Lorgar Aurelian's ears twitched faintly. He heard his brother's suffering on the Desh-Elica Ridge reaching its final beat.
He raised his head to the sky as Ultramarines Drop Pods joined the final crescendo like a torrential rain.
They established strongholds at strategic points throughout the dying cities. For every one they completed, another was reduced to ruins.
The Ultramarines' flames of vengeance collided with the Word Bearers' resentment and hatred.
The cobalt-blue warriors hated them for murdering Andermung's sun and defiling its land.
The Word Bearers held aloft shattered corpses, bleached bones arranged into filthy symbols.
They chanted black hymns and recited sermons from the Book of Lorgar.
The World Eaters launched berserk assaults, beyond control, enslaved by the joy of battle as pain engines stoked their fury.
"Lorgar!"
The Hand of Dominion rose and unleashed a dense barrage.
Lorgar swung the Illumination of Truth, forged for him by Ferrus, casting lightning across the sky.
"You are disrupting the sacred hymn. You should not be here."
"But I am." Guilliman strode toward Lorgar, his Power Fist crashing down.
Lorgar stared into Guilliman's eyes, where the purest treasure shone—boundless hatred. It set the Empire's calmest hero ablaze with rage.
Nimrod had always been the calmest of them all. Even when he watched Horus Lupercal be crowned Warmaster at Ullanor, even when he was put on trial at Nikaea, his expression had remained serene.
Lorgar knew that feeling. He had known it when Perfect City was destroyed by the Ultramarines, when he fell to his knees amid the ashes.
He knew the strength of that power, but faith was a power that stood above hatred and grief.
Lorgar raised his Crozius, and the Disruption Fields collided.
Boom!
The tremendous force flung them apart.
A tone rang within Lorgar's skull and eyes, and