Chapter 610: Storm King: As a Junior College Graduate, I Don't Understand So Much Technology

Imotekh often lamented the chaos of fate and the disorder of all things,

The rising Necrontyr, in order to divert internal contradictions, launched a war against the Old Ones, yet ultimately brought themselves to the brink of extinction,

The Necrontyr Empire, on the verge of destruction, encountered the C'tan at the final moment and gained an opportunity for eternal immortality,

But the C'tan merely treated the Necrontyr as snacks; after devouring their souls, they injected their memories into cold machines to serve as their slaves,

And the Old Ones, who were once like gods, ultimately perished in the War in Heaven, falling beneath the C'tan and the endless legions of the Necrons,

Yet what became of the C'tan? They devoured and slaughtered one another, and finally, when weakened, were counter-killed by the Necrons, reduced to shards and prisoners.

But did the Necrons thereby obtain the unique position of galactic hegemony?

They did not; having endured cruel wars and destroyed those god-slaying weapons, the Necrons lacked even the strength to deal with the newly risen Eldar and could only fall into a long slumber.

And while the Eldar indeed perished over the long ages, the awakened Necrons did not regain their former status because of it; they had even further declined,

Imotekh still remembered waking up to see the various Sautekh Overlords slaughtering each other, fighting for the position of Phaeron, yet in the end, that position fell into his, Imotekh's, hands.

And just as Imotekh was filled with ambition, intending to reshape the Necrons, the Silent King suddenly returned.

Imotekh had recently read much of human history: the Golden Age, the Men of Iron Rebellion, the Great Crusade, the Horus Heresy, the Beast Arks, the Age of Apostasy—it was all equally chaotic and disorderly, with one faction exiting only for another to take the stage, ultimately leaving nothing but fragmentation.

Why was this so?

Imotekh believed it was because true order was lacking in this galaxy,

He resolved to become that order himself, letting his will and logic control the entire galaxy, utterly eradicating that chaos and disorder.

But he also knew that he was not the only one with such intentions,

Every race desired its own order, and every life possessed its own will,

These wills, these orders, were bound to collide,

Imotekh did not believe his own order was necessarily the best, for that would be illogical,

Yet he was determined to prove through war that his order was the best.

He sat enthroned within the Inevitable Conquest, peering at the cold stars, watching the points of light gradually appearing on the star chart,

Those were human forces; Imotekh's eyes flickered with specks of green light as he stared fixedly at that point of light,

Such a rapid marching speed!

This time, Imotekh had not concealed his route of march; he intended to leverage the Necrons' advantage of inertialess drives to launch a direct assault on the Volian-Vash system, forcing humanity to ponder how to withstand his fierce and swift offensive.

After all, since Volian-Vash bordered directly on the Silent King's domain, no matter how they deployed their forces, they could construct at most a single defensive line; to increase the thickness of that line, they would have to take the initiative and strike out to meet Imotekh's forces,

Thus, no matter how many prongs of attack humanity employed, Imotekh would meet them all with a single, full-force thrust.

More importantly, humanity could never completely encircle and kill Imotekh; as long as he wished, he could utilize the power of the inertialess drives at any moment to retreat directly back through the Gates of Necropolis.

But that point of light on the screen caused Imotekh's logic core to begin roaring into operation,

Too fast! Could human forces possibly be this fast?

The movement speed of this point of light had even surpassed that of inertialess drives; they appeared not to be navigating the material universe at all, but rather constantly executing high-speed teleportations of ten light-years each.

Damn it, how is this possible!!

Imotekh's logic core roared, calculating the energy required for such a mode of travel; it was simply an astronomical figure, technically speaking, utterly infeasible!!

Arbitrary Gates? Imotekh had seen data on this thing in intelligence reports,

His Tomb Technomancers had consistently maintained this was at most some form of Warp technology, but now it appeared to be some technology belonging entirely to the material universe,

This was a serious strategic misjudgment, though not yet to the extent of affecting the overall war situation.

"A bunch of useless trash," Imotekh said, his expression gloomy.

This was also one of Imotekh's shortcomings; most Phaerons and Overlords possessed considerable understanding of technology and science,

But Imotekh did not,

The Necrontyr were a race that placed extreme importance on social hierarchy, and during the Necrontyr era, Imotekh's background was only slightly better than that of a commoner; despite extreme effort, he had ultimately only managed to gain admission to the Sautek Command Vocational University,

That school was merely for training slave-soldier officers for the Sautekh Dynasty and had taught Imotekh no true knowledge,

If one spoke of academic credentials, Imotekh could not even compare to the fringes of that old madman Trazyn,

Trazyn was born into the elite noble class of the Necrons and had attended the most top-tier and famous military academy in the entire Necrontyr Empire.

Imotekh only displayed his talent on the battlefield, becoming General Dai Guan, and later, after the Great Awakening, seized power through a coup to become Phaeron,

Precisely because of this shortcoming, Imotekh had to rely on the judgments of his Tomb Technomancers regarding technical issues, yet those Tomb Technomancers were not necessarily reliable; Imotekh began to miss the Astromancer Orikan,

Before the return of the Silent King, Orikan had always served as the court astromancer of the Sautekh Dynasty.

After silently cursing the Silent King in his heart, Imotekh casually summoned the images transmitted by scouts hidden in the pocket dimension, wishing to see the true nature of that human force.

Imotekh saw a battle-worn flagship, upon which was depicted a weeping heart; although its surface had been repaired, traces of the cruel battles it had endured in the past were still visible, and behind this vessel were more than ten brand-new ships, following closely behind as they traversed the void.

The Storm King quickly cross-referenced the database and confirmed the identity of this human force,

The Astartes Chapter: the Lamenters,

Several decades ago, in order to protect human worlds lying in the path of the Kraken Hive Fleet's march, they launched several suicidal charges and were nearly annihilated,