Time began to flow backward under the power of the Chaos God Khorne.
The crimson psychic energy flowed like a river reversing its course, lifting the Khan's corpse from the pool of blood and merging the Chosen Soul forced into him with his reconstructed body.
Then it pulled him back from the wasteland shrouded in Chaos within the Warp, through layer upon layer of spatial veils, across the boundary between realspace and the Warp, and through the planet's Atmosphere.
Then he returned to the Blade Storm.
He stood in the center of the bridge, surrounded by officers and warriors busy at their duties. Data and charts flickered across the tactical displays, while reports from various units sounded over the communications channel.
Everything was exactly as it had been when he left, as though the battle that had lasted hundreds of years in the Deep Pit, the hundreds of thousands of Chaos Warrior slain, and the final confrontation with Abial had all been nothing more than a dream.
When the Khan opened his eyes, he stood on the surface of a planet.
His body had returned to reality.
The ground beneath his feet was solid, the sky overhead was real, and the wind brushing his face carried the scent of earth and vegetation.
He looked at the bodies of the traitorous enemies being cleared away around him: the Marauder cavalry in red armour, the corpses being dragged off the battlefield by White Scars warriors, and the weapons and equipment being gathered together and burned.
He lowered his head again and looked at his own body. It was completely intact, without a single wound or trace of blood. Even his white power armour was as spotless as new, as though it had never endured that brutal battle.
The soul within the Khan