At the Khan's command, the remnants of the White Scars and Space Wolves fleets began withdrawing toward the heart of the Beta-Garmon Cluster.
There, the main forces of Sanguinius and Lion El'Jonson were assembling. It was also the battlefield the Lion had prepared for the anticipated final battle.
The planets Beta-Garmon II and Beta-Garmon III.
Yet Chaghatai had lost his former unwavering composure. The Warhawk's heart was filled with doubts. He did not know whether they could win a delaying battle against Horus's daemon-like army.
Even though he had elevated Horus's threat level to that of the most dangerous conceivable enemy, after fighting him, Chaghatai still felt that he had underestimated Horus.
He realized that both he and the Lion had greatly underestimated Horus's power in the Warp. This referred not only to the Warmaster's personal strength, but also to the enhancement and empowerment the Warp granted the rebels.
The Khan recalled the rebel warriors he had seen, clad in spikes and iron hooks, their armor warped and mutated into demonic shapes, fond of carrying strings of skulls. They were no longer Astartes.
They were a more wicked hybrid of human and daemon, utterly stripped of humanity.
Yet there was no denying that they were immensely powerful. Warp energy could distort the laws of physics, allowing them to wield even greater strength in battle.
The adamantium armor and strong-force armor formerly fielded by the loyalists still performed countless times better than ceramite plating, but their invulnerability had been shattered.
"We still cannot make a warp jump, my lord," reported the captain of the Skyhawk. His crew and the priests of the Mechanicum were working at full capacity to repair and calibrate the systems, but it was still impossible.
It was as though the Warp had fallen entirely under the enemy's