Aedan Volear woke up inside a coffin.
Well—technically it was a massive Adeptus Mechanicus–grade armored shipping container, the kind used to transport resources, like tanks, Titan parts, or particularly stubborn bureaucrats. But right now, with him groggy and slumped on a pile of sacred rations and grenades, it definitely felt like a coffin.
He blinked rapidly.
The white walls were gone. Uzemial was gone. His last memory was light exploding through his body like a holy concussion grenade… and then the cold bite of metal beneath his palms, the muffled echo of sand pelting against steel walls, and somewhere far beyond that—the groaning hush of a desert wind sweeping across an ancient, dead land.
He rolled his shoulders, letting the weight of his master-crafted carapace armor settle into place. Servo-quietened plating whispered with holy seals, stealth-runes, and layered protections against warp-taint. His fingers tightened around the grip of his force sword—the glorious, magnificent, unapologetically egotistical weapon he had named The Doom of Any Who Stand In My Way.
The blade hummed the moment his fingers wrapped around it, a low, resonant thrum that vibrated through the bones of the container. Even inactive, it carried a predatory eagerness—like a hound trembling at the leash. The psychic foci-material of its core swelled with warp power, ready to rend reality and anyone foolish enough to stand before him. He loved saying the weapon's name aloud. He refrained at the moment... for now.
Aedan exhaled, activating the ripple of spatial magic that pulsed beneath his skin like a low hum—his personal dimensional storage, a pocket-space not of the Materium nor the Warp, anchored only to him. He siphoned crates, weapon racks, ammunition boxes, books, armor, and gear into the dimension with the ease of someone flicking dust off a sleeve. The shipping container emptied in seconds.
He inhaled the climate-controlled air inside the crate—cool, crisp, perfectly regulated by the Mechanicus to preserve holy cargo—before manually unlocking the hatch, a safety feature most of these containers didn't have. At least one good thing had happened today.
He pushed the container doors open...
~High Monarch Nekhepra-Sutekh POV~
For three long days and nights, the desert skies had whispered. A star had bled across the heavens first a spark, then a streak, then a burning, roaring gash of light splitting the firmament. Priests spoke of omens. Augur-lorekeepers chanted of portents. Charioteer captains sharpened their gilded blades, muttering of wars yet to come.
High Monarch Nekhepra-Sutekh listened to them all, unmoving—the eternal stillness of death fused with the absolute patience of rulership. His army stretched around him in flawless ranks: skeleton spearmen with shields lacquered in gold; archers standing like bleached pillars; towering constructs carved from sandstone and ancient rage; chariots drawn by skeletal steeds whose hooves disturbed no dust.
All faced the source of the omen. The star had fallen.
No—been thrown from the heavens.
It carved the sky, crashing deep into Nekhepra's domain with a scream of fire that rattled bones and shook monoliths half-buried beneath centuries of dust.
Now, before him, lay the fallen object.
A colossal iron box—unnaturally smooth.
Etched with a circular image with strange flat shaped points around the circular marks.
Adorned with embers of pious candles and stranger seals.
The Hieroglyphs were of concerning straight lines and little circles.
A prayer had touched this metal star.
For the maker's mark read Forge World Moirae.
A thing not of this world. That was all the supreme Lich could ponder.
Priests muttered in uneasy awe.
"An omen," said High Lector Tarakh. "A sign from the long-dead gods… or from Nagash's hateful shade."
"The stars themselves deliver warnings," rasped another. "This is a relic fallen from divine hands. Perhaps an ark of rebirth. Or a prison."
Nekhepra said nothing. His empty eye sockets glowed with cold arcane fire. Memory stirred within his ancient mind. Once, in life, he had commanded armies against impossible threats. Once, in life, he had faced beings not meant for mortal or immortal comprehension.
This… felt like that.
A hush swept the army.
The metal box shifted.
Ancient warriors tightened grips on weapons. Archers angled their arrows. Ushabti constructs rumbled with awakening fury. Even the High Monarch straightened, expecting perhaps a demon of midnight shadow—an automaton of cursed magic—or some grotesque remnant of the Usurper's work.
The door creaked.
Light spilled out.
And a figure stepped from the star-fallen coffin.
The creature…a human, with flesh intact, and lungs that breathed.
It carried a blade of impossible make—shifting with power Nekhepra could neither name nor categorize. Its armor shone with an alien alloy. Runes flickered across its form—wards, enchantments, sigils of a craft unknown even in the greatest ages of men.
It looked at the desert with confusion.
It looked at Nekhepra's army with mild inconvenience.
It waved.
Waved.
Then the mortal turned back to the metal sarcophagus, pressed a hand onto its surface—and before the High Monarch could comprehend what was happening, the sacred object vanished entirely. Banished to some realm beyond his reach.
Nekhepra felt an emotion he had not known in millennia:
Offense.
"What mockery is this?" hissed a priest.
"A witch," rasped another. "A sorcerer. A child of Nagash!"
Whispers became wildfire:
"Spawn of Nagash…"
"Witch…"
"Defilement…"
"Abomination…"
Constructs snarled. Archers raised their bows in unison.
The omen was clear now.
This was no gift.
No blessing.
This was a threat.
A being fallen from the sky.
A sorcerer of impossible origin.
A herald of ruin.
Nekhepra lifted his gilded khopesh—
And with a silent, unified roar, the undead Tomb King army charged.
..... Fifteen Minutes Later
The desert wind was quiet again.
Very quiet.
The kind of quiet that follows something so violent no witnesses remain capable of complaining about it.
Aedan hovered above the sand, wings of radiant, angelic light unfurled behind him, all thanks to the marvels of biomancy with no limit but the imagination. Each beat of those magnificent wings pushed Aedan farther from the smoking crater below.
Where the Tomb King army used to be.
He coughed.
Hard.
Something skittered out of his throat.
"Not again—"
He gagged, leaned forward mid-air, and hacked out a single wriggling scarab. It hit the sand and sizzled, disintegrating in the residue of warp-energy.
He wiped his mouth on his gauntlet.
"Oh," he muttered. "Tomb Kings territory. Perfect. Just perfect. Had to land here instead of Macragge. Emperor-blessed terminal, not labeling the Emperor damned options…"
Aedan sighed. He looked at his hand. Skin blackened and peeling—necrotic rot from cursed blades. His left eye milky and blind. His side aching where a spear had pierced him with undead precision.
He hovered over the crater of what had once been a grand host—one whose High Monarch had realized he made a terrible mistake roughly one minute into combat.
Aedan flexed his hand.
Biomantic currents surged—tissue rewove, corruption cleared, flesh regenerated, vision restored. His skin smoothed. His muscles knit. His eye cleared. If anything he looked slightly younger and stronger as his biology reversed itself.
Moments later, he felt—and looked—perfect again.
"Well," he murmured. "At least I'm getting cardio in."
He beat his wings harder, rising higher, drifting away from the crater still smoking with unnatural psychic energies.
The desert stretched endlessly—sun-bleached and silent. Far beyond the dunes lay a glimmering line: a coastline.
"North it is," Aedan said, angling into the wind. "Preferably with fewer undead monarchs calling me an abomination."
He flew on.
And the desert quietly swallowed the last traces of an army that had mistaken a shipping crate for a sign from the gods.