The fanatical cries of praise converged into a wave, echoing over the charred battlefield.
Hundreds of Astra Militarum Soldiers, who had just been struggling on the brink of death, were now all kneeling on the ground.
Their foreheads pressed against the soil, still warm from being bathed in a miracle, as if it were not mere dirt, but the cornerstone of a sanctuary.
Tears mixed with dust, carving furrows into their faces, which were twisted with ecstasy and awe.
They discarded their lasguns, as if those cold pieces of steel were a desecration to the holy presence before them.
They beat their chests with their restored, intact hands, venting the excitement of surviving a catastrophe and the sense of belonging found in a new faith in the most primal and sincere way possible.
"Saint! You are the Saint sent by the Emperor to save us!"
"My leg... my leg has truly returned! Praise you, merciful lady!"
"I can feel it, this is not sorcery, this is the Emperor's mercy! It is a true divine grace!"
This torrent of faith was so pure and so scorching that even the air seemed to thicken because of it.
Valerius stood on the high ground, the one bearing the brunt of this wave.
He felt like a piece of ice thrown into a furnace; everything around him was boiling, and only he was stubbornly maintaining his cold form, resisting the heat that was enough to melt everything.
The wound on his back, ripped open by sharp claws, had long since healed, his skin smooth and new.
That warm, vital sensation, like the whisper of the most malicious devil, still lingered at his nerve endings.
"heretic..."
His reason was letting out a final, desperate scream.
"This is all a disguise! It is the sweetest and most malicious trap of Chaos! True miracles only descend upon the Emperor's loyal sons, and you are kneeling to a witch of unknown origin!"
He had to stop all of this.
He had to awaken these lost lambs from the witch's illusions, even if the price was their lives.
This was his unshakable duty as an Imperial Commissar.
"Silence!"
A thunderous roar erupted from Valerius's throat.
He activated his portable loudspeaker, and that cold, stiff voice, filled with the majesty of the imperial codex, splashed over the fanatical soldiers like a basin of cold water mixed with ice shards.
"Everyone, stand up!"
"You have been deluded by sorcery! You are pledging allegiance to a heretic! This is treason!"
The roar echoed over the battlefield, temporarily suppressing the soldiers' praises.
Some young soldiers, intimidated by the long-standing authority in the Political Commissar's voice, stiffened subconsciously, their faces showing confusion and fear.
But more of them, especially the veterans who had been pulled back from the gates of death, simply raised their heads slowly, looking at him with a complex gaze that Valerius had never seen before.
In that gaze, there was confusion, pity, and even... a hint of disappointment.
Finally, a veteran with three old knife scars on his face stood up shakily.
He was the Sergeant Major of the 77th Mining Garrison Regiment, and also the first person to have his chest-piercing wound healed just a moment ago.
He did not look at Valerius, but instead bowed deeply again in the direction of Leticia.
Then, he turned around to face the cold, steel statue standing on the hill.
"Lord Commissar."
The veteran's voice was hoarse but exceptionally clear.
"I have served the Empire for thirty years; my chest has been split open by the battle-axes of Orks, and my thighs have been torn by the sharp claws of the Tyranids. Every time, it was the medics using rough sutures and cold mechanical parts to pull me back from the brink of death."
He paused, stroking his intact chest with his hand.
"Every time, I felt bone-chilling pain and endless despair."
"But just now..."
Tears welled up in the veteran's eyes again.
"What I felt was not sorcery, Lord Commissar. What I felt was warmth, rebirth, and... mercy."
His voice rose sharply, carrying an unquestionable affirmation.
"That is the Emperor's mercy! Only an emissary of the Emperor could bring such pure power!"
This sentence, like a spark thrown into a gunpowder barrel, instantly ignited the entire crowd.
"The Sergeant Major is right!"
"What we felt was not deception!"
"Lord Commissar, did you not feel it? In that power, there is no evil! Only life!"
The soldiers stood up one after another; they were no longer blindly praising, but began to defend their faith with their simplest language.
Valerius's face turned ashen in an instant.
The majesty he was so proud of, the authority he had forged with iron and discipline, was, at this moment, shaken to the point of collapse by these soldiers he had sworn to protect, using the simplest of words.
"Questioning a Political Commissar is also treason!"
His reason was completely severed by this blatant defiance.
He suddenly drew the heavy bolt pistol from his waist, its pitch-black muzzle aimed dead-on at the veteran who had taken the lead in the rebuttal.
"Back down, soldier!"
He roared, attempting to use the method he was most familiar with and the most effective—fear—to rebuild the order that had already collapsed.
"Otherwise, in the name of the Emperor, I will purge your deluded soul!"
The muzzle was aimed at the veteran's forehead.
This was his usual trick. In the past, as long as he made this move, even the most unruly soldiers would immediately kneel and beg for mercy.
However, this time, he miscalculated.
The veteran looked at that pitch-black muzzle without a trace of fear in his eyes.
He even straightened his chest, a tragic, martyr-like smile appearing on his face.
"If my death can make you see the truth, Lord Commissar, then fire."
Valerius's finger froze on the trigger.
And a scene that made him even more incredulous occurred.
A second soldier silently stood out, blocking in front of the veteran.
A third.
A tenth.
A hundredth.
In just a dozen seconds, all the surviving Astra Militarum Soldiers moved.
They did not make a clamor, nor did they shout.
They just silently, firmly, one after another, blocked in front of Leticia and that veteran.
With their own flesh and blood, they formed a silent yet indestructible human wall.
They did not point their weapons at Valerius, but their gazes and their postures conveyed a crystal-clear message:
If you want to harm our savior, you must step over our corpses.
Valerius stood there, holding his gun.
His arm began to tremble slightly, uncontrollably.
He looked at the human wall of soldiers he had trained with his own hands; he looked at those pairs of eyes that were once filled with awe for him, but now held only strangeness and determination.
He realized that he had been isolated.
By all his subordinates, completely and utterly isolated.
The iron-blooded discipline he was so proud of, established through countless battlefield executions, was, in the face of this living, irrefutable miracle, as fragile as a poked piece of paper.
Worthless.
"Why..."
His mind was blank, leaving only this powerless question.
"Why can't my loyalty earn a response from the Emperor? And yet this heretic can so easily take everything from me?"
Just then, Leticia moved.
From beginning to end, she had not said a single word.
She just quietly watched this farce, as if watching a play whose ending had long been foreseen.
Now, the play had come to an end.
Her gaze fell calmly on Valerius's face, which was twisted with shock, anger, and humiliation.
In that gaze, there was no mockery, no pity.
Only a kind of indifference, as if examining a tool.
That gaze seemed to ask:
Is your discipline still effective?
This silent questioning made Valerius feel a bone-deep chill and humiliation, more than any malicious curse.
The bolt pistol in his hand could no longer be held steady.
For the first time, his hand felt such pure, despairing powerlessness.
Leticia withdrew her gaze, as if she had completely lost interest in this Political Commissar whose faith had collapsed.
She ignored the farce that had already ended, and also ignored the increasingly fanatical, worshipful gazes cast by the soldiers behind her.
She turned around and looked toward the other end of the battlefield, at the bottomless mine entrance that the Cultists had used as their nest.
There, a faint, filthy scent of Chaos still drifted over intermittently, like the tongue of a viper.
She parted her lips slightly; her voice was not loud, but it clearly reached everyone's ears.
"The root of this farce must be eradicated."
As the words fell.
She took a step, her black soft boots treading with a firm rhythm, walking straight toward that deep, unknown darkness.
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