Deep within The Rock, the Sanctum's golden radiance seemed more stagnant than ever, carrying a hint of heaviness.
The sleeping lion, Lion El'Jonson—the Primarch once as vibrant as a forest and as unyielding as stone—now exuded an air of decay.
He was no longer the spirited, razor-sharp lord of the First Legion from ten thousand years ago.
Time had carved merciless marks upon him.
His once thick golden hair, like a lion's mane, had become sparse and brittle, threaded with glaring silver strands that clung to his sunken cheeks.
Deep wrinkles crossed his sharply defined face like the bed of a dried-up river, proclaiming the weight of ten thousand years.
The Dark Angels gathered around their Primarch in a stifling atmosphere.
They had tried every known standard procedure for awakening a target from stasis. They had even used the secret invocation prayer passed down by the Inner Circle, composed of the Primarch's true name and Chapter oaths.
Azrael's low call, brimming with Fealty and anxiety; Ezekiel's guidance filled with psychic resonance; the cries from the depths of the other Inner Circle members' souls... every sound was like a stone cast into a deep pool. Aside from stirring faint rings of shimmering ripples, none could awaken the sleeper.
"Father...!" Azrael's voice carried a barely perceptible rasp, and his eyes beneath his Adamantium faceplate were filled with frustration and even deeper unease.
The radiance around the Primarch possessed a strange, unnatural stability, cutting him off from everything outside as though he had been sealed within an isolated bubble of time.
This was not a normal state. It was more like some... deeper slumber, perhaps even being lost.
Ezekiel spoke with a psyker's keen concern. "Father's condition... is very wrong. His vital signs are stable, but his consciousness... is like something sunk into