Holy Terra, Regent's Office.
The cold alloy walls reflected the suffocating scene on the holographic display. On the enormous screen, the pitch-black field of vision silently devouring the demonic tide seemed to suck all the air from the room in an instant, freezing time itself along with it.
Silence.
Absolute silence blanketed this room, one of the cores of the Imperium of Man's highest authority.
The Imperium's senior commanders, Privy Council advisers, and representatives of the Mechanicus priests all stood frozen in place like petrified statues, their pupils reflecting that worldview-shattering scene.
At that moment, Roboute Guilliman felt as though the mind he prided himself on, capable of flawlessly handling the Imperium's countless complicated affairs, had been stripped of all capacity for thought by that black hole itself.
Instinctively, he turned his stiff neck and looked toward his most trusted friend beside him—Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The wise Jedi Master's aged face was likewise filled with shock. His hand, which had been stroking his beard, hung motionless in midair. His profound eyes stared fixedly at the old man standing in the center of the hellish battlefield within the projection, as well as the enormous, mysterious phantom clock above his head that seemed to encompass the torrent of time.
"Obi... Obi-Wan..." Guilliman's voice carried an almost imperceptible tremor that even he had not noticed. "Th-this person... which god of the Hilling Empire is he?"
Obi-Wan shook his head with immense difficulty, his gaze as complex as a deep nebula.
He lowered his hand from his beard, his voice low and full of profound reverence. "Robert... I... I do not know this god. The god-level beings of the Hilling Empire... each one is part of the Empire's foundation, a pillar sustaining its vast might. Their specific identities, authorities, even their forms of existence, are