The air was like molten steel frozen instantly at absolute zero: heavy, deathly still, and radiating a chill that made souls tremble.
Amid the scattered remains of Khrave and Death Guard, smoke and fluorescent blood, the two opposing sides formed the most absurd and despairing tableau in the galaxy.
On one side stood over a hundred warriors of the Death Guard Legion, clad in blue-gray and dull silver Power Armour, battered but still standing like a forest of steel.
Behind them were thousands of Imperialis Militia soldiers rushed in from across the ship, their faces deathly pale but their weapons still firmly gripped as they blocked the shattered bulkhead doors and passage entrances.
And before them all, towering like a mountain, stood their Primarch, Mortarion.
His enormous body leaned forward slightly, his labored breathing a low growl before a storm. His knuckles creaked faintly from the force with which he gripped his Power Scythe.
The fresh scorch marks and dents on his breastplate, the enemy's fluorescent bodily fluids and his own side's dust caught in the seams of his armour, all spoke of the brutality of the battle just fought.
Opposite them stood only five figures.
Five Khrave Primals clad in shriveled, mummy-like silver-gray shells, their faces like metal plates eaten smooth by strong acid, their bodies wreathed in ghostly blue arcs and an aura of destruction.
They stood there silently, motionlessly, yet seemed like five black holes devouring all light and hope.
Compared with the "human wall" of Death Guard and mortal soldiers behind them, steeped in blood and smoke, those five figures looked laughably small.
But everyone still alive could feel the pressure of death emanating from those tiny figures, heavier than the entire Endurance, as though it came from the end of time itself.
The brief, suffocating