Rebirth through nirvana?
These four words, like four red-hot steel nails engraved with holy runes, fiercely pierced through the frantic, demonic roar of the sword of laer, nailing themselves into the chaotic battlefield of Fulgrim's soul, which was currently locked in a bloody civil war.
His body froze.
His right arm, still held in a striking posture, trembled violently and uncontrollably.
The edge of the blade was still but a hair's breadth from Leticia's neck.
Yet, this hair's breadth had become an unbridgeable chasm.
On one side lay the abyss of [Enslavement] represented by the sword of laer, leading to endless depravity.
On the other side was the thorny path of [Freedom], a road he had never imagined, promised by that mysterious girl.
The scales within his soul swayed violently.
[Kill! Kill her!]
The demon within the sword of laer felt its host's unprecedented wavering. It let out a sharper, more frenzied roar, attempting to use the purest will to kill to completely drown out that flicker of resistance belonging to the Phoenix that had just ignited.
[Everything of hers will belong to you! Her beauty! Her power! Her supreme divinity! All shall become the steps for you to ascend the throne of pleasure!]
"I..."
A hoarse, pain-filled syllable squeezed from Fulgrim's throat.
His pride, his final dignity as a Primarch, made him yearn desperately to break free from the shackles of this demonic blade.
Yet, his soul, deeply polluted by Slaanesh's demonic nature, greedily and instinctively craved the supreme [Divine Beauty] before him—something he had never seen before.
A tearing sensation.
An extreme sense of tearing that threatened to rip his soul in two from its very roots, distorting his handsome features until he no longer looked human.
The battlefield fell into an eerie, suffocating stalemate.
All eyes were nailed to the two figures confronting each other in the sky.
One was a fallen demigod struggling in agony.
The other was a true deity, calmly overlooking it all.
Just then, Leticia moved.
She did not look at Fulgrim again.
She did not even say another word.
She simply turned around slowly and lowered her gaze.
Her eyes fell upon the Blonde Girl, whose small hand was clutching her hem tightly, her body trembling slightly from fear and unease.
Terrania.
In those pure, golden-flowing eyes reflected the violent fel energy and the fallen figure in the sky, filled with the most primitive, animal-like fear.
She was afraid.
Afraid of that aura filled with destruction and malice.
Even more, she was afraid that the black figure who had given her all her warmth and sense of safety would suffer even the slightest harm.
Leticia's heart softened slightly.
She no longer released any majesty belonging to a deity.
She no longer played the role of the judge overlooking all living beings.
In this moment, she was merely a pure guardian, wanting to comfort her frightened child.
She slowly extended her arms.
Her movements were so gentle, as if she feared disturbing a single dewdrop on a morning petal.
She gently and tenderly drew that still-trembling, slender body into her embrace.
"Don't be afraid."
Leticia's voice was no longer the cold, interrogative tone of a judge.
It was a voice of extreme tenderness, carrying the warmth of a newborn nebula, capable of melting a ten-thousand-year glacier.
She rested her chin lightly on the top of Terrania's hair, which was as brilliant as molten gold.
"Everything will be fine."
"I am here."
Simple words.
Yet they contained a power called [Protection], more potent than any holy prayer.
Terrania's tense, slender body stiffened slightly the moment it made contact with that warm embrace.
Immediately after, the cold, hunted fear that had lingered in the depths of her soul since she woke up melted away rapidly and completely, like snow meeting the sun.
Her small body relaxed.
She buried her pale little face deeply and dependently into Leticia's warm embrace, which carried a faint, pleasant fragrance.
Her golden eyes slowly closed.
Safety.
An unprecedented, absolute sense of safety, like a warm ocean, completely enveloped her.
The moment Terrania's heart became completely tranquil, a hum echoed.
A soft, warm, and pure golden halo, free of any impurities, radiated unconsciously and naturally from her body.
The halo was not dazzling.
It was like the gentlest moonlight on a midsummer night.
It was like the purest breath of a newborn baby.
It was the most primordial psychic essence of the Emperor's soul, belonging to the [Guardian of Humanity], the purest and holiest of all.
This golden halo quietly met the dreamlike, pink-purple halo on Leticia's body, which represented the power of [Divine Charm].
Then, they intertwined.
They merged.
There was no violent energy reaction.
No earth-shattering phenomena.
Two powers of order from the highest level of the universe, representing [Protection] and [Creation], merged in the most harmonious and perfect way into a new, higher-dimensional, holy radiance that could not be described in words.
This radiance, like a silent ripple, spread slowly and gently from the two embracing girls across the entire battlefield.
Wherever it passed, invisible, holy golden lotuses seemed to bloom upon the white bone dust.
In the air, the wailing and resentment left behind by the viral bombardment and the deaths of billions were completely and gently smoothed away.
On the loyalist positions, the soldiers who were still struggling in pain due to the Primarch's pressure felt the stinging and burning in their souls vanish instantly.
In its place was an unprecedented, warm tranquility that welled up from the deepest parts of their souls.
It was as if a traveler, having trekked through cold storms for centuries, had finally returned home and seen the flickering, warm fire in the hearth.
Saul Taviz's face, flushed from exertion, slowly returned to normal, and the vigilance and struggle in his eyes turned into pure, dazed shock.
Nathaniel Garro's bulging arm, which had been gripping his power axe, slowly relaxed, and for the first time, his eternally stoic, stone-like face revealed a kind of purified serenity that bordered on confusion.
Even Rauth Solaart, his heart torn by the fall of his dear friend, found the sharp pain that had nearly driven him mad gently and unprecedentedly soothed under the shroud of this warm, holy radiance.
This was the power of protection.
This was the art of protection.
It needed no flowery rhetoric.
It needed no grand theories.
It was just an embrace, a promise.
Yet it was enough to let the desperate see Hope.
To let the suffering find peace.
To let hearts sinking in darkness and cold feel something called [Warmth] once again.
And for the demon within the sword of laer, this power was...
[Aaaah---!!!]
A shriek of extreme, piercing agony, filled with fear and pain, erupted not from Fulgrim's mind, but directly from the body of the pitch-black demonic blade itself!
That golden, holy radiance was, to it, hotter than the core of the most blazing star.
It was even more lethal than the purest light of the Emperor, which was capable of purifying all things!
Everything it represented—distortion, lust, destruction, deception—appeared so ugly, so filthy, and so ridiculous in the face of this pure and holy light of order, born from [Protection] and [Creation].
Under the illumination of this radiance, the twisted runes on the body of the demonic blade, like vampires splashed with holy water, emitted wisps of black smoke and let out painful, hissing wails.
Its control over Fulgrim's soul suffered an unprecedented and massive loosening at this moment!
And Fulgrim.
His chaotic, bloody battlefield of a soul, under the illumination of this holy radiance, welcomed a moment of absolute clarity for the first time.
He froze in mid-air.
He looked down.
He looked at the black figure who was holding the Blonde Girl tightly in her arms.
He looked at the holy, warm radiance intertwined on them.
He looked at that [Protection], the purest and most perfect form, which had already manifested without the need for any words.
He looked down again.
He looked at the pitch-black demonic blade in his hand, which was wailing in fear and emitting ugly black smoke.
He looked at what it represented: that frantic and hollow "beauty" obtained through torture and destruction.
Contrast.
An unprecedented, cruelly clear contrast crashed into his mind.
On one side, creation. Peace. Hope.
A living, flowing art that bathed everyone in warmth.
On the other side, destruction. Pain. Despair.
A cold, dead sculpture built upon countless corpses.
What he had pursued all his life.
What he had obtained through betrayal, slaughter, and destruction.
That "perfection" he had deemed supreme and self-evident.
At this moment, it was thoroughly proven to be an ugly, clumsy, nauseating... counterfeit.
The struggle in Fulgrim's eyes vanished.
The greed in his eyes vanished.
The pain in his eyes also vanished.
In their place was an unprecedented, cold, clear, and absolute determination.
It was the self-destructive fury of a soul proud to the extreme, ignited after realizing it had been deceived, defiled, and toyed with—a fury sufficient to burn the entire star sea.
His psychological defenses collapsed completely and irretrievably at this moment.
He let go.
He released his right hand, adorned with a magnificent purple gauntlet, which had been gripping the hilt of the sword of laer tightly.
Then, amidst the astonished and disbelieving psychic shriek of the sword of laer, and under the completely overturned, dazed gaze of all the loyalist warriors, Fulgrim's left hand moved.
That hand raised upward like lightning.
It did not attack anyone.
It bypassed the ugly hilt.
It grabbed, fiercely, the pitch-black, cold blade that was sharp enough to cut through reality itself.
Sss---!!!
A teeth-grinding sound of flesh being cut echoed clearly across the silent battlefield.
That sharp blade, tempered with vicious demonic nature, easily sliced through the Primarch's tough skin, tore through his flesh, and embedded itself deeply into his metacarpal bones.
Golden Primarch blood, carrying a holy aura, gushed out.
It flowed slowly down the pitch-black body of the blade.
---------------------------------
I hope you're enjoying the fanfiction so far! If the fanfiction has you hooked and you can't wait to see what happens next, you can unlock 30 or more chapters in advance over on my patreon: patreon.com/FTLGenBen
Also every bit of support means the world to me so if you're loving the ride, don't forget to drop a Power Stone, Thanks.