The cut continued.
Completely in line with the fracture in the cloud cover, across the Anathema's torso in the same straight line, the same perfect diagonal, the same single motion that had split the sky. The Anathema's torso, contorted under the weight and the vines and the gathered force of the entire surviving Phalanx, received the cut along its centre. The line opened the body from upper-left to lower-right, a single diagonal fissure across the bloated mass of accumulated mass.
Golden light poured from the wound.
The Anathema did not struggle. It did not roar. It did not produce the death-cry that lesser beings produced when their bodies failed. It turned its head, slowly, with the patience of something that had eternity inside it, and it looked toward its killer.
