"This was my mistake."
The Angel, gripping the Spear of Completion, froze in place. He saw countless blinding flashes suddenly ignite across the heavens, shrouded in the dust of war and nuclear clouds.
The light pierced through layer upon layer of dust, like miniature suns rising within the clouds. Their hazy, flickering glow carried an ominous warning, while the deep tremors in the atmosphere sounded like the final dirge before doomsday.
The firelight of the nuclear explosions drew closer and closer, until it finally tore through the black-curtain clouds and dust.
Whether Loyalist or traitor, anyone aboard the Orbital Platform who had not died in the first wave of sympathetic detonations would fall with this living tomb toward the planet's surface.
Sanguinius sensed hundreds of his bloodline struggling aboard the falling Orbital Platform. Some Blood Angels could escape this place of destruction with their jump packs, but far more battle-brothers had been grievously wounded by the explosions and lacked the strength to flee.
Everything had happened too quickly—so quickly that even the Astartes' neural reaction speeds had failed to stop the suicidal acts of those mad enemies. By the time they came to their senses, many brothers had already perished in the blasts or been buried beneath collapsed metal structures.
The terrified screams of countless dying humans echoed amid the explosions. With every heartbeat, innumerable lives slipped away. There had been too much death; their souls had gone numb. Even the tears meant for mourning had dried upon their cheeks before they could fall to the ground.
"Find cover! Find cover!"
"Raise the void shields to maximum! That is an order!"
Sanguinius's voice rang out across the battlefield. The Angel beat his wings and shot into the sky like an arrow loosed from a bow, continually relaying orders.
The Blood