On the ash-choked plains of a nameless industrial world, beneath skies bruised by smog and war, a strike force of the Black Templars descended in righteous fury. Auspex readings had warned of xenos activity — the cold precision of the Tau Empire — and the sons of Dorn came not to negotiate… but to purge.
Yet fate is never so simple.
From the dust-laden wastes emerged the silent legions of a Necron Dynasty, their emerald eyes glowing through the haze. Why they marched this world none could say. Ancient claim? Forgotten tomb? Or a harvest of their own?
There was no parley. No hesitation.
Chainswords roared. Bolters thundered. Rail fire split the air. Gauss beams flayed ceramite from bone. Three armies collided in a storm of annihilation, and the ground ran black with oil and blood alike.
Then…
A tremor.
Another.
From the horizon came a sound older than fear itself — hissing, chittering, the grinding hunger of something vast. Out of the smoke and ruin surged Hive Fleet Behemoth.
This world was rich with biomass.
It would be consumed.
The Tyranids fell upon the battlefield like a living tide. Termagants poured through shattered manufactorums. Shadows blotted out the burning sky. And at the forefront — two monstrous Carnifexes, living battering rams of chitin and rage.
The Black Templars did not yield.
They never do.
They fought to the last man, chanting litanies as the beasts smashed into their Vindicator, tearing it apart in an explosion of twisted steel and holy fire. Even as they fell, they spat defiance at the void.
Through the smoke, the Carnifexes turned their gaze.
The Necrons advanced to meet them — cold, unfeeling, eternal. But even living metal can be broken. The beasts tore into them with unstoppable fury, rending necrodermis as though it were parchment.
Seeing the slaughter unfold, the Tau wavered. Pulse rifles lit the gloom, cutting down waves of Termagants in disciplined volleys.
It was not enough.
For every swarm slain, more emerged from the abyssal dark. Endless. Relentless.
And then — in a flicker of emerald light — the Necrons were gone. Phased away into the void, abandoning the field to colder calculations.
The Tau stood alone.
Breachers fell. Lines shattered. The doctrine of the Greater Good fractured beneath claws and talons. With discipline strained to breaking, retreat was sounded. Better to withdraw. To call for aid. To survive.
But survival would not save this world.
As the last ships fled orbit, the swarm spread across the continents, devouring city and corpse alike.
The forges fell silent.
The skies darkened.
And in the end, only hunger remained.
This planet now belongs to Hive Fleet Behemoth
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