The light of the explosion swallowed the golden meteor diving down.
Countless gun muzzles unleashed their long-hoarded destruction in the same instant. Those energies came from Dark Age singularity weapons, from twisted and folded fragments of black holes, from malformed creations born of the coupling of Chaos and the laws of the material world.
They converged into an impenetrable curtain of light, engulfing Sanguinius completely.
Yet the curtain lasted less than a breath.
A golden fissure tore open at the center of the explosion, and Sanguinius burst out of the destruction. A few feathers on his wings had been scorched black, but his eyes remained as bright as burning stars.
His speed had long since surpassed the speed of light. He was too fast for time itself to react, so fast that the laws of physics tore before him like thin paper.
He punched through the black hole's event horizon. Its distorted gravitational field collapsed before him, and the energy unleashed by the singularity weapons was brutally crushed by the golden radiance enveloping his body.
Ferrus Manus stood on the metal plain, looking up at the sight.
He saw the golden meteor tear Realspace apart. He saw the surrounding space collapse, shatter, and reform beneath that terrifying power. He saw the shadows of Chaos exposed within those distorted rifts, only to collapse swiftly beneath the crushing golden light.
His expression did not change. His hollow eyes remained calm. All of this was within his calculations.
He did not believe those ordinary weapons could stop Sanguinius.
As he considered this, he raised the warhammer in his hand.
The warhammer had been thoroughly modified by Chaos technology. Dense arrays of conduits and gears covered its head, and dark red veins of light flowed through the gaps in the metal.
Several sharp tendrils