"Also." Lorgar's voice rang out once more in the heavy air of the conference room, breaking the brief silence over Daemons and faith-based tactics.
The thoughtful light in his golden eyes had not faded. Instead, it turned toward a more sensitive, more delicate subject, one closely bound to the threat of "Daemons."
"Regarding the question of psychic energy..." he began slowly.
The moment he uttered those words, an exceedingly subtle, almost imperceptible change came over the room.
Psychic energy had always been a controversial power within the Imperium.
It was powerful, unpredictable, and bound by countless threads to the Warp, the dimension just revealed as the lair of "Daemons." They could even be said to share the same origin.
Even within the Word Bearers, attitudes toward psykers were far from unanimous.
Lorgar took in all these subtle reactions.
His expression remained calm as he clearly laid out his position, his tone that of someone weighing advantages against risks and seeking the most practical course:
"As for psychic energy within the Legion, my position is this: I do not encourage it, but neither do I prohibit it entirely."
The statement sounded moderate, yet it embodied an exceedingly cautious balance reached through careful deliberation.
He neither regarded psykers as potential threats to be purged or untouchable outcasts, as certain extreme conservative factions did, nor revered them as the core of the Legion's development and the source of its strength, as some psychically dependent Legions did.
"I ask only one thing." Lorgar raised a finger for emphasis, his voice steady but brooking no argument.
"Psychic energy must be used strictly as a military weapon, under fully compliant, absolutely controlled conditions, and only with approval at the highest level."
He deliberately stressed the word "weapon."
That meant that, in Lorgar's plans, psychic energy was