He drew his sword. It closely resembled the Emperor's Sword in Guilliman's hand, but fractured black lightning flickered constantly along its blade. Any warp daemon that so much as approached it was annihilated, body and soul.
Bona drew the Sword of Hope, forged from his own convictions. Its scorching flames lit a corner of the world, standing against the black lightning.
|You and I have long understood that this world is trapped in a hopeless cycle.|
The Dark King spoke as he slowly advanced toward Bona.
|Rising with the dawn, falling with the sunset, whether humans, Aeldari, or Necrontyr.|
|Even the Old Ones, who defined the world, and the C'tan, who defined its laws, cannot escape this "fate."|
|Let alone you, "outsider."|
"Giving up because there is no hope is the greatest folly."
"I thought that, as the most powerful being, you might have some unique insight."
"But now I see you're just a madman who has given up on himself."
He laughed scornfully, so loudly that he seemed to have heard the most outrageous joke imaginable.
|Enough talk!|
With that, the Dark King roared and charged, reaching Bona in the blink of an eye.
An instant later, Bona felt as though someone had seized his heart in a crushing grip. His limbs stiffened, refusing to move. The enormous sword, flickering with black lightning, crashed down, but Bona still managed to block it.
The crushing blow drove Bona to one knee, and countless cracks spread through the ground beneath his feet.
At the same time, immense bolts of black lightning tore across the Warp, effortlessly pulverizing the creatures roaming within it. Even its surging tides were forcibly brought to a halt.
|You are as fragile as your ideals,| the Dark King sneered.
He raised his enormous black blade and kicked