Chapter Text
I am Szarekh, the last of the Silent Kings. I am the being who was the doom of the Necrontyr. I am the being who will be the salvation of the Necrons.
For aeons I have drifted in the void, contemplating my failures. In those days I was a broken thing, enslaved by a guilt that only a man who has ruined a galaxy could know. It is not that the pain has dulled with time. Sempiternal engrams ensure every single sensation of despair, sorrow and hatred I have felt is perfectly preserved. I am always stuck in that moment when I walked out of the furnaces of biotransference and saw the desolation I had wrought. But I have grown stronger. There is an old saying, that pain is just weakness leaving the body. It is a crude expression, used by the overseers of the Necrontyr military academies of old to justify their cruelty towards their cadets. But there is a certain degree of truth behind it. Sometimes, I wonder if I may have suffered more than any other sentient being. Does that make me the strongest? I cannot say. I have precious little room for arrogance after what I have done.
My crimes seemed perfectly justified when I committed them, of course. Orikan warned me, told me that the path I was headed to would cause the Necrontyr to fall into darkness. I did not ignore his warnings, for despite what some would have you believe I was never a foolish man. But as far as I could see, all other paths lead to doom. If the Necrontyr were not destroyed by infighting, they would be destroyed by the claws of the Old Ones or their slave-races. Better to choose the unknown doom than the certain doom, I felt. Sometimes, I wonder if I was right. That despite all the misery and torment I caused my kind, that it was truly the best possible path for my people. The shackles of the C'tan were broken, and we are poised to recreate our empire. When the biotransference has finally been reversed, some may argue that our torment has only served to make the Necrontyr stronger than ever. I sincerely hope that I was wrong, that there was a better path that I failed to notice. For as familiar am I with the cruelty of this universe, I do not wish to acknowledge it is even crueler than I thought.
There is no benefit in ruminating on the past. I have come to realize that abandoning my people was its own kind of sin. I thought I was freeing them, but instead I merely left them divided in the face of a thousand enemies. The orphaned children of the Old Ones. The human swarm that calls itself the Imperium. The corruption of the Energistic Infinity. The Great Devourer. Sometimes, I wonder if our true battle is against the universe itself. We have always been in conflict with it, ever since the first Necrontyr cursed the sun that poisoned him. It is irrelevant. I will triumph no matter what, for I have no other choice. Some say that I am merely attempting to expunge my guilt, and I will not lie by saying that doesn't play its part. But I do what I do because I know it to be right. I will bring order and justice to this broken universe, and save it from itself. That is the will of the Silent King. And my will determines reality.