Khârn sprinted down the corridor, its almost unnaturally straight path paved with shattered carapaces, fluorescent blood, and chunks of viscera.
The low growl of his Chainaxe was his only accompaniment, punctuated by the sickening sensation of bone fragments crunching or slime slipping beneath his boots.
He charged through one blast door after another that had been violently torn open, passing through compartments thick with the stench of scorching and the Ozone of overloaded psychic energy, his sharp gaze sweeping every shadow that might conceal an enemy.
But there were none.
Aside from increasingly dense piles of Rangdan corpses whose deaths grew ever more "creative," he saw not a single enemy still capable of moving.
He even saw a few unfortunate wretches smashed bodily into alloy walls, embedded so deeply that no one could have pried them out.
When he finally reached the corridor's end—a massive breach blown wide open by a violent explosion, offering a direct view of the Void outside and the burning Planet below—he stopped short.
Fierce winds howled through the breach.
Beyond lay the cold stars, drifting wreckage, and the Planet below, stained dark red by Warfire.
At the edge of the breach, there were only fresh marks of violently torn metal and half an enormous footprint sunk deep into a twisted armor plate.
Angron's mountainous figure was gone.
"Father?" Khârn growled over the vox. "Where are you? Have you cleared out the enemy?"
After a brief crackle of static, Lotara's characteristic voice came through, steady with a barely perceptible trace of resignation. "Company Captain Khârn. Unfortunately, you won't catch up with him now. Angron has... gone down."
"The lower decks? He's that fast?" Khârn paused, instinctively assuming Angron had cut his way deeper into the warship. Even his voice took on a note of admiration.
"That's