Chapter 56: The Saint-Guard's Prayer
The destruction of the first Sun-Eater sent a psychic shockwave through the Imperial Crusade Fleet, but Crown Prince Valerius II did not falter. He stood on the command bridge of the Sun-Sovereign, his eyes reflecting the emerald-violet flare of the Styx-7 star. He knew that raw bio-mechanical force would not be enough to unseat a Level 16 Ascendant; to kill a ghost, one needed a different kind of weapon.
"Awaken the Saint-Guard," Valerius commanded, his voice cold and resonant. "If McCain wants to play the role of a god, let him face those who have spent their lives preparing for a holy war."
From the bowels of the flagship, twelve pods detached and accelerated toward the star's corona. These were not machines. They were the Imperial Saints—Level 14 Peak cultivators who had undergone "Soul-Scrubbing," a process that stripped them of their individuality and replaced it with a direct, fundamentalist connection to the Emperor's "Sun-Concept." They did not use Sabers; they carried Solar-Staves that could channel the collective faith of the Hegemony's trillions of citizens into a single, piercing point of reality.
Carson felt them approaching. Unlike the Sun-Eater, which felt like a massive, hungry void, the Saints felt like twelve needles of white-hot fire trying to stitch the star shut. They entered the corona, their ceramic-plated armor glowing as they chanted a low-frequency mantra that began to disrupt Carson's Solar-Loom.
"They are 'Anchor-Points,' Aura," Carson realized, his 34th Strand vibrating in warning. "They aren't trying to eat the energy; they are trying to 'Solidify' the star. They want to turn my fluid resonance into a static prison of faith."
Carson gripped the Primordial Hilt. For the first time since his ascension, he felt a flicker of the old Void-Poison—not as a physical toxin, but as a doubt. If the Saints solidified the star, he would be trapped in the center of a celestial diamond, unable to reach New Seattle, forever a statue in a sea of fire.