Lorgar strode forward, heavy sword in hand.
His steps were no longer light and swift, but heavy and steady, each one seeming to make the warship's keel groan beneath him.
The sword tip dragged behind him, ploughing a thin, dazzling trail of sparks across the adamantium deck with a teeth-grating screech.
He advanced deeper into the Hall, toward the direction of Saladin's retreat.
Along the way, scattered traitor survivors remained, not completely erased by the earlier eruption of psychic energy, while other enemies poured in through adjoining passages as reinforcements.
They mustered their last scraps of courage and hurled themselves at him with howls, or fired desperate shots from behind cover.
Lorgar did not even look at them.
Deep within his pupils, that golden gleam was no longer reflected fire, but light shining out from the depths of his soul, growing ever fiercer and purer.
That light drove the last traces of human hesitation and uncertainty from his face. Even his suppressed anger settled into an absolute, icy focus.
His face was taut as carved stone, every line of muscle charged with strength and resolve. An inhuman solemnity, steeped in divine majesty, enveloped him, making him look more like a walking colossus, a vessel bearing too much sacred will, than a Primarch of flesh and blood.
Anyone in his path, whether a Space Marine wielding a Power Weapon or a mortal cowering in a corner, met a flash of golden sword-light of absolute simplicity and speed the moment they came within ten paces.
There were no wasted movements, no parries or evasions.
The sword rose, and they died.
Those it struck were either vaporized outright or reduced to two burning halves.
Instant death and silence paved Lorgar's advance.
At the far end of the Hall, before the entrance to an