(Thanks to Servo-skull 2887 and Red Alert 08's Tip-off Bro for the premium certification gifts. Five extra chapters!)
"Quick, take the Warmaster to the Black Eye."
Brutus's voice rang out in the reception room, filled with barely contained anxiety and urgency.
His hands still gripped the Dagger driven into Horus's heart, feeling the pulse transmitted through its blade grow steadily weaker.
He could feel Horus's life slipping away. That mighty Primarch's heart was slowly ceasing to beat beneath his blade.
His fingers trembled, but his gaze remained resolute. He had come this far. There was no turning back.
The moment they heard the order, the two Ringwraiths spun swiftly through the air, their indistinct forms seemingly condensed from gray mist, their hands tracing intricate patterns.
With a low hum that seemed to rise from an abyss, a black portal suddenly opened in the middle of the room.
The portal's edges shimmered a twisted, constantly shifting dark purple. Within lay a profound darkness, as though it led into an endless void.
The smell of Ozone mingled with sulfur filled the air, stinging their nostrils with a burning sensation.
Brutus and several other Ringwraith warriors lifted the dying Horus and stepped through the portal.
As they passed through, a brief wave of weightlessness and dizziness swept over them, as though they had been hurled into a space without gravity. Then their feet touched solid ground again.
They had arrived beneath Talon.
It was an immense Underground Chamber, clearly not a natural formation.
Its walls had been polished as smooth as mirrors and covered with ancient Aeldari inscriptions and images.
The lettering was delicate and elegant, winding across the walls like vines, telling a story long since forgotten.
The images depicted scenes from the ancient age of the Aeldari: magnificent cities, soaring spacecraft,