The metallic skeletal hand gripping the Staff of the Stars tightened slightly; Sutton's tone carried a hint of dissatisfaction.
His explicit demand had been to banish those intruders and force them to leave his Tomb World. Yet, observing through the visual sensors of the various Canoptek Scarabs across the Tomb World, it was clear that the Void Dragon had not executed this task faithfully.
"Is this not your own error?"
Within the hyper-dimensional seal, the Void Dragon seemed entirely unconcerned, even retorting, "To have achieved this result while you so heavily restrict my great power is already a stroke of immense luck."
Hmph.
Sutton naturally dismissed the Void Dragon's excuse with disdain. Just moments ago, had he not restricted the energy output scale of the hyper-spatial prison, this damned C'tan would likely have gone even further, causing even greater destruction to the Tomb World.
Trazyn was also lost in thought. Through the shared control permissions Sutton had granted him over the Tomb World, he could clearly see the whereabouts of the humans.
The Void Dragon had not thrown them into a space-time vortex to banish them to some remote corner of the universe. Instead, it had shattered their formation and teleported the humans to various separate locations across the Tomb World.
There were indeed benefits to this; one couldn't say the Void Dragon was purely causing trouble. From the experience of an Overlord, humans who lose their organizational cohesion—though still capable of significant destruction—see their combat effectiveness drastically reduced, no longer posing the threat they once did.
The Necrons could now mobilize their forces, utilizing their home-field advantage to divide, surround, and annihilate the isolated humans one by one.
However, the problem was that these scattered humans could still inflict non-negligible damage on the Tomb World. As a museum curator who loved collecting historical artifacts and figures, Trazyn knew this all too well. It seemed Sutton was in for a massive "bloodletting" this time.
This was likely the Void Dragon's true objective. Even while imprisoned as a captive, it sought to spite its Necron jailers.
But...
Trazyn and Sutton simultaneously noticed something strange. A Canoptek Spyder's eight legs scurried as it moved quickly to the center of the room, projecting a pale green holographic display.
It was the entrance to the Tomb World. Amidst the carnage of the battlefield, two figures remained standing in their original positions, without having moved an inch.
They were Adam and Archmagos Cawl.
"Explain this. What is going on?" Sutton asked coldly.
For some reason, the habitually arrogant C'tan shard remained uncharacteristically silent. After a long pause, the voice vibrating with warped energy spoke again.
"...I do not know."
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
Sutton and Trazyn spoke in unison, their tones tinged with disbelief. Even for an Overlord and a Cryptek who understood C'tan shards deeply—and had once participated in the War in Heaven to slay gods—the Void Dragon's behavior was beyond puzzling; it was terrifying.
When did a god of the material universe, a C'tan, ever utter such words of weakness?
Unfortunately, no matter how much the two questioned it further—even using the Canoptek Sentinels hovering above the prison to pressure the shard—the Void Dragon maintained a silence that made even the Necrons feel a bit uneasy, refusing to speak again.
"Forget it."
After attempting for a while, Sutton was forced to give up. "Put aside what we cannot understand for now. We will deal with it later."
He looked at the Overlord and spoke. "The Tomb World has powerful built-in communication jamming. Those primitive human communication methods will no longer function. This is our best opportunity to defeat them one by one."
"Now, I need your intelligence. I am not familiar with the specifics of human units. I need you to help me identify the easier opponents so I can command my troops to annihilate them."
"That's simple, leave it to me!" Trazyn regained his confidence and agreed immediately.
At the entrance of the Tomb World.
After realizing the fact that the exploration team had been completely scattered, Adam quickly regained his composure. These were the Necrons, after all—masters of the pinnacle of materialist technology in the universe. Even the dogmatic Tech-Priests could pull "wonderful little gadgets" from the Dark Age of Technology out of their pockets; it was perfectly logical for the Necrons to utilize some technological relics.
Inside the psychic communication link:
Sybilla: "My current position is in a long corridor. Both walls are lined with stone sarcophagi used to store those xenos soldiers. I am destroying them one by one."
Leonardo: "Currently safe. I haven't encountered any danger yet. I am in a blackstone chamber and am starting to look for a way out."
Lucia, Yarrick, the First Prime, and other team members spoke up one by one, either reporting their current environments or describing their next plans of action. After cross-referencing their accounts, everyone discovered a strange fact.
No one in the exploration team had been teleported out of the Tomb World by the void; they had merely been scattered.
Was the master of this Tomb World really that confident? Did they want to defeat them in isolation? Well, that would depend on whether they had the skill to pull it off.
After thinking for a moment, Adam immediately began to give commands.
"Since the enemy has so graciously 'invited' our arrival, we have no need to be polite anymore..."
"Archmagos Cawl, First Prime—your priority is your own safety. Do not act rashly for now."
"Everyone else: immediately destroy everything you can see! Draw the Necrons' attention and make them fall into complete chaos!"
With the orders issued, the team began to act. The sounds of destruction, slaughter, and explosions immediately erupted across the Tomb World that had been silent for untold ages!
Exiting the psychic link, Adam turned his head to look at Archmagos Cawl standing beside him.
"Then, it's just the two of us acting together."
"It is my honor, my Lord." Archmagos Cawl nodded.
With a thought, a massive stream of data flowed through the pupils of the servo-skulls hovering beside him via anti-gravity. A scrapcode attack a hundred times more terrifying than before swept across the surroundings, instantly disabling the Canoptek Scarabs hidden in the shadows.
All surveillance from the enemy was completely wiped out.
Only then did Belisarius Cawl reach out and gently tap a servo-skull. The skull seemed to be warped by an invisible force, splitting from one into two, two into four, four into eight...
Finally, thirty-two different types of servo-skulls, like a swarm of bees, circled around the two of them. They were mounted with various weapons—Adam could recognize Volkite weapons, plasma weapons, Eradicator rays, phosphor weapons, and various cannons he couldn't name.
Several other servo-skulls, equipped with force-field shield generators, formed a very tight array around Adam, protecting him completely.
__________________
I wonder if Cawl was bumped to Emperor level threat by being a reality warper....