The Bloodthirsty Fiend's massive projection burst, like a pool of festering blood punctured by divine Battle Intent, evaporating completely in the crimson-gold light.
Angronia withdrew her battle-axe, the last drop of foul blood sliding off the blade. She silently retreated behind Leticia, standing like a loyal guardian statue.
The entire world fell into a tomb-like silence.
The wind wailed across the hills piled with corpses, kicking up bone dust and the scent of dried blood, sounding like the cries of countless lost souls.
Sanguinius's massive frame stood frozen in place, motionless.
His deep blue eyes were locked onto Angronia. That burning rage born of a desire to protect was so pure it made his soul ache.
Then, he shifted his gaze with difficulty toward Leticia.
The black-haired goddess stood there calmly, as if the earth-shattering divine duel that had just occurred was merely brushing a speck of dust from her sleeve.
Finally, he looked at himself.
He looked at his hands, stained with foul blood, with black clots even dried under his fingernails.
Leticia's voice did not travel through the air but rang directly within the depths of his soul, as calm as a rippleless pond, yet carrying the weight of final judgment.
"Now, do you see?"
"Rage, too, has different forms."
"Are you... ready to make a choice?"
A choice?
Those words were like a star dropped into a deep ocean, stirring up a devastating, colossal wave within Sanguinius's heart.
Reason roared frantically inside his skull, every neuron screaming. Everything before him exceeded ten thousand years of understanding; it was an incomprehensible heresy, a temptation more dangerous and sweeter than Chaos.
But in the depths of his soul—a soul tortured by despair and pain for ten millennia, already on the verge of shattering—there was a most instinctive, primitive longing.
A longing for that warmth.
A longing for that redemption of being understood and seen.
He was like a man who had been drowning in the cold, dead vacuum of space for ten thousand years, seeing for the first time a campfire lit for him within a distant nebula.
Should he go to it?
Or continue to sink eternally into this cold, desperate fate?
On his noble face, carved like that of a god, muscles twitched violently from pain, etched with struggle.
Just then.
A small hand gently and reluctantly let go of Leticia's hem.
Terrania, who had been hiding tightly behind Leticia like a frightened little rabbit, now slowly lifted her pale little face.
Her gaze crossed the corpses and the despair, looking toward the tall, sorrowful golden figure in the distance who was bleeding tears of blood alone.
In those pure golden eyes, there was no fear.
Only a full, overflowing sense of pity.
"Sister..."
Within Leticia's heart, she asked in a small, timid voice that still carried a hint of childishness.
"That angel uncle looks so pitiful."
Fogremia's elegant brows furrowed instantly, and a flash of incomprehensible surprise crossed Angronia's burning amber eyes.
Under their stunned gazes, Terrania did something no one expected.
She took a small step.
One step.
Another step.
She stepped out from the protective halo Leticia had provided for her, exposing herself to the air filled with malevolent echoes.
Alone, she walked toward that hill built of corpses and despair.
Toward the towering, sorrowful angel who was weeping silently.
The wind blew through her waterfall-like golden hair.
The thick mental echoes in the air, enough to instantly drive any mortal mad, slammed into her small frame like invisible waves.
Terrania's body began to tremble slightly, her small face grew even paler, and the color drained from her lips.
But she did not stop.
She simply and stubbornly walked, step by step, to Sanguinius's massive power armor, which was stained with dried blood.
Sanguinius was jolted from his intense inner struggle.
He looked down and saw the little girl at his feet, not even reaching his knees.
He saw her pure eyes, like gold melted from a newborn star.
He clearly saw his own face reflected in those eyes—a face completely distorted and hideous with pain.
He was stunned.
Then, under everyone's incredulous gaze.
Terrania stood on her tiptoes and with some effort spread her thin arms.
Mimicking how Leticia had embraced Fogremia and Angronia before, she gently, even somewhat clumsily, hugged Sanguinius's cold, hard leg armor.
The embrace was small and light.
So small it couldn't even disturb a speck of dust on the metal plating.
"Don't cry, uncle."
Terrania pressed her little face tightly against the cold metal, comforting him in her childish voice, small yet incredibly earnest.
"If you cry, you won't be pretty anymore."
Boom—!!!
At the very moment she embraced Sanguinius!
At the very moment those most innocent and simple words were spoken!
A golden divinity, pure to the extreme and warm enough to melt stars, erupted from Terrania's small body like a miniature sun!
This power was not an impact, but a saturation.
It lacked any aggression, not even carrying a hint of pressure.
It was like a mother's gentlest touch, like the first ray of light at the dawn of the universe.
Following the cold armor, it instantly surged into Sanguinius's body, enveloping his soul, which had long been riddled with holes by the red thirst and Black Rage.
That bloodthirsty mania that had seethed for ten thousand years.
That thirsty madness that gnawed at his reason.
Before this pure golden divinity, like snow meeting a blazing sun, it was smoothed over, soothed, and completely... suppressed at an incredible speed!
Sanguinius's massive frame shuddered violently!
He felt it.
For the first time in centuries!
He felt a sense of complete peace and tranquility from the deepest part of his soul!
The beast that had been gnawing at him for ten thousand years had, for the first time... fallen asleep.
He lowered his head.
Slowly, with great difficulty, he lowered his head, as if the movement exhausted all his strength.
He looked at the little girl who was hugging his leg armor, tilting her little face up and looking at him with concern through her pure, flawless golden eyes.
His handsome face, carved like a god's and always tight with sorrow and rage, completely broke down at this moment.
Some shackle that had bound him his entire life shattered instantly.
Two streaks of clear tears, no longer blood, fell from his deep blue eyes.
Those were real tears, belonging to an angel.
Under everyone's shocked gazes.
This most perfect warrior of the galaxy, the Emperor's proudest son, slowly and with immense solemnity, knelt on one knee.
His massive frame knelt before the tiny girl, his metal knee crushing a deep pit into the bone fragments, bringing his tear-streaked face level with hers.
He reached out—a hand capable of crushing stars, now trembling with endless reverence. He wanted to touch her but stopped an inch from the girl's cheek, fearing his filth would defile this purity.
He opened his mouth, and his raspy voice, once filled with infinite pain, now carried a sense of ultimate relief, as if a ten-thousand-year burden had been lifted.
"I..."
"I am willing."
His voice trembled, every syllable squeezed from a broken soul, yet it echoed clearly across the wailing battlefield.
"No matter the cost."
"I am willing to accept your..."
"...redemption."
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