The hangar of The Reing was a cathedral of death and steel, vast and shadowed, lit only by flickering lumiorches. The air reeked of oil, ozone, and blood—an unholy trinity of war. Mechs towered like a gods in repose, their armored frames gleamih dim light, while engineers moved in hurried silence, ants in service of giants. Among them stood a singur beast.

  A titan of bed steel and violet light, Mortivax brooded in the half-darkness—a draic war engine shaped in the crucible of sd neancy. Its skeletal frame was a nightmare of serrated pting, void-fed ribs exposed like the ribcage of some titanic beast. Its eyes, twihyst orbs, pulsed like dying stars, casting eerie halos across the hangar. Spined wings loomed folded behind its back, and its segmeail coiled idly, ending in a barbed stihat dripped with neiergy. Across its broad chest, the sigil of House Drais—a skeletal dragon coiled around a bck star—burned with the cold light of a runes.

  Within its cockpit, Baron Drakon Vaelinor Drais sat motionless, bd-purple te that mirrored his monstrous mae. His helm was a thing of legend—crafted from the skull of a void-drake, its hollowed sockets burning with the same eerie radiance as Mortivax itself. He was still as stone, his breath barely fogging against the a bone of his visor.

  A voice crackled over the s, rich with arrogance. “Baron Drakon, I trust you’re not about to waste my time. I grow bored.”

  Drakon ined his head slightly. “Yhness.” His tone was measured, respectful—devoid of warmth, yet absent of defiance. “I await only your and.”

  Prince Lu Horus Sorius, seated in the cockpit of his Sorion Prime, smirked. His mech was a ander variant of the mass-produced Sorion lis golden armleaming uhe hangar lights. The Sorion Prime was a symbol of imperial might, its design sleek and regal, with a sunburst emblem embzoned across its chest. Around him, his elite royal guard stood ready, their mechs a wall of gold and crimson, though they remained passive observers for now. They statiohemselves heir mothership, The Radiance.

  Lu watched Mortivax on his dispy with thinly veiled distaste. “You and your creations, Drakon,” he mused. “A pity you weren’t born into a worthier legacy.”

  Drakon offered nothing iurn.

  Lu’s amusement deepened. “No defense?”

  Drakon bowed his head slightly, as if in deference. “It is not my pce to debate Yhness.”

  Lu exhaled, unimpressed. “I am to be my father’s eyes in this battle. Please do your best in the name of the God-Emperor.”

  The void above Aurox Delta was a storm of war. House Auroxa’s fleet desded in force, tless in number, banners of bronze and iron trailing behind them like burning ets. The pself was a graveyard of metal and fire—an expanse of ruined fe-cities, where the great industrial spires bled molten rivers into the war-torh. Below, Fehammers—the monstrous, bull-horned mechs of House Auroxa—stampeded across the battlefield, their footsteps shaking the bones of the world.

  House Auroxa had once swory to House Drais. That oath had been broken. And now, they would pay for it.

  Against them, the Drakeguard—House Drais’ mass-produced war mechs, fed in the image of a wyrms—engaged iless bat. These bck-pted maes bore draic motifs, their eyes glowing with are fire, their forms sinuous yet armored. Vultivar, the current ander of the Auroxa forces, observed the battle from his cockpit with a grim smile as a unit of his warriors tore through a squad of the Drakeguard. Psma nces pierced through draic frames, and molten steel rained upon the charred earth.

  “They fall easily,” one of his captains snarled, exhirated. “Drais is not what it once was.”

  Vultivar did not share his glee. His voice was quiet, but it cut through the s like a bde. “Hold your tongue. You think you fight only metal? You do not yet uand.”

  A siletled over the el.

  “We have bled them, but the bleeding is not yet done,” Vultivar murmured. “Steady your hearts. The storm is ing.”

  Then, the storm came.

  A shadow loomed above the battlefield.

  Mortivax desded like a death knell, bck wings unfurling as it nded amidst the Auroxa ranks. The impact alone shattered steel a mechs sprawling. And then—

  It moved.

  Auroxa warriors barely had time to react as the draic mech reaved through their ranks. A psma-cw ripped through the cockpit of one mech, while its tail impaled another, its barbed stinger drippiic fire into the wound. Within moments, three mechs were nothing more than burning husks.

  Yet still they came.

  Even Mortivax, godlike as it was, could not stand against the eide of House Auroxa. For every foe it felled, aook its pce. The Drakeguard were crumbling. Even as Drakon fought, cutting through enemy mechs with grim efficy, he saw his forces dwindling.

  Then, in a voice as cold as the void, he spoke.

  “Rise.”

  The battlefield shuddered.

  A terrible stillness washed over the dead. And then—

  The corpses of Auroxa warriors, torn and broken, rose. Their mechs, shattered and burning, lurched back to life. Are light burned in the sockets of the fallen. The Auroxa warriors still living turned in horror as their own kin—their rades—raised ons against them.

  Vultivar felt ice crawl up his spine. “Gods have mercy…”

  Drakon had no mercy.

  With a simple gesture, he anded his new legion forward. The dead surged into the living, the battle desding into madness. The lihat had once held firm against House Drais shattered in moments.

  It was over.

  House Auroxa’s anders k in the bloodstained ruins of their own fortress. The air was thick with the st of death. The banners of Drais and Sorius fluttered overhead.

  Prince Lu stood before them, radiant and untouched, his golden te gleaming in the dying light. His expression was unreadable.

  “Kneel,” he said. “Swear fealty to House Sorius. Live.”

  One by ohe Auroxa warriors spat at his feet.

  Warlord K, barely able to lift his head, gred at Lu with the defiance of a dyi.

  K's voice was hoarse. “We would rather burn than serve the leeches of the Sun.”

  Lu exhaled, unsurprised. He turned slightly. “Drakon?”

  Drakon stepped forward without a word. His psma bde sang through the air. The executions were swift, methodical. ation. No cruelty.

  Lu watched with mild i befng at Drakon. “Are you not going to raise them?” he mused.

  Drakon remaiill for a long moment before he finally spoke.

  “They've earheir rest.” His voice was quiet.

  Lu studied him for a moment, then scoffed, turning away.

  Aurox Delta beloo House Drais once more.