Time passed second by second in silence.
When someone stepped forward and suggested to Guilliman that the High Lords of Terra suspend the meeting to welcome the Fabricator General, who might have run into some trouble, Guilliman responded with nothing but a gesture for silence.
The High Lords remained where they stood.
They whispered among themselves and took pleasure in others' misfortunes, but none of their thoughts showed on their faces. From Guilliman's perspective, they simply stood there with their heads lowered, silent as corpses.
The High Lords had reached a certain level of understanding. On the surface, they said nothing and showed no reaction, but because they knew one another so well, they could discern each other's thoughts and state of mind as though they could directly see and hear what the others were doing.
They had indeed pulled a few strings, ensuring that the new Fabricator General's trip to Terra encountered some obstacles and that he would not attend the meeting before Guilliman's patience ran out.
Just as the High Lords were entertaining such thoughts, the sound of footsteps came from the corridor outside the hall.
Those footsteps sounded exceptionally heavy, indicating that whoever made them possessed considerable mass.
At that thought, every High Lord became suspicious, and an ominous premonition arose in each of them.
Then the great doors of the hall were pushed fully open.
Caldor, who had previously rushed in, whispered a few words to Guilliman, and left as though relaying military intelligence, entered the hall first.
After Caldor, the massive warrior, stepped aside and pressed himself against the door, the two figures behind him came into view.
One was a hunched figure dressed as a Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, leaning on a Gear scepter and draped in red robes.
The other was clearly