The final war cry of the last Cultist got stuck in its throat.
It was not cut short by a Chainsword, nor was it drowned out by the roar of a Bolter.
That sound was as if wiped out from the layer of reality by an invisible hand.
The clamor on the battlefield, enough to melt steel, vanished completely in a thousandth of a second.
An absolute, deathly silence, like a bottomless ocean, instantly submerged the entire C-5 mining area.
Everyone, whether they were Astra Militarum Soldiers panting heavily while propping themselves up with bayonets, or the Cultists with flames of madness burning in their eyes, froze at this moment.
Their movements, their expressions, and the weapons they were supposed to swing in the next second, all solidified in this eerie stillness.
In the sky, that impossibly huge, holy white spaceship had its hatch completely opened.
Light.
Endless, gentle light, seemingly carrying life and warmth, poured down from it.
The radiance was not blinding; it dispersed the choking smoke, neutralized the acidic toxic fog in the air, and even thinned the thick, inescapable stench of blood.
Surrounded by this radiance, a figure was slowly walking down from the hatch, step by step.
She did not use any flight device, and there were no physical stairs beneath her feet.
She just stepped on the void, as if walking on the stairs of her own divine kingdom, elegant and calm, every step she took seeming to land on the pulse of the universe.
Her long black hair, like the night itself, hung down to her ankles.
Her black dress, without any superfluous decoration, appeared more noble than any gown of an imperial noble Valerius had ever seen.
Her face could not be described by any mortal language.
It was a kind of holy beauty that transcended race, aesthetics, and even life itself.
Valerius knelt in a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, the wound on his back still bleeding, but he could not feel the pain.
He just stared blankly, head tilted up, watching the figure descending from the sky.
His brain, that cold thinking machine armed to the teeth with the imperial codex and wartime regulations, completely crashed at this moment.
heretic?
No.
He had seen the most cunning Chaos sorcerers, whose psychic powers were filled with filthy and twisted auras.
But the existence before him brought only purity, holiness, and peace.
Aeldari?
No.
The beauty of the Aeldari carried a sense of arrogance and detachment, while her beauty carried a motherly gentleness that seemed to encompass all things.
What exactly... was that?
Behind the black-haired girl, another woman with hair as silver as the moon followed like a shadow.
Her figure was equally perfect, but her temperament was the exact opposite.
If the black-haired girl was the goddess of creation, then the silver-haired woman was the angel of death that ended everything.
Her eyes were cold, and she held a gorgeously styled longsword in her hand; that restrained, sharp aura capable of tearing apart stars made everyone who saw her feel as if their soul was being pressed against the tip of a blade.
A deity, and her guardian knight.
This thought floated uncontrollably into the minds of everyone who could still think.
"Blasphemy!"
Finally, something broke this holy stillness.
It was those Cultists.
Their fanaticism finally overcame their instinctive awe.
In their cognition twisted by Chaos, any powerful existence that did not belong to the "The Spider Mother" they worshipped was an enemy that had to be destroyed.
"Kill her!"
"Offer her flesh and blood to The Spider Mother!"
Dozens of the closest Cultists let out beast-like roars and launched another charge.
Lasgun beams, autopistol bullets, and even several trails of filthy psychic lightning shot from all directions toward the black-haired girl who was strolling down from the sky.
The Astra Militarum Soldiers let out desperate exclamations.
Valerius struggled to stand up, wanting to raise his gun, but found that his body simply would not obey.
However, the anticipated attack did not work.
Facing the firepower coverage that was enough to tear apart a platoon, the silver-haired knight standing behind the girl did not even make a move to draw her sword.
She just, gently, raised her hand.
A gesture so elegant it was as if she were conducting a symphony.
Hum—
An invisible, naked-eye-imperceptible repulsion field instantly expanded with Leticia as the center.
All incoming attacks, whether physical bullets or energy beams, weirdly stagnated three meters away from their bodies.
Then, like ice and snow thrown into a raging fire, they silently melted, decomposed, and turned into the most primitive, colorful energy particles, scattering into the air.
The whole process had not a single sound, not a single collision or explosion of energy.
There was only a kind of absolute, indisputable, crushing... annihilation.
The fanaticism on the faces of those charging Cultists solidified.
They watched helplessly as their strongest attacks disappeared without a trace, failing to even stir up a ripple.
This made them feel even more terrified than being defeated head-on.
Because this represented that between the two sides existed a chasm-like gap that could not be made up for by numbers or courage.
"Noise."
Fogremia's cold, slightly disdainful voice sounded.
She withdrew her hand, as if she had just brushed away an eyesore of dust.
Leticia's steps did not pause in the slightest.
She finally stepped onto this land soaked in blood.
She ignored those dumbfounded Cultists, and also ignored those Astra Militarum Soldiers whose eyes were filled with shock, awe, and fanaticism.
Her gaze swept across the entire battlefield.
Calmly, it landed on that Imperial Commissar who was kneeling on one knee, covered in blood, and struggling to stand up.
Valerius felt that gaze as if it pierced through his flesh, his bones, and went straight to his lonely soul that was wrapped layer by layer in discipline and loyalty.
Under her gaze, all his disguises, all his pride, had nowhere to hide.
He was like a naked child, exposed before the creator deity.
Then, he heard her voice.
The voice was not loud, but it was like a gentle imperial decree, clearly resonating directly in the minds—no, in the souls—of everyone on the battlefield.
"Imperial Commissar, Valerius."
"I have heard your prayer."
Boom—!
This sentence, like a thunderclap of creation, exploded in Valerius's mind.
Prayer?
He, Valerius, Imperial Commissar, the walking embodiment of the imperial codex, when had he ever prayed?
Prayer is the act of the weak! It is the wail of a coward!
He only believed in the Bolter in his hand, only believed in the cold laws and order of the Empire!
He had never...
Valerius's thinking suddenly jammed.
A scene he had deliberately forgotten, from just a few minutes ago, uncontrollably floated before his eyes.
At the moment when he was pierced through the back by claws, knelt on the ground, waiting for death to descend...
The last thought in his heart...
"Failed to complete the mission... unworthy of the Emperor's trust..."
That unwillingness, that despair, that remorse for his own incompetence...
Was that, could that be... a prayer?
An atheist's most instinctive call at the end of life to some higher existence?
No!
Impossible!
Valerius's faith, the indestructible mental barrier he had spent his life building, appeared with its first shocking crack at this moment.
He opened his mouth, wanting to refute, wanting to scold these blasphemous words.
But his throat seemed to be filled with lead, unable to make any sound.
He could only watch helplessly as that black-haired, god-like girl, watching her pair of pure black pupils that seemed to contain the entire newborn universe.
Watching the corner of her mouth curl into a subtle arc that seemed to see through everything.
Leticia's voice sounded again.
In that voice, there was a hint of indisputable majesty, announcing the establishment of a contract.
"Then, as the price for answering your 'prayer'..."
"You, and your world, belong to me from this moment on."
She tilted her head slightly, and a playful gleam flashed in those pure black pupils, as if she were appreciating the most interesting struggle of her prey.
"Do you have any objections?"
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