The alarm siren tore through the camp's newly coalesced, burning Battle Intent.
The sound was sharp, shrill, and filled with the most primal panic, like a rusty iron nail scraping harshly against every soldier's eardrum.
"The sky!"
The sentry on duty let out a hoarse, almost distorted roar.
"The sky has been torn open!"
Everyone looked up abruptly.
They saw several hideous, purple-black rifts appearing out of thin air above the murky firmament, which had been stained dark red by the fires of war.
Like scars on the universe, they bled with the ominous, eerie light of the Subspace.
Moments later.
Several drop pods, painted in magnificent purple and decadent gold, whistled out from the rifts like tears rejected by the gods, trailing long plumes of fire.
They crashed precisely and aggressively into the open ground hundreds of meters in front of the Loyalist positions.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The earth shook violently, kicking up a sky full of white bone dust belonging to billions of the dead.
The entire camp fell into a momentary, deathly silence.
Then, Saul Taviz's cold and clear command struck like a whip, snapping all the stunned soldiers out of their stupor.
"Enemy attack! All units take battle positions!"
The troops, who had just finished their drills, moved with unimaginable efficiency.
The Death Guard soldiers calmly entered the trenches, their grey-white power armor forming an unbreakable wall of steel.
The World Eaters veterans lurked in the ruins on the flanks, the engines of their Chainswords emitting low, hungry roars.
The Emperor's Children marksmen occupied the high ground, cold killing intent flickering in the scopes of their Bolters.
The air froze in an instant.
Everyone kept their eyes locked firmly on those magnificently designed drop pods embedded in the ground.
Click—clack—
Amidst the harsh sound of hydraulic pistons releasing, the hatch slowly opened.
What stepped out were not the traditional Space Marines wielding Bolters that they had expected.
They were a group of... monsters.
Their purple power armor was grotesquely distorted, fitted with an array of bizarre, demonic throat-like loudspeakers and vibration modules.
The surface of their magnificent armor was carved with countless lewd and blasphemous symbols, which seemed to writhe as if they were alive.
In their hands, they held not standard-issue Bolters, but grotesque sonic weapons with muzzles shaped like massive horns.
Noise Marines.
The first batch of corrupted Noise Marines, still in their nascent stage.
Saul Taviz's pupils constricted sharply.
He caught a whiff of a familiar scent from those warriors—the scent of the Emperor's Children—but mixed within it was a decadent, sweet, and metallic stench that made his very soul retch.
"Fire!!!"
He issued the order without hesitation.
Rumble—!
The Loyalist positions were instantly engulfed in flames of vengeance.
The roar of Bolters, the shriek of lasguns, and the thunder of heavy Bolters wove together into a symphony of steel and death, pouring down upon the Noise Marines who had just found their footing.
Yet, facing this storm of firepower capable of tearing steel apart.
The Noise Marines did not dodge or evade.
They did not even seek cover.
They simply and slowly raised their bizarre sonic weapons in a theatrical pose, almost like stage actors.
Then.
They launched their attack.
There was no explosion.
There was no flash of fire.
Only sound.
A sound that could not be described in any language, filled with the utmost blasphemy and malice.
The sound did not travel through the air.
It drilled directly and aggressively into the depths of everyone's soul.
It was a blasphemous symphony woven from screams of agony, delirious ravings, the mournful cries of tearing metal, and countless vile desires.
It twisted light and tore through the air.
It turned the battlefield into a hellscape.
The lines of the mortal Auxilia collapsed the very instant they came into contact with this wave of sound.
"Aaaaah—!"
A young soldier suddenly threw down his lasgun, clutching his ears tightly with both hands.
But it was useless.
The sound played directly inside his mind.
Blood gushed uncontrollably from his eyes, nostrils, and ear canals.
He let out a desperate, inhuman scream, then violently smashed his head against the nearby ruins.
Bang!
Red and white matter splattered everywhere.
This was just the beginning.
More Auxilia soldiers fell into madness amidst the agony of their minds being utterly torn apart.
Some clutched their heads, rolling on the ground in agony.
Others, their eyes bloodshot and acting like madmen, aimed their weapons at their former comrades beside them.
"Kill you! If I kill you, I won't feel pain anymore!"
"Hahahaha... such a wonderful sound... too wonderful..."
The fratricide began.
Even the Space Marines, whose wills were as hard as steel, were in agony amidst this storm on the soul level.
Nathaniel Garro's usually stoic, stone-like face showed a grim expression for the first time; he knelt on one knee, plunging his power axe deep into the ground to steady his body, which felt as if it were about to be torn apart.
The red glow in the eyes of the World Eaters veterans flickered wildly; it was not Battle Intent, but pure, chaotic mania.
Saul Taviz gritted his teeth so hard that his gums began to bleed.
Inside his helmet, that blasphemous melody turned into countless red-hot steel needles, repeatedly piercing his brain.
The world before his eyes began to twist and spin.
The defensive line he had built with his own hands, which had only just begun to find its confidence, was crumbling.
Just as this despair was about to completely consume the entire battlefield.
Leticia walked out calmly from the ruins of the temple that still held the fragrance of life.
She wore no armor, still in that simple black dress.
She was holding Terrania's hand.
The little girl's face was filled with extreme fear, but when her hand was held by Leticia, a warm and divine power enveloped her, isolating her from the soul-tearing noise.
Leticia let go of Terrania's hand, gesturing for her to stay put.
Then, she walked alone, step by step, towards the invisible storm of death composed of sound.
Her actions caught the attention of all the soldiers still struggling to hold on.
"My Lord! Danger!"
Saul Taviz let out a hoarse, horrified roar; he wanted to rush over, but the bone-deep agony made him unable to even stand.
Leticia did not look back.
She simply walked quietly to the very front of the line.
She let the blasphemous sound waves, capable of breaking even a Space Marine, wash over her seemingly fragile, slender frame.
A miracle happened.
When the noise, filled with distortion and madness, came into contact with the invisible field around Leticia's body—the field belonging to Divine Charm.
It was as if a murky torrent filled with silt and filth had flowed into an endless, pure, bottomless deep blue ocean.
There was no resistance.
There was no collision.
Only dissolution.
The blasphemous symphony capable of tearing souls apart, the moment it touched Leticia, was silently diluted, purified, and utterly broken down into the most primal, meaningless sound waves.
Then, it returned to nothingness.
The next second.
A brand new "rhythm" spread silently, yet with irresistible force, from Leticia.
It was not sound.
It was a "concept" of harmony, more fundamental and higher-level than sound.
It was the chant when the first star in the universe was lit at its birth.
It was the joy when the first cell divided at the birth of life.
It was the ultimate embodiment of order, harmony, creation, and supreme beauty.
This silent "divine rhythm," like a compassionate, warm ripple, instantly swept across the entire battlefield.
Wherever the ripple passed.
All the Auxilia soldiers who were still wailing in pain stopped abruptly.
The madness and distortion on their faces vanished instantly, like morning mist dispersed by the sun.
Replacing it was a profound ecstasy, a quiet, peaceful, and redeemed feeling from the depths of their souls.
All the Space Marines still struggling to hold on felt as if they were submerged in the warmest amniotic fluid.
The sharp pain tearing at their brains vanished.
The madness disrupting their minds was completely smoothed away.
Their souls were washed gently, over and over again, by this divine rhythm, becoming purer, more peaceful, and filled with strength than ever before.
The entire Loyalist position transformed from a living hell into a tranquil sanctuary within mere seconds.
On the other side.
The Noise Marines who had been playing the blasphemous symphony also stopped their attack abruptly.
The sonic weapons in their hands stopped vibrating comically.
They stared, obsessed and dazed, at the divine figure standing at the front of the line, her black hair cascading like a waterfall.
They were believers of noise, seekers of extreme sensory experiences.
They had spent their entire lives trying to create the most intense sounds to stimulate the soul through distortion and blasphemy.
But now.
They had heard it.
No, they had "felt" it.
They had felt the most fundamental, harmonious, and perfect "symphony" in the universe.
It was a supreme "beauty" that could not be described in words, surpassing all their imaginations.
In the presence of this "True Thing."
The "Noise Art" they had pursued all their lives and taken pride in seemed so crude, so shallow, and so ridiculous.
It was like a child playing with mud suddenly seeing the stars, created by the gods, rotating endlessly.
Their faith was, at this moment, completely and dimensionally shattered by a higher dimension of "beauty."
Clang.
The sonic weapon in a Noise Marine's hand slipped from his weak fingers, crashing heavily onto the white bone dust.
Then, the second, the third...
They all reached out simultaneously, removing their hideous, distorted helmets.
Revealed were faces completely twisted by extreme fanaticism and the immense confusion that followed the collapse of their faith.
They looked at Leticia as if they were seeing the end of their faith, and also the most pathetic joke of their own existence.
They had been conquered.
Thoroughly, at the very root of their souls, they had been conquered.
The entire battlefield fell into an eerie, pin-drop silence.
Leticia met everyone's gaze, met the fanatical worship of the Loyalist soldiers, and the dazed obsession of the Noise Marines.
She walked, step by step, slowly towards those fallen Emperor's Children who had given up resistance.
Her voice, calm and clear, as if stating an irrefutable truth, echoed in everyone's soul.
"What you pursue is merely a perfect counterfeit."
"Now, let me show you the real thing."
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