"For the Emperor! Purge them!"
The Custodian's icy voice carried supreme authority.
"WAAAGH! Stinking bugs! Tin cans! Don't you steal my fight!"
That was the roar of a hulking Ork who had no idea what was going on.
The Hive Tyrant answered with a soul-rending shriek and a savage psychic blast.
The battlefield became a maelstrom of indiscriminate slaughter.
Four factions tore into one another in a frenzy.
Deadly attacks of every kind crisscrossed the cramped space.
Weapon beams and ammunition, severed limbs, metal fragments, and Tyranid carapaces flew everywhere, while explosions flared one after another.
The Nightbringer shard was utterly enraged by this sudden, chaotic interference.
He actually had to devote his attention to a single individual, while everyone around him ignored his presence and fought among themselves.
At that moment, he felt profoundly humiliated.
The fighting styles and equipment of those tin cans in ancient Imperial Power Armour instantly reminded him of the Ultramarines he had encountered before.
Yet their performance did not even measure up to that of his own servants.
As for the Tyranid creatures, they reminded him of certain strange organisms from long ago, things that had nearly starved them to death in the Physical Universe.
But how dared they ignore his presence, even briefly!
Beyond his anger, what put him on alert was how these insects had appeared. Strange energy fluctuations lingered nearby, identical to the methods his servants habitually used.
"Servants... traitors!"
The Nightbringer shard's thoughts, mingled with shrieking energy, swept through the heart of the battlefield like a tsunami, carrying the towering fury of one who had been affronted.
"You dare... spy on your master?!"
He immediately concluded that his whereabouts had been exposed.
The thought made him feel threatened. He was only a shard now, his power far below its peak.