tan turned fully upon one another.
Star gods devoured star gods in their endless pursuit of supremacy until only a handful remained.
The survivors emerged unimaginably powerful.
And unimaginably unstable.
Mike observed this age carefully from the hidden domains of the Thokt Dynasty.
His traps neared completion.
Blackstone networks stretched silently across forgotten sectors while nanite-enhanced pylons evolved constantly through adaptive calculations.
Entire dead worlds had been transformed into concealed containment grids capable of distorting even C’tan-level energy signatures.
Yet despite his preparations, another threat emerged.
One neither the Necrons nor the C’tan fully anticipated.
Desperation.
The Old Ones had always embodied patience.
For millions of years they manipulated evolution, guided civilizations, and fought wars through strategy measured across epochs rather than decades.
But now they were losing.
Even their mastery of the Webway and the Warp could no longer halt the endless tide of Necron conquest and C’tan devastation.
And so they became desperate.
Mike first discovered evidence of their new strategy within recovered biological archives taken from shattered Old One sanctuaries.
Genetic engineering projects.
Psychic amplification programs.
Species cultivation matrices.
The Old Ones had begun creating new races specifically designed for war.
Entire civilizations engineered as living weapons.
“They are accelerating evolutionary pathways,” one cryptek reported as holographic projections filled the chamber.
“Selective psychic enhancement on a galactic scale.”
Mike studied the data silently.
The projections displayed rapidly evolving species scattered across multiple systems.
Primitive.
Young.
But dangerous.
Among them were the earliest ancestors of the Aeldari.
Others would later become known as the Krork, massive warlike beings engineered solely for brutal conflict.
There were countless more.
The Rashan.
The K’nib.
Dozens of experimental species cultivated across the stars.
The Old Ones were creating psychic armies.
And unlike the Necrons
These new races possessed souls.
Strong souls.
Souls deeply connected to the Warp itself.
Mike’s eyes narrowed slightly.
That changed everything.
Terran millennia passed.
The younger races spread rapidly across the galaxy, their civilizations growing amidst the ruins left behind by the War in Heaven.
Unlike the cold precision of the Necrons, these species wielded psychic abilities that twisted reality through emotion, instinct, and raw immaterial force.
Warp-spawned sorcery.
The Necrons called it primitive.
Then entire fleets began disappearing beneath psychic storms.
The younger races fought with terrifying unpredictability.
Reality bent around their strongest psykers while Warp-born energies tore through conventional physical laws.
And for the first time in millions of years
The C’tan suffered.
The star gods ruled the physical universe absolutely.
They possessed no souls.
No psychic presence.
Their existence existed entirely within material patterns of energy and electromagnetic structure.
The Warp rejected them.
Weapons fueled by psychic force bypassed their protections in ways conventional attacks never could.
Entire C’tan manifestations destabilized beneath concentrated immaterial assaults.
The empire of the star gods began to fracture.
Mike stood within a hidden observatory aboard one of his deepest command stations while projections of galactic battlefronts unfolded before him.
A C’tan shard writhed amidst collapsing energy fields as combined psychic attacks from Aeldari war-castes tore apart its physical manifestation.
Even across light years, the backlash distorted nearby stars.
One of the crypteks spoke cautiously.
“The younger races are succeeding where the Old Ones failed.”
Mike remained silent for several moments.
“Yes.”
The irony was almost elegant.
The Old Ones had created the very force that could ultimately destroy the C’tan.
And perhaps everything else as well.
Because Mike had also begun observing another development.
The Warp itself was changing.
At first the signs were subtle.
Localized turbulence.
Psychic echoes lingering longer than expected.
Unstable emotional resonance patterns spreading through the Immaterium.
But as the war intensified, the Warp became increasingly violent.
Every death.
Every act of hatred.
Every scream of agony across the galaxy echoed into the Sea of Souls.
And the War in Heaven had produced suffering beyond comprehension.
The Warp absorbed all of it.
Mike stood before an active dimensional observation chamber deep beneath a Blackstone research complex.
The chamber displayed a contained tear into the immaterium itself, stabilized through layered suppression fields.
Normally, Warp energy flowed chaotically but predictably.
Now it churned violently.
Storms of emotion and psychic resonance collided endlessly within its depths.
One cryptek monitoring the readings stiffened.
“My phaeron… the Warp patterns are evolving.”
Mike focused immediately.
Within the swirling energies, shapes moved.
Not fully formed.
Not entirely conscious.
But something was emerging.
The accumulated psychic trauma of the galaxy had begun changing the immaterium itself.
War.
Pain.
Hatred.
Despair.
All of it coalesced together.
The Warp no longer resembled a passive dimension.
It was becoming alive.
Mike watched carefully as ancient entities already existing within the immaterium transformed beneath the tidal wave of psychic violence flooding their realm.
Predators emerged.
Terrifying psychic organisms feeding upon souls and emotion alike.
The Realm of Chaos was being born.
The crypteks around him shifted uneasily.
Even Necron logic processors struggled to fully comprehend the scale of danger developing within the Warp.
One finally spoke.
“The younger races may destroy the C’tan… but they are also destabilizing reality itself.”
Mike nodded slowly.
The Old Ones had solved one problem only to create another infinitely worse.
But emotion-driven power lacked control.
The Warp reflected thought.
And the galaxy’s thoughts were filled with endless war and suffering.
Which meant the immaterium itself now reflected madness.
Mike looked again toward the contained Warp breach.
A distorted face briefly formed within the swirling energies before dissolving once more into screaming storms.
Interesting.
And dangerous.
Very dangerous.
Meanwhile, the surviving C’tan finally recognized the true scale of the threat against them.
For the first time in millions of years, the remaining star gods abandoned their internal wars and united once more.
Not out of loyalty.
Out of survival.
They devised a solution.
If the Warp threatened them, then the Warp itself must be contained.
Thus began the Great Warding.
Across countless systems, massive pylons of Blackstone were constructed under C’tan direction.
Entire worlds became dimensional stabilization networks designed to suppress the immaterium’s influence upon reality.
One such world would later become known as Cadia.
Its pylons formed only the earliest fragment of a far larger design.
The C’tan intended to sever the material universe from the Warp completely.
Had they succeeded, psychic power across the galaxy may have died forever.
And perhaps Chaos with it.
Mike studied the pylon networks carefully.
Unlike other Necron dynasties, the Thokt Dynasty already possessed enormous expertise with Blackstone due to his hidden projects.
Which meant Mike immediately understood the terrifying implications of the C’tan’s plan.
“They seek universal dimensional suppression,” he murmured.
One cryptek processed the calculations rapidly.
“If completed… the Warp’s influence upon reality would collapse.”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“But the younger races would not survive such a severance.”
Mike’s gaze remained fixed upon the projections.
“No.
They would not.”
Neither, perhaps, would the evolving entities within the Warp.
The C’tan had found an answer to Chaos before Chaos had even fully awakened.
But fate moved faster than gods anticipated.
Because the psychic races created by the Old Ones carried flaws within their emotional structures.
Their growing civilizations unleashed uncontrolled psychic resonance into an already destabilized Warp.
The immaterium reached critical instability.
And then
Something broke.
Warp storms erupted across the galaxy on an unprecedented scale.
Entire sectors vanished behind tides of screaming psychic energy while reality itself fractured beneath uncontrolled immaterial pressure.
The ancient Sea of Souls transformed completely.
Older Warp entities evolved into monstrous predators feeding upon emotion and suffering.
The Realm of Chaos was born amidst the death cries of civilizations.
And for the first time since the War in Heaven began
Even the C’tan hesitated.
Mike watched the expanding Warp storms from orbit above a dying system while blackened lightning split reality itself across the stars.
The galaxy had entered a new age.
An age not ruled solely by gods of matter or ancient empires.
But by madness itself.
And deep within his calculations, Mike understood one unavoidable truth.
The universe was becoming unstable faster than anyone could control.
Even him.
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