The smiling deformity stared at the Adeptus Custodes as an unsettling melody echoed through the deep underground.
Suddenly, it stopped changing and trembling, then turned its head back unnaturally. On the surface of the black sphere drifting up from the depths underground, it saw its own reflection.
An emotion tens of millions of times more terrified than any mortal's began to grow within it. It tried to crawl back into its box, but before it could leap toward it, it collapsed limply onto the ground and turned into a terrified graffiti drawing plastered against the floor.
The disturbance in the prison ceased at once. Projections of every dark artifact appeared across the sphere's surface, then faded away, becoming unsettling, twisted images within the dungeon.
This was not one of the prison's contained objects...
Tokman stared fixedly at the sphere, yet he could not prove whether that stare was voluntary or forced upon him.
The sphere floated toward them. The Adeptus Custodes could not move, like statues waiting to be smashed apart.
At last, a holy light flashed. The black sphere halted warily, then vanished through the open conceptual breach of the Magnificent Hammer.
Cold sweat already covered their bodies. By design, the Adeptus Custodes did not fear death, nor did they feel fear toward anything.
Yet they had indeed felt the unfamiliar emotion of fear just now. They could not tell whether it was genetic instinct or the sphere's conceptual influence.
They thanked The Emperor for His aid and forced their trembling legs to continue patrolling the prison.
All the prisoners accidentally released had died. Those still locked in their cells were trembling violently. For a long time to come, there likely would not be any more trouble in the underground prison.
The black sphere crossed time and space and