Lorgar felt his body growing lighter and lighter.
It was a strange sensation, as though his body were losing its weight, escaping the constraints of matter and drifting toward some higher dimension.
He could feel everything around him blurring. The starlight glittering in the heavens, the energy surging through the void, the distant shouts and cries—all were gradually receding, fading from his senses like an ebbing tide.
He could feel someone lifting him.
Those hands were warm and strong, bearing a presence he knew all too well: the Emperor's.
Those hands supported his back and his head, carrying him away from the rift spewing unchecked energy, away from the collapsing void, away from the battle still raging.
He could feel those hands trembling slightly, and through that trembling, some emotion of the Emperor's reached Lorgar's heart.
Then Lorgar felt golden light envelop him.
The light settled gently over his body like a warm blanket, wrapping his wounds, soothing his pain and warming his cold flesh.
Within that light lay a power as gentle as a mother's touch. In that moment, his body relaxed, and his consciousness sank into darkness.
On Prospero, the Emperor's apparition held the grievously wounded Lorgar as he slowly descended onto the war-ravaged ground.
By the time he landed, the apparition's body had grown translucent and indistinct, its edges beginning to dissolve. After diverting his power to carry Lorgar, the Emperor no longer had enough residual energy to sustain the apparition's form.
He gently laid Lorgar on a relatively level patch of ground, his movements as tender as though he were setting down a fragile treasure.
Then the remaining apparition slowly dissipated into the air, becoming countless golden motes that drifted through the night like fireflies before vanishing completely.
Angron and Curze were the first to reach