The appetizer is over.
When Leticia's declaration, calm to the point of indifference, echoed across the silent battlefield, every survivor felt a cold current shoot from their spine to the top of their skull.
Appetizer?
Those Noise Marines, capable of shattering the minds and tearing the souls of even Space Marines, were merely an appetizer in the mouth of that goddess?
Then what kind of terrifying existence must the main course be?
There was no need for an answer.
Because that name had already surfaced in the hearts of everyone present.
Fulgrim.
Their Gene-Father, the fallen Phoenix.
The brief fanaticism and tranquility brought about by the miracle were replaced by a heavier, more viscous pressure called 'reality'.
The camp began to operate at high speed once more.
Saul Taviz roared hoarsely, directing the warriors to clear the battlefield, reinforce the defensive lines, and pile the scattered, hollow purple power armor into silent, warning monuments.
Nathaniel Garro silently led his Death Guard to collect the bodies of the mortal auxiliary comrades who had unfortunately perished in the sonic pollution.
The atmosphere was heavy as lead.
Yet at this moment, Leticia furrowed her brow slightly.
She raised her eyes, and within her jet-black pupils, sky-blue data streams flashed by like a waterfall.
The power of [Intellect], after analyzing the aftermath of the battlefield, began to deduce all possible critical 'variables' that might occur on this battlefield over the next few hours.
Soon, a high-intensity node with strong tragic undertones was captured by her.
Her gaze pierced through the busy crowd, locking precisely onto the other end of the camp.
There, behind a relatively intact architectural ruin.
An Emperor's Children warrior was silently donning his armor.
It was not a set of power armor intended for combat.
Rather, it was a set of ceremonial armor, so ornate it was almost extravagant, colored in purple and gold.
Every component of the armor had been meticulously maintained and polished, shining like a mirror, engraved with the Phoenix emblem representing the legion's glory and laurel branches symbolizing personal merit.
His movements as he donned it were meticulous, filled with a sense of ritual.
As if he were not preparing to die, but preparing to attend the grandest ceremony concerning glory.
Rauth Solaart.
Captain of the Emperor's Children fleet vessel, the [Pride of the Phoenix].
He was also Fulgrim's closest friend, having grown up together on Chemos before the Gene-Father was reunited.
On his face, there was no fear, nor anger.
Only a deep, heartbreaking sorrow and an unshakable determination belonging to a dear friend.
He was going to see Fulgrim.
With his own life, and the friendship between them—a friendship already betrayed yet still cherished by him—he would attempt to awaken that former Phoenix lost in the abyss of corruption.
He was going to meet a worthless death.
Just as Rauth Solaart fastened his own equally ornate helmet, decorated with purple plumes, and prepared to take that step.
A calm, cold voice sounded behind him.
'Your loyalty is admirable.'
Rauth Solaart's tall frame stiffened abruptly.
He turned slowly.
He saw the mysterious girl with black hair and a black dress, whom all the survivors revered as a deity, standing quietly behind him.
Leticia's gaze fell upon his out-of-place, ornate ceremonial armor, and she softly finished the second half of her sentence.
'But your death is worthless.'
Boom.
This sentence, like an invisible heavy hammer, smashed fiercely onto Rauth Solaart's heart, which was already prepared to welcome death.
His expression changed instantly.
That deep sorrow was replaced by a sense of being offended, a pride belonging to a Space Marine.
'Lady.'
His voice, transmitted through the helmet's loudspeaker, carried a hint of cold, suppressed anger.
'I respect everything you have done for us. But this is the family business of the Emperor's Children. My honor is not up for debate.'
He thought she was mocking his overestimation of his own abilities.
He thought she was insulting that final persistence belonging to an Astartes.
Leticia shook her head.
'Do you think your death can awaken him?'
Her voice remained calm, yet it carried a sharpness that saw through everything.
'No.'
She gave an answer that was cruel to the extreme.
'That would only become the perfect sacrifice for his ritual of corruption. Your blood would become his pledge of allegiance to the Dark Gods. Your death would allow him to completely sever the last thread of connection to the past, and slide, with a clear conscience, into that endless abyss.'
Rauth Solaart's body trembled violently.
His eyes, hidden behind the helmet's visor, widened suddenly.
Sacrifice?
Pledge of allegiance?
He had never considered his own death from this perspective.
He had simply, stubbornly, and naively believed that his death might act like a needle, stinging Fulgrim's blinded soul and making him remember the glory and friendship of the past.
But now, this girl, using a logic he could not refute—a logic even colder—had deconstructed his tragic self-sacrifice into an act of foolishly aiding the enemy.
'You... how could you...'
Solaart's voice showed hesitation and confusion for the first time.
Leticia took a step forward.
She raised her eyes, and those jet-black pupils seemed to pierce through the thick adamantium faceplate, looking directly into his soul, which was struggling violently.
'Because I understand better than you what your father is currently facing.'
'The Fulgrim you know, his noble and proud soul, is currently imprisoned within a daemonic weapon known as the [laer blade], wailing day and night.'
'What controls that body is nothing more than the will of a daemon, and his own twisted desires, magnified countless times.'
'You go with friendship, but all it sees is the most delicious soul-sustenance.'
'You go with loyalty, but all it smells is the most fragrant seasoning of betrayal.'
Every one of Leticia's words was like a scalpel, precisely and layer by layer, dissecting the bloody reality that Solaart had wrapped in tragedy and determination.
'Therefore, what you need to do is not to go and die.'
'But to stand here and live.'
Rauth Solaart was completely stunned.
Live?
Stand here?
What is the point of this?
Then, he heard that divine declaration, enough to overturn his entire worldview.
'Become the most important witness when I save him.'
At this moment, Leticia's voice carried an unquestionable majesty and confidence belonging to a deity.
'I want him, after shaking off the daemon's control, to open his eyes and see you first. To see the loyal, dear friend he cherishes still alive.'
'I want him to witness with his own eyes that he has not fallen into the most irreparable despair.'
'I want him to understand that there is still a path back. Those loyal sons of his, worth protecting, are still waiting for him.'
Leticia slowly extended her fair hand, perfect and unlike anything mortal, toward this tragic captain.
'So, stay, Captain.'
'Put away your meaningless, self-indulgent sacrifice.'
'Go and witness the ideals you protected being realized by my own hands.'
The entire world seemed to go quiet at this moment.
Rauth Solaart stood stiffly, feeling as if his cognitive processor had burned out from overload.
He looked at the girl before him, looking at her black pupils, calm yet seemingly containing the truths of the entire universe.
Looking at the hand she extended toward him, symbolizing an impossible promise.
Deep within him, that cold determination to die, which had long since solidified, began to waver violently.
Like an iceberg about to collapse.
He remembered the miracle of her healing hundreds of severely wounded soldiers with a wave of her hand.
He remembered the great power with which she repaired countless damaged weapons with a flick of her finger.
He remembered the divine punishment where she took a single step, causing those crazed Noise Marines to evaporate silently.
Doubt?
No.
He had long since stopped doubting her power.
He just... could not understand.
Could not understand why anyone would be willing to put forth such tremendous effort to save a traitor who had already betrayed the Emperor.
But...
He looked at her unquestionable confidence, looking at that certainty in her eyes regarding the matter of saving Fulgrim, as if it were a matter of course.
A brand-new, scorching emotion he had never experienced before quietly sprouted from the deepest recesses of his frozen heart.
It was not the determination to die.
Nor was it the rage of revenge.
It was something called [Hope].
A Hope of witnessing a miracle happen with one's own eyes, witnessing a dear friend being pulled back from the abyss—a Hope so luxurious he had not even dared to imagine it before.
Finally.
His fingers, tense from exertion and clad in ornate gauntlets, slowly relaxed.
Clang.
The Chainsword, which he had polished until it was spotless and had intended to use to defend his honor at the last moment, slid from his waist and hit the ground with a heavy thud.
Emitting a crisp sound that represented surrender.
He did not take Leticia's hand.
The pride of a Space Marine made him unable to accept being supported by a woman who appeared so 'weak'.
But he made his choice through his actions.
He raised his hand and unfastened the latches of his helmet.
Then, he removed that ornate helmet, which symbolized his determination to die, and held it tightly in his arms.
He chose to believe in her.
Believing that this deity who had descended into hell could fulfill that promise, which sounded like a fantasy.
At the very moment Rauth Solaart made his decision.
Boom—rumble—rumble—
The entire planet, without warning, began to vibrate violently and rhythmically.
It was not an earthquake.
But a more essential, massive pulse from the psychic level.
A psychic pressure, so vast it was suffocating, as if it could crush the very sky, filled with magnificence and tyranny, descended from the top of the firmament like an invisible tide!
Within the camp, all surviving warriors, whether Space Marines or mortal auxiliaries, felt at this moment that irresistible tremor originating from the deepest depths of their genetic bloodline.
Saul Taviz looked up abruptly, his face deathly pale.
Nathaniel Garro gripped his power axe tightly, the muscles in his arms bulging.
They knew who had come.
Leticia slowly withdrew her hand.
She raised her head and looked toward the torn, dark red sky.
A cold, slightly playful arc curled at the corners of her mouth.
She spoke softly, her voice not loud, yet it clearly entered the ears of Rauth Solaart beside her.
'The protagonist has arrived.'
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