Magnus had come. The daemon-primarch was at the foot of the stairway, attracting tracer fire in glowing, angry lines. The ordnance seemed to explode before it hit him, blooming in starbursts of angry red and orange around his massive frame. The Long Fangs and heavy weapons squads had unloaded all they had at him, pouring streams of flame at the monster's head and chest.
It had no discernible effect. Magnus was a giant, a five-metre-tall behemoth striding though the clouds of promethium like a man pushing through fields of corn. He was radiant, as splendid as bronze, dazzling amid the shadows of the mountain. Nothing hurt him. Nothing came close to hurting him. He had been created for another age, an age when gods walked among men. In the colder, weaker universe of the thirty-second millennium he was unmatched, a walking splinter of the Allfather's will set amid a fragile world of mortal flesh and blood. .