The heavy alloy hatch slid fully open. A thick, pungent stench of blood mingled with the charred smell left by psychic energy, surging out like something tangible and assaulting the senses of every Word Bearer warrior.
Inside the isolation chamber, the flickering emergency lights cast an eerie, ominous pall over the gruesome scene.
Sergeant Orwell stood in the doorway, clad in heavy Cataphractii Terminator armour.
His nerves had been tempered by countless battles, long accustomed to death and bloodshed, yet the sight inside still sent an instinctive chill through him.
Thick, crimson Aeldari blood stained every inch of metal in sight like splattered paint, tracing crazed, abstract patterns across the ceiling, walls, and control console.
Dozens of elite Aeldari warriors lay on the floor, their bodies twisted and shattered. Many were scarcely recognizable as whole forms, as though some unimaginable force or impossibly sharp edge had torn them apart in an instant.
The Aeldari bishop in his ornate ceremonial robes lay pitifully in the middle of a pool of blood, his face frozen in utter horror and disbelief—a cruel contrast to his former haughtiness.
All of this had happened in less than twenty seconds. Right behind this door.
Will's gaze slowly shifted toward the center of that mountain of corpses and sea of blood.
Toward the white-haired figure sitting silently atop the piled bodies.
"...You've got to be kidding me." The almost speechless murmur slipped uncontrollably over the internal communications channel.
Will knew all too well how terrifyingly powerful the infiltrating squad had been.
The Aeldari bishop leading them had possessed unfathomable psychic power, enough to unleash storms across a vast battlefield.
The silent warriors at his side had each been master assassins, one in ten thousand—the sharpest daggers of the Aeldari Craftworlds.
Even the elite troops Orwell commanded would