"Oh, Throne," Canoness Eleanor whispered. "Merciful God-Emperor on His Throne."
"Yes, Canoness," Senior Sister Eugenia of the Seraphim Holy Guard said. She stepped onto the balcony, her halberd tapping rhythmically against the stone floor tiles. "He is most merciful."
Behind them lay countless shards of stained glass. The windows and domes, once intricately painted with the images of various saints, had shattered from the shockwaves of the recent massive explosions.
Beneath the final high walls of the convent, they had managed to destroy yet another Daemon Engine, though the cost had been many of their sisters' lives.
"We cannot hold like this," Senior Sister Eugenia said, looking down from the battlements. "We must decide whether to repair the walls or reinforce the defenses of the Holy Site itself."
Eleanor did not answer. Her eyes were fixed on a wounded figure in the distance. "Sister Genevieve, answer me. I saw you fall before the Outer Gate. Report your position."
"A glorious sacrifice," Eugenia said, tilting her head back. "Our sister has surely gone to the side of the Emperor."
"No," Eleanor hissed, rushing down the wall. "She is my sister, not yours."
Genevieve felt as though her body had been ground into dust. Lying on the ground, she tried desperately to move her fingers, but there was no response.
"Genevieve... static... answer... answer me!" Someone seemed to be calling through her helmet, but she remembered nothing. Her brain felt damaged; her consciousness was a fading blur.
Suddenly, a heavy footfall echoed from afar, followed by a roar of pure rage. "No! Why?! Why will you not look at me! Blood God! I demand you witness me! I have offered so much blood and so many skulls—why will you not grant me Ascension!"
Genevieve twitched, trying to see the source of the roar. Her movement caught the creature's attention. The heavy footsteps drew closer. As she heard the raspy, frantic breathing right beside her, she saw it: a crimson, slick body that looked like muscle stripped of skin. Yet, this robust, exposed mass of meat seemed to have no weaknesses or sensitive spots.
At first, Genevieve thought the creature wore a steel helmet, but she soon realized the daemon's face and the helm had long since fused into one. Bone was metal, and metal was bone. A brass blindfold in the shape of the Blood God's rune covered the upper half of its face.
What had once been a trophy rack was now a series of spikes growing from its powerful shoulders, already laden with severed heads.
In her terror, Genevieve's memories flooded back. She recognized one of the heads.
It belonged to Sister Heloise, a Seraphim who had fallen on the first day of the siege.
Looking at the daemon's murderous eyes, Genevieve knew her soul was about to return to the Golden Throne.
However, a volley of bolter fire interrupted the enemy's next move. "Sister, hold on!" Eleanor arrived from the distance. She tossed aside her empty bolt pistol, charging at Ur-Sotha with her shield in one hand and a power blade in the other.
A moment later, the daemon's massive axe slammed into the shield. Eleanor remained calm, using her combat prowess to deflect the colossal force. She was a composed and shrewd duelist, a master of shield techniques. The daemon's axe screeched as it slid off the shield, smashing into the ground.
Amidst the rising dust, Eleanor lunged with her sword, aiming for Ur-Sotha's heart. To her horror, the blade could not pierce the mutated flesh. Ur-Sotha looked down at the blade trapped in its own muscles and then at Eleanor's stunned face. With a roar, it swung its left hand, sending the "bitch" flying.
With a heavy thud, Eleanor crashed several meters away. The black-and-gold armor on her chest was caved in by the sheer force of the blow.
She felt her ribs snapping. Intense pain flared through her, and she coughed up blood. Slowly, she forced herself up from the ground, raising her shield once more. She would not retreat. She would not yield.
Ur-Sotha let out an infuriated howl, spittle flying from its crimson maw. It drew a blade from its waist and snapped it; the wound on its side was already healing at a visible rate. Grabbing its greataxe, it charged like a rabid dog.
The massive blow struck the shield. BOOM! The impact was so great that the shield was ripped from her grasp. Eleanor was thrown back again, her strength spent. As the daemon loomed over her, she began to whisper her final prayers to the Emperor.
"It ends here, Bride of the Corpse-Emperor," Ur-Sotha raised its axe to deliver the killing blow. But then, it stopped. It heard a woman's voice. She was singing—a melody so familiar it chilled the daemon's blood. "She is here! She is here! She is here!"
The severed, rotting head of Sister Heloise on the daemon's back—the sister it had killed long ago—began to chant the name of the Saint. Flesh began to regrow on the skull. The daemon reached back to tear the head away, but the skull burned in its hand, white-hot and searing like coals.
"She is here!" the head chanted triumphantly. As it spoke, white light burst from its eyes and open mouth. The Battle Sisters on the ground were smiling, looking at the daemon with eyes full of both surprise and pity.
Just as Ur-Sotha threw the head aside to finish the execution, it sensed something. Its shadow on the ground was stretching rapidly, as if a sun were rising directly behind it.
The daemon whirled around. She had arrived.
Descending slowly from the heavens on massive, snow-white wings, she came. Flawless feathers drifted onto the daemon, scorching its body upon contact. Her golden armor reflected the brilliant white light surrounding her, her perfect face set in an expression of absolute serenity.
"Saint Celestine!" Eleanor coughed up more blood, then broke into a joyous, frantic laugh. "Emperor be praised! Daemon, face your death!"
Ur-Sotha roared at the angel in the air. "You must be the Saint of the Corpse-Emperor! You are too late! I have already slaughtered everyone here!"
Celestine said nothing, merely gazing at it. She dove from the sky, her blade aimed straight for the daemon's heart. Pure white light wreathed her, burning the daemon's flesh. Celestine nimblely dodged its counterattack, spinning behind it to plunge the sanctified blade through the daemon's chest.
"Enjoy your victory," Ur-Sotha roared through the agony of the holy fire consuming its essence. "Abaddon will make it short-lived, and I shall see your souls in the Warp!"
For the first time, it felt its essence being banished into the maddening vortex of the Empyrean. There, it would scream in long, agonizing torment—just one voice among countless others.