Like a silent black meteor, the Drop Pod broke free of the mothership beneath the worried, wordless "gazes" of countless warriors of the Raven Guard Legion and plunged without hesitation toward the lava planet below, which burned with eternal fury.
There was no escort, no supporting formation, only that solitary speck streaking through the thin, warped atmosphere stained by the planet's dark red glow, trailing a fleeting, tragic scorch mark.
Corax had chosen to go alone.
When the Drop Pod crashed down at the predetermined, relatively "stable" coordinates and its hatch opened amid the hiss of depressurization, he alone stepped out of the compartment, its exterior glowing faintly red from the heat.
The Raven Guard lord's signature light-absorbing, dark Power Armor almost blended into the background against the planet's dark red sky and the black rock beneath his feet, like a living silhouette emerging from the shadows.
He did not look back toward orbit, nor did he issue any order for his sons to follow.
Before landing, he had even issued an unquestionable, almost brutally absolute command forbidding any Raven Guard warrior, including his most trusted Archon, Phall, from descending with him.
He loved his sons.
That love sprang from the Primarch's regard for them as ravens sheltered beneath his wings, his kin in the darkness, extensions of his strength and will.
Precisely because of that, he would never allow these loyal warriors to enter this inescapable inferno for the sake of his purely personal, almost obsessive desire.
Finding the artifact and resurrecting Bella—those were his own affairs, Corax's alone.
This journey was fraught with dangers and blasphemies that even he could not fully foresee, or wished to examine too closely. Let his sons die for it?
No. Never.
"This is the place..."
Corax's voice was barely audible in the