The heavy alloy doors sealed shut behind them, cutting off every sound from outside.
The hall was not utterly dark. It was bathed in an indescribable radiance, emanating from the colossal creation at its far end—something whose grandeur and oppressive presence defied words: the Golden Throne.
That light held no warmth. It was a cold, blazing white like the heart of a star, yet it also carried a crushing psychic pressure that made the soul tremble.
It illuminated the vast, unnervingly empty hall, as well as the... being seated upon the throne.
Sanguinius and Horus's gazes froze upon the throne almost simultaneously.
Ten thousand years ago, the father they remembered had been a god walking among mortals, the radiant lord of humanity, the embodiment of majesty and power.
Even Horus, the most defiant among them, had borne that supreme reverence deep within her heart.
But now...
That once-mighty body was nothing more than an empty shell, like a specimen forcibly nailed to a shrine.
Countless thick cables and conduits flickering with dangerous energy coiled around it like parasitic vines, piercing that shell and connecting it to the immense, intricate mechanical array beneath the throne.
The throne itself emitted terrifying psychic fluctuations. That radiance was less the Emperor's power than an ever-burning infernal fire, sustaining that shell against extinction while suppressing the endless darkness below!
The Emperor's head hung low, his face hidden from view.
Only the heavy, icy psychic pulse emanating from the depths of the throne, like an ancient heartbeat, proved that within that shell, a will as vast as a sea of stars still burned, still endured boundless agony, still... held up the crumbling Imperium of Man.
"Father..." Sanguinius's golden eyes were instantly overwhelmed by tremendous shock and inexpressible grief.
A thousand words lodged in her throat, becoming