The instant the second Ferrus Manus replica stepped through the gate, Sanguinius attacked.
He did not wait, did not probe, did not give his opponent a chance to find his footing. With a powerful beat of his wings, he became a bolt of golden lightning and hurtled straight at Ferrus Manus with overwhelming force.
Pale flames burned at the tip of the Spear of Telesto, trailing a slender streak of light through the vacuum.
Sanguinius held nothing back in this strike.
He had absorbed everything from the first round. The replica's reaction speed, attack patterns, and upper limit of strength had all been etched into his combat memory.
He believed this strike would pierce that steel shell before his opponent could fully deploy his weapon, shredding it along with the densely packed wiring in its chest.
Yet just as the Spear of Telesto was about to touch Ferrus Manus, Sanguinius's pupils abruptly contracted.
Ferrus Manus reached out with one hand and firmly stopped a strike powerful enough to pierce a planet.
That hand was made of liquid metal, its surface gleaming dark silver. The instant before the spear tip could pierce it, the metal rapidly reconfigured and reinforced itself, stopping the strike dead.
At the same time, Ferrus Manus raised his other hand high. With a heavy rush through the air, the Warhammer came crashing down toward Sanguinius's head like a falling meteor.
Sanguinius beat his wings sharply and darted sideways, narrowly evading the blow.
The Warhammer grazed his wingtip and smashed into the metal ground, blasting open a fissure hundreds of meters long as the shock wave swept up the surrounding debris.
Before Sanguinius could recover his stance, however, Ferrus Manus's next strike was already upon him. The Warhammer swept across, trailing dark-red veins of light like a giant