As the Brass Gate shattered, the world was turned upside down once more.
The drums erupted, forged from the roar of countless guns, yet even such a rhythm merely drove the melody of Chaos toward another crescendo.
Then came the thunder, striking up another part of the prelude.
Countless forked bolts of lightning crashed down from the blood-red sky, setting the former base of the Brass Gate completely ablaze.
The flames roared, illuminating countless ghosts flickering through the crimson air.
All the dead, millions upon millions of them, transformed into some form for some purpose. Their silent howls made the air more biting than solid ice.
Between ice and fire, blood began to rain from the sky, falling ever more fiercely. Yet the temperature soared rapidly—soon hot enough to make every Ork's armor blister.
Sila rose several hundred meters into the air with a sword in each hand. He continued chanting, speaking that forbidden name and summoning it to fulfill its previous promise.
It owed him this debt now. He had given it an ocean of blood and death, trading tens of millions of souls for its brief return.
But the shattered gate had become an unwelcoming barrier. Sila began to feel confused, for he could sense nothing within the blood-red flames.
Was it still there? Had it broken its promise in the end?
Sila extended his psychic senses, probing the flames that burned like a giant eye. Yet all he could hear were the wails and curses of the slaughtered dead—their fury, their torment.
This was the melody he had played with fire and slaughter, yet it should not have been empty.
Then, suddenly, a heartbeat-like tremor came through. At last, he sensed it.
Some immense inhuman presence.
"Guk!"
A roar rang through the air again, powerful enough to