They stood in a white hell.
Beneath their feet, it was no longer the solid deck, but a thick layer of white dust as fine as bone meal.
Every step raised a silent, sorrowful cloud.
This place was once a city.
The pure white buildings, once magnificent enough for mortals to look up to, were now nothing but twisted ruins, like skeletons gnawed by a giant beast.
Fallen hero statues lay buried beneath the dust, unrecognizable, their arms that once pointed to the sky now pointing powerlessly into the void.
The air was permeated with an indescribable scent.
It was not gunpowder, nor blood, but the thick, indelible aura of death left behind after billions of lives were erased in an instant.
A silent wail, filled with despair and pain, emanated from every grain of dust and every piece of rubble, forming an invisible torrent capable of crushing the soul.
Terrania's body began to tremble violently.
Her pure eyes, bright as flowing gold, reflected this endless pallor, and the last trace of color faded from her already pale cheeks.
Her small hands gripped Leticia's arm tightly, her knuckles turning white from the force, as if it were her only anchor in this world of death.
"Urgh..."
A painful, suppressed groan squeezed out from the depths of Terrania's throat.
She bent over abruptly, covering her head with both hands, her long golden hair falling like a waterfall, hiding her agonized face.
"Too much... too many voices..."
Her voice was broken and trembling, filled with extreme fear.
"They are crying... screaming... calling for help..."
As the reincarnation of the Emperor, her soul was pure and clean, and because of this, she had the most direct and cruel perception of the massive negative emotions remaining on this land.
The final, resentful, and venomous wails of billions of mortals before they turned into pus under the virus bombardment now transformed into the most vicious psychic curse, crossing the barrier of time, madly and scrambling to flood into her defenseless soul.
Terrania's body curled up into a ball, collapsing onto the cold bone meal.
She writhed in pain, her long golden hair covered in white dust, looking like a dying canary thrown into a pool of sulfuric acid.
Hallucinations began to erode her sanity.
She saw countless twisted, melting human faces screaming before her.
She heard the heart-wrenching cries of countless children exploding directly in her mind.
"Save me..."
"It hurts... Mommy... it hurts..."
"Why... why us..."
That massive will of death, capable of instantly driving any mortal insane, was trying to drag her into this eternal hell of wailing.
Leticia's heart was wrenched hard.
Without a moment's hesitation, she immediately knelt down and pulled the small, convulsing body, suffering from intense pain, tightly into her embrace.
"Terrania! Wake up!"
Leticia's voice carried an unquestionable majesty, attempting to pierce through the layers of deathly whispers.
But it was useless.
Terrania's body shook even more violently, her golden eyes began to lose focus, and thin, black threads of blood, representing psychic corruption, slowly seeped from the corners of her eyes, nostrils, and ears.
This land was killing her.
A layer of frost instantly covered Leticia's face.
Deep within those pitch-black eyes, which seemed capable of swallowing light, a monstrous flame named "Anger" ignited.
She gently and carefully shielded Terrania behind her, using her own slender body to isolate her from this malicious world.
Then, she stood up and faced this vast, white ruin of death.
She extended her flawless, artwork-like right hand, fingers spread, palm facing down, and gently pressed it upon the land covered in the remains of billions of lives.
Leticia closed her eyes.
Her consciousness sank into the deepest depths of her soul.
There, the emerald green rune representing life and cycle, filled with the breath of new life, responded to her call and suddenly lit up.
[Vitality].
A gentle, yet overwhelming warm current, filled with the fragrance of vegetation, erupted from the core of her soul, flowed continuously along the meridians of her arm, and finally gathered in her palm.
Hum—
A low, resonant sound, like the chant of the world's birth, spread outwards with Leticia's palm as the center.
A miracle occurred.
A circle of soft, emerald green light, filled with vital energy, rippled outwards like water waves.
Wherever the halo passed.
The thick white bone meal, representing death and the end, seemed to be brushed away by an invisible hand of a god.
They were purified, decomposed, and converted into the most basic nutrients, merging into the earth.
The dry, cracked ground instantly became moist and soft.
Immediately after.
A trace of extremely faint, yet incredibly tenacious tender green sprouted from the black soil.
Then a second, a third...
Countless fresh green grasses grew wildly at a speed visible to the naked eye.
They covered the cracks, buried the ruins, and dispelled the death.
Within seconds, a circular oasis with a diameter of over ten meters, filled with vital energy, was forcibly and arrogantly created right in the center of this white hell.
In the air, that suffocatingly heavy wail of death, the moment it touched this green "Sanctuary," dissipated into nothingness like morning mist dispelled by the sun.
Replacing it was a fresh, life-affirming scent of soil and grass.
Inside the Sanctuary, Terrania's violent, painful convulsions ceased abruptly.
The billions of wails eroding her soul were completely dispelled by this more overbearing chant of life belonging to the genesis.
The look of pain on her face slowly faded, the seeping black blood threads disappeared, and a hint of healthy rosy color returned to her pale cheeks.
She slowly, dazedly opened her golden eyes.
Then, she saw.
She saw that god-like figure standing in the center of the oasis.
Leticia remained in the posture of pressing her hand to the ground, her long black hair gently fluttering in the breeze.
She slowly opened her eyes.
At that moment, Terrania saw that deep within Leticia's pitch-black eyes, countless sky-blue data streams, like star trajectories, were flashing and flowing wildly at an incomprehensible speed.
[Intellect].
Derived from Chaos God Tzeentch, but stripped of all conspiracies and tricks, this was the power of pure insight and analysis.
In Leticia's "vision," the entire world had changed.
The chaotic explosions and gunfire coming from the distance were no longer just noise.
They were parsed into precise data.
[Bolter, Model: Hector VIII, Rate of Fire: 240 rounds per minute, Origin: Death Guard Legion, Loyalist.]
[Plasma Burner, Model: Mars III, Charge Status: Overloaded, Origin: Emperors Children Legion, Traitor.]
[Judgment: A Death Guard squad of about 12 men is being besieged by an Emperor's Children vanguard of over 50, front line about to collapse.]
In the sky, those psychic signals belonging to the Space Marine communication chains, invisible to the naked eye, transformed into a crystal-clear tactical network map in her eyes.
She could "see" the location of every signal source, and could "hear" the communication content between them, filled with despair and anger.
"...This is the Seventh Squad under Garro! We are being ambushed! Repeat! We are being ambushed by the bastards of the Third Legion!"
"Hold on! Captain Taviz is leading the main force to converge on you! May the Emperor protect you!"
"It's too late! Their firepower is too strong! Ah—!"
After a scream, one of the signals representing the Death Guard was extinguished forever.
This vast battlefield of Isstvan III, filled with death and chaos, was no longer a fog in Leticia's eyes.
It had become a completely illuminated, crystal-clear sand table.
The position of every enemy, the movements of every friendly unit, every fire point, every hidden route available for passage...
Everything was under her control.
Terrania stared blankly at Leticia.
She watched as Leticia, with a wave of her hand, created a sanctuary of life in this dead wasteland.
She watched as Leticia just stood there quietly, her deep eyes seemingly reflecting the shifting winds and clouds of the entire battlefield.
That composure, that power, that peerless divine posture as if she held the entire world in the palm of her hand.
It caused the fear in Terrania's heart, just filled with the aura of death, to be instantly and completely overwhelmed by a more intense, more massive emotion called "Adoration" and "Sense of Security."
She knew that as long as this figure remained.
Then even hell would turn into heaven.
Leticia withdrew her hand from the ground and slowly straightened up.
She turned her head and looked at Terrania, who was still sitting on the grass, looking up at her with an expression bordering on pilgrimage.
Leticia gave her a soothing, gentle smile.
That smile, above this ruin filled with wailing and death, was so beautiful it didn't seem mortal, as if it were the only flower of Hope blooming in this hell.
Terrania was completely at ease.
She even forgot her fear, just staring infatuatedly at Leticia, as if to carve this face into her soul forever.
Leticia turned her head back, gazing into the distance at the sky illuminated red by artillery fire.
"There are survivors there."
Her voice was calm, but carried a hint of unmistakable sharpness.
"And they are in trouble."
She reached out her hand and gently pulled up Terrania, who was still sitting on the ground.
"Let's go say hello."
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