Twenty figures appeared without warning around the tactical hololith at the center of the Bridge, like twenty cold metal gravestones suddenly piercing reality.
Their leader stood slightly taller, irregular geometric patterns flowing across its silver-gray carapace, with dark Warp energy seemingly pulsing deep within them.
Those were the hallmarks of an Elite Khrave.
They stood there in silence, motionless, yet exuded a nauseating presence that seemed to warp space and time themselves.
"Hiss!"
In the next instant, two sounds so faint they were almost imperceptible erupted in the silence, like high-energy lasers slicing through the air.
Perfectly smooth diagonal cuts appeared simultaneously across the fronts of the heavy Terminator Armour worn by the two Deathshroud closest to the Elite Khrave, shimmering with a sickly blue-violet glow.
There was no shriek of twisting metal, no flash of collapsing energy shields. They looked like two works of art precisely scored by an invisible engraving blade.
A moment later, the two battle-hardened, silent guardians, along with armour capable of withstanding direct hits from heavy artillery, split neatly in half along those flawless cuts.
Less than a single breath had passed between the creatures' arrival and their first kills.
"Enemy attack!"
Mortarion roared.
He did not charge at the most conspicuous Elite. Instead, his massive body surged sideways with explosive speed utterly at odds with his size.
His target was an ordinary Khrave transforming the end of its "arm" into an energy blade flickering with unstable violet light, silently thrusting it toward a nearby Tech-Priest slumped at a control console.
Mortals among the crew were as fragile as paper dolls before these creations of the Old Ones.
His scythe, Silence, cut through the air with a heavy, mournful howl.
There was no elegant arc, only a precise, vicious diagonal slash that concentrated the Primarch's