The saint's spear slammed into the ground, unleashing a conflagration that surged through the ranks of daemons and traitors alike. Its wrath made no distinction — all who defied the Emperor were consumed.
Wielding her burning blade, she carved a path through the corrupted masses. Red fire, sanctified and righteous, scattered the gloom that clouded the hearts of the loyal soldiers, rekindling their courage.
Saint Efilar had descended.
In an instant, morale surged through the beleaguered Imperial forces. Her presence bore the unmistakable mark of the Warmaster's will — it was as if Lion El'Jonson himself stood among them.
"Your end has come," the saint declared.
She erupted into a storm of divine fire, her sword ablaze with righteous fury.
Daemons that dared to approach were incinerated, their profane forms unable to withstand the saint's incandescent wrath. Even Lorgar Aurelian, Primarch of the Word Bearers and servant of the Dark Gods, hesitated in the face of her fury.
A wounded Primaris Space Marine, moments from death under Lorgar's cruel torment, seized the opportunity and escaped — his life spared by the saint's intervention.
The loyalists cheered. Bolters were raised, chainswords revved. With renewed fervor, they surged forward in a counterattack, slaughtering heretics and warp-spawn alike.
None who stood against the Imperium would be shown mercy.
Efilar's burning wings cut through the daemon tide as if slicing parchment. Where she passed, Chaos recoiled. The daemons, once emboldened by their patron gods, faltered in fear.
Her presence alone had nearly turned the tide of battle.
But Lorgar... he did not retreat. He only sneered, his warped features twisting into a smile brimming with malice.
Efilar caught his gaze. Her mind flared with psychic power, eyes blazing with resolve. This traitor will fall, she vowed. His head will be my offering to the Warmaster.
Amid the chaos, none noticed the formation of hundreds of Word Bearer veterans hidden among the swarming daemons. These ancient traitors, survivors of ten millennia of galactic heresy, had not come to fight. They had come to enact a ritual.
Together, they raised an altar — a construction of profane symbols and desecrated relics — and began a dark chant.
It was a spell crafted long ago for this very moment.
Lorgar lifted his darkened scepter, synchronizing his voice with the chorus of his sons. The blasphemous words grew louder, an overwhelming cacophony that drowned the battlefield in its sheer magnitude.
The Warp rippled.
Psychic energy thundered across the sky, shaking the very bones of the planet. It was as if the universe itself groaned in protest, the roar of ruin deafening.
The heavens cracked. A thunderbolt of unnatural hue tore the firmament, leaving behind a jagged scar. The breath of the gods spilled forth, and reality itself seemed to shudder.
Mist of many colors — violet, green, cerulean, and blood-crimson — converged into a swirling vortex. It closed around Saint Efilar.
At the heart of the storm, she stood unyielding. Her mind, a fortress of purity, resisted the invasion. Her inner fire surged, intensified by the corruption that sought to extinguish it.
Warp-born corruption boiled in her flames, screaming in agony as they were purged.
From Efilar's eyes and lips poured forth radiant psychic energy, white and searing.
The pestilent fog was torn apart. The spines of blood hounds snapped. Warp-crystals cracked and burst.
Among those chosen by the Warmaster, if Shivara was the strongest in wielding the life-magnetic force of the Heart-Network, then Efilar was its mightiest psyker.
Her soul was as flawless as her form.
Even the power of Chaos struggled to sway her.
Even Lorgar — architect of this grand ritual — began to suspect it might fail.
But then, a purple veil drifted into the storm. It moved without violence or haste, yet passed through Efilar's mental defenses like a whisper through silk.
The veil wrapped around her.
And then... came the visions.
She screamed, wings flaring in defiance. The infernal fire intensified, casting back wave after wave of daemons.
But no flame, no purity, could burn away the purple veil.
It clung to her — soft, gentle, inescapable.
With it came blasphemous illusions. Heretics crowned in gold. The Emperor weeping. The Warmaster offering more than just command...
Efilar struggled.
The loyalists saw her falter, and their rage erupted. Roaring oaths to the Emperor and the Lion, they surged toward her, weapons drawn.
But the daemons, once scattered, rallied. They formed a wall of claw and fang, denying the saint's rescue.
A pillar of crimson fire shot skyward as Efilar rose again, casting the veil aside through sheer will. Wings blazing, she hurled her spear once more.
It soared over ten kilometers, trailing a comet-tail of fire.
And struck true.
Lorgar screamed.
The spear — forged from Argentum by the Fabricator General himself — pierced his corrupted body. Cracks spiderwebbed across his torso, divine flame boiling away the ichor of his demigod form.
Even a Primarch underestimated her.
Despite his careful ritual, Lorgar now reeled in agony. But he did not stop. He doubled his efforts, chanting with renewed desperation.
More veils surged from the Warp — one after another — layering over Efilar.
Six veils in total.
Beneath them, her will flickered. A single, hidden desire — that whisper of longing she held for the Warmaster — now magnified and twisted.
Lascivious music curled around her like incense.
Desires she had never dared name surfaced, gnawing at her mind.
Efilar gritted her teeth, fighting back with every ounce of strength. But the more she resisted, the more the veil tightened.
Her soul — once serene — now trembled.
The psychic war raged within her: devotion against temptation, reason against desire.
On the battlefield, Asmodai watched in horror as a faint blush crept across the saint's porcelain cheeks.
Even the purest flame can flicker when the gods of excess take notice.
None could fathom what had truly befallen the Saint. No one imagined that amid the blood-soaked soil of Vigilus, Lorgar would summon the gods' power to plunge the Saint into a psychic vision of Slaanesh's depravity.
To the loyalists of the Imperium, it appeared as if the Saint had been cursed by some horrific warp-sorcery. How else could they explain the reddened cheeks, the trembling frame, and the heavy, uneven breath of one so revered?
Her torment ignited a furious frenzy among the faithful.
How could the chosen of the Imperial Warmaster be defiled by daemons?
With wrath in their hearts, the warriors surged forward. The eyes of Imperial psykers burned with ethereal energy as bolts of psychic might lanced toward the enemy.
Yet Chaos countered with overwhelming force. Like an unholy tide, daemonic legions crashed into the Imperial lines, launching a devastating counteroffensive.
The Ruinous Powers could not afford failure—not when the fall of Saint Efilar would sever a vital limb from the Imperium's military hierarchy before the true war had even begun.
Then, at the edge of annihilation, they came—dancers of death, swift and spectral.
The Harlequins of the Veiled Path, with their acrobatic grace, pirouetted into battle. Slaughter became spectacle, their every motion a deadly work of art.
But they were not merely warriors—they were Curtain Walkers, weavers of prophecy and illusion. As they danced, the warp-thin shroud around the Saint began to unravel, as if the winds of their performance peeled away the layers of corruption.
Lorgar raised his scepter, bellowing for the Word Bearers to annihilate the interlopers. The Daemon Primarch would not suffer interference. But the clowns, devotees of Cegorach, the Laughing God, only laughed in return.
Their blades, blessed by their deity, shimmered with impossible energy. With pirouettes and lunges, they danced through Traitor Astartes as if through paper, turning corrupted champions into heaps of butchered ceramite and meat.
Curtain Walker Synnlaith moved like starlight, barefoot upon the scorched earth, his motions trailing glimmers of psychic luminance.
The Eldar, long ravaged by Slaanesh, had learned how to strike back.
One by one, the veils of corruption around Saint Efilar were stripped away. And when the final illusion fell, the Curtain Walker beheld her face—flushed like a burning dusk, her eyes deep and glassy like autumn's still waters.
But in that moment, the Saint stirred. With sudden fury, she rose, blazing with divine wrath.
She charged toward Lorgar with no hesitation, blade in hand, incandescent power arcing from her form.
The sword she carried radiated celestial energy. It blazed like the noonday sun—brighter than any torch of faith.
BOOM!
Efilar's strike tore through the Daemon Primarch's shoulder before he could complete his incantation. Warp energies exploded from the impact, trembling the crust of Belia IV.
Like the fury of Terra's own earthquakes, the ground split asunder. Daemons and even Primaris Astartes stumbled, losing their footing under the titanic backlash.
Cracks yawned wide across the planet's surface. Entire tectonic plates shuddered and reshaped under the fury of the Saint's blow.
But she was not done.
Sword ablaze, she plunged once more into the fire, heedless of her own limits.
If Lorgar had not retreated quickly enough, he would have been slain on the spot.
The Saint's divine onslaught caused even the darkest horrors of the warp to recoil. For a moment, even the daemonic hordes retreated.
When the firestorm waned, the Imperials beheld a breathtaking vision—Saint Efilar stood alone, wings of burning faith unfurled, a sword in one hand and a spear in the other. She glowed beneath the heavens like an angelic avatar.
The soldiers roared in victory.
But then—her wings of flame flickered out.
Efilar collapsed from the sky, unconscious, spent. Her body was caught by the faithful, her radiant form dimmed from exhaustion.
The outburst had come at a great cost.
Striking down a prepared Daemon Primarch—even temporarily—was no small feat. She had poured every last reserve into that single moment.
The Sisters of Battle retrieved her swiftly, retreating under cover of loyalist guns to the rear lines. The Imperium had gained a brief reprieve—but they had also lost their living beacon.
Her absence left a gaping hole.
The battlefield wept with corpses. Without the Saint, hope began to erode.
The loyalists needed a leader—now more than ever.
And Asmodai, Interrogator-Chaplain of the Dark Angels, stepped forward to shoulder that mantle.
Haunted by guilt and driven by unyielding conviction, he pledged his full might to the war effort.
His reputation, rank, and zeal made him a natural choice. The Fabricator General deployed Magos Strategos to support his war planning, lending their calculating minds to every movement of troops and artillery.
But even Asmodai's unwavering faith could not stop the tides of Chaos.
Khorne's legions finally breached the last bastion of the Temple City, pouring into its sacred heart.
Daemon engines howled. Plagueships of Nurgle blotted the skies. Warp-fire burst from crystalline saucers, and the cacophony of heretical laughter echoed through Eldar ruins desecrated beyond recognition.
The World Eaters, Death Guard, and other traitor legions now deployed their elite. Their brutal assault devastated Imperial lines.
The Temple City became a slaughterhouse—stone and blood melding under unceasing war.
Eldar statues were shattered, godly effigies defiled by unholy flame. The Harlequins danced among rubble and ruin, doing all they could to assist the Imperium.
Synnlaith knew well that if the Eldar hoped to earn the favor of the Imperial Warlord, chosen of the All-Mother, they had to prove themselves through valor.
Orders thundered across vox-channels. Lascannon batteries and Destroyer-class artillery blanketed coordinates with precision saturation strikes.
Every loyalist soldier fought with fury—every pull of the trigger a prayer.
But sheer numbers and foul sorcery pushed them back, trench by trench.
The Temple crumbled, its gun emplacements overtaken by monstrosities. Flesh-hounds of Khorne tore into Imperial lines. Nurgle's swarms carried death and disease with every flap of rotting wings. Daemons of Slaanesh danced through blood and sin, laughing ecstatically.
Tzeentch's warp-fire cascaded from above, blue and gold flames that warped flesh and steel alike.
And amidst this inferno, Asmodai fought on—surrounded by daemons. Alone. Cornered. Besieged.
But not yet broken.
Countless warriors strapped melta bombs to their bodies, exchanging final blessings amid the chaos.
Even in death, the Emperor's soldiers would never bow to Chaos.
Just when all hope seemed lost—
A colossal projection of a golden Aquila suddenly spread across the void, its radiant light swallowing the darkness that had shrouded the galaxy. The salvation of the Supreme War Marshal descended upon the battlefield.
At the heart of the Eldar city, a brilliant light tore through the gloom, and a massive Webway Gate tore open in the sky.
From this portal poured thousands of Imperial warships and titanic rams, their power unlike anything the battlefield had yet witnessed.
One by one, these gargantuan vessels surged upward, blotting out the sun itself. Their sheer scale struck awe and fear into all who beheld them.
Thanks to the Webway network, the Imperium's arrival at Belia IV was hastened, cutting travel time by more than half.
The first to deploy from orbit were millions of Catachan Jungle Fighters, clad in armor designed for swift and brutal destruction.
Flames roared across the sky, as a rain of fire swept away the darkness, flooding the battlefield with cleansing light in a single, thunderous wave.
...
TN:
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