To ensure the efficacy of the strike, the logic of the Iron Men was far more cold-blooded than that of the Imperium.
Though a portion of the mechanical fleet had maneuvered away from the Oblivion Cannon's projected path, a significant number of vessels remained within the strike zone. Entangled within that same kill-box were even greater numbers of Necron ships. This "kill one thousand to lose eight hundred" doctrine was a level of strategic nihilism that even the Necrons had seldom encountered.
Aside from the Dark Angels, few within the Imperium would dare utilize their own comrades as chaff or live bait. In any other fleet, such an act would incite immediate mutiny. The Dark Angels, however, were cut from a different cloth; they would carry out such a maneuver and then simply list their "allies" as combat losses in the after-action reports. Their secrets would remain guarded, and every sacrifice would be commended in solemn silence.
As the beams arrived, a colossal void opened in the heart of the swirling melee.
Dozens of Strike Cruisers, several Battle Barges, and a command flagship, along with hundreds of thousands of Heavy Combat Drones, were vaporized instantly. Caught in the same localized apocalypse were nearly double that number of Necron vessels, erased from existence in a flash of absolute light.
The beams, their energy far from spent, punched directly into the Necron rear-guard. After annihilating more than ten Scythe Harvesters and two Dirge-class melta-cutters, the lances of light struck the Cairn-class Tomb Ship at the formation's heart.
The volatile energy lashed against the Tomb Ship's phase shields, flickering with violent intensity until the discharge finally dissipated. As the blinding glare faded, the Dark Angels watching from the periphery bore witness to a chilling sight.
The great black pyramid atop the Tomb Ship had unfurled, revealing a singular, alien power source. It was a C'tan Shard, a gargantuan, humanoid manifestation of fundamental energy, bound within a containment lattice and howling in eternal, silent fury.
Infinite power was siphoned from the Shard, flooding the Tomb Ship's phase-shield generators. Even though the four beams had been weakened by the destruction of the intervening screen, their residual power remained god-like, yet the Necron flagship stood defiant.
Aboard the Invincible Reason, Lion El'Jonson narrowed his eyes, warily gauging the Necron flagship. A thousand thoughts swirled in his mind; ten millennia of slumber had left him unable to comprehend how so many terrifying xenos threats now infested the Imperium. He found himself silently questioning what, in the Emperor's name, Roboute Guilliman had been doing during his absence.
The strike from the Heart of the Forge had thoroughly incensed Nemesor Zahndrekh. While the other Necron commanders correctly identified the attack as an organized long-range bombardment, Zahndrekh's fractured mind perceived a new player on the board, one even more craven than the mechanical fleet currently engaged.
In his eyes, this "new enemy" had cowardly attacked both sides while they were locked in "honorable" combat.
Enraged, Zahndrekh ordered his flagship to break formation and move toward the origin of the strike. He intended to personally punish the interloper who had dared disrupt his war.
While the other Necron lords did not share his delusion of a third party, the sheer potency of the enemy weapon was undeniable. Since a Cairn-class Tomb Ship was essentially indestructible by conventional means, they saw no harm in letting the old general vent his fury. Destroying a target capable of such firepower, likely an enemy flagship or a massive orbital construct, was tactically sound.
No one moved to block Zahndrekh's departure.
Accompanied by three Scythe Harvesters and three Sekhem-class cruisers, the Tomb Ship engaged its Inertialess Drive. The small task force vanished from the primary theater in a streak of unnatural light, hurtling through the void toward the distant Heart of the Forge.
Meanwhile, the remaining Necron armada continued its brutal struggle against Axion's mechanical fleet. For the Sautekh Dynasty, these strange silver ships were becoming the most troublesome foes they had encountered in eons. For the first time, the Necrons felt the same frustration other races experienced when facing them.
The living metal hulls of the Necron fleet possessed high-speed regenerative capabilities; even significant structural failure could be repaired in moments. Now, they found their enemies possessed a terrifyingly similar trait. The silver fleet continued to pour out unrelenting fire even as their hulls visibly stitched themselves back together.
The battle devolved into a grueling war of attrition. Both the Necrons and the Iron Men focused their fire with surgical intent, knowing that a vessel was only truly "destroyed" if the damage exceeded its regenerative threshold in a single salvo.
Compared to Imperial ships, which tended to lose massive sections of hull to a single Gauss discharge, these silver vessels proved far more resilient. Not only did their shields require multiple hits to penetrate, but the physical damage sustained by the hulls was remarkably contained. The ultra-high-density alloys used by the Iron Men meant that, at the same power output, Gauss weapons could strip away far less molecular material.
The Gauss Particle Whips and Tesla weapon arrays, normally devastating to the organic crews of enemy ships, yielded disappointing results. The Gauss particles, which should have flayed every living soul aboard, served only to momentarily disrupt weapon accuracy. The high-energy Tesla arcs were more direct, melting sections of the hull, but failed to deliver a killing blow.
Most baffling to the Necrons was the behavior of the silver ships after armor penetration. The vessels continued to fight with mechanical indifference despite gaping holes in their superstructures. Even when a ship lost a third or half of its mass, its batteries never ceased firing. There were no secondary internal explosions, no clouds of venting atmosphere, and no organic remains drifting into the void.
Necron Crypteks quickly surmised that these ships were likely vacuum-sealed shells, perhaps fully automated drones. They increased the output of their Stellar Pulser arrays to generate massive control interference, but the Iron Men's quantum signaling remained entirely immune to such electronic warfare.
The Necrons were further harried by the Iron Men's unpredictable tactics. Severely damaged mechanical ships would often "resurrect" at critical moments, dragging their broken hulls into the path of incoming fire to shield their sisters, or closing the distance to trigger a terminal self-destruction.
The Necron commanders considered boarding actions, but found the enemy ships lacked conventional internal geometry. The silver vessels were solid masses of machinery, conduits, and processors, with only a few small bays for drones and supplies. After several failed attempts to bypass the high-dimensional security of the ships' internal access ports, the Necrons abandoned the idea of boarding.
As the frontline settled into a scorched-earth stalemate of mounting casualties, the Dark Angels watching from the flank seemed to remember their primary objective.
Under the Lion's command, they invoked their oldest traditions. Abandoning the Iron Men to their grinding melee with the Sautekh Dynasty, the Dark Angels fleet pivoted without hesitation, resuming their pursuit in the direction Abaddon had fled.