Daemonic Durability

Husmaan’s first hot-shot round cracked into the side of its head, and snapped its skull around. As it was reeling, its robes were ripped across by double laspistol fire from Inshabel. Then Fischig’s riot-gun roared and knocked it down in the brittle bracken. Fischig liked to spend his free time hand-moulding the shot for his riot-gun’s cartridges. Every pellet was silver, and stamped with a sacred sigil of warding that I had taught him long ago.
Prophaniti writhed in agony, the blessed buck-shot burning into its flesh. It started to rise, wrathful and frenzied, but a grinding whir rose from my left, a sound like a circular saw running up to speed.
Nayl’s cycling drum-cannon raked the daemonhost and the earth around it, doing hideous damage. The blizzard of shots twisted it, ripping off one of its legs at the knee and the fingers off its left hand.
...
I turned back to deal with the ruined daemonhost. We had punished it badly, but I had no illusions as to its resilience.
Or rather... I had thought I hadn’t.
Prophaniti was already gone, the ground still smoking and congealing where it had lain.
...Prophaniti was behind me, hanging in the air, incandescent with power. It was naked, and wore the terrible wounds we had inflicted like medals. The right leg, frayed at the knee, dribbled glowing white ichor. Entry wounds and burns bubbled and smoked across its chest. Its head hung slack on a neck broken by Husmaan’s hot-shot. It spread its arms and a hand that was just a thumb and a mangled palm sprayed lightning into the midnight grass.
‘Nice... try...’ the slack head gurgled.
With its robe gone, I could see its body was strung with chains, padlocks and bindings. Stitching needles and other iron awls were pierced into its luminous flesh. Various amulets hung from the chains, or from the barbed wire looped around its neck.
‘Run,’ I said to Neve and Bequin. ‘Run!’
Neve raised her silver cane and triggered the launcher.
The grenade hit Prophaniti in the lower torso and blew it back a few metres with a flash of fyceline.
It rushed back towards us, moaning and chattering in a warp-cursed language.



"Malleus", Chapter Fifteen