Sanguinius understood that a head-on confrontation had become a dead end. Ferrus Manus had read all his combat data before the battle even began.
As long as he continued fighting the way he always had, he would never so much as touch that steel body.
If the Blood Angels recklessly joined the fight, all that awaited them was a massacre.
He needed to take the battle off this metal planet. He needed to lure Ferrus Manus somewhere with no external machines to rely on, then shatter that steel shell in the void.
As he considered this, Ferrus Manus suddenly moved.
The arm formed from liquid metal slowly rose with an unnervingly casual air, like a great beast that had tired of its prey and was choosing its next toy.
He extended a finger. The silver-gray metal at its tip split open layer by layer, revealing a deep-blue targeting component within, aimed at the Blood Angels warship far away among the stars.
"Would you strike down your own sons, my brother?" Ferrus Manus's voice drifted from his metal throat. "I look forward to finding out."
The instant those words fell, Sanguinius's pupils contracted sharply.
He saw the distant warship's guns turn toward him in perfect unison. The metal bodies of its turrets gave off a dull mechanical rumble as they rotated, reflecting streaks of piercing, cold light beneath the star's radiance.
The weapons systems had been forcibly seized. Every gun began to glow as it charged.
Then fire thundered down from among the stars.
Several lance beams and macro-cannon shells descended from the sky, threatening to crush Sanguinius against the metal planet's surface.
Sanguinius did not hesitate.
With a powerful beat of his wings, he became a streak of golden lightning, darting through the gaps in the overlapping fire.
Explosions erupted