Lorgar's muscles tensed like alloy springs. Psychic energy roared through his veins, and the flames licking from his sword's tip scorched the surrounding air with a fine crackle.
He was utterly alert, every cell sounding a warning as he calculated every possible attack Erda might launch, whether a psychic shock wave, a distortion of space, or some mysterious power he had yet to understand.
Yet Erda paid no attention to any of it.
She merely took one gentle step forward.
The step seemed ordinary, yet it was as though she had moved to some invisible rhythm. Even the light and shadows throughout the quiet chamber seemed to sway subtly with it.
She radiated no hostility and gathered no terrifying energy. She simply "looked" at Lorgar with those eyes, hidden behind her veil yet seemingly able to pierce everything, then took a second step, approaching him slowly and inexorably.
That disregard filled Lorgar with a cold fury at being utterly belittled, more than any vicious assault could have.
The complex emotions in her gaze combined with the pressure of her steady approach to form a profoundly unsettling provocation.
The distance shrank.
Five steps.
Four steps.
The last trace of hesitation and inquiry vanished from Lorgar's eyes, leaving only pure, cold resolve.
Against a being like this, words were feeble and probing was pointless.
Since she had chosen to approach him like this, he would "answer" in a way she ought to understand.
A silent thunderclap seemed to erupt within the quiet chamber!
Without a roar or a warning, Lorgar moved.
The two-handed Greatsword, blazing with destructive psychic fire, was weightless in his hands. It became a bolt of lightning that tore through space, following the simplest, most brutal, most direct path as it slashed fiercely down toward Erda's shoulder and neck!