He passed through the nexus. In his wake, creation ended. The energy screamed. The uncontrollable explosion spread though the void. A dome of conflagration unfurled above Sanguinius.

Still he fell, still powered by the single sword blow. Another knot of energy appeared, and he cut it, and then the next, and the next, and the next. He had chosen to live, and so had torn destiny open, and with that rupture was slicing apart all the coils with which Chaos sought to entangle him. He was dealing a death blow to a creature he barely understood, whose size he could not grasp, and yet had defeated.

Down, down, down, the great sword blow of hope cutting through all the knots of ruin, a streak of red unleashing the flames of purification, until he cut his way back to reality. The void peeled back. The light of deliverance engulfed him. It blinded him with the blood-red fire. He blinked, and the flare vanished. He stood in the chamber from which he had first fallen. The daemon was at his feet. Its body was cut in two. As was its book and its staff. Weapons and corpse curled at the edges, dissolving from the materium. Violent light filled the chamber. A sea of liquid fire roiled across the ceiling. Currents of flame strove against each other. Maelstroms formed, melting everything above. Metal and stone dropped in blinding streams to the floor of the chamber. Everything was shaking, cracking, breaking apart.

‘Lord Sanguinius?’ Azkaellon was at his side, half reaching as if unsure whether or not the Angel was an illusion.

Sanguinius looked around, trying to get his bearings. He felt the solidity of the floor beneath his boots. The surface quaked, but did not flow away into dream. He looked at his sons. The Blood Angels were more or less as he had last seen them. More of the company had entered the chamber, but that was the only change in their disposition he could see. They were solid, unwavering in their reality. ‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘You vanished,’ said Azkaellon, alarmed.

On the Red Tear, he had fought visions, but they had been visions. He had not fallen into an elsewhere. The fusion of dreams and reality made him dizzy. ‘How long was I gone?’

‘A few seconds. You and the daemon.’

It had felt like hours. A lifetime. As long as death.