The entire world fell into absolute silence because of this calm interrogation.
The wind stopped.
The sporadic sounds of gunfire in the distance vanished.
Even that torn, ominous violet sky seemed to freeze into a static oil painting.
Everyone's breath was strangled by an invisible hand at this moment.
Saul Taviz froze in place; he felt that he was not watching a standoff, but witnessing the first collision of two completely different, creation-level "laws" occurring on the level of reality.
Muscles tensed on Nathaniel Garro's resolute face; he could clearly feel that the terrifying pressure of the Primarch bearing down on his soul was being easily and thoroughly neutralized and dissolved by the invisible domain in front of the young girl.
Rauth Solaart clutched his helmet, his heart, having just broken free from the resolve to die, was now pounding with unprecedented intensity.
He looked at the slender black figure standing in the center of the battlefield, and for the first time, felt a sense that was absurd yet incredibly real.
Perhaps...
Perhaps she could really do it.
Above the sky, at the peak of the ruins of the Hall of the Song.
On Fulgrim's flawlessly handsome face, that morbid smile, filled with arrogance and playfulness, froze for the first time.
His violet pupils contracted slightly, staring fixedly at the figure below who was as small as dust, yet as dazzling as a star.
Astonishment.
A sense of disbelief flashed through his heart.
Immediately after, this astonishment was quickly replaced by an even greater, offended rage.
Mortal.
A mortal.
A weak, female mortal who wasn't even wearing power armor.
Daring to question him with such a condescending, judgmental tone.
Questioning a Primarch.
Questioning a pioneer of the new world who had already glimpsed the ultimate "perfect" form of the universe.
This is blasphemy.
It is the greatest blasphemy against the path of corruption, filled with thorns and glory, that he pursues.
"Mortal..."
Fulgrim's voice was low and ornate, like the strings of a cello vibrating slightly; every syllable carried condescending arrogance and cold killing intent.
"What do you know of 'Perfect'?"
He slowly raised his hand, and the pitch-black sword of laer emitted a longing, excited hum.
On the blade, those twisted runes seemed to come alive, greedily swallowing the surrounding light; a psychic wave filled with temptation and corruption, like invisible tentacles, quietly reached toward Leticia's soul.
It was urging him.
Kill her.
Or, possess her.
To thoroughly, cruelly defile, twist, and tear apart this supreme "Divine Beauty" before him, which even it found shuddering.
Then, sacrifice that shattered soul to the great entity sitting upon the throne of pleasure.
This would be the most perfect sacrifice.
Facing that demonic erosion, which was enough to make any saint fall instantly, Leticia did not even lift an eyelid.
Her Divine Charm domain was an absolute, harmonious, creation-psalm-like "beauty of order."
The "beauty of chaos," filled with deception and distortion from the sword of laer, upon touching her domain, was like a muddy stream merging into a vast, pure ocean.
Diluted.
Purified.
Eliminated into nothingness.
Leticia ignored his almost overflowing rage, and also ignored the magic sword in his hand that was screaming crazily.
She just looked at him calmly.
"I do."
Her voice was still cool, yet carried an irrefutable power belonging to truth.
"Perfection is not the reverberation after destruction."
"But the radiance that blooms amidst protection."
This sentence, like an invisible, warm light, instantly dispelled the coldness and despair in the hearts of the loyalist warriors caused by the Primarch's pressure.
Even more strangely, on Fulgrim's handsome face, that impending rage actually faltered slightly before these words.
He was shaken.
Not by power, but by a concept.
A concept that was diametrically opposed to the decadent philosophy that the sword of laer roared in his ears day and night.
Yet, it also possessed an extreme, pure, and irresistible concept of "beauty."
The Emperor's Children warriors behind him also experienced a moment of dimness and confusion in their bloodthirsty and murderous eyes under this harmonious and sacred aura.
Inside Fulgrim, for the first time, a crack appeared.
He discovered that his own grand declaration about "liberation," "pleasure," and "new aesthetics," which he had long prepared, seemed somewhat... pale in the face of her extremely simple word, "protection."
No.
That's not right.
He shook his head violently, driving that trace of hesitation away.
He is a Primarch.
He is the Phoenix.
He is the embodiment of perfection.
"Protection?"
Fulgrim let out an ornate chuckle filled with pity and mockery.
"Protecting those decaying, obsolete, pathetic dogmas that imprison the soul in a cage of 'duty' and 'glory'?"
He opened his arms, as if to embrace this ruin of death he had created with his own hands.
"No, mortal, you do not understand."
"True perfection is breaking free! It is transcending! It is tasting all forbidden fruits, experiencing all extremes!"
"It is seeing the splendor of rebirth at the peak of destruction! It is feeling the ultimate pleasure at the end of pain!"
"This is the greatest art of life!"
His voice was filled with a bewitching magic, making some weak-willed loyalist warriors begin to feel dizzy, as if what he said was the truth of the universe.
Leticia listened to him finish quietly.
Then, she slowly raised a finger.
That finger was slender, fair, and so perfect it didn't seem mortal.
It pointed into the distance, at the tall figure who was clutching his helmet, his body trembling slightly.
Rauth Solaart.
"Your 'perfection' requires slaughtering your children to prove it to the world."
Leticia's voice calmly stated a fact.
"Your 'art' requires the blood of your dearest friend as an embellishment."
Then, her finger gently swept past Terrania beside her, and past the survivors she had healed who were looking at her with eyes of fanaticism and awe.
"And my perfection..."
Her voice, at this moment, carried a hint of indescribable tenderness and pride belonging to a deity.
"Only requires letting them live."
Boom!!!
This sentence, like an invisible, precision-guided bomb, bypassed all of Fulgrim's philosophical defenses and flowery rhetoric, and slammed fiercely and directly into his extremely arrogant Primarch pride.
His pride was thoroughly stung.
His handsome face flushed slightly for the first time due to being at a loss for words.
He discovered that he was actually... unable to refute it.
He could state a thousand, ten thousand theories about "decadent aesthetics."
He could quote classics and gloss over his betrayal as a great revolution in pursuit of art.
But he could not deny it.
He could not deny that those he was about to slaughter were those who had once offered him the purest loyalty as his sons.
He could not deny that the first one he was about to kill with his own hands was the dearest friend who had once shared dreams with him under the sun of Chemos.
This sense of frustration on a spiritual level, of being completely suppressed.
Made him feel more pain and humiliation than any physical attack.
The sword of laer sensed its host's wavering; it emitted an even sharper, crazier shriek, and waves of tyrannical and murderous will poured frantically into Fulgrim's mind, attempting to forcibly seize control of this body.
"Kill her! Kill her! Kill this heretic!!"
"Tear out her throat! Slice open her chest! Let her blood be the most magnificent salute at your coronation ceremony!!"
Fulgrim's body began to tremble slightly uncontrollably.
In his violet eyes, one half was the stung pride and struggle belonging to a Primarch.
The other half was the pure greed and killing intent belonging to a demon.
He fell into an unprecedented, intense internal conflict.
Leticia looked at him quietly, looking at his handsome face that appeared somewhat twisted in the struggle.
In her pitch-black, bottomless eyes, for the first time, a trace of pity was clearly revealed.
That was not sympathy for the weak.
But the condescending compassion of the genuine for the counterfeit.
"Listen."
Leticia spoke softly.
"The sword in your hand, it is afraid."
"The 'pleasure' it tells you of is nothing but dirty scraps falling from the table of that dark deity."
"The 'perfection' it promises you is just the clumsiest, most twisted imitation of that great entity."
Leticia stepped forward, gently.
This step seemed to tread upon the pulse of the entire battlefield.
She met Fulgrim's gaze, which was filled with struggle and killing intent, and faced the magic sword in his hand that was crazily craving her soul.
With a tone so calm it was almost cruel, she delivered the final verdict for this debate.
"And true pleasure stems from creation and protection."
"You, Fulgrim..."
"Are merely a possessor of a counterfeit."
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