Leticia took a step, treading over the chaos strewn across the ground, and walked toward the place where groans and despair converged.
Her black soft boots, embroidered with silver patterns, stepped onto the scorched earth mixed with blood, machine oil, and human remains, yet they did not gather even a speck of filth.
Fogremia followed like a shadow. She gripped her sword hilt, her purple eyes scanning the surroundings vigilantly, as if any enemy that dared to breathe would be purified by her blade in the next second.
On the battlefield, the surviving Astra Militarum Soldiers huddled behind broken bunkers like a flock of abandoned lambs.
Painful groans, suppressed sobs, and the stench of infected, festering wounds intertwined into a tragic song of hell belonging to mortals.
Leticia stopped in front of a young soldier.
His left leg had been blown off; the stump was crudely bandaged with a dirty strip of cloth that had long been soaked through with blood, turning a dark red.
His face was pale as paper from blood loss and excruciating pain, his lips were chapped, and his eyes were unfocused.
Upon seeing Leticia's holy face, which could not be described in words, a glimmer of light suddenly ignited in his unfocused pupils, like a final flash before death.
He thought he was seeing an Angel of Death.
In the dogma of the Empire, after a loyal soldier dies, their soul returns to the Emperor's throne, and the one who guides them is the Angel of Death, clad in golden armor with a holy countenance.
"Are you the Angel... here to grant me release?"
The young soldier thought to himself, using his last ounce of strength to reach out his blood-stained hand toward Leticia.
Leticia crouched down in front of him.
This simple action made the soldier's breath hitch. A deity, actually kneeling for him, a nobody.
She extended her slender, fair fingers, ignoring the filth on his hand, and gently touched his forehead.
The touch was cool and soft, yet carried a gentleness that pierced the soul.
"Rest in peace," Leticia said softly.
The soldier's body shuddered violently, and then he closed his eyes in resignation. He understood. This was the most merciful execution.
He waited for the final blow that would end all suffering.
However, the expected pain did not come.
Instead, it was replaced by a warm current.
An indescribable warm current, like the first ray of sunlight in early spring melting ice and snow, surged from Leticia's fingertips, from the point of contact on his forehead, instantly flooding his entire body.
The soldier opened his eyes wide.
He saw that Leticia's fingertips were blooming with a vibrant, emerald-green light full of the aura of life.
The light was not blinding; it was as gentle as the finest jade, seemingly containing the Vitality of an entire world's spring.
"What... is this?" The soldier's mind went blank.
Leticia stood up and withdrew her finger.
But that speck of emerald-green light did not dissipate.
It drifted lightly from the soldier's forehead and slowly rose into the air.
Then, under everyone's gaze, that speck of green light, like a stone thrown into a lake, rippled out, circle after circle, of life.
It began to expand, split, and transform into thousands of light particles.
Finally, it turned into a rain of light that enveloped the entire battlefield.
A silent, emerald-green, gentle rain of light.
Wherever the rain of light touched, miracles occurred.
The choking smoke was dispersed.
The thick, inseparable stench of blood and rot in the air was replaced by the fragrance of grass and moist soil after rain.
Those light particles falling to the ground seemed to have lives of their own; they actively and joyfully surged toward the injured soldiers lying on the ground.
The first to be healed was the soldier with the severed leg.
He watched with his own eyes as a handful of emerald-green light rain, like intelligent flowing water, covered his mangled, bloody leg.
There was no pain.
Only an indescribable, warm, tingling sense of comfort.
Under his gaze, the necrotic flesh tissue began to regain its Vitality. New pink granulation tissue grew crazily at a speed visible to the naked eye, intertwining and weaving together like living things.
Click. A soft sound.
His leg bone, which had been blown away and lost, was actually reconstructed and extended within the light, perfectly reconnecting with the thigh bone.
Then came the blood vessels, nerves, and muscles... They were like an epic documentary of creation played in fast-forward, completing a reshaping of life in just over ten seconds.
When the light dissipated, an intact leg, even stronger and more powerful than before, appeared before the soldier. The skin was smooth, without any scars, as if the bloody wound from before had just been a nightmarish hallucination.
The soldier stared blankly at his new leg, and tentatively, he wiggled his toes. The toes moved. He suddenly bent his knee, and his whole leg was full of strength.
"I..." He opened his mouth, but only "hissing" sounds of disbelief could come from his throat.
And such miracles were happening in every corner of the battlefield simultaneously.
A sergeant who had been nearly cleaved in half through the chest by a chainaxe watched as his exposed organs were automatically put back into place under the shroud of green light, his broken ribs reconnected one by one, and that fatal, massive wound healed completely in the span of a breath.
A veteran whose eye had been pierced by bolter shrapnel, after a warm itching sensation, trembled as he removed his eyepatch, discovering that a healthy, glistening eyeball had regrown in his empty socket.
Countless shrapnel and fragments embedded in their bodies were gently and automatically expelled by the newly regenerated flesh, clattering to the ground.
Severed arms reconnected, charred skin returned to a rosy hue, and even the soldiers' loose teeth, caused by long-term malnutrition, became firm again in this rain of life.
Fatigue was swept away.
Pain vanished into nothingness.
Even the shadow called "war trauma," branded deep into their souls from witnessing too much death, was smoothed over and soothed under the cleansing of this gentle rain of light, turning into a serene peace.
The entire battlefield fell into an eerie, absolute silence.
After the silence came tentative, uncontrollable sobs.
Then, a soldier suddenly threw away the lasgun in his hand. Looking at his own reshaped, intact hands, he let out a heart-rending wail mixed with ecstasy and catharsis.
"My hands! My hands are back! The Emperor on high!"
His crying was like a fuse igniting a powder keg.
"A miracle! It's a miracle!"
"I... I can see! I can see again!"
"Praise you! Merciful Lady! Praise you!"
In the next second, a fanatical wave, like a tsunami, erupted completely.
All the healed soldiers, whether officers or privates, performed the same action. They threw away their weapons, turned around, and knelt on both knees toward the black-haired, god-like young girl standing in the center of the battlefield.
They pressed their foreheads firmly against the ground, kissing the land that had just been baptized by the miracle in the most devout posture.
Cries of joy, mixed with fanatical praise and prayers from the depths of their souls, converged into a torrent of faith capable of shaking the stars, surging into the sky.
In this moment, they forgot the Empire, forgot the Emperor, and forgot that cold codex and dogma.
In their eyes, in their hearts, and in their souls, only that one figure remained.
She was a living god.
She was a miracle walking on earth.
She was... their savior.
Leticia stood quietly in place, receiving the washing of this pure torrent of faith that contained no impurities.
In her mind, the system's notification sound rang out at the right moment.
"Detected large-scale Chaos corruption being purified..."
"Detected a large number of loyal Imperial subjects being healed, their despair converted into fanatical faith..."
"Warband Points + 500."
"Current Warband Points: 510."
And at the very back of the crowd, on the high ground, Valerius witnessed this scene that overturned the cognitive understanding of his forty years of life.
Subconsciously, he touched his back with his hand. There, under Leticia's power, it had long been smooth as before, without even a trace of a scar left.
That warm, Vitality-filled sensation seemed to still linger on his nerve endings.
His brain, that precision machine armed with the imperial codex, was emitting a shrill, unbearable scream, on the verge of collapse.
"heretic... this is heresy..." His reason was screaming frantically.
Any unauthorized miracle is sorcery! Any deity not certified by the Inquisition is a false god! This is the iron rule he had defended his entire life!
"But... but..." His eyes, however, betrayed his reason.
He saw that pure power, without a single impurity, containing only life and rebirth.
He saw the heartfelt, undisguisable ecstasy and reverence on the soldiers' faces.
He saw the land that had been purified, exuding the fragrance of grass.
All of this was diametrically opposed to any kind of Chaos corruption he had ever known.
Chaos brings destruction, madness, and despair. But she brings rebirth, peace, and Hope.
Valerius clenched his fists tightly, his hard nails digging deep into his palms, trying to use this sharp pain to fight against the terrifying wave called "doubt" that was about to drown his entire soul.
This power... This power, so pure it made him tremble, so holy it was irrefutable... Was it the Emperor's long-delayed miracle? Or... the sweetest temptation from the abyss?
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