With a distinct, dull crack of bone—the final groan of vertebrae under unbearable pressure—Erda's body went completely limp.
She no longer struggled, no longer roared, no longer tried to unleash that damned Enuncia.
Her limbs fell limply to the floor, like those of a rag doll drained of all strength.
Blood slowly flowed from the shattered wounds on her face, spreading into an ever-widening pool of dark red on the floor.
She had gone quiet.
Not because she had surrendered, but because her body had reached its limits.
Lorgar stood on that once-beautiful head, feeling the body beneath his foot go from violent struggling to complete resignation.
He did not lift his foot immediately. Instead, he kept pressing down for several more seconds, confirming that she had lost all ability to resist before slowly stepping away.
He flicked the blood from his Greatsword and was about to say something when he froze.
The assassin was gone.
Lorgar turned sharply, sweeping his gaze across the entire Gray Void.
Nothing.
No silhouette lurking in the shadows, no presence hiding behind the mist, no lingering trace whatsoever.
The figure who had fought Angron and Curze simultaneously, who had escaped unscathed from the assault of two Primarchs, had vanished without a trace.
As though he had never existed, as though he had been nothing but an illusion.
"I got careless," Lorgar murmured to himself, his brow creasing slightly.
A flicker of curiosity crossed his mind. How had that fellow managed it?
He knew Angron's fighting prowess all too well, and Curze's tracking skills were unmatched among the Legions.
Escaping their combined assault unscathed, without even leaving anything they could track, was beyond what being merely "skilled" could explain.
That fellow's identity was probably far more complicated than he had first imagined.
Still, he no