Laugh while you work

In the final, bloody throes of the battle, as my combined forces stormed his fastness beneath the main hive, he called forth to oppose us a being of dreadful power. It slaughtered nineteen of the Imperial Guardsmen assigned to my purge-team, as well as Inquisitor Bluchas, Interrogators Faruline and Seetmol, and Captain Ellen Ossel, my pilot. It would have slain me too, but for the strangest mischance.
The being was an unholy thing, made like a man, but gleaming with an inner light. Its voice was soft, its touch was fire. I believe it was a daemonhost of unfathomable power, with the most vile propensity for spite and cruelty. My report will recount in detail the particular abominations this being subjected Seetmol and Ossel to before it destroyed them. I will spare you those dreadful facts here.
Having disposed of Bluchas, it cornered me on an upper landing in the fastness as I was penetrating the inner sanctum of the wyrd-kin ‘messiah’. My weapons did no harm to it, and it laughed gleefully as it threw me backwards down the length of the staircase with a casual flick of its wrist.



"Malleus", Prologue