Hiss—
Golden blood, imbued with sacred life force, sprayed forth from the Primarch.
The sound was exceptionally jarring on the deathly silent battlefield.
Fulgrim ignored the excruciating pain in his palm that would have instantly driven a mortal mad; his violet eyes, once torn by two conflicting lights, were now completely clear.
A cold, absolute clarity filled with endless disgust.
He stared fixedly at the demonic sword in his hand, which was still humming madly and exuding ominous black smoke.
His gaze was as if he were looking at a piece of disgusting trash stained with the filthiest defilement in the world.
He had once been proud of this sword.
He had once thought this sword was the key to breaking free from the Emperor's shackles and reaching a higher hall of art.
But now, he understood.
This was never a key.
It was a meticulously disguised, most magnificent, yet most vicious cage.
Everything it promised was only to make him willingly walk into the abyss of enslavement.
Enough.
Fulgrim spoke softly.
His voice was faint, even carrying a hint of weakness after recovering from his wounds, yet it rang out like an indisputable decree, clearly spreading across the entire battlefield and drowning out the sharp, mournful wail of the demonic sword.
I was once proud of you, for your peerless sharpness, for your whispers that could insight into the human heart.
His left hand gripped the cold blade tightly; golden blood dripped down the pitch-black sword body, falling onto the white bone dust below, splashing into beautiful, sorrowful golden lotuses.
But you...
Fulgrim lifted his eyes, his clear violet pupils reflecting the ugly, twisted demonic nature of the sword of laer.
...have defiled [Perfection].
[No!!! You cannot!!!]
The demon within the sword of laer felt the resolute killing intent emanating from the deepest part of his soul, and it let out the most terrified and insane roar in its history.
It felt a fatal crisis.
[I am a part of you! I am your deepest desire! I am your only path to the throne of gods!]
Waves of Chaos magic, larger and purer than any before, erupted from the sword, transforming into countless purple, barbed psychic tentacles that frantically and desperately tried to bore into Fulgrim's seven orifices, to completely erode his brain and turn him into a Chaos slave who knew only slaughter and pleasure, devoid of his own will.
It was making a final counterattack.
It wanted to completely destroy this perfect vessel that dared to resist it!
My soul...
Fulgrim looked at the ugly purple tentacles surging toward him, and for the first time, an expression of genuine, unmasked, and extreme disgust appeared on his flawlessly handsome face.
He roared, and the sound was no longer a magnificent aria, but the final, defiant, and proud shriek of a phoenix in the flames.
—belongs to me!!!
Before the words had even faded.
His right hand, still gripping the hilt, suddenly exerted force.
He used all of his pride and willpower as a Primarch to forcibly twist the direction of the blade.
The tip of the sword, drenched in vicious demonic nature, traced an arc in the air filled with determination and self-destruction.
Finally.
It was aimed at his own chest.
There, it was the strongest part of his magnificent power armor.
There, the Phoenix emblem of the Emperors Children Legion, symbolizing glory and perfection, was engraved, poised to take flight.
There, it was the starting point and symbol of all his pride.
Father! No!!!
In the camp, Rauth Solaart let out a desperate cry; he dropped the helmet in his arms and desperately tried to rush forward, but was pinned in place by an invisible force, unable to move.
Primarch!
Saul Taviz and Nathaniel Garro also exclaimed; they thought that this incredibly proud Gene-Father, having realized the truth of his deception, had chosen to commit suicide to wash away this shame.
The entire Loyalist position fell into massive panic and chaos.
Only Leticia.
She just stood there quietly, holding the Blonde Girl in her arms.
She watched the proud soul in the sky about to perform the final act of tragedy, her pitch-black eyes showing not a ripple of emotion.
She knew.
This was not death.
This was the hottest fire, which must be personally experienced before the phoenix's rebirth, used to burn away all filth.
Fulgrim ignored the exclamations of his sons on the ground.
In his eyes, only the ugly, frantically writhing demonic sword in his hand remained.
On his face, twisted by pain and anger, a cold, infinitely mocking smile slowly curled.
That smile was a mockery of the sword.
It was also a final farewell to the foolish self that had once been blinded by false perfection.
In the name of Perfection...
His voice, at this moment, recovered its magnificent, aria-like solemnity.
Purify!!!
He used all his strength, all the last shred of pride belonging to the phoenix within his soul.
He thrust the sword of laer—which he had once treasured but now hated immensely—
fiercely and relentlessly, into his own breastplate, the symbol of everything!
Time seemed to be infinitely slowed at this moment.
In everyone's gaze.
The pitch-black sword tip, flickering with endless evil energy.
And the magnificent purple breastplate engraved with the golden phoenix.
Collided with a boom.
No sound was made.
The entire world fell into a strange, absolute state of silence.
Immediately after.
A crisp, faint "crack," like shattering glass, suddenly rang out on the deathly silent battlefield.
The sound originated from the tip of the sword of laer.
A nearly invisible, slender crack appeared on the indestructible demon-metal.
[No... this is impossible...]
The demon within the sword of laer let out an unbelievable, horrified psychic screech.
It had failed to pierce that layer of armor.
Its sharpness, which was enough to cut through reality, in the face of Fulgrim's resolute, Primarch-pride-filled will—willing to perish rather than be enslaved again—
failed.
Crack—crack—
The crack seemed to have gained life.
It spread upward at an unstoppable speed.
Like black lightning, it instantly crawled over the entire pitch-black blade.
On the blade, those twisted, wailing runes extinguished one by one under this shattering trend.
Inside the blade, that massive, sickly purple evil energy, like a punctured balloon, let out a silent wail and rapidly, chaotically dissipated outward.
Finally.
When the crack spread to the ugly hilt, and to Fulgrim's blood-stained left hand that was still gripping the blade tightly.
Everything was over.
[Ah—!!!]
A demon's cry, shrill to the extreme, unwilling, and filled with endless resentment and fear, rang throughout the sky of Isstvan III!
The sound was no longer a seductive whisper.
No longer a frantic roar.
It was the most real, dying wail of an ancient, powerful Slaanesh Greater Daemon, who thought it had toyed with the son of a god, as it was destroyed by its own "toy"!
Boom—!!!
That legendary demonic sword which had once caused countless heroes to fall and made the entire galaxy tremble.
[sword of laer].
Under the final impact of Fulgrim's resolute will.
Could no longer maintain its form.
It, starting from the tip.
Shattered inch by inch.
Turning into black dust that filled the sky, flickering with the last ominous purple light.
The shrill demon screech came to an abrupt end.
When the black dust filling the sky touched the holy golden radiance jointly created by Leticia and Terrania, it was like snow encountering the hot sun, making a "hissing" sound, and was rapidly, completely purified, evaporated, and dissipated.
As if it had never existed in this world.
The sword was shattered.
The demon was destroyed.
The suffocating, corrupting, and twisting psychic pressure that had shrouded the entire battlefield vanished at this moment.
The sickly violet color of the sky slowly receded, revealing the filthy, dark red true color of Isstvan III once again.
The sunlight, though still dim.
But, it finally shone through.
The entire battlefield fell into an unprecedented, relieved, and absolute silence.
All the Loyalist warriors felt their souls, which had been tightly suppressed, suddenly lighten.
They knelt on the ground in a daze, greedily breathing in the air, which, although still filled with blood and gunpowder smoke, no longer held that vicious demonic nature.
Had they won?
No.
They had done nothing.
They had merely witnessed a war between gods.
Witnessed a fallen demigod complete the most tragic ritual of self-redemption before another true deity.
Fulgrim, having shaken off the demonic sword, could no longer hold on.
His tall, magnificent body lost all strength, and like a sculpture whose foundation had been removed, he slowly knelt forward.
Clang—
The heavy, cracked purple power armor slammed heavily onto the white bone dust, which was stained red by his own blood, emitting a series of unbearable, wailing metallic grating sounds.
He knelt there with his head bowed, his long silver hair, messy and mixed with sweat and blood, hanging down to cover his extremely pale, handsome face.
He gasped for breath, each inhalation sounding like the pumping of an old, broken bellows, filled with pain and weakness.
His soul, due to that brutal civil war, was on the verge of shattering.
His body, due to forcibly resisting the backlash of the demonic sword, was also at the end of its strength.
But he was free.
After a long time.
He finally used the last shred of his strength to slowly lift his head.
His clear yet dull violet eyes pierced through the dust filling the sky, pierced through the distance of space.
Weakly, he looked toward the black figure that was still standing in the center of the battlefield, holding the Blonde Girl in its arms.
In his eyes, the expression was complex to the extreme.
There was the relief of having survived.
There was endless remorse and shame for his past actions.
More than that, it was a kind of, most pure, most humble...
Plea.
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