As preparations for the Golden Crusade had begun, every Space Marine Chapter had started learning how to fight alongside the Tyran Army and Navy.
Those manuals had already described certain transcendent beings that might fight alongside humanity, such as the C'tan, and explained just how powerful they could be once Blackstone had been deployed.
They had long ceased to be entities that needed concealing. These beings had appeared far too many times and demonstrated far too much power to remain hidden within the Tyran Sector.
But only now, after fighting alongside a transcendent being like the C'tan on this battlefield, did those present understand what true power meant.
Even before the Blackstone had been deployed and established, the C'tan had been unwilling to leave their warships and descend to the surface to assist in battle. No one knew whether they feared the environment of the Eye of Terror or simply despised everything related to the Warp... But once the Blackstone was established and activated, they joined the battle, just as everyone had hoped before the Golden Crusade's first war began.
Azrael watched everything on the battlefield.
The Grand Master of the Dark Angels was no longer issuing orders to anyone, because the battle at the landing zone had ended.
For "mortals" like them, it had ended.
The Death Guard's Second Company had sacrificed itself to cover the retreat of the First Company's personnel, leaving behind all their Hellbrutes, Daemon Engines, and similar weapons.
But when the Death Guard Second Company's armored forces faced the Void Dragon, a C'tan, a fragment of what had once been a complete C'tan, they became ants without the slightest surprise.
In Azrael's eyes, the Death Guard First Company was collapsing in a manner that belonged to no conceivable battlefield situation.
In war, even the side