43: Chapter 43 The Overlord found a key in the Blackstone Network.

The standoff in the orbit of Griffin IV was broken without warning by The Swarm on the fourth day. It was not a general offensive, nor an orbital bombardment. The main Leviathan fleet of the Imperial Fleet, which had been on high alert, did not press in from the direction of Graia. Instead, in the early morning of Metallis time, the Eternal Echo suddenly sent a short encrypted pulse to the Wrath of the Emperor—it was not the routine communication of Tech-Officer Canoptek-7, but Nephilak's quantum signature. The signal strength was extremely low, as if it had struggled to penetrate through an extremely narrow quantum window from deep within the Orion Arm. Just as Marcus Aurelian stepped onto the bridge, the Tech-Officer had already projected the decoded text onto the main screen. There were only three lines: 'Protocol recorded. Core Matrix recognizes the void covenant. Some Overlords oppose, but the dissenting votes are insufficient to overturn. Our alliance is valid. Nephilak.'

Marcus stared at those three lines for a long time before turning to the Comms Officer, his voice kept extremely low: "Send a confirmation signal. Ask him when he can return to Metallis. Use the highest encryption." The Astropath's psychic pulse surged in the Warp for only a moment before reaching the quantum relay window of the Eternal Echo. Nephilak's reply arrived soon after—"The return journey requires maintaining the existing shuttle route; it is expected to take some time to return to Metallis. Command of the Necron fleet remains with your side as per the original agreement."

On the other end of the Orion Arm, in a corner of the Necron Overlord's shuttle cargo bay, the Brood Queen larva sent to protect him was using her forelimbs to stroke the creep and record a log. Her carapace had just completed its final molt, with a thin ring of newborn adamantium-chitin at the edges. When Nephilak walked back from the bridge to the cabin, she synchronized the creep records for him to see—fleet handover status was good, the orbit of Metallis remained stable, and the communication from the Eternal Echo was confirmed. Nephilak looked down for a moment, not responding with diplomatic jargon, but merely touching the edge of the creep with the living metal of his fingertip, leaving a faint, cold-green light trace.

At the same time, the Overmind completely suppressed the Imperial communication frequencies in the Griffin IV system. This was not a hijacking of the bridge main screen—this time it was full-spectrum jamming plus directional broadcasting. The Imperial Fleet could still communicate internally, but all long-range psychic pulses sent to Terra were precisely interfered with by the Necron quantum links. All scanners were locked, leaving only one residual public channel being used to push a text message to the Imperial Fleet. The Tech-Officer of the Wrath of the Emperor looked at the words on the main screen, his voice trembling for the first time on the bridge: "They say—'Griffin IV is not our target today.'"

Marcus held onto the command console, not asking "Then what is their target?" Because on the holographic star map in front of him, another set of coordinates was flashing frantically—a location in the east-central part of the Ultima Segmentum, the Forge World Hails.

Hails was not the weakest Forge World, nor the strongest. It was rated as a medium-defense level in the Imperial archives of the Ultima Segmentum, possessing a medium-sized orbital shipyard and a still-operating Knight-class Titan assembly line—it was this assembly line that made it the Titan logistical lifeline within the sector. The Swarm skipped Griffin IV to strike deep into Hails, stabbing a blade into the logistical heart of the Imperial defense line.

The last communication from Director Fabrica-7 before his death arrived at Marcus's station half an hour later. Continuous explosions sounded in the background; his voice showed no fear, but sounded more like a failing machine than any living person: "Titan assembly line being taken over by Drones—defense line collapsing—requesting support—requesting—the Emperor protect Hails—"

During the time the Imperial Fleet was lured away and Griffin IV was still urgently patching its defenses, Hails' orbital defense line had all its Void Shield nodes picked off by the Leviathan's main cannons. The Knight-class Titans on the ground had their power cores cut off by Drones at the source of the assembly line before they could even leave the hangar. Ultralisks sliced through the knees of the war machines that had just completed maintenance in front of the Titan hangars. The Brood Queen personally led a team to drop from orbit into the core workshop of the Titan assembly line. Blackstone detectors found what The Swarm truly wanted at the bottom of the assembly line—not Titans, but the last batch of blackstone components hidden by the Adeptus Mechanicus for countless centuries.

The last few lines of Hails Forge Director Fabrica-7's death log were recovered from the database ruins by Drones. The recording interface of the encrypted reliquary still held the last command he entered before death: "Blackstone Reliquary gate locked. But they are tearing down the walls. Emperor, they are using Ultralisks to tear down the walls directly." The entire adamantium gate was pierced by the monomolecular bone blades of three Ultralisks working together. Items in the reliquary were moved one by one onto the creep transport pipes by Drones—among them was a black polyhedron of an extremely unique shape. Under the anti-phase pulse of the blackstone engine, it automatically split into several layers of nested cold-green gratings. Its energy signature matched none of the relics The Swarm had scanned before, but it perfectly aligned with the oldest batch of blackstone structures in Nephilak's database.

The Overmind read the complete scan data of this polyhedron within the Hive Mind, confirming that its function was not a weapon, an engine, a communication relay, or a navigation beacon. Its structure was closer to some kind of authorization credential—cast from Necron living metal and blackstone composite materials, it contained a set of quantum-state encrypted files that could not be replicated. The annotations for this type of structure in Nephilak's database consisted of only a few brief strokes: Secondary Control Key of the Necron Dynasty. Its function was to activate and deploy all blackstone engines still dormant in the Galaxy, restarting the Dynasty's sovereignty over the blackstone network.

An auxiliary forge on Hails was also converted into a temporary hatchery by Drones immediately after the occupation. Embryo templates readjusted according to the blackstone assembly line data began to take shape under the creep. The Overmind integrated the scan data of the Blackstone Key into the modification formula, initiating the directional design of a new generation of Swarm units—centered on the quantum resonance network of the blackstone engine, specifically for controlling and maintaining all blackstone devices occupied by The Swarm. He named this unit the Blackstone Cerebrate.

"The next stage of testing for the Key requires more blackstone engines to be online simultaneously." The Overmind transmitted the confirmation of Hails' occupation to the Brood Queen on Metallis. "All Brood Queen nodes, next stage objective—find and activate any blackstone network still in dormancy. Tomb Worlds, Imperial reliquaries, Chaos Space Hulks—no matter where it is buried, dig it out." The Battle of Hails, from the first orbital breakthrough to the acquisition of the key, took even less time than Graia, and The Swarm's offensive continued to push forward.