[The words from Chief Librarian Hyalhi plunge you into brief but intense contemplation. Your mind races through tactical calculations and grim probabilities.]
[You understand the predicament with absolute clarity. The mathematics of survival are brutally simple.]
[If you cannot quickly locate the Necron Overlord Heqiroth to complete the decapitation mission, or alternatively destroy the World Engine's shield generation devices to allow the joint fleet to finish what you've started, then as time inexorably passes, you will eventually be completely engulfed by an immeasurable tide of Necron warriors. They have infinite resurrection capacity. You do not.]
[You take a deep breath, filling your enhanced lungs completely, then release it slowly through clenched teeth.]
[Your gaze fixes on Chief Librarian Hyalhi's scarred face, reading the certainty there behind his psychic hood.]
["How do you intend to proceed?" you ask directly, no preamble or doubt coloring your tone.]
[Hyalhi turns to look at the Techmarine who has been following close beside him throughout this descent. The red-robed warrior's armor bears the hybrid iconography of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Astral Knights, servo-arms mounted on his backpack swaying with small adjustments.]
[As the Techmarine, wearing his distinctive helmet with its enhanced augmetic sensors, nods slightly in response to some unspoken question, one of the servo-arms on his power armor quickly rotates to face you. The mechanical limb extends with smooth precision, whirring softly.]
[Within the servo-arm's mechanical claw, held delicately despite the appendage's obvious crushing strength, rests a single Canoptek Scarab. The construct shows no desire whatsoever to attack or escape. Instead, it extends and retracts several of its metallic limbs in what might be interpreted as... eagerness.]
[At the position of its mandibles, a slender metal probe protrudes like a compass needle. The probe reflects a faint silver gleam under the corridor's dim lighting, and more importantly, it points unwavering toward the deeper sections of the metal corridor ahead. Always straight. Always certain.]
[You narrow your eyes slightly, studying the Canoptek Scarab with the wariness of someone who has spent too long fighting these constructs to trust them easily.]
[But you ultimately choose to trust your battle-brothers. To trust Chief Librarian Hyalhi's psychic intuition and the various judgments he's made throughout this campaign. He has never led you wrong before.]
[Having received your silent approval, communicated through a single sharp nod, Hyalhi moves to the front of the entire formation. His power staff, topped with psychically reactive crystals that pulse faintly blue, is gripped firmly in one hand. The Techmarine follows close beside him, the captured Scarab still held in the servo-arm like a guide animal.]
[They will lead the way forward into unknown darkness.]
[You and the other battle-brothers maintain formation behind them, xenos weapons held at the ready. Every warrior's attention is split between watching the Scarab's guidance and scanning constantly for threats. Gauss rifles track shadows. Hyperphase blades hum softly with contained energy. You guard against any potential Necron ambush with the paranoia of survivors.]
[Perhaps your determination is blessed by the Emperor's distant regard. Perhaps the mysterious power guiding the Scarab truly means you no harm. Or perhaps you're simply lucky for once in this cursed mission.]
[Soon after beginning your cautious advance, you successfully reach the location indicated by the Canoptek Scarab. The construct's probe has led you to a hidden area in the middle of a massive metal foundation, a chamber concealed behind seamless walls that the Techmarine had to cut through with his plasma cutter.]
[What you find within steals the breath from your lungs.]
[You immediately see a Necron mechanical device completely unlike anything in your memory or the Codex Xenologis. The construct defies easy description, its purpose unclear but its horror absolute.]
[The device is surrounded by countless metal pipes and cables that snake across the floor and walls like mechanical veins. They pulse faintly with energy, feeding something at the device's core. But the crucial components of this nightmarish mechanism are not crystals or power cells or any conventional technology.]
[They are human brains. Fresh ones. Moist and glistening. Still bleeding slightly at their severed connections.]
[Dozens of them are suspended in transparent containment fields, neural tissue kept horrifyingly alive through xenos science you cannot begin to comprehend. Their surfaces crawl with micro-filaments that burrow into the gray matter, presumably reading thoughts or memories or consciousness itself.]
[More Canoptek Scarabs gather beneath the mechanical device like diligent caretakers. They constantly tend to the machine's faint operation, their mandibles making minute adjustments to cables and feeds. They clean away biological waste. They monitor readings on displays you cannot read. They work with the focused attention of servitors maintaining sacred machinery.]
[You sense, rather than see, that every Astral Knight who witnesses this horrifying mechanical device subconsciously grows more wary of Chief Librarian Hyalhi. Hands tighten on weapons. Stances shift subtly defensive. Psykers traffic with things man was not meant to know, and this... this reeks of forbidden knowledge.]
[You immediately stride forward without hesitation, positioning yourself beside Hyalhi with your hyperphase sword held ready. A wordless statement: he has your trust and your protection.]
[You ask him about his next plan, voice low but carrying clearly in the chamber's oppressive quiet.]
[Chief Librarian Hyalhi does not attempt to hide anything from you. His psychic hood crackles faintly as he speaks, eyes distant.]
["I need to lower my psychic defenses completely," he explains with clinical precision. "Establish a direct connection with the mysterious power controlling these constructs. It's the only way to obtain information that might guide us to ultimate victory. To find what we need before we're overwhelmed."]
[His tone makes clear the risk involved. Lowering psychic defenses in enemy territory, with unknown forces present, is tantamount to opening your mind to possession or corruption. It's how daemonhosts are born.]
[You frown slightly, jaw muscles working as you consider the terrible calculus. Everything about this feels wrong. Dangerous. Possibly heretical.]
[But you have no other options left. The path forward requires desperate measures.]
[You ultimately nod agreement to his request, though the gesture feels like signing a death warrant.]
[However, just as Chief Librarian Hyalhi begins moving toward the terrifying mechanical device to make his attempt, another voice interrupts.]
[Brother Mohari, supported by the Chapter's Apothecary whose narthecium is still stained with the blood of fallen brothers, suddenly walks forward. His movements are labored, each step clearly painful. His armor is cracked across the torso, the damage severe enough that you can see the black carapace beneath.]
["My Lord Chapter Master. My Lord Hyalhi." Mohari's voice carries surprising strength despite his pale, bloodless face visible through his damaged helmet. "We cannot know what will happen next. This could very easily be a trap, another xenos trick to destroy our leadership."]
[He pauses, swaying slightly before the Apothecary steadies him.]
["Therefore, if a sacrifice is required for the Chapter to obtain this knowledge, then it is most valuable for me and the other heavily wounded battle-brothers to bear that burden. Our combat effectiveness is already compromised. Let us serve one final time."]
[The offer is delivered with such carefree acceptance of death that it hurts to hear. This is a warrior ready to die, eager even, wanting his end to mean something.]
["No." Chief Librarian Hyalhi's refusal is immediate and stern, his psychic presence flaring with emphasis. "The Chapter Master is always prepared to make difficult decisions, to spend the lives of battle-brothers for greater victory when necessary. But not now. Not like this."]
[His voice drops lower, more intimate.]
["I cannot stand by and watch other battle-brothers make sacrifices in my stead when this is my gift, my burden, to bear. The psychic arts are mine to wield and mine to suffer for."]
[At this moment, your gaze suddenly sweeps across all the Astral Knights present in the chamber. You see them clearly, perhaps for the first time since the crash: the deep cracks spider-webbing across their power armor, the numerous burn marks and scoring from Gauss weapons, the way they favor injured limbs. You see the faint fatigue hidden within their helmets' eye lenses, the slight tremor in hands that have been fighting without rest.]
[These are your brothers. Your responsibility. Your Chapter.]
[You take a deep breath, decision crystallizing with absolute certainty.]
[You turn quickly and stride toward the extremely horrifying mechanical device, each footfall heavy with purpose.]
["Wait! My Lord Chapter Master!" The urgent shouts from Mohari, Chief Librarian Hyalhi, and dozens of other battle-brothers immediately assault your ears. Hands reach out to physically stop you.]
[You speak without turning back, without breaking stride. Your voice carries absolute authority.]
["If this is indeed a trap, if this device destroys or corrupts whoever interfaces with it, then you can still complete the remaining objectives without a Chapter Master. The mission continues. But if I lose any of you, if I allow warriors more valuable than myself to take this risk..."]
[You pause at the device's edge, finally glancing back at them.]
["An Astral Knights with only a Chapter Master but without his Librarian, his Apothecary, his veterans, is useless for achieving final victory. I am expendable. You are not."]
[You ignore their protests, their tall figures trying desperately to push past each other to reach you and forcefully restrain you from this madness. You've already committed.]
[You arrive before the mechanical device, standing within arm's reach of those suspended human brains. Up close, you can see their surfaces twitching with microscopic movements. Dreaming, perhaps. Or screaming silently.]
[Countless Canoptek Scarabs surround your boots, and as if receiving a mysterious command transmitted through channels you cannot perceive, they do not attack. Instead they simply wriggle their metallic limbs in what might be... welcome? Anticipation?]
[Then an extremely slender metal probe suddenly extends from within the mechanical device's core. It emerges from between two brain-containers with smooth, purposeful motion. The sharp tip, needle-fine and gleaming with terrible precision, moves toward your face.]
[It stops mere centimeters from your right eye, hovering there. Waiting.]
[You immediately wave one hand sharply, a command that brooks no disobedience. You stop the battle-brothers who intend to rush forward and tear you away from this horror.]
["Stand fast! That is an order!" Your voice cuts through their protests like a blade.]
[You take one final deep breath, filling your lungs with recycled air that tastes of blood and machine oil.]
[With one eye held deliberately wide open, refusing to blink or look away, you press your face forward. You impale your own eye on the sharp tip of the metal probe.]
[Pain explodes through your skull like a supernova. You instinctively clench your teeth with such force that you hear enamel crack, but you refuse to make the slightest sound. You will not give this thing the satisfaction of hearing you scream.]
[But your tall body, massive and augmented as it is, still falls heavily to your knees. The impact of ceramite on metal rings across the chamber like a funeral bell.]
[Your consciousness feels as if it's been caught in a rapidly spinning blender, thoughts and memories fragmenting and recombining in patterns that make no sense. Sense of self begins dissolving at the edges.]
[Fragmented ancient images pour into the depths of your mind like acid through flesh. Information that was never meant for human consciousness, knowledge that burns as it transfers.]
[You seem to see a vast expanse of slowly writhing, colorful clouds. Or perhaps it's a massive spill of paint completely overturned across the ground, impossible colors bleeding into each other. Reality and unreality mixing without boundary.]
[Immediately after, your ears seem to hear roars and shouts from countless overlapping voices, all speaking different languages simultaneously. The cacophony is maddening. Your nostrils fill with intensely strong stenches and fragrances that shouldn't exist together: burning flesh and blooming flowers, ozone and rotting meat, incense and sulfur.]
[Your brain and sensory system are being completely scrambled by the massive amount of information the mechanical device is forcibly uploading. Neural pathways overload. Synapses fire randomly. You're drowning in data.]
[You cannot help but let a heart-wrenching roar erupt from your mouth, the sound animal and desperate. Blood pours from your nose, your ears. Your remaining eye weeps crimson tears.]
[At this moment, through your gradually blurring vision as consciousness threatens to flee entirely, a slowly clearing ancient face suddenly manifests.]
[It is a tall being, impossibly vast, seated upon a throne constructed entirely of living flame. The fire burns in colors that hurt to perceive: emerald and violet and shades that have no names in human tongues.]
[On its body, silver skin flows like liquid metal, constantly shifting and reforming. Terrifying multicolored flames flicker repeatedly across that surface, each one containing the death of stars.]
[The being possesses eight limbs, perhaps more. Your mind cannot count them properly as they phase in and out of your perception. Each hand-like appendage holds an ancient treasure, artifacts symbolizing desire and power and dominion over reality itself.]
[You see a broken scepter that once commanded galaxies. A sword with a shattered blade that cut through dimensions. A crumbling orb that contained the essence of suns. And there, clasped in one massive claw, the lower jaw of something that might once have been called a god. A C'tan, perhaps, devoured by its own kind.]
[You see more. The visions cascade faster now, overwhelming.]
[You witness the Necrontyr in their original forms, before the terrible bargain of biotransference was struck. These beings the ancient texts call the Fear-Dreaded Ones, their charred and broken skin testimony to their dying sun's radiation, are bowed low in worship. Countless millions of them prostrate themselves beneath the tall being's fiery throne.]
[They chant its great power in voices long silenced. They speak a name that was old when Terra was young, a name that makes your enhanced vocal cords vibrate in sympathetic resonance despite yourself.]
[You grit your teeth with superhuman effort. You force your jaw to work, your lungs to push air, your throat to form sounds that should not be spoken aloud.]
[The name tears from you in an incredibly difficult roar that echoes across dimensions:]
["World Shaper... Yggra'nya!!!"]
[The C'tan shard's ancient designation, spoken by mortal lips for perhaps the first time in millions of years, hangs in the air like a curse and a prayer combined.]