Lorgar Aurelian lost his composure once again.
He had thought that by studying the primordial truth within the Warp and steadily improving his control over psychic power, he could change his usual habit of getting beaten down.
But his earlier crushing defeat at Guilliman's hands had dealt a tremendous blow to the eager Daemon Primarch's confidence.
Lorgar could only comfort himself by saying that damned Guilliman had simply been too cunning. Guilliman had clearly awakened an anti-psychic power capable of countering psychic abilities, yet had kept it hidden until Lorgar appeared, only then unleashing a devastating surprise.
It was unfair. If it had been a fair fight, things would never have turned out this way.
Lorgar firmly believed that any Primarch besides himself who had embraced Chaos would most likely have been unable to defeat a monstrously overpowered enemy like Guilliman in the real universe and would have been banished back into the Warp.
He had not lost because he was too weak. He simply could not fight an enemy born to counter him.
But now, when the Emperor's familiar psychic bitch slap landed squarely on Lorgar, the Great Word Bearer suddenly felt as though he had returned to the day Perfect City was burned.
Roboute Guilliman's fleet had launched orbital bombardment against Perfect City, reducing the holy city the Word Bearers had poured their hearts into building to ashes.
And the Emperor had been present then. With his unimaginable psychic power, he had forced every Word Bearer, including Lorgar, to kneel and acknowledge their wrongdoing.
The Perfect City incident had happened long ago. Lorgar had thought he had forgotten that humiliation, but at this moment, every detail came flooding back.
"Why? Why is this damned humiliation happening again?!"
The Great Word Bearer's proud psychic power was still pitifully weak