Deafening artillery fire echoed through Commorragh's twisted skies as precise volleys from human warships instantly tore apart the relatively vulnerable engine section of a slowly moving Chaos transport.
The massive explosion bloomed like a diseased flower, blasting the grotesque vessel of flesh and bone into countless burning fragments, along with the Eldar "sacrifices" loaded within, wailing in despair, all of them reduced to nothing.
"No! Stop!" Yvraine cried over the communications channel. She whirled on Horus, fury and horror blazing in her eyes. "What are you doing? You are not stopping the sacrifice—you are carrying out a massacre!"
Horus did not even turn her head. Her gaze remained fixed on the other moving transport targets on the tactical display, her voice cold and utterly without emotion. "I am carrying out a highest-priority mission. Preventing the sacrifices from reaching Slaanesh's daemon realm and delaying the descent of the void. Destroying the transports is the most thorough and efficient method. Or would you rather let them arrive whole at the Lord of Pleasure's table and personally 'nourish' the Abyss?"
"But deaths like these will also greatly please Slaanesh and directly strengthen Its power!" Yvraine retorted urgently, her voice sharp with agitation. "This is merely using one disaster to slow another. It may even cause Slaanesh itself to intervene here sooner!"
"Her concern is not without merit, sister." Sanguinius's ethereal yet grave voice entered the channel. Her senses had more keenly caught the subtle currents of emotion in the Warp.
Her golden eyes swept over the chaotic battlefield below, rapidly assessing the situation as a whole.
"Look. The remaining Drukhari are still fighting separately. Their resistance may be disordered, but they are genuinely tying down and exhausting large numbers of daemons. If we adopt indiscriminate destruction, then once they lose all hope, they