Having acquired considerable new technology — and having joined Malcador in giving the golden-skinned man another thorough beating — Perturabo returned to Olympia in high spirits.
It had to be said: the Second's gene-seed was genuinely excellent. Malcador had already combined it with elements of Magnus's and Lorgar's genetics, and whatever those two had done in the established history — both having turned traitor — as supplementary ingredients they had made a remarkable contribution to the Grey Knights' psychic power and stability.
And on Perturabo's end, having gene-samples from every returned brother, a bold idea had begun to take shape.
If he could take the best genetic fragments from each, layer some additional enhancements on top, and use them in the Grey Knights' construction — how powerful could the result be? Would they be stable? Would they be loyal?
Better to do than to say. Run an experiment and find out.
Perturabo was a man of action.
The first problem was how to fuse the gene-seeds of multiple Primarchs together. But no matter how he looked at it, using the Lion's and the Second's genetic fragments as the primary base, with Magnus's and Lorgar's as supplementary material, was simply the most suitable approach.
What Perturabo actually wanted was to use his brothers' genetic fragments combined with modification surgery costs capped at roughly the Thunder Warriors tier — and from that produce an enhanced Grey Knights formation that could stand comparison with the Custodians.
Because if one were being realistic, the Fourth Legion was already more or less composed of miniature Custodians at this point. The very top tier among them could hold their own against even the Custodian-Captains the Emperor had personally produced, and Diocletian's thirty-six veteran Custodians.
What Perturabo most wanted was to drive down production costs and increase combat capability as efficiently as possible.
By rights, Abominable Intelligence was the most convenient solution — an Iron Circle automaton didn't cost dramatically more than a Thunder Warrior, and was actually cheaper than a Custodian. Yet their combat effectiveness spoke for itself — a thousand of them encircling a Primarch and beating him down was entirely feasible.
At the biological technology frontier, the Emperor's Warp-sourced psychic techniques still stood at the summit. Perturabo had even once considered cloning a gene-Primarch.
If the Emperor's Children's Apothecaries could do it, Perturabo certainly wasn't going to fall short.
The problem was that every time Perturabo created a clone using his own genetics — even after expending enormous resources to generate an entirely new body — the results were consistently disappointing.
At best, they matched Valdor's level. And they utterly failed to inherit Perturabo's innate knowledge or his technological intuition.
He had even entertained the possibility that it was something specific to his own genetics, and had subsequently created clones from Vulkan's and Guilliman's templates — and even produced some mixed-heritage specimens by combining multiple brothers' genetics.
But as the count of these "clones" crept past a hundred, their capability gap from an actual Primarch remained enormous, and the resources consumed could have funded twenty thousand Iron Warriors at current standards.
The cost-to-benefit ratio was catastrophic. Perturabo had no choice but to form these clones into a personal praetorian guard, quietly integrating them among the Iron Guard who had survived the Huscarl conversion.
He certainly couldn't have his brothers noticing — that would be difficult to explain.
But now, looking at the gene-seed he'd constructed by combining and interlocking the genetics of four brothers, Perturabo felt a genuine flicker of surprise.
This stable? This pure? And carrying the psychic gifts of the Second and Magnus, along with Lorgar's absolute anti-Chaos effectiveness?
The compatibility threshold was the issue — extremely low acceptance rates, and extraordinarily selective about candidates across every parameter.
Setting aside Malcador's already absurd selection trials for the Grey Knights, what Perturabo had produced was simply a program with an extremely high baseline requirement.
High to a somewhat outrageous degree.
As a test, Perturabo had selected appropriately-aged children from worlds under his domain, put them through an intensive anti-Chaos corruption training programme, and set a very high resistance threshold for qualification. From the first cohort of twenty thousand seed-candidates, five children barely met the minimum threshold.
Of those five, only one actually survived the initial implantation. The other four were consumed by catastrophic rejection reactions almost instantly, too quickly even for Perturabo to save them.
And that was just the gene-seed implantation — the subsequent modification surgeries Perturabo had refined hadn't even begun yet.
Combined with the demanding candidate requirements, Perturabo concluded that his gene-seed variant was better sealed away for now. Malcador and the Emperor's version of the Grey Knights was already highly capable.
He still had other, bolder ideas working in the background.
During his earlier brawl with Malcador and the Emperor, he had quietly collected substantial genetic samples from both of them.
And he had, in private, conducted certain experiments of the type that would probably cause something approaching a detonation if even a whisper of them escaped.
Every researcher wants to produce a result that makes the galaxy sit up and take notice. The specific nature of that result is their own business.
Ultimately, Perturabo reluctantly abandoned the idea of taking the Emperor's genetic fragments, applying some minor creative modifications, and seeing what happened in practice.
The Emperor's genetic fragments were formidable. Using them as a foundation, with various supplementary inputs, produced individuals of remarkable capability — psychically, physically, and intellectually.
The personalities of those individuals, however, were absolutely insufferable. Not only were they vain to an extreme degree, but they were inflexible, stubborn, wilfully oblivious to advice, with unilateral decision-making and a spectacular tendency toward self-sabotage as their baseline modes of operation.
These hidden variables were simply too prone to creating spectacular disasters. With genuine reluctance, Perturabo destroyed the handful of samples that had cost him enormous resources to create.
Malcador's genetic fragments, by contrast, were safe, stable, and reliable — just not particularly powerful. Setting aside any comparison to the Emperor, they fell far short even of a Primarch in full form.
But Perturabo was not the kind of person who stopped at the first obstacle. If the conventional path was blocked, the unconventional path would have to do.
His thinking: if his Grey Knights gene-seed was this selective about candidates, what if he first subjected the shortlisted candidates to some preliminary modification surgery before attempting the gene-seed implantation?
A condensed version of the Huscarl and Iron Guard augmentations, for instance — bring the candidate's physical baseline up significantly first, then proceed with the enhanced Grey Knights modification procedure.
Perturabo will not discuss the details of the process. The surgeries went successfully.
Looking at the twenty-two three-metre-tall figures kneeling in formation before him, Perturabo felt a quiet satisfaction.
Setting aside the extraordinary cost — he genuinely didn't think they fell short of the Custodians in any meaningful way.
Loyal. Stable. Powerful. Hard-countering Chaos. Every one of them was an Alpha-Plus psyker. Their close-quarters combat ability was superb. Each wore a custom-designed psychic-variant Tyrant Terminator suit and carried a psychically-attuned power glaive and boltgun.
The first-created among them was even a Beta-Plus psyker — a rarity that bordered on unique across the entire Imperium.
It could be said without exaggeration: any single Grey Knight from Olympia would rank at no less than a Greater Daemon's level if they appeared on Chaos's side.
The cost was just absolutely absurd, completely contrary to Perturabo's original intent.
Which meant the "special Chapter" programme he'd envisioned from the start was a complete write-off.
His mind contained too many unusual ideas and what could only be described as an inexplicable collector's instinct, and the Imperium currently had nowhere near the resources to indulge him.
These units he had so carefully designed and created — he simply couldn't throw them at problems like expendable artillery shells. Having money didn't mean spending it like this.
While a stable output of loyal, powerful Alpha-Plus Grey Knights was achievable, the astronomical resource cost simply didn't justify the process.
"So that's the situation. No real reason for me to keep producing Grey Knights the same way you are."
Perturabo was communicating psychically with Malcador, who was working through administrative matters.
Malcador's hands, in the middle of processing documents, had begun to tremble slightly when he heard that Perturabo could produce Alpha-Plus Grey Knights reliably.
"You're certain? No genetic instability? No personality defects? No Flesh Change concerns?"
"Correct. The cost is very high — worse than your approach of drawing from Legion think-tanks, where quality emerges naturally from volume. No need for the level of forced augmentation I'm doing."
Is that not enough for you? What more do you want? As greedy as your Father.
Malcador very nearly said it out loud.
"How is your Grey Knights programme progressing?"
"Not well. Barely four hundred at current scale. Suitable candidates are too rare."
"That's a selection methodology problem. What you're doing isn't candidate selection — a person who knew would call it a Grey Knights trial; a person who didn't would call it some kind of ordeal initiation ritual for a suffering religion."
"The Grey Knights must have the most unshakeable will and loyalty. Otherwise if a single one is corrupted, the damage to the Imperium is incalculable. You know what a psyker can do, Perturabo."
"I won't argue with you. When your Grey Knights programme is complete, let me know. I've already selected their Grand Master — just waiting on you to finalise personnel."
Malcador immediately sensed something was off.
"You're targeting me for this too?"
"Simply don't want to keep producing them myself. And they'd be under your command anyway — the way you're saying it makes it sound like you'd be getting the worse end of the deal."
"How am I supposed to know what you intend to do with them?"
"If I wanted something done, would I really need them to do it?"
Malcador went quiet.
"Fine. Acceptable. But have them come before me first — I need to confirm whether they're qualified to serve as Grand Masters. You should know, I've drawn some exceptional individuals from the Legion think-tanks. Your people may not be able to compete."
"An Olympian commander will not be inferior to anyone."
Perturabo's voice carried absolute confidence.
"You're that certain? I'm not so sure."
"I've drawn several formidable individuals from both the First and Fifteenth Legions this time. You participated personally at Rangda — some of these people are not inferior to Iron Warriors. And their psychic ability? Every one of them is Alpha-Plus tier."
"Still confident?"
Malcador found his interest genuinely engaged. This was one of the rare pleasures available to him.
"My answer remains the same. An Olympian commander will not be inferior to anyone."
Perturabo was unmoved.
"Why don't we make a wager?"
The Emperor, on the Golden Throne, appeared to have overheard something entertaining. He materialised quietly beside Malcador.
"What are the stakes?"
"I want your Grey Knights modification technology."
"Even if you had it, replicating it is extremely difficult. The production cost per unit already approaches a Custodian."
"That's not your concern. Are you wagering or not?"
"Fine. If I win, I want another visit to the Shadow Cells. Whatever I decide to take this time, no complaints afterward."
"Done."
The Emperor agreed faster than Malcador.
Producing Alpha-Plus Grey Knights in volume — however you looked at it, this was not a trade to pass up.
Dealing with Chaos offensively or at least defensively was inevitable down the line. Better to secure the technology first.
"If you dare go back on it, you know the consequences."
"Just don't sulk when you lose."
The Emperor's tongue was as sharp as the Khan's when he chose to use it.
Having settled the wager with both of them, Perturabo turned his mind back to other things. The Grey Knights were handled — not quite as he'd imagined, but handled nonetheless.
Perturabo's ambitions were considerably larger than the Emperor and Malcador's. Why limit yourself to defending against Chaos? Why not go on the offensive?
Let them come and go as they pleased?
There was no universe in which that arrangement was acceptable. Offend him and expect to walk away clean?
Did they think his Daemonic Forge was a recreational park? The Pals inside had long been tearfully yearning for "new companions."
Once humanity actually completed the Webway, the dynamic would shift — it would no longer be the Warp invading realspace. Perturabo had already begun contingency planning.
Priority one: eliminate the most nauseating and dangerous — Nurgle. Then deal with the irritating Blue Bird. Khorne could be addressed last — that one was genuinely tricky.
And as for the two green scrap-heaps — when both he and the Emperor brought an enormous golden sun and the Daemonic Forge to their doorstep simultaneously, he'd like to see whether they could still manage a proper WAAAGH.
For now — it was time to refocus on his Legion. Perturabo was going to make his sons bigger, stronger, and more formidable than ever.
The Iron Warriors were going to be the absolute best.
This was Perturabo's preparation for certain scenarios that might develop later — and also, he had to admit, a small private indulgence. People always have a little selfishness in them, and Perturabo was no exception.
Corax had used the Emperor's Primarch-creation technology to produce the Raptors. Perturabo had studied the same foundations, personally collected genetic material from his brothers, and with both Huscarl and Grey Knights modification procedures in hand, felt entirely confident he could push his sons to a substantially higher level.
But when Perturabo turned to the task of enhancing his sons again, he ran into a problem that gave him genuine pause.
It concerned the Iron Warriors' resistance to psychic power.
Even Perturabo himself couldn't fully explain it. He was the Lord of the Eastern Warp, the King of Iron, the Warp's most prolific slave-driver — so why, precisely, were his sons one after another psychically null?
Not all of them entirely — but those with genuine psychic gifts were vanishingly rare, and the strongest of them barely hit the Beta tier, which was the minimum threshold for Think-Tank consideration.
He had no explanation. No theory. He couldn't even construct a plausible hypothesis.
But given that this was the situation, there was nothing for it — Perturabo could only compensate through physical augmentation and equipment.
The most logical approach was to use his own body as the research baseline, working from his own biological architecture to independently design a new augmentation template for his sons.
Super Iron Warrior Programme — initiated.
Corvus didn't understand why his sister and the workers called him the Saviour.
From the moment he'd opened his eyes, all he'd seen was the pitch-black sky of Lycaeus and the workers being endlessly exploited and ground down.
He only remembered that when his sister saw him, she had conferred with the workers about hiding him, and had secretly raised and taught him from that point on.
Was it instinct?
When the workers taught him how to overthrow the slavemasters and liberate the exploited and oppressed people, Corvus always listened with complete attention, committing every word to memory.
Within only three months, this child's understanding and insight in this area had already exceeded everyone around him. They had nothing left to teach.
Corvus's rate of development was extraordinary. Within those three months, nurtured by his sister and the workers, he had already grown to adult proportions, and was enormously strong.
Corvus' skin had a somewhat pallid, almost sickly whiteness to it, and his eyes were a deep matte black. He didn't look much like anyone's idea of a Saviour — but the expression he wore, heavy with compassion for the world and the quiet endurance to carry any weight, made every worker who saw him understand: this was the Saviour.
And so, one year later, Corvus led the workers in revolution.
The forge world itself was not a powerful one, and the workers of that time — armed with nothing but shovels and hammers — faced fully equipped Kiavahr soldiers with odds that were nearly hopeless.
That was when Corvus' superhuman nature revealed itself.
A giant moving at speeds they couldn't comprehend, with strength that defied understanding and a resistance to harm that seemed absolute, cutting through every defensive line. He came and went without warning — uncanny, ghostly — a figure so enormous that he could be standing behind you and you would never sense his presence.
He had no shadow. He simply hid within shadows, and brought death to every member of the ruling class that exploited and crushed humanity.
He led the workers to liberate Lycaeus quickly, and then turned his eyes toward Kiavahr — the primary world that had exploited them most severely.
And it was at this moment that Corvus found himself briefly lost.
Because Kiavahr didn't only send a suppression force. They also dispatched envoys to welcome him.
Everyone understood that Corvus was not mortal.
Not only the workers — the rulers knew it too.
But regardless of that, they believed absolutely that no one could refuse power, and that no one would choose to walk away from becoming the supreme authority who exploited and crushed all others.
But Corvus refused. He struck off the heads of the envoys who had come to welcome him into power as the new ruler, and declared the complete liberation of all of Kiavahr and Lycaeus — that he would not allow a single parasite who stood on the people's necks to remain alive in this world.
Corvus held the line. But certain worker-leaders beneath him did not.
They came to him privately, urging him to walk together into the halls of wealth and power. As for the workers — absorb the compliant ones, find a pretext to deal with the rest. And the slaves? Wasn't this fortunate — the forge world always needed labour.
Looking at those faces, now so utterly unrecognisable, Corvus could not understand. Where had it gone wrong?
These people had been his teachers in revolution just yesterday. They were the brothers who had stood back-to-back with him on the battlefield to face the enemy. They hadn't feared death in the slightest — they had charged fearlessly into fights where the odds were completely against them.
Uncle Kaer's scar had come from strapping an explosive pack to himself to blow up a fortified position!
How could this be happening?
When they had all been fighting together, none of this had ever entered anyone's mind. What had happened to the shared conviction that they would liberate every exploited and crushed human being? What had happened to the brothers who had charged without hesitation for the ideals they believed in?
They had walked through storms of gunfire. Missile barrages hadn't shaken them. And now, at the very moment the revolution was about to succeed, they were betraying it?
Could the temptation of gold and power truly outweigh everything they had shared in their darkest moments?
"You have abandoned our ideals and our faith. Traitors!"
Corvus' fury was absolute.
"Corvus — why did we teach you? Because you could save us. Free us from the mining and the endless labour. We don't want to be slaves anymore."
"And what are you now? We agreed together that everyone would work toward—"
"We already risked our lives! Corvus !"
Kaer tore the coat from his upper body and pointed at the scarred ruin of his torso.
"This. This. And this. And the scar on my face. I don't owe anyone anything anymore!"
"Now that the door to wealth and power has finally opened for us — Corvus , think about it. You don't even have to do anything. You can have everything you've ever wanted."
"You could even—"
Kaer hadn't finished speaking. Corvus' blade had already removed his head. Within one second, the small room was full of rolling heads and blood.
"Corvus..."
His sister Evraenia pushed the door open and stepped in, staring in shock at the scene. Corvus' face was streaked with tears.
Corvus didn't know how many more traitors were concealed among the working class. He knew the people just killed were certainly only a reconnaissance probe — there were more betrayers hidden within his ranks.
A Primarch's instincts and intelligence exceeded everyone's expectations. The laughable would-be traitors who thought themselves well-concealed were identified one by one, and Corvus executed them.
He then led the revolutionary forces in destroying the army Kiavahr had sent to Lycaeus, loaded the heads of the collaborators and traitors aboard a transport ship, and sent them back to Kiavahr.
When the rulers of Kiavahr received this "gift," the bombs concealed within it detonated simultaneously, reducing dozens of kilometres of the orbital port district to instant ruin.
And just as Corvus arrived above Kiavahr, chose his moment, and was preparing to lead the revolutionary forces in a decisive strike against the planet below — a massive fleet suddenly translated out of the Warp.
The scale of this fleet was enough to make even Corvus pause. What was happening?
"Sigismund, once we're done with this system, we need to have a proper match — last time I didn't get nearly enough fighting in!"
Aboard the Eternal Crusader, Sigismund — considerably larger after his proto-Huscarl augmentation — heard Radulon's message across the vox and agreed without hesitation.
"The loser has to eat Akurduana's fried rice!"
The iron chains wrapped around the hilt of Sigismund's sword froze in place. Radulon seemed to feel he'd gone a bit far — the vox channel fell suddenly silent, broken only by faint crackling interference. The atmosphere became deeply strange.
"Hey — what's that about? Is my food really that terrible? Let me tell you both — even if you begged me, I might not cook for you."
A somewhat indignant voice came through the channel. From the tone alone, it was easy to imagine his current expression.
"Let's deal with this system first."
"Agreed."
"Hey — I said you're going too far, you two—"
Akurduana would not normally have done anything so unbecoming of an Emperor's Children warrior, but his cooking was his one unbreachable pride.
After felling Dantioch and Cassius back in the day, Akurduana's culinary reputation had spread far and wide.
He'd subsequently spent time with the Iron Hands, defeated every captain with his singular skill, and for that period the normally cold and taciturn Iron Hands had begun saying pleasant things whenever they saw Akurduana.
Later he'd encountered the Luna Wolves, fought Abaddon to a draw, and the two of them had agreed to eat each other's cooking.
The scene that followed defied description. What is known is that Abaddon was sent to the medicae bay, and as proto-Huscarl conversion procedures were just becoming available across the Legions, Abaddon underwent the modification somewhat involuntarily.
After that, Akurduana had never challenged anyone to a duel again — and even when he offered to cook without any duelling stakes attached, nobody was willing to face the First Blade of the Court, whose reputation had by now taken on a rather different character.
Now, all three had been detached by their respective fathers to lead independent Expedition fleets, and had happened to converge in the same location.
But just as Akurduana was preparing for a decapitation boarding action, he sensed something wrong. A powerful presence had entered his command deck.
Akurduana drew the two Baal sabres at his hip and raised them in guard — then saw a towering silhouette, and the familiar quality of that presence made him freeze where he stood.
"Who are you?"
Kovossk looked at these small giants, who stood barely shorter than himself, and asked.
And then, something astonishing and incomprehensible happened — these warriors in their magnificent purple power armour all dropped to one knee simultaneously, lowering the weapons they'd raised moments before.
"My lord."
"Akurduana — what's happening over there? Why haven't you launched the strike on schedule?"
Radulon's voice came through the vox. Akurduana had absolutely no idea what to say.
"So — I am a Primarch, and you are the sons of my brothers?"
Corvus looked at the three colours of armour before him.
"Yes, my lord. The Warmaster is already bringing your Legion to this location. You'll be able to meet them soon."
None of them had any idea when the Primarch had come aboard.
Corvus looked at this enormous fleet, at the respectful bearing of Radulon and the others, and felt, inexplicably, as though he had been involuntarily transformed into the very thing he despised most — the ruling class of Kiavahr.
The moment Perturabo received the news, he put down his research work and set course with the Pale Nomads toward what would one day be known as the Salvation Star.
It was only 905.M30, wasn't it? How had the Nineteenth been found this quickly?
But recovering a Primarch early was always good. Perturabo didn't overthink it.
The only question was whether Corvus' temperament was going to sit well with someone of Perturabo's own authoritarian character. And when this brother came to understand what Perturabo had actually done — how would he face the Warmaster?
Perturabo genuinely cared what his brothers thought of him. That was the real reason he'd given their Legions so much assistance.
Well. At worst the man would swear at him a bit. What of it?
Perturabo stopped thinking about it.
"Warmaster — roughly how long before we see Father?"
Arcas Falk asked.
"Three days or so."
Looking at this slightly excited young Raven, Perturabo found his thoughts drifting to his own sons when he'd first returned.
Half a century had passed since then. Time really did move quickly.
"Brother — or should I call you Warmaster?"
Corvus looked at the figure who stood considerably larger and broader than himself, recognising him as the Warmaster currently at the height of his power throughout the Imperium — the ambitious one who had imprisoned their Father.
"Brother is fine. Warmaster sounds too formal."
Perturabo wore a slight smile.
He noticed the small figure half-concealed behind his brother, and felt a closer connection to him immediately.
"My lady — you're the one who raised my brother?"
Perturabo went down on one knee. Everyone present was somewhat taken aback.
"Not alone. The workers here and I raised Corvus together."
"But my brother seems to be closer to you."
Evraenia was not a gentle-spirited woman — years of mine slavery had left her physically lean, and her appearance was unremarkable — but the first time Corvus had experienced something resembling family was when this woman had taken him in.
"She is my sister."
Perturabo rose, looked at this brother who seemed to regard him with hostility, and let it pass. He simply had Falk and the others come forward to give father and sons their reunion.
"What's the situation here?"
Looking at the bloodstains on Radulon and the others, Perturabo asked.
"The Primarch asked us to deal with the local leadership, but for reasons we don't quite understand, he's preventing us from bringing administrators in to govern, even after we've explained the purpose."
Radulon and his companions were puzzled.
"That's just his character. Once he's had time to think, it'll sort itself out. You can stay three more days, then continue your Crusade."
"Yes, Warmaster."
"Warmaster..."
Corvus came aboard the Iron Blood. He had questions — perhaps this brother, whose reputation in the Imperium was unflattering but whose actual conduct wasn't as monstrous as rumour suggested, could help him find answers.
"I told you, no need for formality. Sit."
Corvus nodded and sat across from Perturabo, but declined the cup Perturabo offered him.
"You don't drink?"
"No."
"Fruit juice?"
Perturabo produced a cup of grape juice — Baal grapes, sweet and rich, exactly suited to the Imperial palate.
Corvus didn't refuse this time, though he had no idea what juice was.
"What is it? Why come to me instead of spending more time with your sons first?"
"I have questions. I think you might be able to answer them."
"Go ahead."
Corvus' brow was creased.
"I have spent all my time leading the working class in resistance against every form of oppressor. I swore I would ensure no human being would ever be subjected to oppression again. And yet I find that I myself appear to be counted among the oppressors — and that you and others like you fall within the scope of what I once swore to oppose."
Corvus' eyes carried a genuine uncertainty.
"I notice that something has gone wrong somewhere. Perhaps the temptation before me was simply not large enough, which is why I didn't betray the revolution. But I genuinely don't know what this condition I'm experiencing actually is."
"I don't want to betray the working class. But I also can't see that you've done wrong. I asked Radulon and the others, and had them take me to see how humans are living in a nearby sector."
"Your reputation is poor. But I can see the living standards of those people with my own eyes. For a domain this vast to sustain that level of welfare — I think you've already done everything you can."
"But there is a voice in my head telling me that this is a betrayal of the working class. That this is wrong. That you are slavemasters — the greatest oppressors in the galaxy. That I cannot submit to the Imperium and to you."
"I don't know what to do. Can you tell me, brother — what should I do?"
Corvus looked down at the purple grape juice, his pupils unfocused, thoughts somewhere distant.
When he looked up again, he found his brother across the table had vanished.
At that same moment, a violent disturbance rippled through the Warp — powerful enough that even Corvus , standing in realspace, sensed that something was wrong.
He thought he heard a bird's cry. Tinged with something like agony. And then, echoing in his mind, a whisper: all according to plan.
Corvus' powerful psychic ability made him instinctively look toward the Warp.
A roar reached him. An enormous chainaxe cleaved downward toward something deep blue that was retreating rapidly — and within that deep blue shadow, a vivid flash of red appeared.
Then a great blade wreathed in golden fire descended from above and drove directly into it. The golden fire blazed with ferocious intensity. A terrible bird's cry rang out, carrying a horrific psychic shriek with it, and the agony in Corvus' head forced him out of his witch-sight involuntarily.
When his vision cleared, Perturabo was once again seated across from him — expression dark, face like iron.
What had just happened? Corvus had no idea.