We call such functions "diverging" because they never return a value to the caller. Every control path in a diverging function must end with a fail!() or a call to another diverging function on every control path. The ! annotation does not denote a type. Rather, the result type of a diverging function is a special type called $\bot$ ("bottom") that unifies with any type. Rust has no syntax for $\bot$.
Presumably this should be the up tack (⊥) LaTeX symbol, and the math Javascript or whatever normally does the rendering is not working.