The Stars' power scorched the surface of Calth.
It was a firestorm fierce enough to melt steel.
The Ultramarines' three cruisers had detonated their reactors deep within the Stars, triggering a chain reaction that sent the yellow giant into a sudden frenzy, releasing energy accumulated over billions of years.
Torrents of searing plasma poured down from the sky, shrouding Calth's surface in incandescent light.
The temperature surged to thousands of degrees in an instant.
The once-arrogant metal monsters twisted, melted, and vaporized in the flames. Their bodies softened like wax figures, then collapsed into pools of gleaming molten iron that flowed freely across the surface.
The warriors of the Iron Hands Legion, the traitors who had been committing Butchery only moments before, were also reduced to nothing in an instant. Their armour melted in the heat, their bodies evaporated in the flames, and they had no time even to scream.
The metal became molten iron, winding across Calth's blackened surface like silver rivers.
The roiling flames in the sky were reflected in those molten streams, scattering dazzling light and turning the entire planet into a furnace world.
Ferrus Manus stood at the centre of that expanse of molten iron.
He raised his Warhammer high and faced the stellar storm.
His silhouette looked utterly insignificant in the incandescent light, yet utterly resolute.
His armour began to glow red in the heat, but his body remained motionless, standing firm like a reef amid raging waves.
His gaze pierced the searing light and stared straight into the stellar storm that annihilated everything. There was no fear in his eyes, no awe, only a cold, almost defiant calm.
The storm lasted three full minutes.
After three minutes, the flames gradually receded, and the raging Stars slowly grew calm again.
Calth's surface had changed beyond