Behind Erebus, a Word Bearers warrior who had been standing guard suddenly had a gaping bullet hole in his forehead. The light faded forever from his bewildered eyes, and he fell heavily forward.
"Sorry to interrupt."
Liu Zhipeng spoke slowly, his electronic voice devoid of emotion.
"I have a slightly... different opinion of your theological theories."
An eerie, deathly silence settled over the entire hollow.
The arrogant Erebus, the beastlike, raging Khârn, and the despairing loyalist prisoners kneeling on the ground were all utterly stunned by this sudden turn of events.
A Tech-Sage?
An apparently unarmed cog-boy responsible for maintenance and logistics actually dared challenge the Chief Chaplain of the Word Bearers, here, like this?
Had he gone mad?
Erebus was the first to recover. A flicker of astonishment crossed his face, then turned into the furious humiliation of someone who had been offended by an insect.
"A spare part!" he screeched, his voice dripping with venom. "A lowly mechanical slave worshipping a false god! You dare... you dare interrupt my sermon?! Khârn! Tear him to pieces! Shove his components up his exhaust pipe, one by one!"
Khârn grinned, a cruel smile spreading across the hideous face distorted by the implanted Butcher's Nails. To him, tearing apart a Tech-Priest was as simple and tedious as crushing a cockroach.
He did not even bother activating his Chainaxe. He merely strode forward, ready to crush this suicidal "tin can" into scrap as easily as crumpling a drinks can.
But the instant he took his first step forward-
The Tech-Sage moved.
He moved faster than anyone present could comprehend!
His voluminous red robe left a phantom afterimage where he had stood. His actual body appeared at Khârn's side with speed that defied the laws of physics, as though he had teleported!
Fast! Too