The instant the gray silhouette fully solidified and revealed its form, it was as though two blocks of invisible ice had been dropped into the already stagnant air of the Contemplation Hall.
Almost at that same instant, the two other beings in the Contemplation Hall reacted.
Seated in her hovering chair, Anna had been watching with the air of someone enjoying a show. Her azure eyes abruptly narrowed, and the fingers supporting her chin tightened slightly. Though her body barely moved, her languid amusement vanished in an instant, replaced by a sharp scrutiny like that of a precision scanner.
She stared intently at the woman who had just appeared, faint streams of data seeming to flicker deep within her pupils.
Hercules, standing in the shadows behind and to Lorgar's side like a cast-iron statue, reacted far more directly—and violently.
He did not even wait for an order. His golden eyes, which had remained half-lidded as though nothing concerned him, snapped wide open the very instant the silhouette solidified!
Deep within those placid pupils, a savage presence as profound as the Lava at a planet's core, born purely for battle and destruction, erupted without warning!
His massive body leaned forward slightly, every muscle tightening in an instant like a gigantic bow drawn to its limit. His right hand had already, instinctively and silently, closed around the hilt of the door-sized greatsword on his back.
There was no wasted movement, but the pressure of his locked-on, poised-to-strike presence crashed toward the figure at the doorway like a solid wall.
At the same time, Lorgar slowly turned around.
His movements were unhurried and steady, carrying that rhythm unique to a Primarch who held everything under his control.
His golden eyes, which seemed capable of piercing souls and time alike, settled calmly on the