The heavy armour, warped into ominous shapes, scraped across the rough stone floor with a piercing screech.
Cassios was carefully laid on a heavy metal sled, a contraption more suited to hauling massive machinery components.
He lay there motionless, his dark grey Power Armour now little more than a shattered metal shell barely holding its shape.
His breastplate had caved in completely. The armour around his left arm, along with the limb inside it, had twisted to an unnatural angle. Cracks covered his helmet's faceplate, and deep within, the dim lights of his Life Support System occasionally flickered, accompanied by faint, erratic beeping.
Dark red blood and clear life-sustaining fluid seeped through the cracks in his armour, leaving a broken, horrifying trail behind the sled.
More than a dozen Word Bearers Apothecaries and Techmarines surrounded the sled, silently and efficiently performing initial stabilization procedures. They injected powerful coagulants and stimulants, secured obvious fractures with makeshift braces, and connected portable vital-sign monitors.
The waveforms flickering across the monitors were weak and chaotic. No one spoke; only the clatter of instruments and heavy breathing broke the silence.
Their gazes were complicated as they looked at the ruined body on the sled: shock, disbelief, and a trace of bewilderment at something beyond their understanding.
Hercules's inhuman blow had not only destroyed Cassios's defences, but deeply shaken every Astartes present.
Lorgar stood on a raised platform at the edge of the Duel Arena, looking down at it all without expression.
He said nothing to Hercules, merely giving him a slight nod.
Hercules scratched his head, seemingly a little embarrassed by the destruction he had caused, but that was all. He soon returned to his faintly drowsy demeanour and ambled out of the arena under his companions' awestruck gazes.
Only when the medical team had