The ear-piercing alarm tore through the near-sacred tranquility that had just been brewed within the room without any warning.
The sound was as sharp as metal scraping against the soul, instantly shattering the warmth and peace filling the room into pieces.
The blood-red warning lights flashed frantically, staining everything in the room with an ominous, viscous hue.
Angronia, resting on Leticia's lap, saw her sleeping face—which had just relaxed—furrow tightly once more in unease.
Beneath her tightly closed eyelids, her eyeballs moved rapidly and unconsciously, and a suppressed, low whimper filled with painful memories escaped from the depths of her throat.
This sudden wave of malice pierced through the isolation of reality, precisely stabbing into the first stable dream she had managed to achieve with such difficulty.
"Sister!"
Terrania let out a short, startled cry. Her thin little body, like a frightened cat, instantly hid behind Leticia, her two small hands gripping her black robes tightly as if they were the only anchor in the storm.
Almost at the same moment, two distinct thoughts exploded directly in Leticia's mind through a soul link that transcended any communicator.
"Goddess! A super-high-intensity psychic probe of unknown nature has been detected! The signal source... cannot be locked onto; it is everywhere!"
This was Valeria's voice, which, even after psychic translation, still carried an irrepressible urgency and shock characteristic of a soldier.
"A filthy, viscous gaze, filled with a pure Battle Intent, has locked onto us."
Fogremia's voice was as cold as frost, carrying an innate sensitivity and disgust toward power of the same level.
"It is ancient, very powerful... like a beast that has been sleeping in a cesspit for billions of years, having just opened its eyes."
Leticia did not respond immediately.
She merely lowered her eyelids, looking at the Valkyrie in her arms who had fallen back into a nightmare. She reached out and, with a movement so gentle it lacked any trace of worldly impurity, stroked Angronia's flame-like red hair.
A pure power of Vitality, like cool moonlight, flowed from her fingertips, silently soothing the soul that had been agitated again by intense pain.
Angronia's furrowed brows miraculously smoothed out once more.
After doing this, Leticia looked up. In her pure black pupils, there was not a trace of panic, calm as an eternal deep sea capable of swallowing all storms.
"Maintain vigilance."
Her thoughts were clearly conveyed to her two subordinates.
"I will handle it."
Deep within the Subspace, that sea of chaos that eternally boiled, woven from the emotions and nightmares of all living beings.
A brass throne, built from billions of skulls and reaching heights unseen, stood silently in the center of an endless sea of blood.
Upon the throne sat a terrifying entity that could not be described in any mortal language.
The Blood God, Khorne.
He did not see anything.
For such an entity, vision was long ago the least efficient way of perception.
He "felt" it.
Just now, He felt that His most beloved and perfect "vessel of anger"—the Daemon Prince Angron, whom He had personally chosen and carefully cultivated for hundreds of years as the purest carrier of pain and rage...
...had been stolen, was no longer complete.
The despair and rage, rich like fine wine, that perfect sacrifice that was about to fully mature and offer the most glorious harvest to His Skull Throne...
...had vanished into thin air.
In its place was a brand new power, one He had never felt before, both familiar and strange.
The core of that power was still the "Battle Intent," the domain He was most familiar with.
But it was no longer twisted by pain, no longer roaring due to despair.
It had become pure, high-spirited, and filled with the glory of protection and an unyielding will.
What made it even more intolerable to Him was that within that pure Battle Intent, there were mixed in two other scents He loathed the most.
One was the Vitality filled with life and energy, which was the domain of His nemesis, Nurgle.
The other was the Divine Charm filled with ultimate charm and temptation, the authority of that Lord of Excess, Slaanesh, whom He despised the most.
This was an ultimate blasphemy.
This was not just the betrayal of a believer; this was a negation, the most thorough and fundamental negation of His very divinity itself!
It was as if someone had declared to His face that war could exist without bringing slaughter, and anger could exist without originating from pain.
A silent roar exploded within Khorne's will.
The entire sea of skulls boiled, and billions of skulls serving as decorations simultaneously let out a resentful wail.
Countless daemon legions currently slaughtering each other in the Subspace stopped their actions at this moment, looking blankly toward the direction of their deity, feeling that monstrous rage capable of tearing reality apart.
"Who..."
Khorne's will carried, for the first time, an emotion named "confusion."
He attempted to follow that brand new, pure Battle Intent and project His will into the real universe.
It was also at this moment that He sensed, at the other end of the Subspace, a similar commotion filled with rage and disbelief coming from Slaanesh's domain, which was composed of pink and purple mists and filled with decadent sounds.
He sensed Slaanesh's equally furious emotions.
"My 'perfection'... has been stolen! It is incomplete!"
Two deity wills, equally furious but originating from completely different sources, collided from afar in the Subspace for an instant.
In Khorne's rage, for the first time, there was a hint of gravity.
genesis, bridge.
Leticia closed her eyes.
She had already ordered Valeria and Fogremia to sever all external psychic links, lest their souls be crushed directly by that will.
At this moment, the fate of the entire warship was tied to her alone.
The Authority of [Knowledge], like a cooling nebula, operated at full speed in her mind with unprecedented velocity.
She saw it.
It was not any materialized daemon, nor was it any attack that could be intercepted by physical means.
It was a gaze.
A gaze cast from the deepest part of the Subspace, burning with endless blood-colored rage, belonging to a deity.
This gaze ignored the physical laws of the real universe, ignored the sturdy alloy hull of genesis, pierced through everything, and precisely and arrogantly focused on the soul of the Red-haired Valkyrie sleeping in the master bedroom.
It wanted to reignite that soul and drag it back into the orbit filled with pain and slaughter that it was familiar with.
"So it was you."
Leticia understood in her heart.
She did not hesitate.
Her slender, upright figure stood up from the edge of the bed.
With her movement, Angronia's heavy head slid naturally from her lap, landing gently and steadily onto the soft pillow, without being disturbed in the slightest from beginning to end.
Leticia walked to the center of the room and spread her arms.
That posture did not look like she was preparing for battle, but rather like she was embracing.
The next second, four distinct, purely divine rays of light erupted from her perfect body!
The pink-purple halo representing Divine Charm, like a newborn nebula, was dreamy and magnificent.
The crimson-gold halo representing Battle Intent, like a glorious sun, was scorching and majestic.
The emerald-green halo representing Vitality, like the fields of early spring, was filled with endless, circulating Vitality.
The deep-blue halo representing Intellect, like the silent deep space, contained the truth of insight into all things.
Four halos, four pure cosmic source concepts, centered on Leticia, rapidly intertwined and fused, transforming into a gorgeous, semi-transparent energy curtain that could not be described in words.
This curtain instantly completely enveloped the entire genesis, along with the void surrounding it.
It was like a mother covering her cherished child with the warmest and most indestructible down quilt.
After doing all this, Leticia raised her eyes and, with her own will, actively met that blood-colored gaze that had come across dimensions.
Two wills representing two extremes of the universe collided violently in a dimension that mortals could not perceive!
There was no earth-shattering explosion, nor was there any sound.
But on the bridge of genesis, all the crystal screens were instantly covered with spiderweb-like cracks, only to be miraculously repaired by some power in the next second.
Khorne's will was a collection of pure destruction, slaughter, betrayal, and rage; it was like a red-hot battle axe stained with the blood of billions of living beings, wanting to cleave everything before it into pieces.
And Leticia's will had only one purest, simplest core.
Protection.
The blood-colored gaze slammed fiercely against that gorgeous curtain, stirring up circles of invisible ripples, yet it could not advance an inch.
It felt like a monstrous sea of blood crashing against an indestructible dam built from the entire world.
Deep in the Subspace, Khorne felt for the first time this strange power that was completely opposite to His essence, yet seemed to originate from the same source.
In His rage, for the first time, a trace of emotion named "curiosity" was born.
Finally, after what felt like a century, or perhaps just a split second of stalemate, the blood-colored gaze slowly and unwillingly retreated.
On genesis, the heart-wrenching alarm sounds stopped abruptly.
In the room, the blood-red lights went out, and the soft, warm tones were restored.
Everything seemed to have returned to peace.
But on the bridge, the hearts of Valeria and Fogremia sank to the bottom.
"Goddess..."
Valeria's voice came through the ship's internal communication, carrying an irrepressible tremor of having survived a disaster.
"That gaze... although it has disappeared."
"However, it has left an indelible 'mark' on our soul beacons..."
She paused for a moment, seemingly searching for a suitable word to describe that feeling.
"It's like... like the bloody scent that a hound leaves on its chosen prey, which can never be washed away."
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