Before he had finished speaking, Horus became a streak of black-and-gold lightning. Blue energy arcs hissed across Worldbreaker's head, scorching the rotten air around it with sharp crackles.
Mortarion did not move. He simply stood there, like a rock that had lain silent in the depths of a swamp for countless ages. His bloated body looked clumsy, yet radiated the immovable weight of a mountain.
The instant Horus's warhammer was about to strike his skull, Mortarion moved.
His movement was not fast. It could even have been called slow. The enormous war scythe named Silence swept upward in an uncanny arc that defied the laws of physics.
Clang-!!!!
The clash of warhammer and war scythe unleashed a deep, lingering hum, like the tolling of an ancient bronze bell.
An invisible shock wave spread outward from the two of them. Horus's Royal Guard staggered back under its force, the servos in their Terminator Armour shrieking from overload.
More terrifying still was the "emotion" that came with the shock wave.
"Ugh..." A battle-hardened Space Wolves veteran suddenly dropped to one knee, clutched his helmet, and groaned in agony. His mind no longer held the frozen plains of Fenris or the glory of battle, but an endless sense of futility: old age, disease, and finally crumbling into dust. His will to fight was being drained away, little by little.
"Keep your minds pure! In the Emperor's name!" The Salamanders captain, a giant with obsidian skin and eyes burning like fire, roared as he activated his armour's built-in Purification Rune. A faint golden glow enveloped the squad, temporarily holding back the psychic plague.
But it clearly could not last. The entire Prayer Hall was Mortarion's domain. The kneeling statues began to "weep," foul-smelling, dark green pus pouring from their eye sockets and gathering into