"The star was being destroyed. It was a dwarf star of some one and a half million kilometres diameter and had burned for over six billion years. Had it not been for the immense, crescent-moon shaped starship orbiting the system’s fourth planet and draining its massive energies, it would have probably continued to do so for perhaps another sixteen billion years.

The star generated energy at a colossal rate by burning hydrogen to helium in nuclear fusion reactions deep in its heart before radiating that energy into space. These reactions produced intense electro-magnetic fields in the star’s core that rippled to the surface in seething magnetic waves.

A clutch of these surging fields erupted as a toroidal loop of magnetic flux some 200,000 kilometres in diameter, producing a dark, swelling sunspot within the star’s photosphere.

This active region of magnetic flux expanded rapidly, suddenly exploding upwards from the star’s surface in a gigantic flare, covering a billion square kilometres and becoming a bright curling spear of light in the star’s corona. These powerful waves of electromagnetic energy and sprays of plasma formed into a rippling nimbus of coruscating light that spiralled a snaking route towards a rune-encrusted pyramid at the centre of the vast starship. Eldritch sigils carved into the ship’s side blazed with the received energies and the hull pulsed as though the ship itself was swelling with barely contained power.

Every flaring beam of light ripped from the star that washed its power over the ship shortened the star’s lifespan by a hundred thousand years, but the occupants of the starship cared not that its death would cause the extinction of every living thing in that system. Galaxies had lived and died by their masters’ command, whole stellar realms had been extinguished for their pleasure and entire races brought into existence as their playthings. What mattered the fate of one insignificant star system to beings of such power?

Like some obscene mechanised leech, the ship continued to suck the vital forces from the star as it orbited the planet. An array of smaller pyramids and obelisks on the ship’s base rippled as though in a heat haze, flickering in and out of perception as the massive ship shuddered with the colossal energies it was stripping from the star.

Abruptly the snaking beam of liquid light from the star faded and vanished from sight, the silver ship having had its fill for the moment. Ponderously it began to rotate and dropped slowly through the planet’s atmosphere. Fiery coronas flared from the leading edges of the crescent wings as it descended towards a vast, iron-oxide desert in the northern hemisphere. The surface of the planet sped by below: rugged mountains, grinding tectonic plates and ash-spewing volcanoes. The ship began slowing as it neared its destination, a sandy dust bowl with a tiny spot of absolute darkness at its centre.

The ship’s speed continued to drop as the shape resolved itself into a glassy black pyramid, its peak capped in gold. Its shimmering obsidian walls, smoky and reflective, were impervious to the howling winds that scoured the planet bare. Small, scuttling creatures that glittered in the burning sun crawled across its surface with a chittering mechanical gait. Runes identical to those on the orbiting starship hummed as powerful receptors activated.

The ship manoeuvred itself gracefully into position above the pyramid as the gold cap began to open like the petals of a flower. The humming rose to an ear-splitting shriek as the smaller pyramids and obelisks on the ship’s underside exploded with energy, and a rippling column of pure electromagnetic force shot straight down the black pyramid’s hungry maw.

Incandescent white light blazed from the pyramid, instantly incinerating the mechanical creatures that crawled across its surface. The desert it stood upon flared gold, streaks of power radiating outwards from the pyramid’s base in snaking lines and vitrifying the sand in complex geometric patterns. The enormous vessel held its position until the last of its stolen energy had been transferred. Once the gold cap of the pyramid had sealed itself shut, the ship made the long trip back into orbit to repeat the process, its intention to continue ripping energy from the star until it was nothing more than a cooling ball of inert gasses.

The vessel settled into position before the star, the arcane device mounted upon its hull powering up once more. "
- Nightbringer

"Saulh pointed at the main viewscreen on the control deck of the Litany of Fury and said nothing. Words were redundant.

‘By the Throne, sergeant,’ muttered Captain Ulantus. ‘What in Vidya’s name is happening to that star?’

A constellation of sunspots was clustered near the star’s equator. They were black against the radioactive radiance of the sun, but they appeared to shift and shimmer, as though possessing their own power. Massive fiery storms were raging around the perimeter of the star, spilling fountains of thermal radiation and superheated hydrogen through the orbits of the inner planets of the Lorn system. Lorn I was already beginning to die, as its atmosphere started to bleed away under the onslaught, leaving the rocky surface of the planet exposed to the rain of fire and radiation. Its colour was gradually shifting towards an inferno of orange, even as the star began to swell and its colour darkened towards red.

‘It’s dying, captain.’

‘I can see that, Saulh. But how, why?’

‘We can’t tell. All the probes indicate that it is well within the average lifespan for a star of this size and constituency. Something appears to be draining it of energy, literally bleeding it dry.’

‘What about the aliens?’ Ulantus’ mind leapt immediately to suspicion.

‘The eldar? Their vessels have not moved, captain. And we can detect no connections between them and the star.’

‘Where is the energy drain focussed?’

‘On the far side of the sun, captain. We should be able to see it shortly, when the orbit of Lorn V swings us around the next sector of the ellipse.

…

The star was bleeding. As the Litany of Fury powered around a tight solar-orbit, it rapidly brought the far side of the sun into view. Tendrils of gleaming matter were questing out from its gyring form, and the rotation of the massive sun was slowing visibly. Huge sunspots speckled its fiery surface, but each appeared to be riddled with tiny stars, as though they were actually holes through the substance of the sun itself, revealing the space beyond. Infernos of solar storms erupted from the star’s surface, throwing radiation and fire out into the Lorn system, bathing the floating wreckage and debris with heat and reactive energy. The snaking tendrils of starlight whipped and lashed into the vacuum, filling it with streaks of silvering light. After a while, the questing tendrils seemed to latch on to flecks of debris, cracking into them and filling them with iridescence. Even as Ulantus watched the main viewscreen on the control deck of the Litany of Fury, he saw the apparent debris flare and catch, reforming into recognisable shapes, as though flicking back into life. After a few more moments, he could see the distant specks flash with power as their engines came back online. The immobilised necron vessels seemed to be drawing power directly from the sun, bleeding it dry so that they might live again.

With the viewscreen magnifying the distant image, Ulantus checked the images against the vessel-categorisation charts just to be certain, and he could see that perhaps ten or fifteen of the smaller, Dirge-class raiders were already back in motion. A couple of slightly larger Jackals had come online, and all the raiders were spiralling around a group of crescent-shaped Shroud-class cruisers, which remained dark and lifeless, despite the arcs of lightning that poured energy into the pyramidal structures that encrusted their surfaces. "
-Dawn of War: Tempest

"The necron fleet tore the heart out of a star.

It was an old star, fat and red, a lumbering giant that stood as a relic of a time before the clouds of the Veiled Region had gathered. The star darkened, and then collapsed, throwing off outer layers in ripples of radiation millions of miles across. Its remaining substance compacted and heated up, and, for a few final hours, it burned as bright as it had in its youth, spitting violent solar flares and atomic storms in its death throes. Then that energy, too, was sucked out into the void, and the star shrank into a smouldering clump of ashes, burning away the last vestiges of its power. "
-Hellforged

"The jutting prow split like a blossoming flower and gaped wide, exposing an enormous weapon that rapidly gathered corposant energy from the system’s sun. In moments, Iron Promise struck back with one final, searing blast of unspeakable power and blinding light. The weapon’s scything beam engulfed the enemy fleet and shattered all but the largest ships in one blow. "
-Lathe Worlds

"Whether by the hidden hand of the Silent King, the intervention of other, more nightmarish forces or simple blind cosmic chance, in the year 990.M41 by the Imperium's reckoning the Caracol binary stars went supernova. Their death shredded the ancient haunted worlds that orbited them and whatever secrets they contained in a detonation of annihilating energy that, because of the Dolmen Gates, was amplified and transmitted as a shockwave of blind force into the Warp beyond. "
- IA 12: The Fall of Orpheus

"Within mere moments the two fleets neared the edge of lance range and the Necrons fired. On the bridges of the Imperial ships alarm sirens howled as massive gravitational distortions were detected hurtling towards them at speeds barely below that of light, and too late the struggling machine spirits and cogitators of the Imperial ships identified them for what they were - fragments of dead stars. These bolts of oblivion shattered void shields in bright actinic flashes and tore open the ships within with savage ease, and up and down the imperial line, ships great and small simply flashed out of existence." - - IA 12: The Fall of Orpheus

"The Hollow Sun crown world is, exactly as its name suggests, constructed deep within the raging, nucleonic furnace of a star. The star in question lies at the heart of the Slinnar Drift region of the Outer Reach and bears no outward sign of being any more or less unusual than any of the other countless stars in that vast mass. The artifice that keeps the necropolis from being consumed within the stellar core would seem as mind-shattering sorcery to even the most lore-steeped techno-magus of the Adeptus Mechanicus and it represents the very epitome of the Necrons’ mastery over the fundamental powers of the universe. Somehow, the Suhbekhar Dynasty has slept away the aeons within a tomb as cold as any grave, yet located within the fusion-wracked core of a blazing sun.

…

The Hollow Sun is a staggering feat of arcane stellar-engineering and dimensional manipulation. The star itself is one of those for which the Slinnar Drift is well known, a protostar that appears to all external observations to have existed far too long in its present state. None can say whether the star was specially created for the purpose of secreting the Necron capital at its core or if the Suhbekhar Dynasty’s masons somehow bored through its raging fabric to transplant their necropolis at the very heart of its core. Perhaps they created the necropolis elsewhere and transported it to its current location using dimension twisting processes lost even to the resurgent Necrons.

…

The necropolis of the Suhbekhar Dynasty takes the form of a city as large as any world, located at the heart of its sun and protected by arcane machine systems that take up many times more space than the stasis crypts they protect from the raging fusion core. Vast, unidentifi able systems shield the necropolis, siphoning off the raw power of an entire sun so effectively that the chambers and labyrinths within are as cold as any grave. Vast, dusty chambers and hallways are lined with coiled machine components many hundreds of metres tall, throbbing with the power to displace dimensions and reshape reality. Within an outer layer of machinery hundreds of miles thick, rest the stasis chambers of the countless Necron constructs responsible for maintaining and defending of the Hollow Sun. "
-Outer Reach

"One theory as to the nature of the object suggests it is a vast concentration of antimatter; some heretics even claim it could be something they deem “dark antimatter,” and that it is contained by the gravitational forces that rage all about by the action of some unknown force.

...

The notion that the object consists of antimatter is nothing more than rampant speculation, but there are those that fi nd such a prospect alluring to say the least. The energetic potential in such a vast reserve would make it a staggeringly effective weapon. One Tech- Priest by the name of Magos Gholenkev has suggested the object could be detonated as a weapon of last resort, his “singularity bomb” touching off such energies as would destroy vast swathes of the Jericho Reach and make even a hypernova appear entirely insignifi cant. "
-Outer Reach

"Phaeron Ahmontekh, called in ages past the Crimson Scythe for the blood in which he drenched the sector, is the once and future king of the Suhbekhar Dynasty. The Phaeron was at one time counted amongst the most puissant of warriors and his name was feared across countless thousands of worlds. He fought at the side of the C’tan themselves, and is said to have once struck a blow that slew a god. He bore a warscythe of such potency that it is said to have shattered the planet Maldek into a billion chunks of rock in a single blow, an event which several of the Eldar’s mystic cycle- singers make reference to many aeons later. "
-Outer Reach

"Lord Nepthk strikes a pact with 'Eadcrumpa. In exchange for several functioning doomsday cannons, 'Eacrumpa agrees to leave Suranas and seek plunder elsewhere (whilst secretly resolving to return to Suranas at a later date). Three months later, when the WAAAGH! descends on the agri world of Eden Prime, 'Eadcrumpa is unable to resist his urge to investigate the doomsday cannon's systems. One breached containment core later and 'Eadcrumpa, his WAAAGH! and the planet Eden Prime are erased from existence."
-Codex Necrons 5th

"Insane Overlords obliterated themselves and their tomb worlds in flares of solar fire, or were crushed to nothingness as they triggered system-spanning singularities. Unaware that these were in fact the ancient weapons of the Mephrit at work, the Imperium and other young races saw only celestial phenomena at work.

Despite these losses, the Mephrit Dynasty had fared relatively well during its long slumber, having shielded itself with unimaginable acts of stellar vandalism. On the tomb world of Djagos the Jade Overlord had destroyed every star and planet for a dozen light years in all directions – scouring the void clean and leaving nothing that could threaten his hibernation. In the scarred rifts of the Aetheric Divide the Mephrit created a gravity bubble so strong, ships transitioning from the Warp in its shadow were hurled billions of miles across space.

Worse still were the celestial booby-traps left for those that would trespass upon the domains of the Mephrit. Null fields resonated around some tomb worlds, plucking vessels from the sky like dying star-flies, while oxi-technomantic engines sucked the very air from the lungs of those foolish enough to enter the Mephrit’s war-crypts. The Great Sleep lasted for millions of years, however, and in that time many tomb worlds fell into ruin. "
-Shield of Baal

"A flash of translocation lit the grand tomb chamber. When it abated, the Architect was in a different room. Using his chronomancy, he had descended several levels in a nanosecond. "
- Fall of Damnos

" Canoptek Scarabs are constructs, designed to break down organic and non-organic matter into raw energy. This harvested energy can then be woven into fresh forms at the direction of the Scarabs controller. In the confines of a tomb, this invariably involves stripping down destroyed or damaged components which can then be reborn as replacement parts, or else as further Canoptek Spyders, Scarabs or Wraiths to oversee and manage the tomb's function. Almost anything can be replicated in this fashion, providing that the wellspring of energy is sufficient to the task at hand. Given time, a suitably large swarm of scarabs can consume an entire hive city, and all of its inhabitants, thereafter using the purloined energies to create anything from a battlefleet to a fully functioning Necron tomb ready for habitatio...

…

Even if the enemy can completely remove the carrier waves, this often creates a far greater problem than before. The Canoptek scarabs will no longer operate under the Necrons' direct control, and as part of their reversion to base programming they will expend any accumulated energy on fashioning even more scarabs, thus creating a voracious self-replicating swarm that only something on the order of saturation bombardment has any hope of exterminating.

...

If not quickly destroyed or driven away, a swarm of Canoptek scarabs can even burrow their way through the hull, turning a mighty engine of war into a horror-filled prison for its soon to be devoured crew."
-Codex Necrons 5th ed

"Equipped with gravity-displacement engines, Canoptek Spyders glide above the battlefield like massive arachnids crawling across invisible webs. Their complex programming allow them to restore damaged Necron machinery, be it the arcane workings of a stasis crypt or the living metal shell of a Monolith. Spyders also possess the ability to rapidly manufacture swarms of diminutive drone-like constructs in vast, shimmering clouds. These Canoptek Scarabs envelop organic and inorganic structures alike, their entropic mandibles breaking down even the most durable substances into stored energy that the Necrons use as fuel for the legions.

...

Canoptek Scarabs sweep across the battlefield in vast, undulating swarms that devour all in their path. Mindless feeding machines, the Scarabs are constructs designed to break down matter into raw energy that can then be woven into fresh forms. Within the confines of a tomb this process is one of clearing and manufacture, but on the battlefield it is a powerful force of destruction. Many Overlords will send their Scarabs sweeping ahead of their army, forcing foes to waste ammunition fending them off. Lesser soldiers may be driven mad, or even overwhelmed and devoured by endless waves of the worker-constructs. However, it is against the enemy’s armour that Canoptek Scarabs truly come into their own – once they have latched onto a vehicle, they will break down even the thickest hull plating with alarming speed. "
-Codex Necrons 7th

"The war machines of the Necrons are things of impossible science and countless arcane technologies. To the young races of the galaxy, the energies and weaponry of these strange engines of destruction are more akin to magic than anything recognisable as physical engineering. Living metal is a perfect example of this kind of advanced technology – a substance that defies harm by literally healing itself before the eyes of its attacker. Though the means can vary between dynasties and the skills of the Crypteks that serve them, this miracle is often the result of billions-strong swarms of nanoscarabs crawling under the skin of the war machine. Like the living cells of biological creatures they will seek out damaged areas and cluster around them, mouths the size of atoms chewing up matter and forging it back together. However, as with most of the Necrons’ arcane techno-sciences, there are almost as many ways to manipulate matter as there are Crypteks. Captive phase-gates, subatomic infusers and temporal loop shrouds can all exhibit similar effects to nanoscarab swarms. To an Overlord, how these abilities work are of little concern, as long as they do. "
-Codex Necrons 7th

"The enemy had annihilated the armour columns with perfunctory ease and then used their swarm creatures to gut the machine innards of the Imperial tanks and convert them into more necron warrior constructs."
- Fall of Damnos