The sword was shattered.
The demon was destroyed.
That suffocating psychic pressure, filled with corruption and distortion that had shrouded the skies of Isstvan III, vanished into thin air.
The battlefield fell into an unprecedented, absolute silence of relief.
Fulgrim knelt there.
He knelt upon the white bone dust, stained red by his own holy blood.
He looked like a magnificent statue riddled with countless cracks, on the verge of complete collapse at any moment.
He kept his head bowed, his long silver hair hanging in disarray, obscuring his deathly pale face.
He was waiting.
Waiting for the final arrival of either judgment or salvation.
Under the dazed, survivor-like gaze of all the loyalist warriors.
Leticia moved.
The soft golden light radiating from the Blonde Girl in her arms was like her most sacred cloak.
She passed through the lingering smoke of war.
She stepped over the shattered ruins.
Step by step, slowly, she walked toward that proud Primarch kneeling in the center of the battlefield.
Saul Taviz instinctively tightened his grip on his Bolter, but he immediately loosened it powerlessly; he found that he simply did not know what emotions to use to face this scene that transcended everything he had ever understood in his life.
On Rauth Solaart's weathered face, old tears streamed down. He watched the girl who had given him his only Hope walk toward his dear friend who had just broken free from the edge of the abyss; his heart was filled with the humblest of prayers.
Everyone held their breath.
Their gazes converged into an invisible torrent, following the black figure, and finally landed on that "statue" on the verge of collapse.
Leticia walked up to Fulgrim.
She stopped.
She could clearly feel his rapidly fading vitality.
His proud soul, belonging to a Primarch, was on the verge of shattering after that extremely tragic civil war against the demon.
Just like a shattered, most perfect glass artwork, it was barely maintaining its form on the last thread of obsession, ready to dissipate into the world at any moment.
He was dying.
Leticia did not speak.
She simply, slowly, knelt before the proud Primarch.
Her movements were gentle and natural.
As if she were not facing a traitor who had slaughtered billions of lives.
But rather, comforting a poor, wounded child who had lost their way in a nightmare.
Fulgrim felt the approach of that aura.
That supreme divine aura that had forcibly awakened him from the abyss of shameful enslavement.
He used his last ounce of strength to lift his head slightly.
Those dim, lackluster violet eyes reflected the girl's calm face, which was so perfect it did not seem mortal.
He opened his mouth, wanting to say something.
Repentance? Gratitude? Or, to beg for release for the crimes he had committed in the past?
But he could not say a single word.
His shattered soul was no longer enough to support him in completing any complex thought.
He could only look at her with eyes filled with endless regret and humble entreaty.
Leticia did not give him any chance to speak.
She ignored his cold power armor, which was stained with blood and dust and covered in hideous cracks.
She opened her arms.
And gently, tenderly, she embraced this proud Primarch, who had once made the entire galaxy tremble, but was now as fragile as a candle in the wind.
It was an embrace that carried no lust, no pity, yet contained all the compassion and acceptance in the world.
"Welcome back, Fulgrim."
Leticia's voice rang out softly by his ear.
The voice was very light, very soft.
Yet it was like a warm torrent containing the power of genesis, instantly piercing through his cold, dying shell and flowing directly into his shattered, crumbling sea of soul consciousness.
Boom—
Fulgrim's scattered consciousness jolted violently.
His shattered soul, which had been constantly dissipating its light, seemed to be gently and steadily held by an invisible, warm hand at these simple words.
The trend of collapse came to an abrupt halt.
His soul miraculously stabilized.
At this very moment.
A cold, emotionless mechanical notification sound rang quietly in Leticia's mind.
"Detected character with correctable historical node... Emperor's Children Primarch, Fulgrim."
"His soul integrity is below 5%, meeting the minimum startup criteria for [genesis · Correction]."
"Matching the optimal correction plan based on the target's soul essence..."
"Plan matching successful."
"Correction plan [genesis · Perfect Rebirth], confirmed."
Almost the moment the system notification sound faded.
Leticia's body shuddered violently.
Deep in her soul, the dreamlike pink-purple rune representing the power of [Divine Charm] erupted without warning, releasing an unprecedented, dazzling light that even she found shocking!
"Then..."
Leticia held that tall, cold body even tighter.
She gently pressed her cheek against the cold purple breastplate engraved with the golden phoenix emblem.
She closed her eyes.
And in an aria filled with supreme majesty and compassion, almost like a declaration from a deity, she whispered.
"...In my name."
"Here, be reborn."
Boom—!!!
A massive, almost tangible, and pure warm pink-purple torrent of divinity, containing not a trace of impurity.
Erupted from the center of their embracing bodies!
It was not light.
It was a warm, creative tide condensed from the purest, highest-dimensional power of [Divine Charm]!
This tide did not spread outward.
Instead, it flowed entirely into Fulgrim's broken, cold body in an unstoppable yet incredibly gentle way.
They surged into his withered meridians.
They surged into his damaged organs.
They surged into every one of his weary, dying cells.
Finally.
They surged into his shattered, dim sea of soul consciousness.
Starting from the most fundamental level.
From the essence of his soul.
For him, this proud, fallen phoenix who had broken free from his chains at the very last moment.
Conducting a thorough, subversive reshaping called [Perfect]!
Fulgrim's body began to tremble violently.
It was not pain.
But an instinctive shudder of a soul long parched finally receiving the sweet rain.
He could feel it.
His shattered soul was being pieced back together, piece by piece, by that warm, pink-purple divine power.
No.
That was not sticking together.
It was melting all the fragments down completely, and then reshaping them in a more perfect, more resilient, and purer way!
He could feel it.
His body, which had long been exhausted and on the verge of death due to forcibly resisting the backlash of the demon sword, was undergoing a transformative remodeling from the most microscopic genetic level by that power filled with the aura of life and creation.
This was not healing.
This was rebirth.
A true [Perfect Rebirth], which he had once pursued in the most twisted way, but was now descending upon him in the most sacred manner.
His dim violet eyes slowly widened.
He looked at the black figure who held him tightly in her arms.
Looking at her calm, sacred profile.
His proud soul, which was being reshaped, produced for the first time an emotion he had never experienced before.
It was a mix of extreme gratitude, absolute worship, and the purest desire to dedicate everything he was to the other person...
Fanatical faith.
My...
Goddess...
This thought had just surfaced in his mind.
The next instant.
An even more blinding, pure pink-purple light, massive enough to shroud the entire battlefield, erupted completely and unreservedly from the center of the two!
Rumble—!!!
The light, like a warm, pink-purple sun, suddenly rose above the white, dead ruins of Isstvan III.
It instantly swallowed everything.
Swallowed the two figures in each other's arms.
Swallowed the surrounding ruins and smoke.
Swallowed the entire battlefield.
All the loyalist warriors, in front of this soft yet unbearable holy light, instinctively closed their eyes and blocked their faces with their arms.
They could see nothing.
Their psychic senses were thoroughly and gently blocked.
They could only feel.
A supreme, pure, beautiful, and absolutely holy aura, filled with the breath of creation and life, impossible to describe in any language, was slowly being born in the center of that light.
That aura made their souls tremble, cheer, and prostrate in worship.
As if they were witnessing the birth of a universe.
As if they were welcoming a true goddess, presiding over [Perfect] and [Newborn], descending into the world.
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