The howling tide of daemonkind—cackling arsonists and shrieking warp-spawn—crashed into the Imperial front lines. Close behind surged the Red Corsairs, traitorous Astartes clad in corrupted power armor, their howls no less feral.
Dukel, the Warmaster of Mankind, stood like a storm given form. Laughing, fearless, he launched himself into the horde, his blade carving arcs of crimson death through the warp-touched.
From the flank, Battle-Sister Adeline of the Silver Robes led her Sororitas in unwavering support, bolters flaring in disciplined volleys as they covered the Primarch's advance.
From a second axis, Grey Knights and Sisters of Silence struck like divine lightning—each a living weapon forged for daemon-slaying. Bolts of holy fire, null fields, and righteous steel tore through the enemy. The clash was apocalyptic—sound drowned in screams, warp shrieks, and loyalist battle cries.
Dukel towered above even the largest daemon, his presence casting a shadow of awe and terror. The mightiest of the warp-spawn withered before him like cattle before a lion.
He was a force of destruction incarnate, sweeping through heretics and daemons alike. His swordplay was less a fight and more an art—fluid, brutal, graceful—a dance of death soaked in blood.
Power rippled through his every movement, yet it was wielded with perfect restraint. When he struck, daemons were ripped apart in explosions of cerulean warp-flame, their essence banished or annihilated.
No traitor stood a chance. Even those clad in twisted ceramite, once noble Astartes, shattered like brittle dolls beneath his fury.
A thunderous crack echoed as Dukel's gauntleted fist struck a Chaos Sorcerer. The heretic detonated in a burst of psychic backlash, raw warp energy escaping his ruined form in a violent vortex that shredded the surrounding air.
Winds howled across the battlefield. Amid the debris, Dukel's long black hair streamed like a war banner as he stood, unflinching, against the charge of the Red Corsairs.
They came screaming. They died screaming louder.
Steel and flesh flew in all directions, and even nearby Primaris Marines could not follow the killing blows. Five hundred Red Corsairs were reduced to ruin in a heartbeat.
Dukel advanced faster. The Primarch's titanic form moved with terrifying speed, his charge defying mortal comprehension. Explosive rounds rained upon him from corrupted bolters, but they broke harmlessly against the Warmaster's sacred plate—his armor unmarked.
From within the thunder of battle came the unmistakable roar of a draconic beast. It echoed through the warp and the air alike—a sound of divine wrath.
Dukel struck the heart of the enemy like a meteor. A Red Corsair champion, blade raised in defiance, found himself cleaved in two. The severed ground bore witness, a river of blood soaking the tainted soil.
He turned and shattered an arsonist daemon with a single punch, its flaming core detonating before it could even respond.
A Pink Horror crept close, its fingers aglow with sorcerous fire. But before it could unleash its malice, a primal roar echoed in its mind. Its flames died midair. The creature smiled, unaware it was already dead. It crumpled in silence, its form extinguished by fear alone.
All across the battlefield, Chaos forces that would spell annihilation for entire worlds found themselves outmatched.
This was no longer a war against mortals—it was judgment day.
Armored defenders of humanity, led by the Emperor's son himself, exacted righteous vengeance. Dukel spearheaded the slaughter, his every blow shattering Chaos lines and casting daemons back into the Immaterium.
Even the strongest retaliatory strikes from the warp-born could do no more than scuff his armor—at best.
Sister Adeline, her bolter smoking, risked a glance toward the demigod.
He was there: towering, magnificent, the son of the God-Emperor reborn in fire and vengeance. Her heart soared. She fought not for mere duty, but for destiny.
The darkness that had plagued the Imperium for ten millennia was finally being answered.
She offered her blessing through gritted teeth. "Blessings be upon you, my lord."
The sheer difference in size between them forced her to tilt her head high to see his face, even as battle raged around her.
From the depths of her heart, a prayer spilled out—silent but fervent. "Thank you, my Emperor. We are so small, so undeserving… and yet, you sent him to us. You gave us hope again."
A tear slipped from her eye.
But hope alone is not armor.
A sudden roar tore through the noise of war. A Red Corsair lunged—his serrated blade, jagged like a shark's maw, glinting with foul runes. He had seen the Sister distracted and moved with veteran precision to exploit her lapse.
He was wrong.
Dead wrong.
And the cost of that mistake would be eternal.
He hadn't even crossed ten meters before the fallen warrior's body began to disintegrate—consumed utterly by golden flame.
Like frost before a furnace, the corrupted Astartes melted into nothingness in an instant. The battlefield stood stunned.
The Sisters who were still engaged in battle turned to witness the impossible.
And then, slowly, their awe transformed into a shared understanding—one born from faith and fire.
A power, familiar and divine, surged through Sister Adeline. The nuns around her saw the signs clearly: this was no mere miracle, no fleeting blessing. The God-Emperor had answered.
They knew, in that sacred light, that their sister had been chosen. She was no longer simply a Battle-Sister. She was transcending.
Her mortal flesh, through fire, was being reborn.
She would become a Living Saint—the rarest and holiest of phenomena among the Adepta Sororitas. For most Sisters of Battle, sainthood was legend: something ancient and distant, recited in liturgies but never truly seen.
But now, they bore witness. A soul so pure that the divine essence of the Emperor burned within it. A spirit shedding mortality to become flame and faith incarnate.
For a fleeting moment, morale surged to its peak.
If this was what faith could bring—if this was the reward of unwavering piety—then what did pain or death matter?
Adeline herself felt it. Something stirred in her soul: a blazing, molten purity rising from her very core.
Golden fire flowed through her veins, her eyes gleamed with burning rings of light, yet her pupils remained a deep, human black—contrasting divinity with resolve. Her gaze resembled solar coronas rimmed with judgment and mercy.
Flames wreathed her body, sacred and unquenchable. Her once mundane silver-white hair gleamed now like strands of liquid adamantium, radiant with holy fire.
A hulking daemon charged, seeking to end the transfiguration before it was complete. But Adeline did not even flinch. With a single graceful swing of her blessed blade, the creature was cleaved in two.
She moved not as a mortal in combat, but like a force of nature given form.
The daemon's body crumpled without resistance, as though she had merely struck down a sacrificial beast, not a creature of the warp.
The Sisters surrounding her lowered their weapons for but a second and bowed their heads in reverence.
"Congratulations, Sister."
The words were soft, reverent.
Adeline met their gaze, blade still raised, and replied:
"Everything is the will of the Emperor. I am but His instrument. I will fulfill my mission, assist the Warmaster, and fight for the dream of mankind until He summons me to the Golden Throne—or I fall in battle, flame extinguished."
"A Holy Spirit has descended," one whispered.
"The Emperor watches," another declared.
"All is His will," they chanted as one.
With the Saint leading, the Sisters of Battle surged forward once more, holy fire igniting the battlefield in their wake.
Even as he stood engulfed in battle, Dukel felt the divine disturbance ripple through reality. His gaze briefly shifted toward the radiant flame rising from the Sororitas line.
But he was not surprised.
He had seen such awakenings before. Where others saw miracles, Dukel saw mechanisms.
To Dukel, Living Saints were more than holy anomalies—they were interfaces through which divinity could manifest in mortal form. They were proof that the divine could serve mankind, rather than rule it.
But the God-Emperor had changed. Once, He bore the weight of potential godhood—but chose instead to cast it aside, denying the ascension others begged for.
He had returned to His people not as a distant god, but as a sovereign of men.
And the divine fragment He had abandoned—raw, distilled sanctity—had not vanished.
Dukel had retrieved it. He had forged it into a weapon—a metaphysical construct of perfect logic and pure intent.
The Perfect Truth.
Forged in the crucible of the warp, the Perfect Truth continued to carve a path of destruction through the Immaterium. It was this weapon that now served as the cornerstone of faith for the modern Ecclesiarchy. The Living Saints—like Adeline—were its echoes.
To the faithful, it was an unknowable presence.
To Dukel, it was a tool. A divine mechanism designed to respond only to unblemished loyalty and incorruptible conviction.
Unlike the Emperor, who once allowed sentiment to guide His favor, the Perfect Truth recognized no affection—only alignment with its singular directive: the preservation and supremacy of mankind.
It was for this purpose that Sister Adeline had been transformed. Her unbreakable faith and purity of spirit had activated the process. There was no favoritism—only function.
This was why Dukel had forged the Truth. For this reason alone, he intended to mass-produce saints—not as symbols, but as weapons. Icons of purpose, clad in flame and driven by faith.
Because in Dukel's eyes, divinity must serve humanity.
Gods must kneel.
And only tools that empower mankind deserve worship.
The mass production of saints was one of the principal goals behind Dukel's creation of the Truth of the Circle.
For only the King of Men deserved the throne above all others. Gods, whether real or forged, were to be tools—servants to mankind, not its masters.
…
On the war-torn fields of Vigilus, Doom the Slayer and his battle-brothers fought fiercely at their Primarch's side. Loyal to the end, they remained ever near, cutting down any who dared to approach their liege.
To Doom, every foe was a threat—no matter how insignificant they appeared. As a son of the Primarch, his duty was to shield Dukel from harm and eliminate all dangers with relentless zeal.
Amidst the chaos of battle, they carved a path through the ranks of the Ruinous Powers, following in the wake of Dukel's unmatched might. At the head of the charge, the Primarch now faced his destined opponent—a creature known in the Immaterium as Zanrak, the Mocker of Fate.
Zanrak was a towering abomination, his hulking frame dragging behind a crocodilian tail thick with muscle. Twin horns spiraled unnaturally from his bloated, grotesque skull, and Warp-energy crackled along his malformed body. Dukel's power had forced the daemon to reveal his true form.
Without restraint, Zanrak would surely fall—he knew it as well as the Primarch.
"It's time you met your fate, you crystal-crawling cur," Dukel snarled, mocking the creature with a bark of laughter. "I'll cleave you into eight just to make the message poetic."
To stand in Dukel's path, to challenge his fury—he believed that required a level of delusion bordering on divine comedy. In his eyes, Zanrak was not courageous, but laughably suicidal.
"Primarch," the daemon rasped, his voice like rust scraping bone, "your arrogance shall be your doom."
Dukel didn't bother replying. He activated the hilt of his blade—force fields surged to life, illuminating the weapon with scarlet veins of power. Then came the golden fire, erupting from the runes etched into the blade. Holy flame intertwined with deadly tech—a fusion of science and sanctity forged for war.
The air vibrated with the energy.
Zanrak's pride flared. This upstart human dared to ignore him?
He was no spawnling. He had existed long before even Tzeentch had clawed his way into dominion. For millennia, he had wandered the Warp, seeking glimpses of fate itself. He did not crave thrones. He sought only to understand—to master the pattern behind destiny's veil.
And now this child mocked him.
Even though Dukel bore the strength of a demigod, Zanrak's fury would not be so easily dismissed.
But fury was not enough.
The moment blades crossed, the daemon realized the futility of his wrath.
Dukel was more than a Primarch. He was something... deeper. Greater.
A pillar of pure conviction wielding divine fire and human will.
Zanrak cast a torrent of baleful blue Warpflame from his scepter, but Dukel raised his blade, and the fire broke harmlessly across the golden field of faith and force. In a blink, the Primarch was upon him.
With a roar, Dukel brought his sword down toward Zanrak's skull. The daemon barely had time to raise his weapon. The impact cracked the air like thunder, and the shock shattered bone and sinew in the daemon's arms.
Each clash of steel and sorcery rang out like a death knell across the battlefield.
Even amidst the cacophony of war, their duel was unmistakable—an echo of something greater. A confrontation not merely between two warriors, but between destinies, between the arrogant lies of Chaos and the enduring truth of Man.
...
TN:
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