Librarian Seraphel did not see the battlefield.

He felt it.

The world beyond the plasteel and ceramite walls of the Rhino was a pressure in the back of his skull, a bruise in the immaterium. Thousands of human minds burned like guttering candles around him — some bright with courage, most trembling with fear. Beyond them lurked darker shapes, cold and sharp, their thoughts moving in patterns that were not human at all.

‘Contact in thirty seconds,’ crackled the vox.

Seraphel did not answer. He had already seen it.

Not with his eyes.

With his mind.

The vision came unbidden: a manufactorum plaza drowned in ash, statues shattered, the sky split by tracer fire. His brothers advancing in disciplined ranks, red and yellow armour gleaming like heraldic flames. And at the centre of it all, a hollow place in reality — an absence where thought itself recoiled.

The enemy psyker.

Seraphel clenched his gauntlet around his force staff, The Vigil of the Black Gryphon. The runes along its haft pulsed softly, responding to his unease. He closed his physical eyes, letting the psychic current pull him inward.

The mindscape unfolded.

He stood in a vast hall of mirrors. Each reflection showed a different war, a different future. In one, his squad lay dead. In another, the city burned. In a third, he saw himself—helm removed, eyes bleeding, screaming as something ancient reached out from beyond the veil.

He turned away.

Discipline. Focus. He was a Librarian of the Howling Griffons, not a witch or a mad seer. The codex demanded control, and control was survival.

The Rhino lurched as it came to a halt.

‘Disembark!’ came the order.

The rear ramp slammed down. Noise and heat flooded in. Bolter fire echoed through the ruins as Tactical Squad Calthor advanced into the plaza. The air stank of promethium and ionised dust.

Seraphel stepped out last.

His psychic senses flared instantly. The hollow place was close now. Too close.

There — inside the shattered cathedral ahead.

He raised his staff, chanting the words of warding taught to him beneath the Librarium vaults at the Proud Eyrie on Mancora. The world dimmed. Colours bled into grey as he extended his consciousness.

And then—

Something looked back.

The enemy psyker’s presence slammed into his mind like a blade. Not a voice, not a scream —a concept. Hunger. Curiosity. Amusement.

You wear such pretty colours, it seemed to say.

Seraphel staggered. His brothers did not notice; they were too busy returning fire from the cathedral steps. A plasma blast took the head from a heretic heavy gunner. Another enemy fell to disciplined bolter volleys.

But the real battle was elsewhere.

Inside his skull.

The psyker’s thoughts coiled around his own, probing for weakness. Seraphel felt memories surface against his will: the Scholastia Psykana, the screams of failed aspirants, the moment the Griffons’ Librarians had judged him worthy to join the conclave.

You fear what you are, the presence whispered.

Seraphel bared his teeth beneath his helm.

‘Yes,’ he said aloud. ‘That is why I am strong.’

He struck.

Psychic lightning surged from his staff, not into the physical world but into the immaterium itself. The mindscape shattered into shards of light and shadow as he forced his will forward.

The enemy resisted. Images flooded his thoughts: alien skies, impossible geometries, a city built from bone and flesh. For a moment, he forgot where he was. Forgot who he was.

Forgot he was human.

The hollow place widened.

Seraphel felt himself slipping.

A single thought anchored him.

Red and yellow. Heraldry. Honour.

He remembered standing in the Hall of Banners, reciting the names of fallen brothers. He remembered the griffon sigil, black against white, symbol of vigilance and courage.

He was not alone.

He never had been.

With a roar that echoed in both realms, Seraphel focused every fragment of his identity into a single psychic blade and drove it forward.

The enemy psyker screamed.

This time, it was a sound.

In the real world, the cathedral’s upper spire exploded outward as if struck by an invisible hammer. Warp fire spilled from its windows. Heretics clutched their heads and collapsed, blood streaming from eyes and ears.

Seraphel dropped to one knee, gasping.

The hollow place was gone.

Silence returned to the immaterium, broken only by the fading echoes of a mind being torn apart.

‘Librarian Seraphel?’ came Captain Calthor’s voice over the vox. ‘Status?’

Seraphel forced himself to stand. His vision swam, but the battlefield was once again solid, real.

‘The witch is dead,’ he replied. ‘Proceed.’

The Griffons advanced, methodical and unstoppable. Within minutes, the plaza was secured.

Seraphel remained where he was, staring at the shattered cathedral. For a moment – just a moment — he thought he saw his reflection in a broken window.

Not in armour.

Not as a Space Marine.

But as something vast, made of light and shadow, staring back at him from the other side.

He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, it was gone.