Time froze at that instant, then compressed into an infinitely thin sliver.
Two lethal trajectories intersected at the limits of physical law.
There was no thunderous crash.
Only a brief, wet sound of tearing flesh that chilled the marrow.
It was the final lament of resilient matter beyond mortal comprehension, forcibly stripped apart and severed by a greater power.
Hannibal's movements froze.
The psychic arcs surging along the blade he had swung had not yet fully faded, twitching like a dying viper's last spasms.
His head turned downward with an almost rigid slowness, looking toward his chest.
Or rather, where his chest had once been.
His gaze did not linger ahead. It passed over his disintegrating shoulder and looked behind him.
A smooth, deep cut ran diagonally from his left shoulder to his right waist, its edges slightly crystallized by searing heat.
His already shattered white armour, the layer of shimmering black material beneath it, and the indescribable xenos anatomy deeper still all peeled outward like cheap leather torn open by invisible, enormous hands.
There was no blood within the wound, only steadily escaping spectral energy and tissue rapidly turning ashen and carbonized.
He "saw" it.
In the final image of his consciousness, Lion El'Jonson's figure appeared.
The Primarch had paid a price as well.
Hannibal's last slash, the blow that gathered all his remaining psychic energy and hatred, had not missed entirely.
A hideous gash had opened across Lion El'Jonson's abdominal armour, its edges melting and dripping, the flesh beneath charred black. Even his metallic-looking reinforced bones were visible.
The Primarch pressed one hand firmly beside the wound, trying to contain any internal damage.
Yet what extinguished Hannibal's final shred of fighting awareness was Lion El'Jonson's eyes.
Those eyes, like cast molten gold, held no shadow of pain or